CHAPTER VI

An Unfortunate Gift

Judy acted on impulse. She thrust her own bottle of shampoo into Clarissa’s gloved hand.

“Take it,” she urged the surprised girl. “I don’t know why I bought it in the first place. Irene doesn’t need it. I’m sure she’d never use it. She’d probably think I was out of my mind to buy it for her.”

“Take mine, too. I don’t like the looks of the stuff when it’s spilled. And I’d be afraid to use it after what that druggist said,” declared Flo. “I wish—”

“Wait!” cried Clarissa before Flo could finish. “See what it does to me before you condemn it. I’ll be a glamorous new person because of this shampoo. You just wait and see what happens to me!”

Fear seized Judy. Suddenly she was afraid of what would happen. Already she felt herself in the grip of something she could neither explain nor understand. Was Clarissa in its grip, too? The girl’s mood had changed so suddenly it was alarming. Had the gift of two bottles of shampoo worked the transformation? Judy considered it unlikely.

“You’ve changed already. You don’t need to change the color of your hair,” she began.

“It’s drab.”

“No, it isn’t, Clarissa. I don’t know what makes you keep saying that. It’s just your imagination.”

The girl smiled impishly and tossed her head. A white scarf covered her hair except for a few stray wisps that were blowing in the wind. The ends of her scarf fluttered like white wings behind her.

“I do have an imagination,” she admitted as if revealing a secret she had meant to keep. “Sometimes it plays tricks on me.”

“That’s what it was when you thought the cashier stole your twenty dollars,” Pauline said. “You just imagined you gave it to him.”

“Did I?” Clarissa seemed ready to admit it. “You don’t suppose the wind could have picked the money out of my hand, do you? It’s fierce today, isn’t it? It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if it picked me up and carried me away.”

Judy laughed at that.

“I can just see you being swept up into the clouds with that white scarf trailing behind you. Like the witch who rides through the sky on Hallowe’en.”

“She’s the thirteenth fairy in Sleeping Beauty,” replied Clarissa, and she was laughing, too. “It was always my favorite fairy tale. I can hardly wait to see Irene—”

“She isn’t playing the part of Sleeping Beauty,” Flo interrupted. “She just introduces the show and sings.”

“I know. She told us. Sleeping Beauty is being played by a guest star, Francine Dow. I’ve seen her on television, and she’s lovely. I wonder if she uses golden hair wash.”

“Of course she doesn’t. Her hair is dark,” Flo said.

“No, it’s light,” Pauline contradicted.

Pauline and Flo were actually arguing about it.

“We’ll see what color it is when we reach the studio,” Judy told them, “not that it matters. I’m tired of all this talk about hair.”

“How much farther is it?” asked Clarissa. “It seems to me we’ve been walking forever in this wind.”

“We’re there,” announced Pauline as they rounded the next corner. “See the sign, GOLDEN GIRL SHOW. The theater looks a little sad, doesn’t it? They’ve turned an old movie house into a TV studio.”

Judy was eager to see how the cameras and other technical equipment were arranged inside the theater building.

“It’s warm, thank goodness!” she exclaimed as they entered, showing their pass to a man in the lobby. He waved a tired hand toward the left side of the theater.

“You’re early. Take any four seats,” he said with an uninterested drawl.

“Don’t we get a chance to see the dressing rooms?” Clarissa asked. “I’ve always wanted to see the dressing rooms of the stars.”

“We’ll see them afterwards, I guess. I wonder where the control room is. I think I’ll look around and see if I can find it.”

“Wait, Judy!” said Pauline. “I don’t think we should go exploring.”

But Judy didn’t see any reason why she shouldn’t leave her seat if the others saved it for her. She shook the snow from her coat and left it there so people would know the seat was taken.

Most of the folding seats had been removed from the theater to make room for the TV equipment. Those that remained were directly under the balcony. Judy hesitated a moment, looking around. Then she walked down the aisle between the rows of seats until she came to what was called the studio floor. Immediately she recognized the different kinds of cameras and microphones. The big mike boom, mounted on its three-wheeled platform, stood to one side. So did the dolly, its funny little up-in-the-air seat now empty. Judy gazed at it for a moment. Then she turned around. There on the balcony was the glass-enclosed control room with its monitors and flashing lights.

“I learned more than I thought I did on that tour,” she told the others when she returned to her seat. “The control room is just over our heads on what used to be the balcony of the old theater. There’s a movie on this channel now.”

“We’ve been watching it. Probably it’s being shown for the second time in this theatre,” Pauline said. “It’s so ancient I’m sure it must have been one of the pictures shown here before this building was made over into a TV studio.” She pointed. “See it! They have another one of those monitors suspended from a beam just over the middle aisle.”

“That’s wonderful!” exclaimed Judy. “We can watch Irene’s show on TV at the same time we’re seeing it on the stage. Oh, there she is!”

Judy broke off with this exclamation as the people in the surrounding seats began to clap. She joined them, clapping so enthusiastically that her hands smarted. Under the blazing overhead lights, Irene looked lovelier than ever. She had appeared from somewhere behind the star-studded curtain.

“Hi, everybody!” she said brightly when the clapping had subsided. “Welcome to the Golden Girl show. In the half hour before we go on the air there’s time to make you acquainted with some of the people important to the show.”

One by one they were introduced. Irene knew all the technicians and called them by their first names—the manager with his walkie-talkie, the boom man, the camera men and their helpers. One was adjusting the seat on the dolly.

“I’d get dizzy up there,” Judy whispered.

She had never before realized how many other people besides actors were needed to put on a TV show. The sound man, the lighting engineer, the director and his assistants in the control room—each had his own part to play.

“You people out there are part of the show, too,” Irene continued. “When the hands of the studio clock point to seven we will go on the air. In the meantime, I’d like to present four of my best friends to the studio audience.”

“She means us. How sweet of her!” exclaimed Judy.

“Me, too?” asked Clarissa, holding back a little as the others left their seats. “She can’t mean me. I only met her today.”

Judy laughed. “It doesn’t take Irene long to decide who her friends are. Come on!”