Sometimes to be extraordinary you have to do something extraordinary – like knock yourself mostly unconscious in an audition. It may not have been the plan and I’m not sure I would recommend it, but it worked and by eight o’clock the next morning my head has nearly stopped throbbing!
The end justifies the headache . . . or something like that.
Hugo, Tyson and I are at the newsagent’s, doing research on how to be a celebrity. I’m looking at some guy in a magazine called SLICK who has really crazy hair. How does he get it to stand up like that?
‘Is that really what they said? That you’re going to be Captain Kickbutt instead of Famous Kid?’ Tyson asks. ‘Because I spoke to my dad and –’
‘Shhh!’ I stop him. ‘You weren’t there, Tyson. They loved me. That’s all there is to it. And now that I’m going to be a celebrity, I need to live like one. That means you two need to be my entourage.’
‘Your what?’ Hugo asks.
‘It’s called an entourage. All the famous people have them. Look.’ I point to the pages of the magazine I’m holding. ‘Famous people never go anywhere by themselves. There are always people walking around with them.’
Tyson taps the photos in his magazine.
‘Good point. We need to get one of those,’ I say. ‘Hugo, I’ll leave that with you.’
‘Are you going to do this too?’ Hugo asks. ‘This woman is carrying a puppy in her handbag.’
I think for a minute. I’m not really into animals. Except for my duck.
I have a pet duck called Duck. He’s waiting outside the newsagent’s for us because apparently you’re not allowed to bring waterfowl inside. That’ll change once they realise who I am.
‘There’s a girl down the street with a guinea pig,’ I say. ‘Maybe I could borrow that?’
We flick through a few more pages. Research is actually quite fun. I don’t know why school tries so hard to make it boring.
‘All these magazines keep talking about style,’ Hugo notices. He points to a picture of some guy in a black jacket and pink pants. ‘What is “style”?’
‘I think it’s something you buy online,’ I say.
‘No, no. My dad has some of it,’ Tyson says. ‘I think it’s got to do with how you point your chin. Can you point your chin, Max?’
‘That might be a problem.’ Hugo screws up his face and points at all the chins in the magazine. There are a lot of chins. How am I supposed to get a chin?
‘I’m going to be your bodyguard,’ Tyson announces. ‘Look at this.’
He flicks through the pages pointing to all the enormous muscly men and women standing out of focus and a bit behind the famous people. Now that he points them out, they’re everywhere.
‘That would help to keep the crowds of people off me,’ I admit.
‘Yeah. It is. That’s what his mum named him when he was born, I think.’ Tyson nods. ‘He’s awesome. Dad’s going to get me his autograph. I want to be just like him. So I’ll be your bodyguard, Max. Don’t worry, I’ll keep the screaming girls away from you.’
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘It is important to have personal space.’
Suddenly, people outside the newsagent’s start running and yelling. What’s going on out there? Maybe there’s a sale on at the gardening store again. I’m always amazed at how excited people can get about buying cheap cow poo.
Only that’s not what’s going on.
‘The Goldsteins have been robbed!’ someone calls into the newsagent’s as they run by.
The Goldsteins? There’s only one Goldstein family in Redhill that I know of. I turn to Hugo.
‘Hugo, is that your parents’ shop?’