The Accidental Siren

5.4 Fairytale Part One: The Girl

17 EXT. THE CASTLE OF THE EVIL PRINCE - DAY  17

THE GIRL pulls out the sword she got from the dying soldier and fights THE EVIL PRINCE! She tries to stab him but he dodges it and almost stabs her! They fight for a little while longer.

All of a sudden they're on the roof! The fight continues with lots of close calls.

Ryan Brosh was a charming goof. He was already on the rooftop in a burlap vest, leather boots and feathered cap, practicing his swordplay against a wave of invisible bad guys. As I mounted the tripod, I watched him bite the pin from a pretend grenade and toss it at the brick rail. “Ka-Boouushhh!” he shouted, then threw up his sword in apparent victory.

Ryan was a goof, but he was magnetic; the kind of guy who could wear his pants backwards and spark a trend. His face was smoother than most boys his age; a trait I'd rather attribute to obsessive hygiene than natural good looks. As chubby as my arms were, his were bigger, but where I had fat, Ryan had biceps.

I left the thespian-jock to his swordplay and walked to the open window. I lowered my head, brought my knee to my chin, and squeezed through the only passage between the rooftop filmset and the library production office that--as Mom declared twice today--looked like a cyclone hit it.

In whirls of potential catastrophe, I always worked best if I focused on one objective at a time. Right now, I had to find a suitable stand for the broom-handle boom mic. The fight scene had the most important dialogue in the whole movie and my sound guy was away at summer camp for nerds.

It was Monday. The babysitters were distracting the kids in the basement and the Demi Moore Cigar Club was already gossiping in the kitchen. Open windows and a ceiling fan kept the cigar smell from settling in their temporary venue.

Livy and Mara sat Indian style on the library floor, face-to-face beside a tower of mahogany book shelves.

“She looks too pretty,” I told my sister. “Dirty her up a bit.”

Livy growled and flipped open the violet lid of her makeup tackle box. “I tried rubbing dirt on her cheeks. I tried matting her hair. I tried darkening the bags under her eyes, but Mara doesn't have bags under her eyes.”

“Keep trying,” I said. “She's gotta look a mess.”

Mara faked a scowl. “Make me ugly, Livy. Do your worst!”

My sister held up a bulging baggie of dirt. “I'm gonna add water and cover your face in mud. It’s the only way we'er gonna make this work.”

I turned around to continue my search and noticed Mom and Mrs. Greenfield watching me. They were holding matching glasses of lemonade with perfect cubes of ice (the staple of a good hostess) and observing the madness from the doorway. It would have been polite to say hi to the woman who supplied my hard-to-find props; instead, I ignored Mom's summoning glare and dove into the corner closet.

“Hey James...” Livy asked. “How's Ryan?”

I poked out my head, “He's fine,” I said, then continued my search.

“Didja offer him Kool-Aid?”

“Yes, Livy. He drank three glasses. Remember you pointed out his red mustache?”

She giggled. (Mara giggled too.) “Oh yeah,” she said. “Do you think he needs a little more makeup? Maybe some powder?”

“He's got plenty,” I said and rummaged through a bevy of blueprint tubes and coats that smelled like wet bark.