Free Action! by Carolyn Keene

o’clock at night. There was a note on the mirror in my trailer that said there were changes to the script for tomorrow. That meant I had to go and pick up the revised script pages tonight so that I could learn the new lines in time for the next day’s shoot. Yawning, I headed over to the main office. The office was in a temporary building near the parking area.
    I was surprised to find George still there. She was sitting at one of the desks in the back with an intricate array of computer cables in front of her.
    “Hi,” I greeted her. “I’m glad you’re still here. I’m supposed to pick up pages for tomorrow’s scenes, but the script coordinator is gone.”
    “Hang on a sec,” George said, not looking at me. Her fingers were flying over the keyboard on the desk. I glanced around at the mess of wires and motherboards.
    I yawned. I felt exhausted and worn out by thelong, difficult day. It was hard to believe that I had to come back tomorrow to shoot even more scenes. After the mess I had made of the diary scenes, I was surprised Morris hadn’t fired me on the spot.
    “George, can you just print out the new pages for me?” I asked. “I had a really hard—”
    “This is Jeffrey Allman’s computer,” George interrupted me. “I’ve managed to recover a few files.”
    “What do you mean?” I asked. “Where’s his computer?”
    George indicated a pile of boards and chips that looked like an electronic skeleton. “That’s his hard drive,” she said. “I took it out of the laptop casing, because the casing was so damaged by the fire.”
    “Uh-huh,” I said, yawning again. I really needed to get home and go to sleep. I’d have to wake up very early to learn the new lines for tomorrow. Just thinking about it made me feel nervous all over again.
    “I hooked up his hard drive to the computer here, and I think I’m making real progress,” George began. The sparkle in her eyes told me that she was about to launch into a long and detailed account of how she had managed to recover the damaged files. And suddenly I knew that I couldn’t take it. I was so overwhelmed by my feelings of stage fright and failure and exhaustion that I couldn’t stand still and listen to George talking about computers.
    “I need the revised pages,” I said.
    “Nance, you don’t understand—”
    “No, you don’t understand,” I snapped. “I’m tired and I’m having a really hard time on this movie, but you and Bess don’t seem to get it. Every time I say I’m nervous, you act like it’s a joke. But it’s not. I don’t care about your computers any more than you care about my stage fright. Now can you just print out the pages so I can go home?”
    George stared at me, her brown eyes wide and astonished. I felt a stab of guilt. I’d never spoken to her like that before. But I was too tired to do anything about it now.
    Silently George turned to the computer and pulled up the script. She hit Print, and the pages shot quickly from the printer near the door. George didn’t even turn back to look at me again. I took the pages from the printer and left without saying good-bye.

The Mountain Lion Attack
     
    I woke up late the next morning, as usual. The first thing I thought about was how I had snapped at George. I glanced at the clock. It was almost eight thirty. George is an early bird. She was probably at the set already. I didn’t want to bother her at work, so I would have to call her later.
    Thinking about George reminded me of the fire at Jeffrey Allman’s house. George had mentioned that she was making progress in salvaging his hard drive. I wished again that I hadn’t cut her off—she’d probably been trying to tell me something important about the mystery of who set the fire. Would Mr. Allman’s laptop help us find the answer? It was possible that his old computer files from Rackham Industries would contain information leading to a suspect.
    I wished I could have focused on a nice, juicy mystery like