Olivia and the Movie Stars by Lyn Gardner

Author:Lyn Gardner [Lyn Gardner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857630773
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Published: 2011-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Eel, Tom and Cosmo were laughing so hard that they didn’t notice Jack come back into the Green Room. Under the watchful eye of one of the stagehands, they were playing with one of the three identical motorised crocodiles from Peter Pan. Three were required so the production could always have one on stage at any time, one in reserve and one in the workshop being mended. Tom and Cosmo were running across the Green Room and Eel was operating the remote control and making the crocodile chase them, its jaws snapping furiously. It was terrifyingly realistic and the tick-tock noise it made when it moved was rather ominous.

“Can you stop the noise just for a moment, kids?” asked Jack. “I need to think.”

Eel dropped the remote control and snuggled up next to Jack on the sofa. Cosmo began showing Tom a new computer game. He could still be really arrogant and rude, but Tom had begun to realise that a great deal of Cosmo’s bluster was simply to disguise his lack of confidence. When he dropped the front, he could be rather nice, and it was showing in his performance as Peter. Alicia’s hard work with him was beginning to pay off as he displayed the right mixture of cockiness and vulnerability on stage.

“Is everything all right, Dad? You look really worried,” said Eel.

“I am,” replied Jack. “One of the wires for the flying has come loose again. It keeps happening, and I don’t understand it. I check it and it’s fine, and then when I go back half an hour later, it’s loose again. It’s as if it’s taken on a life of its own.” It was not the first incident with the flying apparatus. Only a few days before, when Cosi had been lowered from the air, the stagehand had discovered that her safety harness had been unclipped. If she had fallen, it could have been disastrous and when Jasper had found out about it, he had shouted at Jack and even waved his hook at him.

“She could have been killed,” he roared, and Cosi looked really frightened, as if she had only just realised how serious it all was.

Jack had held an investigation, but the stagehand concerned, Gary, had sworn blind that he had done up the clip and Jack was certain the man was telling the truth. He had written it in the incident book and instigated a new system of extra checks whenever any of the children were flying. He’d been shaken by what had happened and was being doubly vigilant. And now this latest episode with the wire was beginning to make him doubt himself.

At that moment Olivia and Cosi walked into the Green Room. Jack, Eel and Tom stared at them, amazed. They had come straight from wardrobe and they were wearing identical Edwardian-style white nighties and each had a blue bow in her hair. Olivia’s straight hair had been ringletted so it looked just the same as Cosi’s.

“Wow,” said Tom. “That is seriously spooky.

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