Horse Girl Rides Again Page 5

  Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, Rebecca was called to the set. All she had to do was trot up to Daniela and tell her that she wouldn’t get away with it.

  Rebecca took her position where Karen had told her and waited for her cue.

  ‘Okay,’ said Karen. ‘Quiet on the set, we’re going for a take. Roll. Speed. Marker.’ Karen then looked over at Rebecca and winked. ‘And action.’

  Rebecca raced up to Daniela who was scheming about by the corral. ‘I know what you’re up to, Daniela, and you won’t get away with it!’ Rebecca then glared hard at her adversary with menace in her eyes as if daring Daniela to try to get away with destroying the earth. Just once!

  ‘Cut!’ called Karen. She got out of her director’s chair and came over to Rebecca. ‘Pretty good,’ she said. ‘This time try to be a little less The Bold and the Beautiful about it.

  Rebecca smiled. She knew what Karen meant because her mum sometimes watched The Bold and the Beautiful. Every line that was delivered in that show (even if it was about going to the shop to buy some milk) was accompanied by a sneer, a frown, a soulful look, or a long pause while the camera zoomed in on the actor for an evocative close-up.

  ‘As soon as you say it,’ continued Karen, ‘we’re going to cut to Daniela. Just give us a little bit of attitude when you say your line and we’ll do the rest.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Rebecca. Then she trotted back to her mark.

  She had to do it five times before Karen was happy with everything and then she had to do it all over again, only this time with the camera behind her, so that the audience could see Daniela’s reaction – which involved her putting her hands on her hips and pouting.

  Shooting an episode of Saddle Soar was very time consuming, Rebecca quickly discovered. She was also surprised by the fact that they shot the scenes out of sequence. This was actually a double episode, but the first line that she delivered about Daniela not getting away with it would be the last line of the first episode, after which ‘To be continued’ would appear across the screen as Daniela stood there pouting. It was all very confusing because Rebecca had to deliver her lines as if they’d already done the scenes that led up to this crucial bit. And when Karen was happy with everything, Rebecca had to wait around while they set up the camera on a little track so that it could be pulled along beside her as she ran up to Daniela. No wonder Bianca (Daniela) kept a book with her when she was on set. The actors spent most of the time standing around doing nothing. Still, as first jobs go, being a Saddle Soar actor wasn’t too bad. It had to be better than being a checkout chick or working at the drive-thru. And the pay was great. If she played the part for long enough she’d soon save enough for a couple of plane tickets to Nepal for her and Kevin to track down the Amazing Beryl and the mystical one-legged Sherpas.

  When filming was finished for the day, Rebecca relaxed in her dressing room, completely exhausted. She stared at herself in the mirror. Her elongated face, big sticky-up ears and flared nostrils glared back at her. How could no one see that she’d turned into a horse? Especially here at Dozy Gums.

  ‘Knock, knock,’ came a voice from behind.

  Rebecca turned around as Jasmine and the rest of the Saddle Soar girls crowded into Rebecca’s dressing room. Even Bianca (Daniela) stood in the background, book in hand.

  ‘How was your first day, girlfriend?’ asked Jasmine.

  ‘Pretty tiring actually,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said the girl who played Dominique. ‘You’ll get used to it. The boredom’s the hardest bit.’

  ‘You can always read between takes,’ offered Bianca meekly in the background.

  ‘Whatever, Daniela!’ said the girl who played Amanda. She then looked at Rebecca, ‘we call each other by our stage names while we’re on set. Makes it easier to remember when we’re filming.’

  ‘Yeah,’ snarled Bianca (Daniela) sarcastically, ‘because two names are so hard to remember.’

  ‘Like I said before, Daniela,’ replied Amanda. ‘Whatever!’

  Bianca, or Daniela, or whoever she was, just shrugged and went back to her book.

  ‘Anyway, girlfriend,’ said Jasmine, ‘we all pitched in and bought you a welcome present.’

  Jasmine handed her the wrapped gift. Rebecca was stunned. ‘You bought me a present.’

  ‘Well, we didn’t pitch in exactly,’ said Dominique. ‘We charged it to the Saddle Soar account.’

  ‘Still, it’s the thought that counts, girlfriend,’ said Jasmine.

  Rebecca tore open the wrapping paper. ‘It’s, er, lovely,’ she said.

  ‘Try them on, girlfriend,’ said Jasmine.

  Rebecca tried on her presents and looked at herself in her dressing-table mirror. She felt a bit self-conscious wearing a pink beret and sunglasses, especially indoors, but still it was nice of them to have bought her a present.

  ‘It’s all about attitude, girlfriend,’ said Jasmine. ‘You’re an actor now. You’re going to be famous. You’ve got to have the right image. The photographer from Girlz Powa Rulz! is always hanging around the set, so make sure you have your beret and sunnies on when you arrive and depart.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Rebecca. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And you’ll need a mobile phone too,’ said Dominique.

  ‘But who would call me?’ asked Rebecca.

  The rest of the girls laughed.

  ‘They’re not for phone calls,’ said Amanda, ‘but for looking like you’re on the phone.’

  ‘They also come in handy if people are bugging you for your autograph,’ said Dominique. ‘Just take out your mobile and start talking, and they will leave you alone because they’ll realise that you are so important.’

  ‘Not sure about that car of your mum’s, girlfriend,’ said Jasmine. ‘It’s a bit yesterday.’

  ‘It might be even the day before,’ interjected Amanda and everyone except Daniela laughed.

  ‘We’re getting a new one,’ said Rebecca, before she had the chance to stop herself.

  ‘Oh,’ said Dominique, ‘what sort?’

  ‘Er,’ replied Rebecca. ‘What sort should . . .?’

  Everyone looked at Jasmine who seemed to be the leader of the Saddle Soar girls and the governor of all things cool. ‘Four-wheel drive, girlfriend,’ she said.

  ‘But we don’t go camping,’ said Rebecca meekly.

  The rest of the girls snorted.

  ‘Four-wheel drives aren’t for camping, girlfriend,’ said Jasmine. ‘They’re for shouting, “Hey everybody, look at me!”’

  ‘They are really bad on fuel consumption,’ offered Daniela, and the other Saddle Soar girls laughed.

  ‘Fuel consumption,’ sneered Jasmine, ‘fuel consmumption. Yeah, it’s all real important about conserving energy and looking after the environment and stuff like that, but it’s what you look like that really counts. Do you think Paris Hilton thinks about fuel consumption when she goes shopping?’

  ‘Do you think Paris Hilton thinks at all?’ suggested Daniela. ‘There’s no actual evidence of it.’

  ‘Like I said, girlfriend,’ continued Jasmine, totally ignoring Daniela. ‘It’s what you look like that matters.’

  Rebecca caught a glimpse of herself in her mirror and was forced to snort back a laugh. Luckily they couldn’t see her for what she really was.

  ‘I’ll see you sheep tomorrow,’ snarled Daniela as she slouched off.

  ‘Whatever,’ said Jasmine.

  ‘Ta tah, Daniela,’ said Dominique and Amanda sarcastically.

  ‘My name’s Bianca!’ yelled Daniela from down the corridor and the rest of the girls, including Rebecca, laughed.

  ‘Ignore her, girlfriend,’ said Jasmine. ‘She’s, well, she’s just Daniela.’ And the girls all laughed again.

  The girls were interrupted by a knock on Rebecca’s door.

  ‘Your limo’s here, Rebecca,’ said a stagehand.

  Rebecca nodded and picked up her backpack.

  Jasmine, Dominique a
nd Amanda just stared at her.

  ‘Go, girlfriend,’ said Jasmine. ‘Now that’s more like it.’

  Rebecca clip-clopped out to the car park. The limo driver opened the door for her and she climbed awkwardly into the back. She found the button that wound the window down and waved to Jasmine, Dominique and Amanda.

  ‘Don’t wave, girlfriend,’ yelled Jasmine. ‘If you have to acknowledge someone, just nod, but don’t smile. Remember, it’s all about attitude.’

  Rebecca put on her pink beret and sunglasses, and with a straight face nodded to the Saddle Soar girls.

  ‘Way to go, girlfriend!’ yelled Jasmine.

  And with that Rebecca put the window up and settled back in the plush seat. She could get used to this.

  18

  Rebecca sat back to enjoy the ride home – or rather the ride to the orthodontist’s, which is where she instructed the driver to take her.

  So this was what it was like to be famous. She had to admit that it was okay. Better than okay, in fact. It was fabulous. And although she couldn’t see much out of the limo’s blackened windows, especially in her jet-black sunnies, she still enjoyed the view, especially as the view was comprised almost entirely of her own reflection, which she was starting to get used to.

  She was determined that fame wasn’t going to change her, not like it had Daniela. No way! Not one bit. Okay, she would probably have to buy her mum a new car. She couldn’t turn up to the Saddle Soar set at Dozy Gums in her mum’s old beetle car. It was the wrong image. A car had to reflect the owner’s attitude, and the beetle car’s attitude was that whoever owned this piece of junk obviously ate a lot of baked beans.

  As Jasmine said, it was all about attitude. So with that in mind they would probably have to move. You couldn’t appear in Girlz Powa Rulz! and all the other tween and teen magazines and say that you lived in the ’burbs now, could you? It didn’t work like that. They’d have to move to the beach or to the mountains. Yeah, the mountains would be cool. Horses preferred mountains over beaches, unless they were appearing in a jeans or shampoo commercial, when they would thunder along the beach with an extremely hairy person on their back.

  And her dad’s job. That was a bit embarrassing now that she was (or was going to be) famous. He worked for the council, for crying out loud. He inspected holes! How lame was that? Let’s see. How could you make hole inspecting sound glamorous? What were the biggest holes in the world? Volcanoes. Yeah, that’d work. Brilliant! From now on her dad would be a volcano inspector. The world’s leading volcano inspector. He would know all about lava and magma and hot rocks and stuff.

  And Mum. Good old Mum. She worked in a florist’s. Boring! What could she do instead? She would obviously have to become one of those people who knew everything about plants. What were they called? Gardening-show hosts? No, that wasn’t right. Botanists? Biologists? Yeah, a biologist would be even better. They knew all about living things and stuff. Or better still, her mum could be a marine biologist. A marine biologist who lived in the mountains. Cool!

  And Kevin. What could she do about Kevin? He was pretty funny and that, when she wasn’t famous, but now that she was a Saddle Soar star he was just too uncool for words. He ate Nutella with banana, and Froot Loops with tomato sauce, peanut butter and Vegemite mixed together. He wore spectacularly uncoordinated clothes and sang Wiggles songs in his sleep. His hero was a weird little guy in a green cape and yellow gumboots called Kaptain Kersplat who kersplatted baddies with disgusting green gooey boogers. Kevin would embarrass her if the tween and teen magazines asked him anything about her. Or what if the Saddle Soar girls asked her about her family?

  There was only one thing for it. Kevin would simply have to go. Maybe their grandparents could take him. Or maybe she could just pretend that he didn’t exist. At least as far as magazines and her fans and the Saddle Soar girls were concerned. That would work. So from now on she was an only child. Not that she was spoilt. Not like Brittney Tonelli was. No way! She would keep her feet planted firmly on the ground. All four of them.

  Before she even realised it, the limo ride was over and she clip-clopped nervously up the stairs to the orthodontist’s. She was a little worried because this was her first visit to the orthodontist’s since she’d been turned into a horse. She was worried because Dr Ho had an amazing eye for detail. He tended to notice little things like when you hadn’t been brushing properly, that you’d been eating too many carrots, apples, not to mention hay, that you’d suddenly turned into a 300-kilogram horse. Little subtle things like that.

  Amazingly though, like everyone else, he failed to register the change. Instead he complimented Rebecca on her pink beret and told her to keep up the good brushing and flossing. Weird! Then again, she figured that although horses have more elongated faces than humans, their mouths were pretty similar. She might be in a bit of trouble the next time he X-rayed her head though. Then again, by that time hopefully she would have tracked down the Amazing Beryl and the mystical one-legged Sherpas of the Upper Langtang Valley in Nepal and made the Amazing Beryl change her back to a twelve-year-old girl again.

  When Dr Ho had finished adjusting her bands, Rebecca clip-clopped her way back down the stairs, nudging people out of the way with her snout as she went. Well, now that she was famous, people would just have to learn to stand aside. Jasmine was right. It was all about attitude.

  ‘How did it go, darling?’ asked her mum. She’d been waiting outside in the car enjoying a milkshake with Kevin after his and their great-grandfather’s kickboxing lesson.

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ replied Rebecca, staring at her mum’s beetle car over the top of her sunglasses. ‘We’ve got to get rid of this embarrassment city of a wreck of a car.’

  The smiled slowly faded from Mum’s face. ‘What’s wrong with my car?’

  ‘Oh, paleeze,’ replied Rebecca. ‘Where do I begin? What we need is a four-wheel drive.’

  ‘A four-wheel drive?’ said Mum. ‘But we don’t go camping.’

  ‘Oh, duh!’ said Rebecca. ‘Four-wheel drives aren’t for camping. They’re for shopping and school drop offs.’

  Rebecca shook her head. ‘This just has to go.’ She stared at her mum as her mum looked at her car. She noticed that the colour had drained from her mum’s cheeks. Rebecca felt a bit guilty because she knew that her mum just adored her old beetle car. It had been a twenty-first birthday present from her grandparents, who had bought it for her with their retirement money, and she loved it, and them, to death. Rebecca knew that her mum could no more get rid of her beetle car than she could saw her own leg off. Her beetle car was part of her. It was her. And it was lame. And it would embarrass Rebecca in front of all the other Saddle Soar girls.

  Rebecca reluctantly climbed into the back seat while her mum snivelled about her dumb old car. ‘C’mon. Let’s go!’ demanded Rebecca. ‘I’ve got to learn my lines for next week’s show.’

  ‘What’s up with you, four hooves?’ said Kevin. ‘Drop the attitude.’

  Rebecca ignored him. Well, let’s face it; you couldn’t speak to someone who no longer existed.

  19

  Fortunately Rebecca didn’t have to endure the embarrassment of having to turn up to Dozy Gums in her mum’s old beetle car again. She told the Saddle Soar producers that her mum’s car had broken down and would take a couple of years to fix. So they sent a car to collect her each day. Even if it wasn’t the limo from the first day there was still plenty of room for her legs in the back. Unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot of headroom. Luckily, however, the car had a sunroof and she was able to cruise along the road leading to Dozy Gums with her head sticking out the top.

  On the third week of shooting, Daniela found herself stuck on a small island surrounded by a rapidly rising river, which was caused by an earthquake. Daniela hadn’t actually caused the earthquake, though she had released the crocodiles and sharks and piranhas and snakes and electric eels into the river just so that she could win the show-jumping competition. Unfortunate
ly for Daniela and her dastardly plan, the river had risen faster than she expected and she quickly found herself marooned on the small island surrounded by the rapidly rising flood waters and a bunch of crocodiles, sharks, piranhas, snakes and electric eels. Just when death (or a double episode) seemed certain, Ricky Dixie jumped onto her horse, waded across the swollen river and saved Daniela and the day. Hooray! Or at least that was what was in the script. In reality, however, Ricky Dixie’s horse was too spooked by the flooded river to cross it, and Daniela had refused to leave her dressing room because of all the wasted water that was being pumped into the river to create the flooded effect. Not that this mattered too much. They were only doing long shots for the rescue scenes anyway, so the person stranded on the island was actually Daniela’s stunt double (a short bald guy in a blonde wig).

  But Ricky Dixie’s horse was proving to be a serious problem. It was refusing to wade into the flooded river, especially with all those crocodiles and sharks and piranhas and snakes and electric eels about, even if they were made of rubber.

  ‘We have to get this shot,’ said Belinda the producer. ‘Or the whole episode won’t work.’

  ‘Let’s try the other horses then,’ suggested Karen the director.

  One by one the horses were led down to the swollen river by their handlers and one by one they refused to set so much as a hoof in the swirling torrent.