Free Maeve on the Red Carpet by Annie Bryant Page B

herself. “Gucci, darling.”
    “Your hair looks so pretty, Maeve,” said a tall girl with curly hair.
    “Pantene, darling,” I told her. It was so inspiring to be admired like a real starlet. Maddie told me that the first step to landing a lead role was
acting
like the lead. She had so much great advice.
    We took our rightful places in the center of the stage and waited as the other kids moved the boxes and props into the right places. “Never do the work of a grip … or else that’ll be the job you get stuck with,” Maddie warned. Hey,
not
getting my hands dusty and musty was fine by me. She and I took our nail files out of our purses, clicked them together, and laughed. Then we just relaxed and filed while the other campers scurried around.
    It seemed like Apollo wasn’t afraid of getting stuck as a grip though. Whenever I saw him he was always untangling wires, repairing equipment, or helping the younger kids. “Okay, let’s swing this over here, Sam,” I heard Apollo shout from backstage. Sam and Apollo appeared from behind the curtain hauling a large, worn-out sofa. “Wow, Sam, you are one strong dude,” Apollo complimented.
    Sam looked overjoyed. “Thanks! I’ve been doing my pushups before bed. Just like you told me.” Sam spottedme and looked excited. “Hey, Maeve, can I have my muffin now?”
    Oops
… I felt my cheeks burn and then thought of something. “Um … uh … don’t you mean
please
can I have my muffin now?”
    Sam held out his hand.
“Please?”
    “Um … I sorta forgot. Sorry, Sam.”
    “But you said you’d get me one!” Sam objected. I wasn’t really sure what to do to about that. Unfortunately, at that exact moment, even Sam’s new pushup routine wasn’t going to stop the sofa from slipping out of his sweaty little hands and landing on the wooden stage with a ginormous “THUD!”
    Looked like my big-sister mistake was saved by the couch. “Nice going, Sam. Dad’s going to be sooooo mad if you scratch the stage—he just refinished it!” I reminded him.
    “Hey, maybe if you guys actually did some work—like helped us out—then the couch wouldn’t have fallen,” Apollo said in an aggravated tone.
    “Yeah!” Sam yipped.
    Who did Apollo think he was that he could tell
Madeline Von Krupcake
and
Maeve Kaplan-Taylor
what to do? Just because he didn’t want to be a star anymore didn’t give him the right to act so high and mighty, I thought.
    Maddie just started laughing though. She wasn’t bothered at all. “Why, Apollo, you’re terrible!” she squealed. “I’m a
thinker
not a
laborer
. Apollo, you know that.”
    “Besides, we have plenty of work to do,” I added.
    “Yeah!” Sam chirped. “On your
nails
.”
    I glared at Sam. I couldn’t believe how my own little brother could be so disloyal, saying that in front of Apollo. Worst of all, Apollo burst out laughing.
    Maddie rolled her eyes. “Speaking of thinking, I’m going to go talk to Artemia about an idea I had in the shower this morning. Picture it, Maeve—our faces on a billboard outside the Movie House. Fabulous, right?”
    “Fabulous,” I agreed, although I felt kind of funny about the whole idea. Maybe it was a little too much?
    “Now you boys can just keep doing, well, whatever it is you’re doing. I need to find Artemia.” She was always going to find Artemia and telling her about her ideas. Maddie skipped down the hallway and left me sitting alone in the middle of the stage with my nail file. I was the only person not moving things around, and suddenly I started feeling a little silly. I glanced back at Apollo trying to drag the old couch with Sam huffing and puffing on his end.
    “Hey, Maeve. Can you give us a hand?” Apollo asked.
    With all my heart I really did want to get up and make it a little easier for Sam … but what if Maddie came back and saw me working like a common camper? Even though I knew Sam needed me, I couldn’t risk losing Maddie and going back to being just a