Movie For Dogs (7 page)

By Andrea Walker

Mr. Donovan’s studio was not what I’d always pictured when people said the word “Hollywood.” It was just a room with a chair and a couch and three cameras, one aimed at the chair and two at the couch. One man ran all the cameras.

Mr. Donovan told Bruce and me to sit on the couch with Red between us. The cameraman attached little microphones to the front of our shirts. Then Mr. Donovan asked the cameraman, “Where’s the gate?” The cameraman said, “I think they’re still putting the latch on it.”

He left the room and came back with a piece
of plywood that had a fake gate in it. It was a facade.

Mr. Donovan sat down in the chair and told the cameraman, “Roll ‘em.” Then he smiled at one of the cameras and said, “In the studio with us today are Bruce Walker, producer of
Bobby Strikes Back;
his sister, Andrea; and the heroic Bobby. Bruce, please share with our viewers the story of your brave dog” — he gestured at Red, who was staring straight into the camera lens just like Mr. Donovan — “this courageous animal who was dognapped by a deranged woman and held captive in a toolshed.”

“Well,” Bruce began. I knew from the tone of his voice that he was going to say all the wrong things. “Bobby’s real name is Red Rover. The dognappers were two teenage boys, and they weren’t deranged, just evil. And the toolshed was really a chicken coop. But the rest of what you just said was right.”

“Do you mean Mrs. Rinkle was not the dognapper?” Mr. Donovan asked him.

At that point Bruce went blank. He had not been listening to Aunt Alice when she had dissembled to Mr. Merlin, so he’d missed out on a valuable demonstration.

I knew it was my job to save him.

“When I wrote the script, I had to make a few changes,” I said. “The real dognappers were juveniles, and I thought it might not be legal to expose them to the public. I didn’t want Star Burst Studios to be sued, so I combined them and made them Mrs. Rinkle.”

“But the dogs in your video were playing their own parts, were they not?” Mr. Donovan asked.

“Oh, yes,” I assured him. “Except for that beautiful dachshund, Bebe. She was an understudy, substituting for Bully Bernstein, who was having a birthday party. Bully’s the one who got dognapped, but it could just as well have been Bebe, because the Gordon boys were snatching every dog they could get their hands on.”

“We would have liked to use a chicken coop,” Bruce said. “But we didn’t have the wire mesh, so we couldn’t build one. The toolshed was just a facade, like that one over there that your cameraman just brought in.”

Mr. Donovan didn’t look as happy as he had in the beginning.

“But in the real event,” he said, “Bobby — or Red Rover or whatever this dog’s name is — did release his captive companions, is that correct?”

“Red saved himself and all the rest of the dogs,” I told him. That was not a lie at all, because the sound of Red barking was what had led us to the chicken coop.

“And he does know how to open a latch?” Mr. Donovan asked me.

“Oh, yes!” I assured him.

Mr. Donovan turned to Bruce.

“Is it all right with you if we put Red Rover to the test?”

“Sure,” Bruce said. “Red will do almost anything I tell him to.”

The cameraman hauled the facade to the front of the room so all the cameras could focus on it. Then Bruce told Red, “Open, sesame!” and Red raced over and opened the gate.

Mr. Donovan had Bruce tell Red to do that three times so the cameraman could take pictures from lots of different angles. One of them was just a close-up picture of Red’s teeth when he pulled up the latch.

Then we went back to the waiting room, where the secretary had brought in lunch. Aunt Alice couldn’t eat it because of her mask, and Gabby was
too tired, but the rest of us gobbled it up. The desserts were cupcakes with dog faces.

Just before we left to go back to our hotel, Mr. Donovan told us, “Our intention is to air all three videos on national television, along with the interviews I conducted with you today. Then we’ll have our viewers call a free eight-hundred number to vote for their favorite star dog. I think we have everything we need except for one release form.”

“Oh, no!” Kristy said. “Don’t tell me I missed somebody!”

“Not you,” Mr. Donovan said. “The form we’re missing is for
Bobby Strikes Back.
We need a release from the blond young man on the skateboard who appears in the background of all the scenes with Mrs. Rinkle in them. Bruce, please get that taken care of as soon as you get home. We can’t air a video unless we have releases from everyone.”

The next morning, Mr. Merlin and Gabby were in the hotel lobby, checking out at the same time we were.

Mr. Merlin gave Aunt Alice his business card. He told her he lives in Philadelphia, which isn’t terribly far from Elmwood, and if her “life plan
changes,” he would like very much to get to know her better.

Aunt Alice told him her life plan is set in concrete.

While they were talking, I went over to say good-bye to Gabby. I whispered an important message in his ear.

He looked at me with the saddest eyes in the world and licked my hand.

The End

When Jerry answered the door, Bruce got straight to the point.

He said, “I’m here to ask you to sign a release form.”

“A release form?” Jerry asked in surprise. Then a light of understanding broke over his face. “Oh, I get it! It’s those ownership papers my dad signed over to you. Did those require my signature? If so, then Red’s still legally mine!”

“No way!” Bruce said. “Those papers were in your dad’s name, because he’s the one who bought Red in the first place. Red’s mine, free and clear. This is about the video I taped in our backyard. You’re in the background, cruising back and forth on your skateboard. I was so intent on the filming that I didn’t notice what was going on in the alley. Now I’ve got to get signed releases from everybody
who appears in the film, whether they were supposed to be there or not. And that includes you.”

“You mean you’ve sold that video!” Jerry exclaimed. “How much are you getting for it? If I sign a release, I’m going to want my share.”

“We’re not getting paid,” Bruce said. “Since Andi didn’t win the contest with her book, I made this video as a way to help her get her story told. Give my sister a break! It’s no skin off your nose if
Bobby Strikes Back
is on television. This won’t interfere with the fame and money you’ll be getting from your book.”

“There’s got to be a prize for winning that contest,” Jerry said. “If it isn’t money, what is it?”

“The dog who stars in the winning video will be given a chance to audition for films,” Bruce said. “But we haven’t won the contest. All we’ve done is make it into the finals. Viewers will vote on the winner.”

“I might consider signing that release,” Jerry said.

“You will?” Bruce couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Was it possible that Jerry’s success had made him less greedy?

“I said I
might,”
Jerry said. “But I’m not going to do it for nothing. If you can’t afford to pay me, then maybe we can trade off services. You do a favor for me, and I do one for you.”

“What do you mean?” Bruce asked suspiciously.

“When I won the young author contest, I thought Pet Lovers Press would buy my story and publish it and that would be that,” Jerry said. “I never guessed they’d expect me to do more work on it. They sent my manuscript back, and the editor’s got it plastered with Post-it notes. She wants me to make all kinds of ridiculous changes. She says the wording is too old-fashioned, and there’s a train wreck where a dog gets killed, and that’s too traumatic for little kids. I didn’t even remember that scene was in the book.”

“So what are you saying?” Bruce asked. “What kind of trade-off do you want?”

“Your sister likes to do writing projects,” Jerry said. “How about she takes this manuscript and makes it like the editor wants it, and then I sign the release form?”

“Don’t you want to do your own revisions?” Bruce asked him. He knew how possessive Andi
was about
Bobby Strikes Back.
There was no way she ever would have allowed someone else to make changes.

“I don’t have time for that sort of busy work,” Jerry said. “My publicist is lining up radio and TV interviews. He’s trying to get me on
Oprah
and
Good Morning America,
and even the
Eileen Stanton Show.
I’m going to be busy all summer promoting my book. It’s an even trade — Andi helps me, and I help her.”

Bruce struggled to contain his fury. How could Jerry consider the few seconds it would take him to sign a release form comparable to the hours — or maybe even days or weeks — that it would take Andi to revise his manuscript? And to add insult to injury, it was the same manuscript that had kept her own book from being published!

But this wasn’t his call to make.

“Get me the manuscript,” he said. “I’ll take it to Andi, and she can read it and make her own decision.”

“That’s cool,” Jerry said with a grin. “I’m sure she’ll say yes. What choice does she have? Wait here a minute and I’ll get it for you.”

He disappeared into the house and came out with a thick pile of pages so sprinkled with yellow Post-it notes that the manuscript looked like it had been attacked by a flock of butterflies.

“Let me know by tomorrow,” Jerry said. “If Andi won’t do it, I’ll give the job to Sarah. She’s a very fast typist, probably faster than Andi.”

“Who’s Sarah?” Bruce asked, mentally running through the roster of girls in their English class and finding no Sarah among them.

“She’s one of Connor’s girlfriends in Chicago,” Jerry said. “She’s got a huge crush on him and will do anything for him. I’m sure she’d be thrilled to work on his cousin’s manuscript. So if Andi wants this release signed, she’d better jump at this opportunity. Otherwise it goes to Sarah.”

“I can do this,” Andi said as she riffled through the manuscript, reading the notes on the Post-its.

“It looks like a ton of work,” Bruce said doubtfully.

“Yes, it does, but the editor’s suggestions make sense,” Andi said. “Like this one: ‘Does this dog have to die in the train wreck, or might he be
knocked unconscious and rejoin his companions in a later chapter?’ I don’t want that dog to die either. I’d love to make him come alive again and put him back in the story.”

“Then you want me to tell Jerry yes?” Bruce asked her.

“Of course,” Andi said. “School lets out next week, and I can work on this all day every day. It will give me a chance to learn how to work with an editor.”

“I hate to think of you doing Jerry’s grunt work,” Bruce said.

“It’s better than tennis camp,” Andi said. “Last night, when I came downstairs to get Bebe a snack, I heard Mom and Dad talking in the living room. They think that going to tennis camp will make me ‘more sociable and well-adjusted.’ I was trying to think of a way to get out of it. Now I can tell them I can’t go because I’ve got a job.”

It took Andi two weeks to make the changes the editor had asked for, and those weeks were filled with surprises. For one thing, Jerry turned out to be a gifted writer. For another, she was amazed at his apparent affection for dogs and his ability to empathize with their emotions. He had written
Ruffy
Dean Joins the Circus
from Ruffy’s viewpoint, and the story really did sound as if it had been written by a dog.
“One hot June day, while merrily sleuthing a dried-up chicken head in Mrs. Dean’s pet pansy bed (oh, how she loved to have me dig in that pansy bed!), I swallowed a bumblebee,”
Ruffy said. The editor suggested that it would make more sense if Ruffy swallowed a honeybee, which Andi thought was a reasonable suggestion, since it happened in a flower bed. But she couldn’t get over that even if Jerry had chosen the wrong bee, he had written that scene so well. Ruffy’s description of
“trying frantically to tie myself into seventeen kinds of knots and simultaneously imitate a high-powered pin-wheel in full motion”
when the bee stung the lining of his stomach made her cringe with sympathy.

Even though the style
did
seem a bit old-fashioned,
Ruffy Dean Joins the Circus
was definitely a good story.

In a way, this made Andi feel better about losing the contest, because
Bobby Strikes Back
had been up against strong competition. In another way, it made her feel worse, because now she had no true reason to feel angry about losing to the person she hated most in the world. She had once promised
herself that if she ever met a boy who felt the same way that she did about writing, she would marry him when she grew up. It was sickening to think that her future husband might have to be Jerry.

Mr. Donovan called twice, wanting to know why he hadn’t received the release form. The first time, Bruce took the call and assured him, “I’ll have it for you soon.” The second time, Andi took the phone call. She tried to think of a way to dissemble, but the challenge was too great, and she ended up telling a straight-out lie.

“We mailed it last Friday,” she said. “Haven’t you gotten it yet? Maybe it’s been lost in the mail. We’ll get that boy to sign another release form, but we’ll have to wait until his hand heals. He broke all his fingers in a garbage disposal.”

“How long do you think it will be before he can sign his name?” Mr. Donovan asked her.

“About three days,” Andi told him, assessing the stack of pages she still had to work on. “His cast will be off on Tuesday, and we’ll get that release form into the mail to you on Wednesday.”

Three days later, she and Bruce walked down the block to Jerry’s house and delivered the manuscript.

Jerry accepted it, said, “Thanks,” and started to shut the door.

“Hang on there a minute!” Bruce said, sticking his foot in the crack to prevent the door from closing all the way. “It’s payback time. I’ve got a release for you to sign.”

“That will have to wait,” Jerry said. “I’m too busy right now.”

“Are you joking?” Bruce demanded. But he knew that Jerry wasn’t joking. Jerry never joked.

“No,” Jerry said, “I’m just overwhelmed by commitments. Next week I’m going to be on the
Eileen Stanton Show.
Pet Lovers Press is going to fly me to New York and put me up in a five-star hotel. Connor’s going to drive there to meet up with me. We’ve both got fake IDs, and we’re going to do the town, and I don’t mean the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building.”

“It will take you five seconds to sign this release,” Bruce said. “We made a deal. Andi’s done her part. Now it’s your turn.”

“Andi did
not
do her part,” Jerry said. “This manuscript’s not retyped. All your sister did was scribble stuff in the margins. Even a monkey could do that. Or a dog with a pencil in its mouth. If I’d
had any sense, I’d have had Connor give this to Sarah.”

“The manuscript wasn’t supposed to be retyped!” Andi told him. “Didn’t you read the editor’s letter? She said to make corrections in the margins.”

“What’s wrong with you, Jerry?” Bruce demanded, his voice shaking with anger. “Andi did her job perfectly. Now you do yours!”

“Stop trying to make me out to be a bad guy,” Jerry said, all of a sudden giving them one of his sweet smiles. “I’m willing to sign that release so your video can be aired. But there’s one more thing I’ll need from you before I do that.”

“What?” Bruce asked apprehensively.

“Red Rover,” Jerry said.