“How are you two faring?” Juni asks Bill-E and me. “Enjoying yourselves?”
“Totally!” Bill-E gushes. “It’s great. Incredibly invigorating and inspiring. I think I’ve found my calling in life.”
“Not getting into any trouble, are you?” Dervish grunts.
“As if!” Bill-E smirks.
“I was discussing your situation with Dervish earlier,” Juni says hesitantly.
Uh-oh! It’s never good when an adult says something like that.
“I’m worried that you’ll fall behind in your schoolwork,” Juni goes on. “Things have been a rush lately—Dervish accepting our offer, bringing you two with him, a crazy first week of shooting. Schooling arrangements have been made for the other children, but we overlooked you and Bill-E. I think it would be a mistake to let things continue as they are and Dervish agrees, so…”
“No!” Bill-E cries dramatically. “You’re going to stick us in a class? Say it ain’t so, Derv!”
“It’s so,” Dervish laughs. “Juni’s right. We’re going to be here three months, maybe longer. If you go that length of time without lessons, it’ll mean repeating a year when we get back to Carcery Vale.”
“You won’t have to do full days,” Juni promises. “We keep classes flexible, to fit in around shooting, so it’ll be a few hours here, a few hours there, just keeping you in line with what your friends are doing back home. That doesn’t sound so awful, does it?”
“Too bad if it does,” Dervish interjects before we can reply, “because you don’t have a choice.”
“Slave-driver,” Bill-E mutters, but he’s only pretending to be grumpy. We both knew this was coming. The freedom couldn’t last forever.
Juni and Dervish start talking to each other again. Juni’s been with my uncle most times that I’ve seen him recently, which is strange since they can’t have a lot of business together. Dervish is part of the inner technical circle, whereas Juni’s job revolves around the children. There must be another reason why he’s sticking to her like superglue and I think I know what it is—good old-fashioned physical attraction!
It seems incredible. If asked a week ago, I’d have laughed and said the bald old grump didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. But something’s stirring in the hidden depths of Dervish Grady. There’s a gleam in his smile which was never there before. He’s switched to a pungent new aftershave. His clothes are freshly ironed. He’s even started combing the wisps of hair dotted around the sides of his head into place. There’s no doubt about it—he’s trying to impress the cute albino!
Juni knows that Bill-E and I are friends with Emmet, so she places us in his class. Most of the other students are actors. There’s the Kane twins, Kuk and Kik, a boy and girl, small and slender, very alike in looks. They don’t speak much to anyone, going off by themselves whenever there’s a free period. They have big roles in the film as eerie, psychic twins.
Salit Smit is the main child star of Slawter. He’s a bit older than the rest of us. A nice guy but not the brightest spark. He just smiles and nods a lot in class, not bothering to apply himself, convinced he’s going to be the biggest movie draw since Tom Cruise.
I absolutely despise the other three. A clique of snobs presided over by the dreadful Bo Kooniart, a girl who was born solely to annoy. She’s been in a few commercials and thinks she’s God’s gift. Always dresses stylishly, like a model. Sucks up to Davida and anyone else with power and influence. Ignores the rest of us, treating us like simpletons or servants.
Her brother, Abe, is almost as bad. A scrawny, miserable excuse for a child. He’s not an actor but his father—the loud, obnoxious Tump Kooniart, a movie agent—insisted he be cast if they wanted to hire Bo. From the rumours, Davida resisted, but finally caved in and gave him a small part as a kid who raises the alarm when the demons are about to break through en masse. I don’t think Davida gives way too often so Tump must be good at his job. Which is just as well, because from what I’ve seen of Bo and Abe, they’re awful at theirs!
The third mini-tyrant is Vanalee Metcalf. Her parents are multimillionaires. Too busy to waste time with their daughter on set, so she came equipped with her own bodyguard-cum-servant, who glares at anyone who doesn’t grovel at her feet.
Bo, Abe and Vanalee took one look at Bill-E and me when we were introduced to them this morning, smirked at each other in a snide, superior way and turned their noses up to let us know we weren’t worthy of direct notice.
Our tutor’s a sweet but nervous woman called Supatra Jaun. I can tell within ten minutes that she can’t handle Bo and her posse. She lets them talk to each other while she’s teaching and doesn’t ever try to assert her authority. Sometimes she’ll murmur, “Now, now, Bo, please pay attention,” but without any real hope that the blonde, pony-tailed, stick-thin brat will obey.
Miss Jaun seems genuinely pleased that Bill-E and I have been added to her class, probably because we’re polite and show some interest. She chats to us warmly, finds out what we’ve been studying, takes a few notes, promises to haul us up to scratch in next to no time.
“I bet those scruffbags know a lot about scratching,” Bo sniffs.
“Meaning?” I growl at her.
“Lice, you moron!” she screeches, and Abe and Vanalee burst out laughing.
“We’ve found our nemesis,” Bill-E mutters in my ear, pegging it dead-on. “Hate her, Grubbs. Hate her good and proper.”
“Does her character die in the script?” I ask Emmet.
“No,” he says. “She ends up saving the town, along with Salit.”
“A pity,” I sigh.
“But she does fall into a pit full of demon manure at one stage,” Emmet says, and my day lights right up.
Our first session lasts two hours, a mix of history, biology and math. Miss Jaun seems to be confident in all subjects—a smart cookie. Then an assistant director pops in and says they need Bo and Salit. Miss Jaun checks her watch, says we might as well all take a break and asks those of us not involved in filming to return in an hour. It’s certainly a lot more laid back than our school in Carcery Vale.
Emmet wants to practise his lines on Bill-E and me again, but we don’t have the patience, so we leave him with his mum in his trailer. We grab sandwiches from one of the many mobile canteens, then go see if anything exciting is happening. There’s not much to keep us amused today.
Davida and her crew are setting up a tracking shot on a street, trying to get lots of actors in place and working in sync with each other. Fairly boring to watch. A lot of filming is.
“I still can’t believe we’re here,” Bill-E says as we go for a wander. “Maybe this will become Dervish’s full-time job and we’ll travel around the world on film shoots with him.”
“I doubt it,” I laugh. “Your gran and grandad wouldn’t allow it. I’m surprised they agreed to let Dervish have you for this long. Did he work some magic spells on them?”
“Nope,” Bill-E says. “They were happy to let me come. Gran loves movies, especially old flicks starring the likes of David Niven and Ingrid Bergman. She thought this was a great opportunity for me. I think she’s hoping I’ll fall in love with a beautiful blind cellist or some such guff. She believes a lot of those old films were based on true stories, that the world’s really like that.”
“Mind you, a girl would have to be blind to fall in love with you,” I comment.
“Your face,” Bill-E snorts. “My flabby nether regions. Spot the similarity?”
I get Bill-E in a headlock and rub my knuckles into his skull, but it’s all in fun. He has no idea of the real reason why he’s here. He thinks Dervish is his father, that he didn’t want to spend a few months parted from his darling son. He doesn’t know about Dervish wanting to make sure Davida doesn’t raise hell, or about Prae Athim’s interest in experimenting on him.
“I can’t wait to see the demon tomorrow—or it might even be tonight,” Bill-E enthuses once I’ve released him. “Emmet says it depends on how shooting goes today. If they finish that shot on the street in time, they’ll do his scene later. It’ll be coolio!”
“Hmmm,” I say neutrally.
“What are you moaning about, Goliath?” Bill-E frowns. Then, studying me carefully, his expression clears. “Oh. I’d forgotten. Your parents and sister…” He trails off into silence. Although Bill-E doesn’t know about his lycanthropic genes, or the battle Dervish and I fought with Lord Loss, he knows demons killed my family.
“Are you going to be OK with all this?” Bill-E asks awkwardly. Sympathy isn’t something that he does well.
“Sure,” I grunt.
“Really?” he presses. “Because they can’t keep us here. I know Dervish signed those contracts saying we’d stay until the end, but we didn’t. If you want to leave, I’m sure there’s nothing they can do about it. I’ve watched lots of courtroom movies. I know what I’m talking about.”