Only in the Movies Read Free Page A

guess I’ll have to settle for that. In the meantime, I’ll leave the new inscription on the—our—van.”
    Mom ceremoniously plunked some kind of fruit pie in the middle of the table. It had collapsed and now resembled a deflated basketball leaking blue juice.
    “Who’s for dessert? Jake?”
    I was so relieved I said yes.

CHAPTER THREE
    “Y OU’LL PROBABLY WANT TO go to that arts school on York Avenue,” my father said as we drove to the building-supply store on The Queensway. It was the Saturday morning after I broke the news, and we were picking up lumber to repair a deck for a friend of one of Mom’s clients.
    “I’ll never get in there.”
    “Why not?”
    “Instant told me you have to audition or something. I’m not qualified for anything artsy.”
    Instant Grady had been my best friend at 7th Street School, but he had enrolled in the music program at the York School of the Arts right after grade eight. I went to Lakeshore Collegiate.
    “Do they even
have
a film course?” Dad asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Well, we better find out.”

    That night, at the urging of my overly organized parents, I visited York’s website to find that Instant had been accurate in describing the prerequisites to enrol. I was pretty sure I had the academic requirements covered, but my hopes took a nosedive when I read that I would be asked to attend an interview, where I would either “audition”—which I assumed meant blowing a horn, or acting, or pulling a rabbit out of a hat—or show somebody a portfolio. What a portfolio entailed I had no idea. I was certain, though, that I didn’t have one, and that my chances of acceptance were a notch below zero.
    When I told my mother between appointments in her little hair salon, she was irritatingly chirpy. “Maybe they’ll ask you to sing or something,” she guessed as she swept grey hair into a dustpan. “You have a nice voice. Or you could dance. Or recite a poem. I know: pick a couple of poems and memorize them. Old poems. I’ll bet they like old poems.”
    “A portfolio?” Dad asked at dinner. He forked a lump of watery mashed potatoes into his mouth and looked thoughtful. “Hmm.”
    “I’m going to call the school and ask them,” Mom said. “How hard can it be?” Then, offering a plate of roundish, hockey-puck-like things, she added, “Porkchop, dear?”
    Mom phoned the next day. She and my father conferred—which meant they argued good-naturedly—as they loaded the dishwasher. From my room I could hear their voices rising and falling like a budgie in a windstorm. “Don’t worry,” Mom said the next day over the top of Mrs. Burgess’s newly hennaed head. “Your dad and I have it all figured out.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    T HE Y ORK S CHOOL OF THE A RTS sat on a few acres of ground bordering the greenbelt that flanked the Humbolt River on its sinuous path through the city to the lake. The land had once been owned by the Carnaby family. The original Carnaby had emigrated from Europe back in the mists of time and made his millions in nuts and bolts. His son took his inheritance from Carnaby Fasteners and struck off on his own, piling up even more money manufacturing pet foods and confectionery, especially Carnaby Creams—artificially flavoured and coloured gooey stuff coated with milk chocolate made without milk or chocolate.
    Mr. Creams built a stone mansion on twenty acres of land along the Humbolt River, retired from the cat-kibble and bonbon businesses and devoted his time and cash to culture. The Carnaby Wing of the city art gallery was built with his money, and just about anyone in town who painted, sculpted,tootled on a clarinet or visited museums found themselves looking at the name Carnaby on a wall or exhibit. In his will he gifted most of his land to the city for a park, and the remainder of his money was stashed in a fund to establish an arts school. The stone mansion went to the school. Over the years the mansion was given over to