Free Olivia and the Movie Stars by Lyn Gardner

yesterday, and apparently they just looked at the trees completely baffled and said, ‘We don’t know how to. Nobody’s ever taught us.’ You’d laugh if it wasn’t so tragic. What child needs to be taught to climb a tree? It’s something you find out how to do by doing it.”
    “I haven’t climbed a tree for years,” said Jon wistfully. “I don’t know why I stopped.”
    “You grew up, Jon,” replied Jack. “One of the things I love about having kids is I can carry on doing all the things I enjoyed as a child.”
    “OK, let’s try and get the twins up there again now they’ve seen how it can be done,” said Jon. He called out to the stagehands, “Ready crew for flying sequence. Cosmo and Cosima on stage, please. Livy and Tom, can you help them?”
    “Cosi?” said Olivia.
    Cosi reluctantly put down her magazine and came over. “It makes me sick,” she said.
    “You’ll stop feeling queasy when you’ve been up a few times,” said Olivia soothingly.
    “I don’t mean the flying,” she replied. “I’ve been doing some more research. Mrs Wren showed me some more websites and gave methis magazine. At the end of last summer there was a third less sea ice in the North Pole as there was in 1979. If you’re a polar bear, it means you have to swim further to find food and you get a whole lot more tired. Some even drown. It also means that they don’t have as much body fat and the females can’t feed their cubs properly so they grow up weaker than they should. And the worst thing is nobody cares.”
    “You do, Cosi,” said Olivia as one of the stagehands fastened Cosi’s safety harness.
    “Yes, but I’m still not doing anything about it even after everything I said in class. I’m like everyone else; I do nothing even though I know more so I’ve less excuse,” said Cosi sadly.
    “You’ll find a way,” said Olivia before she was interrupted by a loud shout.
    “You’re strangling me, you jackass!” said Cosmo angrily. Cosmo’s minder rushed over and glowered at the stagehand. The stagehand, a nice man called Gary with years of experience, backed away.
    “You know, I think you need to have a word with your brother, Cosi,” said Tom seriously. “He treats the stagehands as if they’re servants, but they’re not. They’re professionals and hislife is in their hands. He wouldn’t want them to drop him mid-air, would he?”
    “Oh my gosh, they wouldn’t, would they?” asked Cosi, looking terrified.
    “No, of course not,” laughed Tom. “But they can give you a hard time up there. There was a famous actress who had a big bust up with the stagehands while she was playing Peter Pan. But they had their revenge at the next performance. Instead of lowering her gently into the Darling nursery they bounced her off the walls like a wrecking ball on a building site.”
    “I bet she was really nice to them after that,” said Olivia.
    “She was,” said Tom. “She had to have a few performances off. But when she came back she treated them like royalty.”
    “I think we’d better warn Cosmo immediately,” said Cosi.
    “Everybody ready?” called Jon. The stagehands nodded. “OK, let’s fly!”
    Cosmo and Cosima were hauled upwards. Cosi screamed and even Cosmo looked uncertain. They were pushed out over the auditorium flapping their arms like a couple of frightened ducks. Cosmo made a suddenmovement, lost all control and started bouncing up and down like a baby in a baby bouncer, before going into a spin and squawking loudly. The twins’ minders were getting agitated. Olivia and Tom looked at each other and tried not to laugh.
    “I’m going to throw up,” warned Cosi.
    “Oh no you’re not,” boomed Jasper Wood, who was striding down the centre aisle with Alicia following behind him. Jasper looked rather dashing, wearing a full-length leather coat. “Remember who you are. You are Wendy and you are flying to Never Land on an awfully big adventure. Quit complaining and start acting.