Moving Pictures

wasn’t a help. “You’ve got a navel in your diamond,” he hazarded.
    “I’ve come to terms with that,” said Ginger, flexing her shoulders in an effort to make everything settle. “It’s these two saucepan lids that are giving me problems. Makes you realize what those poor girls in the harems must suffer.”
    “And you don’t mind people seeing you like that?” said Victor, amazed.
    “Why should I? This is moving pictures. It’s not as if it’s real . Anyway, you’d be amazed at what girls have to do for a lot less than ten dollars a day.”
    “Nine,” said Gaspode, who was still trailing at Victor’s heels.
    “Right, gather round, people,” shouted Dibbler through a megaphone. “Sons of the Desert over there, please. The slave girls—where are the slave girls? Right. Handlemen?—”
    “I’ve never seen so many people in a click,” Ginger whispered. “It must be costing more than a hundred dollars!”
    Victor eyed the Sons of the Desert. It looked as though Dibbler had dropped in at Borgle’s and hired the twenty people nearest the door, irrespective of their appropriateness, and had given them each Dibbler’s idea of a desert bandit headdress. There were trollish Sons of the Desert—Rock recognized him, and gave him a little wave—dwarf Sons of the Desert and, shuffling into the end of the line, a small, hairy and furiously-scratching Son in a headdress that reached down to his paws.
    “…grab her, become entranced by her beauty, and then throw her over your pommel.” Dibbler’s voice intruded into his consciousness.
    Victor desperately re-ran the half-heard instructions past his mind.
    “My what?” he said.
    “It’s part of your saddle,” Ginger hissed.
    “Oh.”
    “And then you ride into the night, with all the Sons following you and singing rousing desert bandit songs—”
    “No one’ll hear them,” said Soll helpfully. “But if they open and shut their mouths it’ll help create a, you know, amby-ance.”
    “But it isn’t night,” said Ginger. “It’s broad daylight.”
    Dibbler stared at her.
    His mouth opened once or twice.
    “Soll!” he shouted.
    “We can’t film at night, Uncle,” said the nephew hurriedly.
    “The demons wouldn’t be able to see . I don’t see why we can’t put up a card saying ‘Night-time’ at the start of the scene, so that—”
    “That’s not the magic of moving pictures!” snapped Dibbler. “That’s just messing about!”
    “Excuse me,” said Victor. “Excuse me, but surely it doesn’t matter, because surely the demons can paint the sky black with stars on it?”
    There was a moment’s silence. Then Dibbler looked at Gaffer.
    “Can they?” he said.
    “Nah,” said the handleman. “It’s bloody hard enough to make sure they paint what they do see, never mind what they don’t.”
    Dibbler rubbed his nose.
    “I might be prepared to negotiate,” he said.
    The handleman shrugged. “You don’t understand, Mr. Dibbler. What’d they want money for? They’d only eat it. We start telling them to paint what isn’t there, we’re into all sorts of—”
    “Perhaps it’s just a very bright full moon?” said Ginger.
    “That’s good thinking,” said Dibbler. “We’ll do a card where Victor says to Ginger something like: ‘How bright the moon is tonight, bwana.’”
    “Something like that,” said Soll diplomatically.

    It was noon. Holy Wood Hill glistened under the sun, like a champagne-flavored wine gum that had been half-sucked. The handlemen turned their handles, the extras charged enthusiastically backward and forward, Dibbler raged at everyone, and cinematographic history was made with a shot of three dwarfs, four men, two trolls and a dog all riding one camel and screaming in terror for it to stop.
    Victor was introduced to the camel. It blinked its long eyelashes at him and appeared to chew soap. It was kneeling down and it looked like a camel that had had a long morning and wasn’t about to take any shit from anyone. So far it had kicked three people.
    “What’s it called?” he said cautiously.
    “We call it Evil-Minded Son of a Bitch,” said the newly-appointed Vice-President in Charge of Camels.
    “That doesn’t sound like a name.”
    “’S a good name for this camel,” said the handler fervently.
    “There’s nothin’ wrong with bein’ a son of a bitch,” said a voice behind him. “I’m a son of a bitch. My father was a son of a bitch, you greasy nightshirt-wearin’