Charlotte and the Starlet 2 (18 page)

Leila was trotting towards the stables full of ideas,
'... and that creep, Pat, Russell Raven could play him.
I'm telling you, Mr Gold would love this story. It
would be a box-office smasheroon.'

The phone rang. Charlotte had Hannah's in her
pocket. She answered.

'Hannah's phone?'

'Charlotte, it's me. You have like two minutes to get
up here. Graham wants to speak to you. Emma's on
the warpath.'

'Roger that.'

Charlotte ended the call.

Leila said, 'I heard,' and began galloping.

Charlotte's brain was moving fast.

'Front door will still be locked. I'll have to get in via
a window.'

At the stables, Bevans appeared. A question on his
brow.

'Miss Charlotte?'

'If anybody asks, you never saw me, Bevans.'

'Right you are, Miss.'

'Please take care of Leila.'

Charlotte jumped from the saddle and sprinted
towards the building. She would have to scale the
outside walls. The quickest way was the peppercorn
tree right by Strudworth's office. She ran to it and
started up.

'Hayes-Warrington won't budge, I'm afraid. I can't see
a way out of this.'

Mr Graham was on the phone in Miss Strudworth's
office, listening to a distraught Strudworth. 'We can
try fundraising.'

'For a million dollars? No, this is the end of
Thornton Downs.'

Mr Graham found himself eyeball to eyeball with
the stuffed Zucchini. That horse gave him the creeps.
He turned away, which was just as well for Charlotte
because, at that moment, she was scurrying up the
tree right outside.

'Caroline, chin up. We'll talk about this when you
get back.'

'Is everything shipshape?'

Mr Graham remembered Charlotte Richards but he
didn't want to raise the issue right now and burden his
friend with more worries.

'Pretty much.'

'Have the Parks and Wildlife people been in touch?'

'Not as far as I'm aware.'

He heard Caroline Strudworth utter a despairing
moan.

'I'll be back by lunch.'

Graham checked his watch. He'd best sort out this
Richards business pronto.

Perched on the tip of a high branch of the peppercorn
tree, Charlotte rang the last-called number. Hannah's
breathless voice answered.

'Where are you?'

'Open the window.'

Hannah raced to the window and threw it open.
She looked below expecting to see Charlotte scaling
the walls somehow but there was no sign of her.

'Up here.'

Hannah's eyes travelled upwards. Charlotte waved,
ended the call and dropped. Hannah thought she was
going to plummet to the ground but Charlotte's hands
latched onto the branch. Now she hung from it,
swinging to build momentum like a trapeze artist.

'Hannah?' It was Graham at the door. 'Open up.'

Charlotte was arcing up higher, the window several
metres away but below her. She counted. One ...

In a panic Hannah looked from the window to the
door. She charged to her bed, seized the mattress and
flung it onto the floor.

Mr Graham barked, 'Hannah, what on earth are
you doing?'

In the tree, the sun's rays tingling her otherwise
chilled face, Charlotte concentrated on that opening
below her. 'Two ...'

Hannah backed slowly towards the door, eyes on
the window, gripped by fear but unable to look away.

'Three.'

Charlotte let go, arcing down, feet out ... She
dropped below the gable, below rows of bricks, right
through the window and WHAM! Onto a mattress, a
split second before the door opened and Mr Graham,
flanked by an eager Emma and Rebecca, entered.

Mr Graham stopped dead at what he saw. Charlotte
Richards, lying on a mattress on the floor.

Charlotte took great delight in seeing the disappointment
etched on the faces of Emma and
Rebecca. One word edged its way from Mr Graham's
lips.

'Explain?'

Hannah looked nervously to Charlotte.

She stood, dusted herself off and said, 'Falls.'

She'd lost Mr Graham.

'Pardon?'

'We've been practising falls. Had Lucinda known
how to fall she might not have injured herself so badly.'

Graham nodded. 'Good thinking. And how are you
feeling today?'

'Oh,' said Charlotte, staring at Emma with her
brightest smile. 'Absolutely wonderful.'

She needed some kind of miracle. And miracles just
didn't happen to Caroline Strudworth. No, all her life
she'd been the person who bought a ticket in every
raffle but had never won so much as a cupcake.
Sometimes she would buy a whole book of tickets.
The meeting with Lucinda's father had not broken
the mould. It had been worse than depressing –
catastrophic in fact. As she always did, Miss
Strudworth parked her Volkswagen perfectly aligned
in the car port so that the driver and passenger doors
were equidistant to the walls. How ironic that those
like Mr Hayes-Warrington, who made their living by
the law, were those capable of the greatest injustice.
Somewhat robotically, Miss Strudworth exited the
garage and was crossing towards the main building
when her eyes found Charlotte Richards trotting
towards her. On Leila!

'Oh, Charlotte, she's back!' Strudworth saw the
marks on Leila and let out a little stifled cry. 'They
hurt her. Poor girl.'

She rubbed Leila's muzzle.

'Apparently it was some illegal logging operation.
They were using her to cart the logs.'

Miss Strudworth uttered something about the
world as we know it coming to an end.

'And how did she get here?'

Charlotte had prepared for that.

'The Parks and Wildlife people.'

'That was very good of them.'

What was even better of them was that they had
agreed to keep silent about the details of the rescue.
Charlotte could sense something wasn't right with Miss
Strudworth. There was an underlying sadness about
her as she looked around at the grounds of Thornton
Downs. She had a fair idea what the problem might be.

'How did things go with Lucinda's father?'

'Not awfully well, I'm afraid.'

'What do you mean? How much does he want?'

'Put it this way. If I sell Thornton Downs I might
walk away with my car and enough for a small flat in
the city.'

Charlotte didn't know what to say. She knew how
much Thornton Downs meant to Miss Strudworth.

'But it wasn't your fault, it was Chadwick's.'

'I explained that Chadwick was no longer with us.
He said, "You mean he's dead?" I said "Unfortunately
not, but I have dismissed him from Thornton Downs
and the last I heard from his mother he had been
forced to take a job as a yak handler in the Gobi
Desert." But it was all to no avail.'

She gazed out at the Australian bush. It was just
beginning to glow with the new day's light.

Charlotte couldn't believe it.

'There has to be something we can do.'

Strudworth sighed.

'Charlotte, we're talking more than a million dollars.'

Strudworth gave Leila a comforting pat.

'I'm glad you have Leila back.'

Then she walked slowly towards the main building.

Charlotte looked Leila in the eye.

'We have to do something, Thornton Downs is her
whole life.'

Leila said, 'I don't have a lazy million floating
around. The trouble with being a horse, nobody pays
you. It's all freebies but no cash.'

A crazy idea was beginning to brew in Charlotte's
head.

'How did Mr Gold's latest movie do, do you know?'

'I think it opens this weekend but I don't need a
crystal ball to tell you it's going to tank.'

Charlotte was aware that modesty wasn't Leila's
strong point.

Leila continued. 'Feathers will do a nice cameo but
Sarah-Jane can't carry a movie without me. They used
a couple of fillies in my place but, you know, it's like
steak and spam. I feel sorry for Tommy Tempest and
Mr Gold, they always did right by me but this movie
has the smell of death.'

Joel Gold's office was on Hollywood Boulevard just past
San Vincente. Unlike many of his peers, Mr Gold did
not go for show. There was no modern Swedish design
furniture, no expensive oil paintings on the walls and
very little sunlight. The office was dumpy, crammed
with a soft leather couch and armchair and a massive
desk, which usually contained a pile of scripts almost
to the ceiling. Mr Gold sat in his favourite, well worn
leather swivel-chair. Tommy Tempest stood looking
over his shoulder, staring at the computer screen as live
box-office takes were forwarded direct from movie
theatres all around the country.

The atmosphere was akin to a funeral. Joel stabbed
a finger at the screen.

'New York is down eighteen per cent.'

'We've still got the mid-west.' Tommy tried to
remain upbeat. 'Sarah-Jane always does well in –'

His voiced slowed to a despondent crawl at the
figure from Illinois just flashing up. 'Chicago. Down
thirty per cent? That can't be right.'

A banner scrawled across the screen:
'CORRECTION'. Tommy brightened.

'Told you.'

But the new figure was 'down thirty-one per cent'.

Joel Gold moaned. Feathers, perched above them
in his cage, felt a lump in his stomach. This had been
his chance for stardom but the Leila replacements just
weren't up to it.

As if reading his thoughts, Joel Gold said, 'We're
not blaming you, Feathers, your audience approval
ratings were solid.'

Feathers puffed out his chest.

Mr Gold's intercom buzzed and Sophia, his P.A.,
came on.

'Mr Gold. I have a call from a Miss Charlotte
Richards in Australia.'

'I don't know her. How did she get my number?'

'She says she rides Leila. She's from a place called ...'

'Thornton Downs. Yeah, put her through.'

On the other end of the line, Charlotte had never
been so nervous.

'Hi, Charlotte, it's Joel Gold. How can I help?'

Leila had prepped her to cover the mouthpiece.
Leila whispered the answer.

'It's more how I can help you.'

Charlotte's voice trembled. Riding away from
loggers was one thing, talking to movie producers was
quite another.

'It's more how I can help you, Mr Gold.'

Miss Strudworth sat at her desk in the gloom, staring
up at the portrait of Princess Anne.

'Life isn't fair, is it, Your Royal Highness? You know
that more than most.'

There was a knock on the door.

'Come in.'

Charlotte edged in. She was surprised to find Miss
Strudworth sitting at her desk without any lights on.

'Yes, Charlotte, what is it?'

'I believe I might have a way to save Thornton Downs.'

'Even if we had the hottest cake stall in Mumbai,
I doubt we'd get the funds.'

Charlotte took a deep breath.

'Leila.'

'Leila?'

'She's a movie star.'

Strudworth caught a glimmer of where Charlotte
was going with this.

'
Was
a movie star. She attacked her producer and
director.'

'They are willing to give her another chance. In fact
they are prepared to pay a million dollars for her to act
in their next movie.'

Charlotte saw Strudworth flip backwards out of
sight. There was a loud thump as she hit the floor.

'Miss Strudworth?'

Two hands gripped the desk and Miss Strudworth
pulled herself up.

'Did you say ...?'

'A million dollars. As you are Leila's owner, Mr
Gold is also prepared to offer you, in addition to the
upfront fee, three points of the back end if it grosses
more than forty-five million U.S. dollars.'

This was word for word what Leila had told her to
ask for when she had been negotiating terms.

'You spoke to Mr Gold yourself?'

Charlotte shrugged, 'I had a little insider help.
Somebody I know spent some time in Hollywood.'
Charlotte leaned over and placed Joel Gold's personal
number on the desk.

'He's expecting your call.'

It had seemed like a good idea at the time but now
Leila wasn't so sure. She was trotting by the border
with Milthorp, an excited Charlotte on her back.

'So Mr Gold said yes?'

'Yep. You're going to be a movie star again. What's
the matter? Isn't this what you wanted?'

'I gotta be honest, Charlie. I've been out of the
game a while. Maybe I've lost my edge.'

'You'll be better than ever.'

'You know, L.A. can be fabulous. The pool parties,
the free canapés. But there's pressure too. You're
always worried your next film might be a turkey.
And if it's not, that means more pressure the next
time.'

'You'll be fine.'

Something else was worrying Leila.

'Say it goes well. They might want to keep me.'

Charlotte smiled, 'No way. They've agreed that after
the film you come right back.'

'But the film takes six weeks to shoot.'

'Time for you to catch up with Feathers and the rest
of your pals.'

Leila blurted it out.

'But by the time I come back, you'll have another
mount.'

'They're going to shoot in our holidays.'

That mollified Leila for a moment. But then she got
scared of six weeks without Charlotte. She'd been
a wreck without her for just six days.

'I'll miss you too much.'

'No, you won't.'

Leila hated that. Here she was being genuine and
Charlotte was dismissing it.

'I will too. I know I can be a difficult princess at
times, but I have a heart. I'll miss you like anything.'

'You won't. I'm coming too.'

Leila couldn't believe her ears. She did a little skip.

'What?'

'Yes, after you turned crazy and bit them last time
they decided you needed a handler. I'm coming. And
so is Miss Strudworth.'

Leila really had a spring in her step.

'In that case, I'm showing you the town. We're
going to Disneyland. I got a pal, Romero, he works at
Frontierland and he can sneak us in the back way for
free. And Universal, I can get passes. And there's a
place on Sunset near Vine that does the best pancakes.
You wait till you try those. Heaven. And we have to go
shopping on Rodeo Drive ...'

Leila was still jabbering as they disappeared into
the bush.

Charlotte had never been out of the country before
and, in truth, she was more than a little scared at the
thought of going to America, but if she and Leila
could help save Thornton Downs then she didn't have
a choice. Besides, if it meant being with her best
friend, she'd gladly ride to the end of the earth.