Free I Don't Know How the Story Ends by J.B. Cheaney

Celia after all before we were spinning around in a maelstrom!”
    â€œWhat’s a maelstrom?” Sylvie inquired.
    â€œLike a whirlpool, dear—just a figure of speech.” Mother’s voice was calm, but her eyes sparkled with something I might have called manic glee if I didn’t know her better. “We had sped right into a Keystone Cops picture!”
    â€œYes, and Mack himself was there, and he got the whole thing on film.”
    Masaji parked the car in front of the hacienda and got out to open doors for us, his lips tight and face pale. As we went into the house, Aunt Buzzy supplied the details. Mr. Sennett, chief director of Mack Sennett Comedies, had actually greased the intersection to add a comic touch to a chase scene. He had posted a watchman down the road to warn unwary travelers, but the watchman wasn’t minding his business, or else Masaji had not noticed him. When Aunt Buzzy ordered him to speed up, he did—with results, everyone agreed, that could have been tragic. But they weren’t, and everyone seemed just fine.
    It was the kind of thing that would have made Mother quite livid if it happened in Seattle. But it was also the kind of thing that didn’t happen in Seattle. It was a Hollywood thing. And in Hollywood, Mother was not quite the same person.
    â€œOf course,” she remarked while putting her hat away, “Mr. Sennett apologized profusely, but there was no harm done.”
    â€œNo harm done” was not what she’d said when Sylvie had tobogganed her red wagon down a hill and barely missed smashing into an ice delivery truck.
    â€œMack offered us a personally guided tour of the lot,” Aunt Buzzy added. “And we may just take him up on it in a few days. If the film develops well—or however they put it—we may end up on the silver screen in a Keystone Cops picture!”
    Mother raised her eyebrows but did not deny it. Both ladies then disappeared into the east wing to change their clothes.
    Belatedly I searched the palm-leaf mail tray for a letter from France. But there was no overseas postmark among the bills and cards. Had Mother even looked?

Chapter 6
    Interiors
    â€œCut!” Ranger yelled a few days later. “What’s wrong with you girls? When I say fear, I want fea r !”
    I sighed; even Sylvie sighed. Sam straightened up from his camera crouch and opened the lens, then squirted a puff of air inside with a rubber syringe—his habit after every take, to blow dust off the film.
    â€œIt looked okay to me. We don’t have that much film stock to waste,” he said.
    â€œI know. But I’m not getting what I want. And I didn’t like the angle much either.” As Ranger paced up and down, two fingers pressed against his brow in a way that signaled Genius at work , I grabbed Sylvie’s hand to keep her from rubbing at the makeup—really just flour dusted over a thin coat of lard. It made us look like we’d blundered out of our untimely graves, but Ranger insisted: “The film makes you too dark, especially in the shade.” Shade and light were two of the things that had to be worked out, which was the reason we met earlier in the morning this time, before blazing noon made us glare in the sun and disappear in shadow.
    Sam yawned hugely and leaned an elbow on the tripod. Morning was not his best time; Ranger told me he often slept until noon, which gave him less than an hour to get to his job at Keystone, where he ran errands and cleaned up sets until seven. Did he go to school? I’d asked. Not since he was fourteen , Ranger had replied enviously.
    â€œI’ve got it!” Ranger cried now. “Instead of just standing here under the tree, you girls go down the path—see where that stump is? Go to the stump and then back into the trees so we can’t see you. When I holler, step out on the path and start walking toward the camera, not too fast. I’ll talk you