Famous by Todd Strasser Read Free Book Online

over the head shots he’d spread around the table: Avy in a dozen different poses, all looking back at us. A plethora of Avys. “Let’s focus on me. You have to help me figure out which one to use.”
    â€œI like the one with you smiling,” I said.
    â€œI think you should use the serious one,” said Nasim.
    â€œWe have to decide, guys,” Avy said. “The American Movie and Television Academy convention is this weekend. I have to pick a shot and get a couple of hundred dupes for the agents, since my supergood friend Jamie won’t use her connections to help me get one.”
    â€œThat is so not true!” I gasped, feeling hurt. “I did too try to help you get an agent.”
    â€œOh, right,” Avy scoffed playfully. “Carla sent me to two talent scouts, and then she stopped answering my calls. Some people have to see twenty or thirty agents before they find one they connect with.”
    â€œWill there not be many aspiring actors just like you looking for agents at this convention?” Nasim asked.
    â€œIt’s not about numbers,” Avy said. “It’s about desire. You’ve got to show them you want it. That you’ll eat it, sleep it,
kill
for it. You know that Elijah Wood, Ashton Kutcher, and Constance Kelly were all discovered at the AMTA?”
    From inside my bag came a vibrating buzz.
    Avy checked his watch. “That would be Carla.”
    I held the cell phone under the table, where it was less likely to be spotted by a lunch monitor. The text message read, 63 5th Ave. Naomi F. Preggers?
    â€œWhat’s the assignment?” Avy asked.
    â€œCatch Naomi Fine with a baby bump,” I said, and, because Nasim was seriously celebrity challenged, I added, “Big TV star. She plays Cassandra on
Single and Loose.
”
    Nasim nodded, although I had a feeling he had no idea what
Single and Loose
was. I turned back to Avy. “Is she married?”
    Avy, the school’s numero uno celebrity media slut, shook his head. “She’s dating that high-end Italian hairdresser? Marco with no last name? He used to go out with Ashley Olsen. Only . . . I thought I read that Naomi was shooting a movie in Toronto.”
    I started to get up, pulling a tattered copy of the school directory out of my bag and dropping it on the table. “Do me a favor? See if anyone at school lives at sixty-three Fifth.”
    While Avy checked the directory, I headed for the washroom. Cell phone use is supposed to be against the rules, but in private school we’re taught to be discreet about breaking them (rules, not cell phones). I locked myself in a stall and called Carla back.
    â€œNice spread in
New York Weekly,
my dear,” she said in a voice made gravelly by years of smoking.
    â€œMore like totally amazing, right?” I said. “Just imagine, your client goes from teen newshound to teen newsmaker.”
    â€œDon’t get a swelled head,” my agent cautioned. “What goes up always comes down.”
    That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, but Carla’s advice was not to be ignored. She was old enough to be my grandmother and had been in the celebrity business forever.
    â€œWord is that Naomi’s ob/gyn doc is here in the city,” she said. “My source says she was displaying morning-sickness-like symptoms on the Toronto movie set.”
    â€œWe know who the doctor is?” I asked.
    Carla sighed. “If only, sweetcakes. Wouldn’t that make life easy.”
    I flipped the phone closed. After school, I would have to join the usual cast of scruffy photogs and videographers who were no doubt already hanging around outside 63 Fifth hoping to get a lucky shot of Naomi losing her lunch on the sidewalk. But I didn’t have to wait until thento start working the assignment. I had other resources at my disposal.
    â€œBingo.” Avy was pressing his finger down in the school directory when I got