Almost Famous, a Talent Novel Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER One

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER Seven

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER Ten

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTeen

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER nineteen

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Acknowledgements

  ZOEY DEAN‘S STAR POWER

  Can’t get enough TALENT?

  Almost Famous

  RAZORBILL

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group

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  For Tom Shea

  CHAPTER One

  mac

  Sunday September

  8 PM Practice Le Strut for tomorrow

  9 PM Discuss social chair strategy w/ the Inner Circle

  10 PM Kate Somerville clay masks for all (skin must glisten on first day!)

  10:30 PM Beauty sleep

  Get ready for B.Y.E.—Best Year Ever!

  “Ladies, focus!” Mackenzie Little-Armstrong bel lowed to her best friends, Evangelina Becks, Coco Kingsley, and, the newest member of their group, Emily Mungler. She clapped her Essie-polished hands together, her signature wooden bangles clacking on her wrists, and flipped her waist-length blond mane. “Ems needs to get this.”

  “This” was Le Strut, which was to be their grand entrance on the first day of eighth grade at Bel-Air Middle School, aka BAMS. Le Strut meant walking like you were too bored to care and therefore cooler than everyone who’d missed the memo on not caring. Hence the need to rehearse Le Strut nineteen times, with the video camera on Mac’s white iBook providing instant playback for full analysis.

  “Emily, you need to get into character,” Mac said, her turquoise eyes focused on her computer screen. “Tomorrow is your debut as Cool New Girl at Bel-Air Middle School, and right now you look like a sweet girl from Iowa who can’t believe her luck.”

  “But that’s exactly how I feel!” Emily protested, twirling a lock of her wavy, cinnamon brown hair.

  Mac shook her head at the naïve Iowa transplant. She’d discovered the gap-toothed beauty faking her way into a premiere party and had instantly gotten a talent-crush on the girl’s acting skills and je ne sais quoi adorableness. Just that morning Mac and her mother, the biggest talent agent in Hollywood, had convinced Emily to move to Bel-Air and pursue an acting career while she stayed in the Armstrongs’ guest bedroom. Mac knew her starlet-in-training had it in her; it was her job to coax it out. “Get it right.”

  Emily nodded, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply. She looked like she was doing yoga standing up, but Mac knew that was how Emily got into her acting zone. Then Emily opened her eyes and curled her lips into a half smile. She strutted confidently across the wooden floor, like a totally different person from the girl who’d tried the exact same thing only seconds ago.

  They were in Coco’s private dance studio, surrounded by wall-to-wall mirrors, for their annual night-before sleepover, which Coco, Mac, and Becks had enjoyed every year since first grade. Coco’s father was the hotel mogul Charles Kingsley, and she lived in the top-floor suite of his King Bel-Air Hotel, which was a sprawling hacienda tucked off Stone Canyon Road.

  Even though Mac, Becks, and Coco had discovered their personal Le Strut years ago, it was always smart to fine-tune. Mac had insisted they rehearse in Coco’s studio to get “the most honest” impression of what they really looked like. Mirrors, like iBooks, could lie, but mirrors + iBooks + Coco’s high-tech studio = brutal honesty.

  Mac hovered in front of her iBook like a football coach. “Good news,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “We’ve got it!” She flipped the screen toward her friends so they could observe the playback of their work.

  The iBook was divided into a split screen, each quarter playing a clip of one of the four girls striding across the dance studio. Emily’s normally shy, hunched-over posture had improved tenfold (Mac had made her walk with a stack of French Vogues on her head); Coco looked like a gazelle—dancing gave her excellent carriage—and even Becks’s swagger was a little less tomboyish than usual. Mac strode confidently, her blond head held high.

  “Le Strut is parfait!”

  The girls smiled proudly.

  “Okay, next order of business,” Mac commanded, pulling up a new window on her iBook. She needed to strategize her upcoming campaign to win social chair, the holy grail of BAMS positions and also Mac’s raison d’être. Voting was in three days, and Mac needed to make a splash with her campaign poster, which so far was a movie trailer poster of herself with the rating A for “Amazing.”

  “Now, I need your honest opinions. Is it too—” Mac was cut off by the ping of Coco’s intercom.

  “Pinkberry!” Becks bolted out of Coco’s dance studio. Coco’s French bulldog, Madonna, who had been asleep in her custom-made Louis Vuitton dog bed, yelped and chased after Becks.

  Mac sauntered behind, Centurion AmEx in o
ne hand and her iBook in the other, and Emily followed, smiling.

  When Coco opened the door to the penthouse’s private entrance, everyone gasped. The girl delivering their frozen yogurts was a total freakasaurus: She had buck-teeth and long stringy hair dyed mauve, and there were plastic Battlestar Galactica pins all over her neon yellow vest. It was like she’d stepped off the pages of the What Not to Wear, Ever manual.

  “Hi,” Mac said finally.

  “Hey!” Freakasaurus said, clutching the Pinkberry bag. She stood pigeon-toed and stared at Mac, then Emily, then Becks . . . and then, spotting Coco, her jaw dropped.

  She pointed at Coco. “OH MY GOD, YOU’RE CARDAMMON’S DAUGHTER?!” The Pinkberry bag in her hand started to shake vigorously.

  It was an unspoken rule in Hollywood that you didn’t acknowledge fame. And rule number one was that you never, ever pointed at celebrities.

  Mac shot a glance at Coco, who was hiding behind Becks. Coco was always a little touchy about the Cardammon subject. She was a pop-star-in-training herself and always worried she’d never measure up to her superstar mother.

  “Are you okay?” Mac asked the Pinkberry freak. It was not a question; it was a polite way of saying, Please stop spazzing out right now.

  “I’ve been in loooove with your mom since I was thirteen,” the girl said, stretching her arms toward Coco like an opera singer. A tear trickled down her pasty cheek. “ ‘Forever Blue,’ like, got me through two breakups,” she said, referring to one of Cardammon’s eleven hit singles from the late ’90s. “When I was—”

  “That’sgreatthankshowmuchdoweoweyou?” Mac interrupted.

  “Oh. Sorry.” The girl handed Mac a receipt. Le Freak was still staring at Coco, mesmerized, like she’d seen a talking gnome.

  “All righty, then.” Mac signed the receipt briskly. “’Bye, now,” she whispered. When the door closed, Mac waved her index finger around her ear to make the crazy sign.

  “I’ve been in loooove with your mom since I was thirteen.”

  Mac spun around, wondering how Freakberry had gotten back inside the penthouse. Then she blinked. Twice. It was Emily. Her impression was so spot-on that for a second Mac had thought the girl was still there.

  “‘Forever Blue,’ like, got me through two breakups,” Emily continued. Then she pointed at Coco, her hand shaking, a real tear trickling down her cheek. “Oh my God—are you Cardammon’s daughter?”

  “Dude, you’re freaking me out! It’s too much like her!” Becks gasped, ripping into the paper bag and taking out two large frozen yogurts in white-and-green containers.

  “Thatwasahmazing!” Coco agreed, taking her green tea-flavored fro-yo.

  “You should see her be a guy,” Mac said proudly, turning her clear plastic spoon upside down to lick the yogurt. “When Emily plays Jeff, she’s so hot that girls have crushes on her. I mean, crushes on Jeff.”

  Emily covered her face, embarrassed. Earlier in the week, Mac had been trying to land Emily a role in a major Hollywood movie, Deal With It. The part was that of a girl who pretended to be a guy at boarding school. Mac had taken her budding star to the Grove, one of L.A.’s best shopping malls, and Emily had even fooled the Abercrombie salesgirl into thinking she was a guy. She’d also fooled Kimmie Tachman, BAMS’s biggest gossip, whom they’d run into on their way out.

  Mac set her iBook on Coco’s antique writing desk and plopped into a wooden chair while Coco darted into her bathroom to scrounge through her Essie nail polish set. Emily sat cross-legged on the forest green carpet and started braiding her hair, and Becks flopped onto her back.

  Mac reopened her computer, ready to revive the discussion of her campaign posters. Her home page was the Bel-Air community web page—a special, password-protected web community just for people in the 90077. Which was where she saw The Ad. Mac was stunned speechless for about two seconds.

  “Oh my,” she said suddenly, staring at the computer screen. The other girls rushed to Mac’s side and read over her shoulder.

  Seeking Personal Assistant

  Very important Bel-Air social chair seeks assistant to provide daily support and help orchestrate big school fund-raiser. Must be organized, highly efficient, proactive, with great interpersonal skills, keen attention to detail, and a “can-do” spirit. Personal style is a plus, but not a requirement. Interested candidates: iChat RG here.

  “It’s just an ad.” Becks crawled back to the carpet and went back to flipping through Coco’s dog-eared In Style.

  “Yes, but it’s to work for Ruby Goldman!” Coco translated, shaking the bottle of cotton candy pink nail polish she’d chosen.

  “Cha-ching!” Mac declared. Ruby Goldman was her biggest rival in the upcoming social chair elections. Ruby had spent the past four years trying desperately to steal Mac’s style—she followed Mac’s outfit choices like the North Star—and now here she was, already hiring for Mac’s job.

  “How can you tell it’s Ruby?” Emily asked, brushing her hazelnut bangs out of her eyes.

  “Social chair. Big school fund-raiser. Her initials: RG. Plus, who else would think this was a good idea?” Coco sat down on the carpet and started painting the nails on her left hand.

  “Well, there’s one way we can be sure.” Mac grinned wolfishly at Emily.

  “Don’t look at me!” Emily shrieked. “I’m too new to make enemies!”

  “Not you.” Mac made air quotes. “Jeff.”

  “Jeff! Jeff!” Coco and Becks chanted.

  Emily’s eyes darted nervously around the room. She eyed Coco’s bed as if she were thinking about darting underneath it.

  “Oh, puh-leeeez!” Coco cried. “You have to!”

  “Do it for the Inner Circle!” Becks said.

  “Okay, fine,” Emily groaned. “But I have a bad feeling about this.”

  Mac ran to her Hervé Chapelier overnight bag in the corner of Coco’s room and promptly returned with a Stanford baseball cap that smelled like BO. Emily had worn Mac’s brother ’s hat during her audition, and it had helped make her feel . . . masculine.

  “Ladies, this is going to be fantastic,” Mac said, licking her clear plastic spoon. “But Emily, Kimmie’s probably told Ruby about ‘Jeff’ by now, so it’s better to use another alias.”

  “Got it.” Emily nodded. She plopped herself in front of Mac’s white iBook and stretched her fingers like a pianist. She shook her head back and forth and rolled her shoulders in circles. She jutted her chin out from under her baseball cap. Then she cleared her throat to lower her voice a register. Watching Emily made Mac proud that she had a professional actress pulling the prank. Everything Mac did was A-list.

  “Okay, everyone please move,” Mac said, waving to the air around Emily. “Or you’ll be in her interview.”

  Emily clicked on the link to video chat Ruby through the Bel-Air intranet. Coco, Becks, and Mac lay on the green carpet in a semicircle around Emily, hands on their chins so they could peer up at the computer screen.

  “Hello, this is Ruby,” said the voice. In the window on the laptop screen popped Ruby Goldman. Her long blond hair had newly fringed, sideswept bangs, and she wore high-waisted jeans and a red sleeveless blouse with ruffles, like she was in costume as a ’70s movie star.

  “Hey, I’m, uh, Tom,” Emily said, her voice husky, her shoulders slouched. “I’m interested in the job.”

  Coco and Becks exchanged awed looks. Mac smiled.

  “Are you new to Bel-Air, Tom? I thought I knew everyone. . . .” Normally Ruby talked in a fake baby voice, but now she sounded super grown-up.

  “Yeah, my dad just got transferred here,” Emily improvised.

  “Great. Hi. I’m Ruby,” she said, relaxing just a bit.

  Coco dropped her clear spoon into her melting yogurt and leaned closer to the computer. Mac and Becks cupped their mouths to prevent their laughter from escaping.

  “I’m about to be elected to a very important job at a very important school in Los Angeles,” Ruby said. “It’s too mu
ch for one person. And unfortunately, I can’t clone myself.” She sighed dramatically, as though it were a travesty that there was only one of her.

  Becks reached for Coco’s Hello Kitty notepad and wrote frantically with a purple gel roller: Is she for reals?

  Mac shrugged. It didn’t matter. They had stumbled upon the best entertainment ever in the history of night-before sleepovers.

  “Wow, you sound really busy,” Emily-as-Tom said in her deep, boy voice.

  “I am. That’s exactly it,” Ruby said, fluffing her long blond hair and straightening the ruffle on her shirt. “But enough about me. Tell me about you. Why does a cute guy want to work for me?”

  Mac’s eyebrows shot up. Was Ruby flirting with Tom? Ew!

  “I just thought the job sounded cool ’cause I’m organized and I like parties.” Emily pulled her hat lower so that it covered more of her face.

  Ruby crossed her arms. “Well, Tom, there are lots of parties, but I’m planning high-end events. Grandes fêtes. And I need someone who is hungry to learn. This job is the fast track to Bel-Air’s best people.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s what I meant.” Emily shrugged her shoulders.

  “Listen,” Ruby said, leaning in like she was about to tell a secret. “Let’s interface and see if this would be a good fit. What’s your e-mail address? I’ll send you a confirmation.”

  “It’s, uh, Tom, T-o-m. At e-m-a-i-l dot com.”

  “Great. I have a good feeling about this, Tom,” Ruby said, nodding seriously.

  Mac played with her wooden bangles, wondering how Ruby could be so stupid. The number one rule of the Internet was, never trust anything or anyone you meet online. Clueless people were always getting themselves into trouble with technology.

  “Yeah, me too. Okay, see ya,” Emily said, waving goodbye to Ruby.

  The girls were quiet for several seconds before they erupted into laughter.