Chapter Four…

Mia's POV

This is so totally cool. I know I'm supposed to be in school right now, but I think being a part of a real movie is an excusable reason to skip a few classes. And besides, Michael needs me. I'm like, helping him out on how to be more Josh-like.

It's not as if I'm going to let it interfere with my school work. Not too much anyway.

Right now, Michael, as Josh, is doing the part where he gives Mia

advice in sports. Apparently, I'm so uncoordinated that I just stand there while people kick balls at me. Puh-lease. I may not be the most coordinated person, but I can at least block a few balls!

"Use more hand actions," I helpfully prompted Michael as he walked past

me to get his water bottle.

"What?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at me. I don't think he'd even realized I was there.

"Use more hand gestures or whatever. Flick your hair. And use facial expressions. Maybe throw a little grunt in there for fun."

"You want me to grunt?" Now he's raising both eyebrows at me.

"Yeah. Just put a little more personality into Josh. He may be an ass

for using me, but you're not playing him quite right. Trust me. Grunt."

He frowned at me, like I'm a waitress who served him soup with a fly in it. "I don't grunt," he said sternly, throwing his water bottle down onto the grass.

As he walked away, back towards the set, I saw Jacques look at me, then go over and have a word with Michael. Michael argued about something, looked back at me (though it wasn't a look of longing, I regretfully noticed), then swore and walked off.

I wonder what he said. Jacques I mean, I don't need to know the explicit language that Michael used. I prefer to think of his as an innocent without knowledge of foul language.

Michael's POV

She's here all the time! We've only been filming for about a week, but

she's been here everyday! I didn't think she was too happy about the film being made in the first place, so why is she always hanging around?

But the worst thing, worse than her just hanging around, is the fact that she thinks that she can give me, yes ME, advice on how to act. Ha!

Today we're outside on the soccer pitch, kicking a few balls at Mia's character, and then I go over and give her a little advice. Not exactly a hard scene. But Mia thinks that I'm not putting enough 'personality' into Josh. That I should, get this, grunt.

Even Jacques thinks I should grunt!

No, actually, he thinks I should do whatever the little princess tells me to do. But as I told him, there's no way I'm grunting.

I walked back to Sarah and just raised my eyebrows. She knows what I'm going through, and raised her eyebrows back. Her eyebrows are quite funny actually, they've made them all bushy and big for the movie, it's hilarious. She was doing a scene yesterday where she was talking to her grandmother, and all of a sudden one of them just fell off. I'd love to see one of Princess Mia's actual eyebrows fall off. Maybe that would make this whole experience with her worthwhile. Maybe.

Back to the scene, I guess.

After the PE teacher told Mia to 'block some balls!' she called me

(Josh) over to take Mia's place.

"So I was watching you earlier," I said to Sarah, who was standing

there like a deer caught in headlights. She's so funny. "And um…You're way tense; you know what I'm saying? You've gotta use your hands. The ball comes to you over here and you don't just do this, you've gotta go for it. You've

gotta think like the ball. You've gotta be the ball. You've gotta stop it. You know what I'm saying?"

Sarah continued to look at me with awe, and just like real life Mia, I turned away from her and called to everyone to 'Bring it on!"

"Cut!" Jacques yelled. "Michael, over here. Now!"

Hmm, do you think I'm in trouble? It's not like I purposely gave my character absolutely no character at all in that scene, just because

Princess Mia said to. No, I didn't do that at all.

"What?" I asked, with about as much enthusiasm as I'd just used for

Josh. "Did I mess up my lines? I thought I nailed them."

"Yes, you got them all right, but it's the way you said them. I thought

I told you to put some enthusiasm in it, some personality! And where was the grunt?"

"No, the princess told me to put some personality into it. I don't take orders from fourteen year old princesses, unlike some. I thought you were the boss around here? Taking orders from a fourteen year old now, are you?"

"Michael," Jacques said sternly. I've really got him rattled up now.

"There are things you don't understand about, okay? So when I tell you to listen to Princess Mia's suggestions, listen to them! And when I tell you to hang out with her, you hang out with her! Now I want to see some grunting!"

If he wants to see some grunting, I'll give him some grunting.

The next time we ran through the scene, I flicked my hair more than

Marcia Brady; I used more hand and facial gestures than is almost humanly possible.

And after my little speech to Mia, I let out such a grunt that it

rattled the microphone.

Sarah looked at me in amazement, she wasn't acting anymore. Then she

burst out laughing.

Everyone but Jacques started laughing then, including me. I doubled

over in pain because it's so bad.

After a minute, after Jacques yelled at everyone to settle down, I looked up to see that there's one other person not laughing.

Princess Mia.

She looks so upset, she's about to burst into tears. Eventually she walked off. Back to school, probably.

If I were a sensitive kind of guy, I'd feel so bad right now. But I don't. It's too funny to feel guilty about it.

The fluttering in my stomach must just be from laughing so much.

"Okay, okay!" I cried, raising my hands in a false surrender. "Let's do it one more time, I think I can get it right this time."

"Michael," Jacques hissed at me. "You'd better get it right this time."

I don't know if it's because of Jacques pathetic threat, or because I actually do feel a little bad about Princess Mia, but I ran the scene again, and I did it perfectly. I even flicked my hair a little.

And at the end, although it wasn't a grunt exactly, I made a little noise that seemed to satisfy Jacques, and get him off my back. For now anyway.