l.o.v.e. spells trouble (and a horse)

chapter nine

The next Tuesday morning, at ten AM, the auditions for parts in the movie, L.O.V.E. Spells Trouble, were about to get underway. Of course, four of the main parts, Joshua, Agnementine, Tootles and Small Head Infection Ted had already been assigned to Taylor, Zac, Isaac and Tom Cruise respectively, but there were a lot of other characters in the movie. L.O.V.E. Spells Trouble was already the most anticipated movie of 1998, Western movies being very much in vogue again.
The whole Hanson family had been invited along to watch the other characters be auditioned for. Taylor, especially, was keen to know who would be playing the female lead, Christobelle. They were led into a smallish white room with a row of chairs along the back wall, and were asked to sit down. They complied, and were introduced to Ada, the casting director. “Hiit’snicetomeetyou,” she said, so fast no one could understand her. The Hanson family were soon to learn that she always spoke like this.

Ada settled down in her director’s chair and waited for the first candidate for a part in the movie to begin. Ada glanced down at her clipboard and saw the name, M. Pfieffer. The woman was auditioning for the part of Christobelle. M. Pfieffer started to read one of Christobelle’s monologues in Act IV. After two or three minutes, Ada yawned. She might do for “Woman #2, Ada thought. If we get desperate.
“Don’t call me, I’ll call you,” she told the woman. Security escorted her out the back door.
Next was some tiresome old man auditioning for the part of Vincent, the sheriff. The man, G. Depardieu, read with great feeling and passion. The problem was, he wasn’t reading the script, but some poem in French about how depressing autumn was.
“De ça, de la...” moaned the man, practically weeping, now.
Ada yawned. “Thatwasverynice,” she said at the speed of light.
“Huh?” grunted the man, still caught up in the throes of passion.
“D’you think you could play the part of a young woman?” she asked, trying to speak slowly.
“Probably,” said the man despondently; he was coming down from his poetry-induced high.
“Good,” said Ada. “You have the part of Millicent. Forget the French, but keep the passion. You’ve just been jilted, okay?”

Isaac, Taylor and Zac spent several hours of watching auditions and laughing at the man who thought he could get the part of Vincent just by faking a heart attack in the auditioning room. Even the news from the hospital that the man HAD been having a heart attack did little to dispel their mirth. Nevertheless, by three in the afternoon, the boys were getting a little bored.
Zac gazed around the small room, their prison for the last five hours. Diana and Walker were playing rude-word hangman. Lacking a piece of paper, they’d used the wall as a substitute. Ada thought the resulting destruction of the paint looked very groovy and decided not to call in the cleaners at all.
Young Mackenzie was engrossed in slowly ripping to pieces the only finished, revised and edited copy of the hundred-page movie script. Zac stifled a grin; Mackie was certainly showing signs of inheriting loyalty to the family motto, “Crush, Kill, Destroy”. Jessie and Avery weren’t doing too badly themselves. They’d managed to discover the cupboard in which the two million dollar recording apparatus was kept. The small black machine had lots of delightful little buttons you could press, and some of the dials emitted the funniest noises when you twisted them too far around! Zac watched as Jessica applauded little Avie; she’d managed to find a way to pull a twisted mess of colourful wires out of the back of the recorder. Jessie cut them off with the Swiss Army Knife she always carried in her back pocket, and started braiding the wires into her hair. Avery pressed a button on the expensive little gadget and a small, acrid cloud of smoke twined its way up to the ceiling.
Zac’s gaze moved to the youngest member of his family. Zoe seemed to be the most destructive of them all. Even Zac himself had never thought of what his baby sister was now doing. Zoe was teething, and had discovered that the load-bearing wall at the back of the room was very good to chew on. A few more hours and the bricks would be near collapse.
By comparison, Zac’s elder brothers were only being mildly ruinous. Taylor was engaged in slowly banging his shiny blond head against the wall. Sure, he’d been doing it since eleven that morning and there was now a sizeable dent in the thin plaster of the wall, but it just didn’t compare to Zoe’s astounding effort. And Zac really would have expected more from Isaac. Ike HAD been scratching his sharp fingernails down the blackboard in the corner of the room for the last four and a half hours, but that was more annoying than destructive.
Zac shook his head sadly. “C’mon, guys,” he said to Taylor and Isaac. “Take a break. Let’s go get something to eat.”
Taylor looked up dizzily. “S-s-sh-sssssuuuuurrrre,” he said drunkenly. “D-d-d-doing this r-r-really t-t-takes it outta y-y-yoooouuuuu.” Zac supported his older brother as they wandered out of the auditioning room and down an innocent, unsuspecting hallway.

After adding to the confusion already plaguing the recording studio by hijacking a cleaner’s cart and making a raid on the kitchens clad in wigs and Roman gladiators’ clothes from the costume department, Isaac, Taylor and Zac wondered what to do next.
It was then that they saw him. Leonardo DiCaprio, sitting on a bench next to the drinking fountain, head in his hands.
“G’day Leo, how’s it goin’, mate?” asked Zac, who was beginning to adopt Australian colloquialisms after about two months in the country.
“It’s horrible,” said Leo despondently. “I came all the way down under to star in a documentary on dying camels’ religious significance--”
“Why would you come to Australia to do a documentary on camels?” whispered Taylor.
“Shut up, Taylor,” said Zac. “There are actually more camels in Australia than in Arabia or wherever they come from.”
“Wow,” whispered Taylor. “That’s amazing.”
“--And,” continued Leonardo, “They cancelled the whole thing after the producer was bitten by one of the camels and died!” Leo gave a small sob.
“Camels’ bites are poisonous, y’know,” said Zac knowledgeably. Suddenly he had a Brilliant Idea. “Leo, just walk down that hallway there and there’s a little room where you can audition for a part in another, even better, movie.”
“Gee, thanks, Zac,” said Leo gratefully. He stood up, stretched, blew his nose, straightened the part in his hair, and walked off down the hallway. Hanson sat down to wait.
About fifteen minutes later, they spotted a figure waltzing slowly down the hallway with himself. “How’d it go?” asked Zac.
“Wonderful,” said Leo gaily. “I have the part of a sheriff, Vincent! I’m so glad I came up with the Brilliant Idea of auditioning.” He skipped off down the hallway.
“Hey!” said Zac angrily. “That was MY idea!” He yelled after Leo one of the better Aussie curses he’d learnt in the last few weeks. “May all your chooks turn to emus and kick your dunny door down!”

A little while later Ada came pirouetting out of the auditioning room, waving her clipboard above her head gleefully. Apparently this meant that a) the casting was completed, and b) she’d just got to meet Leonardo DiCaprio.
“Although,” she said, a note of gloom returning to her voice. “We still haven’t found anyone to play Christobelle. The auditions will have to be continued to some extent.”
Since she was speaking at the speed of light, Isaac, Taylor, Zac and their family guessed what she’d just said and then asked (demanded) to be taken to McDonalds.
“Oh, can I’ve a look at who you’ve cast so far?” asked Taylor. His eyes wandered down the sheet of paper nonchalantly.

cast and crew of l.o.v.e. spells trouble

“Yeah,” he said. “I would’ve chosen those people, too.”

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