Kayla

15

Saving a Book from a Movie

The sun rose and everything fell. The beautiful dream that was there just moments ago was replaced with a ceiling above Alex's head. She groaned as she was faced with another long day at school. I guess I'm kind of lucky she thought. At least I don't have to get up at six in the morning five days a week. Yet this did little to comfort her as she put on her uniform, a knee-length black skirt and white shirt, and pulled up her long, light brown hair for another long day.
Before she had fully closed the door to her dorm room, another girl with long dark brown hair came running down the hall way with a huge smile on her face, frantically waving a stack of papers in one hand.
“AAAALLLLLLLEEEEEEEXXXXX,” she said as she approached. “I did it! I figured it out!”
“What did you figure out?” Alex asked while pondering why she was friends with such a morning person.
“I figured out how I'm going to end my novel! You know, the one that I've been working on for months! I'm going to end it in a romantic scene between the prince and the protagonist, like a wedding or something. Don't you think that will be fantastic!”
Alex, still blinking sleep from her eyes just nodded along. This happened every time Maddie finished a book. She always acted as though it was her first ever writing, even though now she was a well known and published author at the age of sixteen.
“Oh, I'm so sorry to have jumped on you like that! You probably haven't gotten your morning coffee yet, poor thing. I know how grouchy you can be without it.” With that, the energetic Maddie pulled her zombified friend down the hall toward the snack room.
“Snack room” probably puts an image in your head of a few snack machines, a refrigerator, and a microwave in a small room along with a plastic table and some folding chairs. This room, however, was quite the opposite. It was a large room with long tables set up on every side filled with all kinds of snacks and beverages. There were people attending to the food behind the tables, making sure nothing was too hot or too cold. In the center of the room were several round tables surrounded by chairs. Although the room appeared to be enormous, it could only seat about a hundred people at once, exactly the population of the school.
Once entering, the girls make a bee-line toward the coffee station. Different creamers and sugars line the wall next to the coffee brewers. Maddie, already energized enough but still wanting something sweet, filled half her cup with sugar and various creams. Alex took hers black and was soon awake enough to function. They walked around the snack room and each picked up a few pastries and some fruit for breakfast. The school has a Cafeteria that is even bigger than the snack room and serves hot breakfast, but the two always preferred the quiet of the snack room. Or rather, Alex preferred it.
For her, she had found a school with a total population of about a hundred people and that still seemed to be more than she could bear. She kept reminding herself that it was an honor to get into this school and that it was only a few people to deal with in terms of schools, but in her opinion she was stuck with the most annoying people on the planet.
As the girls ate their breakfast, another person walked into the room. “Hey Jack!” Maddie called out to the boy with blond hair and bright blue eyes.
“Hey Maddie! Hey Ale-” he stopped when Alex turned and glared at him, sending the message of it's too early for your energeticness! He took a slight step back. Alex just went back to eating her muffin. Maddie, however, didn't seem as eager to end the conversation.
“So, what are you working on now?” she asked him.
He glanced at Alex, awaiting another death stare, but receiving none, he approached with caution. “I'm doing this new movie with the drama club. They want me to play the male lead in some sci-fi adventure. Some adaptation based on a book. Star lookers, gazers, something like that.”
“Star Watchers!” Alex said, suddenly full of energy. “I love that book! Wait... you're going to play Frank?”
“Yeah, that's the character's name...” again he stopped, this time because Alex was looking at him even closer than ever. She pulled out her phone and flipped through her pictures, finally landing on one of a drawing of the character in question, a boy with curly blueish-black hair and green eyes.
“Hmm... I don't see it.” she said after holding the picture up to his face for a moment. She was really concerned about this, considering that the drama club movies often ended up as record-breaking movies in the theaters. They've done book adaptations before, but never of one that she cared about.
“What are you talking about Alex, I mean look at him!” Maddie chirped in. “And all he has to do is dye his hair and get some of those green contact lenses and he'll be perfect for the part.” Alex internally groaned, not just because she was being told that she was wrong about something that she knew she would never be wrong about, but because most of this outburst from Maddie was because she had a crush on Jack.
“Nah, I don't see it. I mean, he doesn't even know the title of books.”
“I wouldn't call it the 'best book ever' I mean, the script looked kind of stupid” Jack said.
“Well, that's just because those idiots in the drama club always take out half a book before writing a script.”
The story is about a town that is constantly under attack by creatures with wings that come in the night called celestials. The people believe that the creatures come from the stars themselves, however the heroes discover a cave where the celestials reside until nightfall when they can move around. They infiltrate the cave during the day and defeat all of the celestials, thus saving the town. And now, Alex thought, they're going to ruin it for everyone, just like the Sunset Chronicles!
Alex was now determined to save her book. “When's the next drama club meeting?” She demanded standing up and slamming her hand on the table. Poor Jack looked like he was about to faint.
“Um... r-right after first period, during recreation period...”
“Alright, Maddie, are you coming with me?”
“Where are we going?” Maddie asked nervously.
“After first period, we're going into that drama room and making sure that they don't ruin this book!”
“Um...” Maddie looked like she was about to refuse the offer, but then she looked at Jack and appeared to factor in spending more time with him. “Alright!” She says almost too enthusiastically.
“Excellent! Now then, Jack, do you have an extra copy of that script?” He pulled out his extra copy and Alex snatched it out of his hand and walked away from the table, even though they still had a half hour until first period started.

“So, Alex, what exactly are we going to do?” Maddie asked as they walked towards the drama room.
“Simple...we're just making sure that they don't disgrace one of the best novels of all time.”
“Huh, do you think that they'll let us act in it? I've always wanted to be an actress! I've never gotten the chance so this would be my first time.”
“They might, who knows. All I want is to make sure that they do everything exactly as it is in the books.” When they reached the drama room, Alex just burst in without knocking. The drama club was in the middle of working on scripts when they came in and they all stared at the girls with confused looks. Jack was in a corner giving Alex an I didn't think you would seriously do this look. Alex glared around the room while Maddie just nervously waved around at everyone.
“What are you doing here?” an annoyed voice spoke out from the circle of people. The owner of a voice was a blond girl with a sour expression on her face.
“Good to see you too, Hannah.” Alex replied in a tone as cold as ice. Hannah was the head of the drama club, and one of the people Alex could stand the least. She considered herself a “proper actress” and thus acted as if she were above the rest of the human population. The worst part about it though was that most people let her get away with it.
“I'm here because I was curious about your latest project.”
“Oh, so you've heard about our next movie. Yes, we are doing a lovely reenactment of a darling little book someone recommended. I will be starring, of course.”
“And it's this kind of thing that I am here to prevent.” Alex said. “Jackie, the girl in the 'darling little book' is a brunette with hazel eyes and tan skin. Basically the opposite of you.”
Alex knew she would hit a nerve with that comment, since Hannah's one insecurity was her pale skin. Her green eyes she didn't mind, but being told that they were not good enough as well still stung. “Well, that's what hair die and video editing is for.”
“Well, that's not my only complaint.” Alex continued. “You took out almost the entire middle of the book, you replaced one of the best characters with some other random person, you changed the celestials' wings from dragon wings to bird wings, you made one of the nicest characters a total jerk, added an unnecessary love triangle that wasn't there before, and completely changed how Jackie got the moonstone. And that's just the stuff you changed off the top of my head, would you like for me to continue?”
Hannah looked like a volcano about to burst, but seemed to remember that there was an audience and decided to cool down, though that still seemed to take her a while. Alex knew that she had won the argument, right now it was just a matter of whether Hannah would kick her out for it or actually take her advice. Most likely it would be option number one. Instead, she did something that surprised everyone in the room.
“Well, if you think you know so much more about making this movie than I do, why don't you take my spot.” she said rather catty. “You can manage all of the video and you can write the script and you can be the main actress. You can do it all, and when you fail, I'll come back and say I told you so.” and with that, she stormed out of the room, her high heals clicking down the hall.
The room was silent. Maddie's eyes were wide open in shock. Alex herself was stunned at what just happened. This either was better than planned, or worse. She couldn't make up her mind which one it was.
After a moment, someone called out, “Someone needs to go get her!”
“You can if you want to,” another nervous voice from the crowd said. “But right now she might actually tear your head off if you get in her way.”
Alex finally awoken from her stun-pore and walked up to the crowd. “Well, you heard her. I'll be taking her spot now.”
“Um, Alex,” Maddie whispered in her ear, “you don't know anything about directing, or acting. How are you going to do this.” Alex knew that her friend meant no harm in saying this, but it still worried her. How was she going to do this?
“First thing's first,” she said, not answering her friend, “I've already read the script and I have a few suggestions to make.” And so started her not-so-fabulous job of directing.

“Who do we have to play Margret?” Alex asked Ben, one of the boys in-charge of the crew castings. Margret was the character who originally gave Jackie the moonstone in the book, whom the drama club had cut out of the movie.
“We don't have any extra actresses...” he said. It has been two days since Alex took control of the drama club and so far the “Pro Geek” as they called her was not off to a good start. It wasn't an insult she was unused to, in fact it was her first identity at the school on account that she got in strictly based on her computer skills. However, she hadn't heard it for a while until recently.
“Well, can't we find someone outside the drama club to play her?” Alex asked. “I've already put her back into the revised script.” Ben looked annoyed, but then Maddie came running up from across the room.
“Do you need an extra actress? I would be happy to do it!” she exclaims. Ever since Alex took control of this project, Maddie has been getting snacks for all of the club members and making sure that everyone is happy, it was obvious that she was just waiting for something like this to happen.
“Can you act?” Ben asked, as if he could not care less.
“Hand me a script,” she said. She studied it. “Oh, Alex, help me with this scene here. The one where Margret gives Jackie the moonstone.” Alex took out her own copy, nervous. This would be her first time ever acting.
“Ahem,” Alex began. “Why, what is this place? Hello, is there anyone in this castle?”
“Margret enters, why who is-”
“Cut!” Ben calls. “Maddie, you aren't supposed to read the things in parentheses, those are just stage cues.”
“Right, gotcha.” She replied, looking slightly embarrassed They tried the scene several other times, but Maddie kept raising and lowering her voice in weird points and, despite her best efforts, kept reading the stage directions. Alex did no better, by not talking with the right tone and at one point having to stop because Ben couldn't hear her.
“Oh, why am I so bad at this?” Maddie said, quite disheartened. “I think I'm much better at creating situations rather than acting them out.”
“That's it, we're doomed!” Ben exclaimed.
“Well, you can't blame us, we've never even had acting lessons,” Alex said, already embarrassed enough.
“I can help them,” Jack said, walking over. Maddie's face grew even redder
“Y-y-you heard all of that?” she stammered.
“Well, I heard you alternate from yelling the lines and whispering” he said this with a smile that was probably meant to ease Maddie's pain, but it only made her face turn the shade of a tomato.
“Yeah, these two need all of the help they can get!” Ben said, although he got really quiet once Alex turned her glare on him.
“Ben's right though,” Alex said, “we do need some help in basic acting. Do you think that you can give us some pointers?”
“Sure, lets head over to the rehearsal stage.” Maddie seemed to have finally calmed down and followed jack over to the huge stage. After another moment to glance at the lines in her hand and wonder why on Earth she did this, Alex followed.

After Jack's coaching, the girls were able to complete their lines correctly and move around the different stages with ease. Alex had spoken with the technical producers, and managed to help them create accurate celestials based on the book. They would be edited in along with the backgrounds. The art club helped out with the props and background designs. Alex managed to convince everyone in the drama club to get the band to do the music instead of just getting songs off the internet. The school had always gotten permission before using any songs that they did not own in the drama club's movies, but it was much easier to just use the school band.
Finally, when they had finished acting out all of the scene and the video had been edited, they finished the movie. It was a full hour longer than the original script, but no one seemed to care. Even though at first everyone was skeptical of Alex's changes, they were now very excited for the movie.
As Alex was locking up the drama room the day before it premiered, she heard someone coming down the hall. She turned to see Hannah, with her usual look of superiority.
“Well, how was your little project?” she asked very snidely.
“We sent it off and it is premiering tomorrow in the theater downtown. You're welcome to come watch how good a movie can be if you follow the book.” Even though Alex had new found respect for the drama club members, she still couldn't stand Hannah.
“I will be coming, but only to be able to say four specific words.” She mouthed the words “I-told-you-so” and gave a wicked smile.
“You know,” Alex said, “After all of this, there's talk of letting me join the club permanently. I guess really anyone can do your job.” Now Alex gave her own sly grin as she watched Hannah's fade. Hannah said nothing in response, only walked away.

The day of the premiere, the whole drama club showed up together. They all wore their school uniforms with pins the art club maid that said “Drama Club Productions.”
“Well, this is it.” Maddie said standing next to Alex. “Our first movie premiere!”
“First? You say that like you would want to go through this again?” Alex said.
“Well, I may be more in my element writing the stories, but it is fun to act one out for a change. Wouldn't you do this again?”
Alex thought for a moment. This experience had been full of both happy and horrid moments for her, and way more stress than what was healthy for any normal person. “Absolutely.” She said.
“Hey, come on you two!” Jack called from across the parking lot. “You're falling behind!”
“Coming!” Maddie called, and they ran to catch up with the group.
When they were inside the theater, they bought their tickets and walked to the room that was showing their movie. Sky Watchers streamed across on a board above the door, with flashing lights around it. They all stood there, in awe of it. For most of the drama club, they had experienced this many times before. However, for the two new members, this was the experience of a life. Their movie was right behind that door. When the rest of the group went through, Maddie and Alex were still starring at the title.
“Are you ready?” Alex asked. Maddie nodded, and Alex thought that she could see a small tear go down her face. Alex stared at the door handle, and slowly turned the knob.