Star Rider (9 page)

“W
HERE TO FIRST
?” Skye asked The Saddle Club as they walked through the doors of the mall. It was a little difficult for him to talk with the wad of bubble gum he had in his mouth—Stevie’s final touch on his “disguise.” Skye blew an enormous bubble. A woman hurried past him as if she were afraid she might, catch something from him.

“Anywhere we want,” Stevie said conspiratorially.

“Then it’s pizza,” Skye announced. “I haven’t been able to have a good oven-fresh pizza at a mall for a long time.”

“This way,” Carole said. “It’s at the far end of this aisle.”

The foursome walked together, pausing to check out some funny buttons and a collection of more moderate T-shirts than the one “Gavin” was sporting.

“Hey, this one’s cool,” Stevie said, showing it to Skye. It was tie-dyed in long, sweeping arcs of rainbow colors.

To Stevie’s surprise, Skye bought it.

“You never know when it might come in handy,” he said, tucking the bag under his arm. They proceeded toward the pizza restaurant.

It took only a few minutes to come to an agreement on the toppings they wanted on their pizza.

“Extra cheese all over, ditto the pepperoni,” Skye began, describing the pie they’d decided on. “Then, we want mushrooms on half and green peppers on half, but overlap the mushrooms fifty percent. Then, on the part that only has green peppers, add onions, okay? And sausage on the part that only has mushrooms. Got that?”

The waitress stared at him. Her eyes seemed to pierce right through him—and right through his disguise. The girls were sure she had recognized his voice and was about to reveal his identity. Stevie slid lower in her seat. Lisa tried to give Skye a menu to hide behind. Carole’s eyes focused on a grease-stained map of Italy taped to the wall beyond their table. Skye, however, was fearless. He stared right back at the waitress.

The waitress drew in a deep breath. “You’re going to take it the way we make it and you’re going to
like
it,” she said without blinking.

“Yes’m,” Skye said, nodding meekly.

When the four of them were pretty sure the waitress was out of earshot, they exploded into laughter.

“Best performance in a supporting role!” Stevie announced when the laughter had died down.

“Aw, pshaw!” Skye said.

“Not you. Her!” Stevie told him. That made them all giggle some more.

When the pizza came, it was delicious, although nobody could tell, or remember, which slices were supposed to have which ingredients on them. The extra cheese covered everything and nobody cared.

They wanted to talk about the party as they ate, but they got sidetracked by talking about Colonel Hanson. The girls tried to describe him for Skye.

“He loves old movies,” Carole said. “We sometimes stay up really later, munching popcorn, and watching the golden oldies. He likes anything about the Marine Corps, particularly if it stars John Wayne.”

“
Sands of Iwo Jima!
” Skye blurted out.

“Number-one favorite,” Carole confirmed.

“Me, too,” said Skye.

“He also likes anything that has to do with the fifties and sixties,” Lisa told Skye. “He can sing all the verses of everything Elvis Presley ever recorded. And the Everly Brothers, and even Bill Haley and the Comets.”

“ ‘Rock Around the Clock’!” Skye said. “I love it!”

“You’re going to love him,” Carole said. “I’m sure of it.”

“Especially if you like the old jokes he tells,” Stevie said. “He can go for hours with shaggy-dog stories, and elephant and grape jokes.”

“What’s big and purple and lives in the sea?” Skye asked Stevie.

“Moby Grape,” she answered immediately. “Yes, indeed, you have passed the test. You’re going to love Colonel Hanson.”

“If we manage to put together a birthday party for him,” Carole said ominously. “Now, where’s your list, Lisa?”

Lisa stuck her hand into her pocket and produced her list. It was neatly written and organized.

“Okay,” she began. “The first part of the list is the menu, and then there are the things we need to buy for that. That section is followed by everything we need to make this a real birthday party.”

Stevie looked over her shoulder. “Crepe paper? Snappers? Hats? What is this—his fortieth or his fourth?”

“Who cares? It’s a birthday party, isn’t it?” Lisa said.

“What a great idea! What are you going to put in the goody bags?” Skye asked.

“My personal favorite is candy corn,” Lisa said. “But I could be talked into bubble gum or licorice.”

“We’ve got some serious shopping to do,” Skye said. “Where to first?”

“This way,” Stevie said, pointing to the checkout counter at the restaurant.

They each chipped in and paid their bill. Then they began their work in earnest.

They found a paper specialty store that had great party hats and balloons. They bought one of each for each guest. Then Skye suggested they get some noisemakers.

“Where will we go for that?” Lisa asked.

“I think I remember some in the party section of the variety store,” Carole said, recalling her trip to the mall earlier in the week with Stevie. “It’s over this way.” She took them to the left.

There was nothing along that aisle but shoe stores.

“I think we’re turned around,” Stevie said. “We’re headed right for Jeans’ Korner. It’s a great shop for girls’ jeans, but not much for noisemakers.”

They started to turn around when a couple of girls from the class ahead of Lisa’s emerged from Jeans’ Korner.

“Oh, it’s Lisa!” the first one nearly shrieked. Her name was Patty, and she was prone to hysterical shrieks. She
began running toward Lisa. “Is it true?” Patty asked breathlessly. “Are you really working with
Skye Ransom
!” She grabbed Lisa’s arm dramatically.

Lisa flushed with embarrassment. She had no idea what to say.

Patty seemed to sense this was slightly embarrassing for Lisa. She looked at her friend’s companions, and when she saw “Gavin,” she began to realize what was going on. “Oh!” she shrieked.

Patty ran to get her friend. It was an escape opportunity The Saddle Club wasn’t going to miss. Everyone looked to Stevie for help.

“This way!” Stevie hissed. She pulled her two friends and Skye into a perfume shop and dashed toward the rear of it. There was no time to ask questions. Everyone just followed Stevie.

“Head for bubble bath!” Stevie instructed. They dashed down an aisle, ducked to the right, and turned left, avoiding a clutch of teenage girls trying to decide on a cologne. The racing foursome moved so fast, the teenagers barely noticed them—they hoped.

Stevie took Skye’s hand and led him and her friends behind a large display for a variety of fruit-flavored bubble baths.

“We’ll be safe here,” she assured them.

Carole wasn’t so sure. She peered around the large
cardboard fruit tree, trying to look a little bit like a peach. She suspected she wasn’t going to fool anybody. She withdrew into the shadows.

“Swell,” she whispered. “Will we stay here until midnight, when the mall closes, or will we only have to wait until our parents send out the state police to search for us?”

“Neither,” Stevie said. “We just have to change our cover.”

Skye reached into his bag and pulled out the rainbow T-shirt. He slipped it on over Korman’s Exterminating. Then he went into another bag and retrieved one of the silly hats they’d bought for the birthday paty. He put it on. It was hardly a make-over, but it might do the trick. With the makeup he was wearing, he didn’t look much like Skye Ransom, and that was good, but he also didn’t look like the boy the girls had come into the perfume shop with, either.

“Now, this way,” Stevie said. She pasted an innocent smile on her face and stood up. Her friends joined her. It wasn’t easy for Carole to look as if there were nothing unusual about hiding behind a seven-foot tall cardboard fruit tree, but she did her best. It turned out that nobody was looking.

Instead of going back up to the front of the store, Stevie
went to the other rear corner. There was a door there.

“Where does it go?” Lisa asked.

“Out,” Stevie answered simply. She opened it and they all went through it.

They found themselves in a long, dim corridor with a lot of nondescript doors along it.

“This must be some sort of back delivery entrance,” Skye observed. It made sense. It also meant that they should be able to get into any number of stores from it—if only they could figure out where the doors led to.

They began opening them and peering through.

“Lingerie,” Lisa announced.

“No way,” Skye said. “Perfume was bad enough. Too many girls and women in those stores.”

Carole opened the next door. “Movie rental—lots of men are in there. That’s better, isn’t it?”

“Only if they’re not looking at boxes containing Skye’s movies,” Stevie said.

“Oh, right.” Carole pulled the door closed.

Stevie opened the next door. “Nuts,” she said.

“What’s the matter?” Skye asked.

“It’s a nut store,” she explained.

“That sounds right for us,” Carole said.

“Why? Because it’s full of men?” Lisa asked.

“No, because I think we’re nuts.”

The logic was compelling. The four of them slipped through the door and into the little nut shop.

“I love cashews,” Skye said.

“So does my dad,” Carole said.

“Then let’s get some for the party,” Skye suggested. He asked for a pound. “See, shopping for a party isn’t all that hard, is it?” he asked while the man weighed the nuts.

“It’s not hard at all as long as you’re willing to put on disguises and duck through back hallways in the mall,” Lisa joked.

“It’s him!” came the all-too-familiar shriek of Patty’s voice.

“So much for that bright idea,” Stevie said.

They quickly paid for the cashews, and then the four of them hightailed it right back through the delivery entrance of the nut shop and fled along the hall.

The whole thing might have been frightening if it hadn’t been so funny. Lisa tried to run, but she became overwhelmed by the ludicrousness of the situation and began giggling helplessly.

Stevie noticed that Lisa had fallen behind and stopped to wait for her. Carole and Skye turned around. They saw Lisa leaning up against one of the plain gray walls, shaking uncontrollably.

“What’s the matter with you?” Stevie asked. She sounded very concerned.

“It’s just all so silly,” Lisa said, lifting her head. Her friends saw then that she was laughing, not crying. “Here we are, with one of the most famous teenagers in the world, hiding behind cardboard trees, slipping in and out of ridiculous costumes, running through empty hallways away from screaming fans. I just keep thinking about the article this would make for
Teen Scene
magazine.”

Even under all the makeup he was wearing, it was clear to see that Skye had paled.

“You wouldn’t …” he uttered.

“No way!” Lisa assured him. “It’s just that it’s all so silly.”

“I don’t know how silly it is,” Stevie said. “After all, those girls would tear the clothes off of him if they had a chance.”

“Not my rainbow tie-dyed or my ‘We get the bugs out!’ T-shirts! I’ll never let them have them!” Skye joked.

“And I bet this kind of thing happens to you all the time,” Carole said.

Skye looked at her curiously. Then he looked down at himself, dressed to kill—cockroaches.

He started laughing just as hard as Lisa. He laughed
until the tears rolled down his cheeks, smearing his makeup.

“No,” he said to Carole between giggles. “But I wish it did.”

That was when Stevie and Carole joined in on the laughter. At that moment everything became funny: Skye’s costume, their hiding place behind the tree, Patty’s shriek, which became even funnier when Lisa described the time Patty had shrieked at a mouse that had gotten loose from the science lab in the school. Then they laughed at the idea that Skye, in his exterminator’s outfit, should have been called in to help. They were totally exhausted from laughter by the time they finally found an exit to the parking lot of the shopping mall and tracked down Skye’s limousine. Still giggling helplessly, they piled into the back of the car and giggled until they could giggle no more.

T
HE
V
IRGINIA COUNTRYSIDE
whizzed by as Skye and The Saddle Club rode back to Willow Creek in Skye’s limousine. Skye opened the cooler and gave each of the girls a soda. They were thirsty after all their adventures in the back alleys of the shopping mall.

“You didn’t tell us anything about your adventures in front of the camera today,” Stevie said to Lisa. “I mean, was it easier? Did you do everything in one take today like you’ve been doing all week?”

Lisa felt a sudden letdown. They’d had such fun at the mall that she didn’t like remembering that things really hadn’t gone well on the movie set today.

“Um, not exactly …,” Lisa began uncomfortably.

“Oh, I get it,” Carole said. “You forgot your line.
Which was it today? The one about the dog, or just plain ‘Awww’?”

“Um, well, a couple of things happened, and then there was the rain. We have to go back and shoot some things over tomorrow. It was no big deal, though.”