Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli Read Free Book Online

for the jury, and Chico. Chico was the handheld close-up camera. According to Mr. Robineau, our faculty advisor, a student named Chico once begged him to be a close-up camera kid. Mr. Robineau gave him a tryout, but Chico was so skinny he practically collapsed under the camera. The job went to someone else and Chico went to the weight room. By the following year Chico had muscles, and the camera was like nothing on his shoulder. He got the job, and he was brilliant at it. He gave the camera his own name. “We are one,” he said. When he graduated, his name stayed behind, and from then on the close-up camera and its operator were a unit called Chico.
    The host and the victim were each fitted with a thimble-size clip-on mike; the jury passed around a hand mike. Opposite the stage was the glassed-in control room, sound-insulated from the rest of the studio. That’s where I worked, wearing my headset, watching the monitors, directing the shots. I stood at the shoulder of the technical director, or TD. He sat at a rack of buttons, punching up the shots I ordered. Also in the control room were the graphics and audio people. Mr. Robineau was there as faculty overseer, but basically the students worked everything.
    Kevin’s job was to get things started: intro the victim, ask a few opening questions, stir things up if the jury was slow. Usually the jury was on the ball. Typical questions: “Does it bother you that you’re so short?” “Is it true that you like so-and-so?” “Do you wish you were good-looking?” “How often do you take a shower?”
    It almost always added up to entertainment. At the end of the half hour, as we cued credits and music, there was always a good feeling in the air, and everyone—victim, jury members, studio crew—mingled and became students again.
    We filmed the shows after school, then broadcast them that night—prime time—on local cable. About ten thousand homes. Our own surveys said at least fifty percent of the student body watched any given show. We outdrew most of the hot sitcoms. We expected to top ninety percent for the Stargirl show.
    But I had a secret: I wished no one would watch.
    In the month since we had scheduled the show, Stargirl’s popularity had dropped out of sight. Gone were ukuleles from the lunchroom. More and more kids saw her cheerleading behavior as undermining the basketball team and its perfect record. I was afraid the boos for her might spread from the court to the studio. I was afraid the show might turn ugly.
    When Stargirl came in that day after school, Kevin gave her the usual briefing while Mr. Robineau and I checked out the equipment. As the jury members straggled in, they were not clowning around or tap-dancing on the stage as jurors usually did. They went right to their seats. Stargirl was the one tap-dancing. And mugging for the cameras with Cinnamon the rat licking her nose. Kevin was cracking up, but the faces of the jurors were grim. One of them was Hillari Kimble. My bad feeling got worse.
    I retreated to the control room and shut the door. I checked communications with the cameras. We were ready. Kevin and Stargirl took their seats. I took one last look through the plate glass that separated the set from the control room. For the next half hour I would see the world through four monitors. “Okay, everybody,” I announced, “here we go.” I cut the studio mike. I looked over my control-room mates. “We all set?” Everyone nodded.
    Just then Stargirl lifted one of Cinnamon’s front paws and waved it at the control room and said in a squeaky voice, “Hi, Leo.”
    I froze. I came unraveled. I didn’t know she knew my name. I just stood there like a dummy. Finally I waggled my fingers at the rat and mouthed the words “Hi, Cinnamon,” although they couldn’t hear me on the other side of the glass.
    I took a deep breath. “Okay, ready music, ready intro.” I paused. “Music, intro.”
    This was the moment I lived for, launching the show.