Alien Superstar by Henry Winkler

Author:Henry Winkler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2019-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

Luis gave me a hard poke in the ribs. “Just listen for once,” he whispered.

“We want to write your character into the show,” Duane went on. “You’d be a regular and appear every week as the alien student at Oddball Academy. What do you say?”

“I’ll do the talking for him,” Cassidy’s mom said, wedging her way over to me. “That’s what I do.”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said, holding out my hand. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Buddy Cheese Burger.”

“Hold the cheese,” she said. “It’s empty calories.”

“I don’t eat it,” I explained. “It’s my name.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” she said. “From now on, the cheese is history. I’m Delores Cambridge. I’m Cassidy’s mother-slash-manager. I manage my daughter’s career, and it would be my pleasure to represent you as well.”

“Oh, that’s so nice of you,” I said.

“That niceness is called twenty percent,” Luis whispered. “Managers take twenty percent of everything you earn.”

“I’d love to be on the show,” I said to Duane. “It sounds like—”

“I’ll take it from here,” Delores interrupted. She stepped in front of me and sat down on the edge of Duane’s desk. “What my client meant to say is that we’ll consider your offer if you meet our terms. We’ll need certain guarantees, of course—script approval, private dressing room with a mini-fridge stocked with . . .” She turned to me and whispered, “What kind of ice cream do you like?”

“I’ve never had ice cream.”

“Fine,” she said to Duane without missing a beat. “Just to make sure, we’ll need three kinds of ice cream in the freezer. Cherry vanilla, chocolate chip, and butter brickle.”

Delores ripped a page from a notepad on Duane’s desk and wrote down several numbers, folded the paper, and slid it to Duane.

“Those are our financial terms. Of course, there’ll be a bonus if we make a movie and first-class travel if you send him on a publicity tour.”

“Wow,” Luis whispered. “She’s tough. This is the kind of manager you want.”

“I think you need to slow down here, Delores.” Duane held up his hands as if to protect himself from her torrent of words. “Those are pretty steep demands, and the kid is a beginner.”

“Come on, Duane,” Delores snapped. “You and I both know what we saw. Buddy has magic. That audience ate him up like a chopped salad, hold the egg.”

“Mom,” Cassidy said. “The hard-boiled egg is the best part.”

“Cassidy, we’re doing business here. We can discuss your food preferences in the car. Duane, do we have a deal?”

“I’m going to have to discuss this with the network executives,” Duane said.

Delores jumped off the desk and snapped her fingers at us.

“Let’s go, kids,” she said, heading for the door. “Duane obviously isn’t prepared to make a decision, so neither are we. There are a lot of other shows out there for you, Buddy. Tomorrow I’ll start making calls.”

I was just about to tell Delores how much I really wanted to be on The Oddball Academy. The last thing I wanted was to walk away from that amazing opportunity.

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