Read Online Prizes by Erich Segal - Free Book Online

and I’ll be at Music and Art. When will we ever see each other?”
    “There’s always the telephone,” he replied with a touch of sarcasm. But then he chivalrously volunteered, “Any night you need help with your homework, just call me up.”
    “I will, I will,” she chirped. “I guess I never had a chance to tell you, but I was sorry to hear about your mom and dad splitting.”
    “Thanks,” he replied. “I suppose it’s better for all of us.”
    “But will you ever get to see your father?”
    “Actually he’s just sent me a bus ticket so I can spend the summer with him in Hollywood.”
    “Gosh, that sounds so exciting. I wish I could go too.”
    Oh Rochelle, he thought to himself, his heart drumming. If only I
could
take you with me.
    “Be sure to send me a postcard.” She smiled seductively. “That is if you still remember your old friends.”
    Sandy would never forget his first visit to California.
    It was nearly lunchtime when Sid’s Chevy arrived at the gate of the Twentieth Century-Fox studios on the corner of Pico and Avenue of the Stars.
    The guard immediately recognized him, gave a kind of salute, and smiled. “Good morning, Mr. Raven. This is pretty late for
you.
”
    “Yeah, I had to pick up my boy at the station.”
    The guard waved them through with a cordial, “Hi there, young fellow. Welcome to Tinseltown.”
    Sid drove slowly to his parking place so that his son could drink in the sights of the studio. Indeed, for the first quarter mile they seemed to be in another era.
    Huge swarms of stagehands were busy putting up an elevated railway track, while others were hammering and nailing what looked like a row of old-fashioned brownstones—the set for
Hello, Dolly.
    In the commissary, a cavernous dining hall whose facade served as one of the buildings in “Peyton Place,” there was an elevated platform reserved for major moguls, a category for which his father did not yet qualify. The bigwigs would be joined by whichever stars were filming on the lot at that time. Today it was Charlton Heston, wearing an astronaut’s gear.
    Yet the most startling view was of the plebeians’ eating area, which seemed to have been attacked by a legion of gorillas—who were sitting everywhere, casually munching sandwiches and swilling coffee.
    Sid explained that these creatures were extras from an epic called
Planet of the Apes,
in which “a pack of overgrown monkeys chase Chuck Heston all over the map. It’s a dynamite concept.”
    Everyone seemed to know and love his father. Asthey ate their tuna on rye with pickle, Sidney was greeted by innumerable simians as well as other Hollywood animals. Sandy was awestruck.
    “Musicals are in,” Sidney declared to his son over that evening’s chili, and went on to explain that
The Sound of Music
had struck a vein and the American people were waiting for more of the same.
    “And I’ve got a notion for a blockbuster. Wait till you hear this, kiddo, it’s a real winner.”
    “What is it Dad?”
    “It’s called ‘Frankie’—a song and dance version of
Frankenstein.
”
    “That sounds great. But hasn’t that picture been done a lot of times?”
    “Kiddo,” his father pronounced, “in Hollywood there’s a saying, ‘If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing again.’ I’ve got five writers working on it already.”
    “Five? How do they all fit in the same room?”
    Sidney laughed. “That sounds like the stateroom scene in
A Night at the Opera.
No, that’s not how it’s done out here. They’re each working on separate versions. Then I get another writer to help me pick the best parts of each draft and stitch ’em together.
    “Do you know why it’s a guaranteed hit, sonny boy? Because it’s one of the sure-fire stories of all time. For centuries men have dreamed of actually growing life in the laboratory. So all we need is a new twist—which is why I’ve got these five overpriced eggheads typing away on treatments.”
    He then inquired