As the rest of the crew ran over to the Hummer and gathered round, the front doors of the vehicle swung open and two men in black suits wearing earpiece microphones jumped out.
“Who are they? I don’t recognise them. Are they famous?” Issie whispered to Aidan.
“I think they’re just the bodyguards,” Aidan whispered back.
The bodyguards spoke into their earpieces and nodded to each other. Then one of the men stood guard while the other opened the back door of the Hummer. From behind the tinted glass a girl emerged, helped down by a third bodyguard.
“Ohmygod! I don’t believe it! It’s the Teen Drama Queen!” Stella squealed.
“Stella!” Issie hissed at her. “Don’t! You’ll embarrass her!”
The girl, who had clearly heard Stella’s comment, pushed her dark glasses back to reveal her violet eyes. “Don’t worry,” she said in a soft mid-west American accent. “People always call me that. I get it, like, all the time.” She smiled, revealing her perfect white teeth. “Are y’all working on the movie?” she asked.
“Ummm, yes. We’re stunt riders,” Issie said. “My name is Isadora and this is Stella and Kate, Natasha and Aidan.”
“Nice to meet y’all.” The girl smiled again. “I’m Angelique Adams.”
Issie couldn’t believe it. Angelique Adams! The girl that Sixteen Magazine called “the most famous teenager in the world” was standing right in front of her.
Angelique looked just like she did on all those magazine covers. Her long honey-blonde hair was ironed straight and she had a deep golden tan. Dressed in designer jeans, a leather vest and enormous sunglasses, she looked much smaller than she did in her movies. Issie was actually ever so slightly taller than the pint-sized celebrity.
Angelique clicked her fingers and two more people leapt out of the back of the Hummer–a dark-haired woman and a blond man.
“Her entourage,” whispered Aidan under his breath to Issie. Angelique gestured to the woman who scurried forward and handed her a coffee. Angelique took a quick sip and then thrust the cup back at her assistant as the blond man darted in and began to fuss around, fixing her hair, pulling make-up brushes out of his belt to add some blusher and a fresh coat of lip gloss.
“That’s enough, Tony!” Angelique snapped, pushing the make-up man out of the way just in time as the gang of paparazzi photographers, who had been tailing the Hummer, all leapt out of their cars. They jostled each other to get close to Angelique and began to take her picture, their motor drives whirring, cameras flashing.
“Angelique!” the paparazzi shouted to her. “Over here! Look this way. Give us a smile, Angelique!”
Suddenly there was a noise at the back of the paparazzi pack. “Lemme through!” A little man in a khaki army jacket was leaping up and down like Rumpelstiltskin, elbowing his way past the photographers. “One side, comin’ through!” he snapped as he barged his way forward. When the little man reached the front and found himself blocked by Angelique’s bodyguards he began to shout even louder. “Hey! You big apes! Yes, you! Lemme through I tell ya!”
The little man was lugging an enormous video camera on his shoulder. He was accompanied by a pale thin man carrying what looked a bit like a fluffy grey cat pinned to the end of a long stick.
“I’m with Angelique!” the man insisted to the bodyguards. “I have an access-all-areas pass. She’ll tell you, won’t you, Angelique, baby? Tell them!” he pleaded.
Angelique looked over and gave a nod to the bodyguards to let the man and his skinny sidekick through. The other paparazzi began to complain loudly at this and the little man gave them a smirk. “A-list access!” he beamed. Then he turned to the teen starlet and smiled his oiliest grin.
“Angelique! Honey!” His voice took on a crawly tone. “Great entrance, baby! Right on! But…uhhh, the thing is, we’ve had a slight technical hitch and we’re going to have to reshoot all of that.”
Angelique’s smile disappeared. The little man looked nervous. “It’s all because of Bob here,” he stammered. “He didn’t get the sound recorded right. Isn’t that right, Bob?” He shot a withering glare at his sidekick, who looked suitably guilty and didn’t say anything.
“So…we need you to do it again from the top,” the little man said. “Can you get back in the car and then drive up and do the whole arriving-on-set thing again? And make it really, you know, real.”
Angelique rolled her eyes. “All right. But this better not take all day, Eugene!” she snapped at him. “I’ve got, like, a masseuse and three beauticians waiting for me back at my trailer.”
She glared at Bob, who cowered a little, then she clicked her fingers at her assistants and climbed back into the Hummer. Her bodyguards quickly piled in after them, slamming the car into reverse as the paparazzi scrambled to get out of their way.
“Hey, you kids!” the man in the khaki jacket turned his attention to Issie and her friends.
“Who us?” Stella said.
“What? Yes, you! Of course you!” the man said. “You kids were great!” he enthused. “We’ll go once more, just like last time. Are you ready?”
Stella looked at him blankly. “Ready for what?”
“The second take of course!” the little man said. There were more blank looks from Stella and Issie. The man sighed. He didn’t have time for this.
“We’re making a documentary here, kids! The name is Eugene–Eugene Sneadly–Hollywood’s most hardworking documentary film-maker.” Eugene gestured over his shoulder at the skinny man with the cat on a stick. “This here is Bob, my sound man. That stick of his is what we call a sound boom. Hey watch it with that thing, Bob!”
Eugene cast a surly look at Bob and then continued, “Bob and I are here with Angelique Adams. She’s given us A-list priority on the film set so that we can do this behind-the-scenes documentary about her. Drama Queen–Behind the Scenes. That’s what we’re calling it. Sounds exciting, right? And it is! It’s gonna be big, big, big, baby, because everyone loves Angelique and, well, the girl just can’t help herself. Like they say, she’s a regular, real-life drama queen.”
“You just got lucky, kids,” Eugene went on, barely pausing for breath. “This is gonna be your big moment. You can all be in my documentary. So get ready to go wild because…Angelique Adams is about to arrive!”
“But she’s already arrived,” Stella protested. “We just met her.”
The little man sighed. Then he raised his hands to the sky and began talking to himself. “Oh, Eugene, Eugene! Why are you working with amateurs here?” He looked back at Stella.
“I know she’s already arrived, sweetheart,” he said through gritted teeth. “What I’m saying is, let’s pretend and do it again, shall we?”
The girls and Aidan all nodded at this. They weren’t sure what Eugene was up to, but it seemed easiest to agree and go along with it.
“And…action!” Eugene shouted, waving his hand frantically at the Hummer in the distance.
The chrome-yellow car drove down the road and pulled up in front of the stables for a second time. The doors opened and Angelique appeared, looking every bit as fresh-faced and eager to meet everyone as she had the first time round.
“Hi!” she smiled sweetly. “Nice to meet y’all. I’m Angelique