The Real Z

School Daze

At school the next day, Z can’t stop daydreaming about how to open her CloudSong documentary. Should she start small with her own block, or go big with the Space Needle or the Locks? She’s so deep in shot ideas that she completely misses a class discussion, and only snaps back to reality when Ms. Garner calls on her to solve a fraction problem on the SMART Board in front of everyone. Z stumbles through it, gets lucky with an easy question, and sneaks a relieved glance at Lauren, who’s biting her lip from the row across.

After class, Lauren teases Z about being “so lucky” she’s good at math. The two weave through the crowded hallway to the media room, tucked off the library among banks of computers students use for projects, and home to Camera Club, which meets twice a week during free period with their faculty advisor, Mr. Mullolly. On the way, Lauren shows off the script she’s written for a new club video, “The Horrible Homework Hacker,” and Z tucks the pages into her silver-and-green polka-dot folder, where she keeps her Camera Club ideas. Lauren pushes to get together and finish their Kit gold-rush video so Z can focus on CloudSong, but Z insists she has it under control. Lauren tries to speak up and say that Z shouldn’t have to handle it alone, but she’s interrupted by Mr. Mullolly.

Mr. Mullolly hustles the girls into the meeting, where Andrew and Maddie, friends who joined Camera Club with Z and Lauren last fall, have saved them seats. Maddie, the baseball team’s only girl and its ace pitcher, is reading the sports section, which features a photo of Lauren’s game-winning soccer goal. Mr. Mullolly opens by celebrating the club’s hit interview with Quackers, the football mascot, hands Maddie a follow-up assignment, then gives Lauren and Z their next job, covering the night soccer game against Riverside, with Lauren doing bench reporting and Z filming fan reactions. Then comes the bad news. The club’s only camera was trampled at last weekend’s football game, and between the steep repair cost and a tapped-out school budget, there’s no money to fix or replace it. Mr. Mullolly tells everyone to improvise. Andrew grumbles that filming on phones looks unprofessional, then half-jokes that everyone should just tell their parents to play the lottery. That’s when it hits Z. She’s just been accepted into the CloudSong festival, and first prize is $1,500, more than enough for a new camera. She decides right then that if she wins, the prize money is going straight to Camera Club.

Buoyed by the plan, Z heads home to shoot her first real CloudSong footage, a rainy-day walk with Popcorn, dressed in her little raincoat and hat, filmed like the immersive walking video Gigi had sent. The peaceful shoot turns chaotic when Popcorn spots her archenemy, a squirrel, and drags Z into a sprint, slipping her leash just as she darts into the street in front of an oncoming car. The driver stops in time. Popcorn trots to the other side of the street and sits down, wagging her tail as if to ask what the fuss is about. A shaken Z scoops her into a hug and bursts into tears. Mom, who heard the tires screech from down the block, comes running to check on them both, and gently reminds Z that she doesn’t have to try to do everything at once, like filming, walking, and dog-wrangling.

As they walk home in the first drops of returning rain, Mom starts humming “Singin’ in the Rain,” explaining it’s a Gene Kelly classic she teaches every term. Listening to the lyrics, Z has her own flash of genius: since Seattle is famous for its drizzle, having rain in her movie would be just as classic as the song. She decides to ask Mari’s band, Needles in a Haystack, to record a remix of it, and to film them performing in the Seattle rain for her movie’s music video.