"BSC087 - Claudia Kishi, Live From WSTO! - Martin, Ann M" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

Ashley was beaming, too.
The engineer caught a glimpse of us and waved his pencil. I waved back.
Mr. Bullock took us to a huge stockroom with nothing but shelves of records, tapes, and CDs. "Our library," he called it.
Next we saw the conference room. In there, a bearded, dark-blond-haired guy was putting labels on tapes while eating a donut.
"Bob, meet Claudia and Ashley," Mr. Bullock said.
"Heyyy, the two winners," he said, offering his hand. "Nice to meet you. Did Mr. Bullock manage to scare the daylights out of you yet?"
Ashley and I laughed. Neither one of us dared to say yes.
"Well, I'll leave you three," Mr. Bullock said. "Come talk to me if you have questions."
We said good-bye, and Bob pulled up a couple of folding chairs for us. I got three cups of water from a cooler in the corner. From under the piles of tapes, Bob pulled out a legal pad.
"Your first dangerous mission, should you accept it," he said, "will be finding two things: a title and a format. By format, I mean, how exactly are you going to divide up the hour? What kinds of features? How long? Will they be continuing? Varying from show to show? Stuff like that."
Nod, nod, nod, nodded Ashley and I.
"At some point, you'll want to look at these notes," he said, pushing the legal pad toward us. "Just some stuff I did in New York. Like . . . 'Mr. Science/ a call-in show on which kids learn weird science facts from this wisecracking, street-smart character. Kids loved that. Then we had 'Book Talk.' Kids reviewed books and actually spoke to their favorite authors. You get the idea." He looked at his watch. "Now, I have a few things I need to do. Discuss amongst yourselves. I'll be back."
He rose from his seat, shot out the door, and closed it behind him.
I was alone in the room with Ashley Wyeth.
Suddenly 1 wished I had decided on the tuba, after all.
"I, uh, didn't know you were interested in radio," I said, trying to be friendly.
Ashley shrugged. "The contest sounded fun. It was sort of, you know, spur of the moment."
"But won't this take time away from your art?" I asked.
"I guess. But art isn't everything."
I laughed. "1 never thought I'd hear you say that."
"Yeah. I guess not. Well, people change, huh?"
"Mm-hm. Sure. I guess."
Ashley pulled the legal pad close to her. "Okay, let's see . . ." she said. "We can definitely do without this 'Mr. Science' thing."
"Oh. I liked that idea."
"Are you serious?" She raised her eyebrows. "Well, you're the boss, aren't you?"
I did not like her tone of voice, but I let it pass. Instead I leaned over and read, " 'Tom the Taxi Driver' Ч special guest who answers kids' questions about feelings and behavioral issues." I burst out laughing. "Nahhh."
"Really? I think that sounds perfect," Ashley said.
Slowly but surely, my heart was starting to feel like the Titanic. Sinking fast.
Chapter 5.
"How about 'For Kids Only,' " I suggested, taking a taco plate from the cafeteria display.
"I don't think we should have the word kids in the title." Ashley picked up a small sprouts salad, inspected it carefully, then finally put it on her lunch tray. "It's kind of patronizing."
Patronizing? You patronize places, right? Restaurants and stores? I had no idea what she was talking about.
" 'The Young Adults Education Hour'?" I suggested.
"Please."
" 'Yo, Dudes'?"
Ashley furrowed her brow. "It might be too informal."
"It was a joke, Ash."
I smiled. Ashley smiled. I grabbed two bowls of chocolate pudding and headed into the lunch room.
Have you ever met anyone with absolutely
no sense of humor? That's Ashley.
Our meeting at WSTO had been pretty much a disaster. We hadn't fought or anything. But we were in two different worlds. Immediately we'd forgotten Bob's instructions and started talking about features. Ashley would suggest something like "A Mozart Moment" or "Art Gallery Calendar," and I'd pretend to consider it. Then I'd come up with "Stoneybrook Top 40" or "Guest Movie Review," and she'd kind of snort and sniff and say, "Well, you're the boss."
So I had to humor her dumb ideas, and feel bad about mine.
Then Bob had returned to the conference room and reminded us to concentrate on a title and format. He'd suggested we meet him the next day with some "concrete ideas."
And here we were, the next day, and our concrete ideas were still in the mush stage.
" 'Something for Everyone,' " Ashley said as she sat at a table.
"Nice," I lied. "But that name could be for anything. Kids should hear the title and know what the show's about right away."
Ashley scowled and fed herself a mound of sprouts.
I didn't want to spend the whole day bickering about the title. So I decided to change the subject.
I pulled a pen and legal pad out of my shoulder bag and set them on the table. On the top page of the pad, in big letters, I had written Format? Underneath were notes I had taken.
"I was thinking," I said, "that maybe we should divide the show into three segments Ч "