Turbulent Times for Timmy Tortoise:
A story for
the Very Young or Naive
Everything Timmy Tortoise did was slow. He talked slow, he
walked slow and when he thought at all, it was slowly. Good thing that Timmy
was an actor.
Hiram Hare was quick at everything. He talked quickly,
hopped quickly, ate quickly and made quick decisions. Hiram was Timmy’s agent. (An
agent is a person who tells you that they love you every day. They help you to
get acting jobs and when you get paid, they get to have part of the money.)
One day an email arrived on Timmy’s tablet with a loud ding.
“Garsh,” said Timmy, like he did every time the tablet made
a noise. He opened the email. It was from Hiram. He read it slowly and thought
about it for about half the morning. (The best word for thinking slowly is
“ponder”. It might explain the word “ponderous’, but maybe not.)
“It’s a job,” said Timmy at last. “Garsh.” (Timmy also said
“Garsh” when he was confused. He said “Garsh” a lot.)
Timmy’s cell phone rang. It was his agent. “Well,
whatdayathink, babe?” (Hiram called all his actors ‘babe’. ‘Babe’ doesn’t mean
baby in Hollywood. It means something else but nobody is sure what. Hollywood
is where people make movies with lots of car chases and explosions.)
“Garsh, Hiram. I think that doing a western will be...”
“Yeah, yeah,” said the impatient agent. “It’s good box
office to do a horse opera.”
(Hiram used a lot of slang words that nobody needs to
understand. Just pretend that he is a typical adult.)
“But...” said Timmy.
“Now, I know that you’ve never played a lead before...” said
Hiram quickly.
“Yeah, and...”
“I know that you’ve never done a love scene with an A list
actress...”
“Sure, but...”
“But it would be great for your career, babe! Shooting
starts Saturday, Universal, lot 6. I’ll courier over the contract and your
script!”
“Hiram!” said poor Timmy, but the agent was already dialing
another one of his actors.
Timmy was scared. He did not know how to ride a horse. He
did not know how to kiss. He liked doing voices for cartoons and commercials
for McDonalds. He wasn’t sure that he could do the movie. “Garsh...” he said
again, wandering into the field next to his house.
“What’s the matter, Timmy?” It was Clementine the Cow,
Timmy’s best friend. She always helped him when he was confused or scared.
“Aw, Hiram wants me to do a movie!” said Timmy.
“Why Timmy, that’s good news, not bad news!” said the cow.
“Yeah but, garsh!” said Timmy. “It means learning how to
ride a horse and kiss!”
“That does sound scary,” said Clementine. “But I can help
you.”
“How?”
“Well, I’m no horse but I think if you learn to ride on my
back, you can figure out how to ride a horse.”
“How about the kissing?”
“Well,” said Clementine. “Kissing is like using a straw to
drink milk. You make your lips go round like an O and then you put them on the
mouth of the lady. Then you make smacking sounds, like you’re really enjoying
the milk.”
“Garsh, Clemmie, you’re a jean-yuss!” said Timmy. (Timmy
probably means “genius” which is a very smart person like your grandpa.)
And so they spend a happy afternoon with Timmy practicing
kissing and riding.(But not at the same time.) By dinnertime, Timmy thought
that he was a pretty good rider and Clementine said he was. (He was a pretty
good kisser, except that sometimes he forgot to make an O and he slobbered on
Clementine instead of kissing.)
Just then the courier came with Timmy’s contract and script.
“Garsh!” said Timmy. “Lookit all the lines! I’ll never learn
them all!”
“Now Timmy,” said Clementine. “Let’s just start with page
1.” (Clementine was good at being calm.)
Timmy turned to page 1 and read his line: “Now you just wait
a cotton-pickin’ minute, Black Bart!”
“That’s good, Timmy!” said Clementine. (Clementine was also
good at being nice.)
“But why is it a ‘cotton-pickin’ minute’?” asked Timmy.
“Minutes can’t pick cotton.” (Timmy was also nice, but he didn’t understand
colourful expressions.)
“It’s just how people in the West used to talk,” said
Clementine.
“It’s hard to remember lines if I don’t understand them,”
said Timmy.
“Just picture a clock with the minute hand picking cotton,”
suggested the wise cow.
“Garsh,” said Timmy, shutting his eyes and picturing the
clock.
Soon Timmy was sure of all of his lines even the ones that
sounded stupid to him. Clementine and he paused to have a glass of water with
lime juice. Clementine said that it would be good for his throat.
Just then, Timmy’s phone beeped. It an incoming email.
“Garsh,” said Timmy. (Did you guess he was going to say “garsh”?)
“What is it?” asked the cow.
“It’s from Holly Helio, the actress,” he said in a very
small voice.
“She’s very famous,” said the cow. “What does she want?”
“She wants me to do lunch so we can go over the script,”
said Timmy.
“Garsh,” she said. (In
Hollywood, “doing lunch” or “taking a meeting” is when famous people poke at
salads and try to impress each other. It’s just as boring as it sounds.)
Timmy stepped into the expensive restaurant and sighed.
There was not a single hamburger on the menu and he was feeling hungry.
He saw Holly Helio sitting at a table wearing very big
sunglasses. (In Hollywood, nobody ever takes off their sunglasses, that way people
will know how famous they are. This means that they can never read menus. Maybe
that’s why waiters have to tell you what the specials are.)
“Garsh,” said Timmy sitting down beside the famous actress.
“Darling,” said Holly turning her face so that Timmy could
kiss the air in front of her face. (In Hollywood, people are always kissing the
air and calling you “darling.” It’s a super friendly place, but not really.)
The waiter came by and spent ten minutes telling them the
specials and how much he would love to work with Holly someday. (Everyone in
Hollywood wants to be an actor, especially the waiters. Maybe that’s because
being a waiter is not fun at all.)
Timmy sadly ordered the same kind of salad that Holly did
even though he didn’t know what rocket or arugula was. She smiled at him with
all her teeth.
“Now darling, to business,” she said, pulling out her
script. (I won’t tell you what she said for the next hour because it was very
boring.) Timmy started to feel very tired but he kept on nodding his head
because she was a famous actress.)
“Now darling,” said Holly finally. “What do you think of Hugh’s
choice of Mark to direct?”
Timmy’s head was in a whirl. Who was Hugh again? He just
nodded because Holly immediately said that she loathed Mark. (Loathing is when
you don’t like someone very much. You can tell when someone loathes you in
Hollywood because they call you darling a lot. It’s confusing.)
“Don’t you think that Kenny is a better choice?” said Holly
brightly.
Timmy nodded again. Kenny sounded like a nice name.
“He should be out of rehab in time...” said Holly pursing
her lips. (Rehab is a nice place where Hollywood people go to relax and learn
how to be nicer.)
“Garsh,” said Timmy, wishing that he could go and get a
burger.
“Look at the time!” said Holly.
“Must dash, darling!”
---
Timmy sat at McDonalds and had
two cheeseburgers and a large fries. For the first time that day, he had a big
smile on his face. He was smiling because his tummy was full of burger but also
because Timmy had made a decision. He would tell Hiram Hare that he was not
going to make the western. He would say, “Hiram, I just want to do cartoons and
commercials!” Hiram would understand. Hiram was his friend.
.
“Are you kidding me?” screamed Hiram Hare
“Garsh Hiram, I...”
said Timmy.
“You can’t be serious,
babe! This movie will put you on the A-list in this town!” (In Hollywood, they
have a special list of very important actors. This is the A list. When you are
a really good actor, but not as popular, you are on the B list and you make
less money. It’s like when the teacher puts you in the Eagles reading group
instead of the Mud hens.)
“Is it the money?” asked Hiram. “You say the word, babe, and
I can get you more!”
“No...it’s just that....” said Timmy.
“Think of the EXPOSURE!” screamed Hiram. (Exposure means
that everybody knows who you are. Or at least what your publicists say you are.
Publicists are nice people who smile a lot and are always talking on their cell
phones. They tell everybody they know how nice and smart you are. They keep
people from thinking that you are just as ordinary as they are. If you do very
bad things, they tell people that you are going to rehab because you are very
tired. They have to tell lots of fibs.)
“I don’t care,” said Timmy. “I don’t want to do anything but
commercials and cartoons!”
“You’re serious,” said Hiram in a very sad voice. (He was
saying goodbye to all the money in his head and all the nice things that he was
planning on buying.)
“You’re a good agent, Hiram,” said Timmy. “But I gotta be
me.”
MORAL: Always be who you are. Don’t try to be something you
are not. (But don’t try this in Hollywood or everyone will think that you’re
stupid.)
