chute opened, a green-striped starburst against the drab background of gray clouds. Mickey cupped his hands over his forehead to better follow the path of the glide.
“I told ya!” Tuna said excitedly. “Look at him fly!”
Wahoo anticipated a clumsy landing, but the parachute came in softly and right on target, fluttering to rest in the center of the pond.
“Cut!” the director shouted into his walkie-talkie. “That was brilliant! Now let’s go get him.”
All three airboats blasted off in unison; nobody had time to fit on their earmuffs. Link was the first to get there. He cut the engine and coasted on a line toward the billow of silk. Wahoo could see that Derek had successfully detached himself from the parachute and was treading water.
Link stepped past the other passengers and poised himself for the retrieve. Once he was within reach, he grabbed the straps of Derek’s skydiving pack and hoisted him aboard. Everybody applauded except Wahoo and his father.
Because it wasn’t really Derek. It was a professional stuntman whose safari shirt had been padded with foam and whose hair had been dyed orange-blond to match that of the TV star.
As soon as the stuntman peeled off his blindfold, Tuna stopped clapping and her face fell.
The director called out, “Nice job, Ricky!”
“Easy ride,” said the stuntman.
He was at least ten years younger and thirty pounds lighter than Derek, and his tan looked real-not sprayed on.
“Did you know about this?” Tuna demanded of Wahoo. “Did you know the Jump was bogus?”
Wahoo said, “I swear I didn’t.” But he wasn’t all that surprised.
“Okay, people, heads up!” The director raised both hands clasped together, as if aiming a gun.
The helicopter had looped back around and was slowly descending toward the airboats gathered in the pond. A large metal basket with a man inside was being lowered on a cable. The man was dressed the very same way as the parachutist, and his pudgy bare legs dangled through the canvas webbing of the basket.
“Pathetic,” Tuna said.
As the chopper dropped lower, the gusts from its whirling blades churned the surface of the pond and made the lily pads flutter and shimmy. When the dangling basket was almost touching the water, the real Derek Badger stood up, tied on his blindfold and hopped out.
The helicopter shot straight up, dragging the basket out of the scene.
“Action!” barked the director, and the cameraman in the front of his boat resumed taping, zooming in on the now-swimming figure.
On cue, Derek began grunting dramatically with each stroke. Within seconds he’d managed to tangle himself in the cords of the waterlogged parachute.
“Help!” he gasped.
The director responded with an enthusiastic, upraised thumb.
“No, I’m bloody serious,” Derek bleated. “Somebody help me before I drown!”
“Cut!” Raven Stark shouted. “Cut! Cut!”
“Okay,” the director said impatiently. “Let’s cut.”
Mickey Cray looked quite amused when he turned to Wahoo and Tuna.
“His Phoniness has arrived,” he said.***
The director called a short break before the big scene in which Derek would trek alone across the saw grass plain. Having seen the script, Wahoo knew what was coming. His father didn’t.
“Yo, Mr. Cray!” the director shouted. “Can we have a word?”
The other airboat drew closer, and Mickey stepped aboard. The meeting was brief. Mickey slipped into the waist-deep water and motioned for Wahoo to do the same.
As they waded through the lily pads, Wahoo said, “They need a snake, right?”
“In fifteen minutes. How’d you know?”
“What else did they tell you?”
“They want me to make it swim up to Dorko so he can grab it.”
“Pop, there’s something else.”
“Lemme guess.” Mickey’s eyes moved back and forth across the pond, scanning for slithery movements. “He’s gonna kill it.”
“That’s right.”
“And cook it for supper.”
“So they showed you the script?” Wahoo asked.
“Naw, they didn’t have to.” His father lunged forward and reached into the water. He came up empty-handed, saying, “That was just a little bugger.”
Wahoo hadn’t even seen it. His dad’s eyesight was astounding; obviously the double vision had gone away.
“So, what are you gonna do?” Wahoo asked.
“Just wait and see.”
“Hold on, Pop-not a cottonmouth!”
Mickey smiled mischievously. “ That would be intense.”
“No, that would be crazy. You’ll wind up in jail.”
Cottonmouths, also known as water moccasins, were foul-tempered and hard to handle. They were also highly poisonous.
“Don’t even think about it,” Wahoo warned his father.
“It’s not like the man’s definitely gonna die-I’m sure these folks are smart enough to keep a snakebite kit in the first-aid bag. But if not…”
“Okay, Pop, that’s enough.”
“Hey, I’m only kidding. You need to chill.”
Wahoo spied a small ribbon snake scooting through the reeds and started sloshing in pursuit. His dad told him to let it be. By now they were fifty yards from the airboat. Wahoo could see Tuna standing in the stern, close to Link. They appeared to be talking, although Wahoo couldn’t imagine what the conversation might be.
“Whoa!” Mickey signaled for him to stop. “There’s a good one.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“Be still, son. He went down.” Mickey stared into the tea-colored water, ready to pounce.
“Is it a moccasin?” Wahoo was trying not to sound anxious.
“Aha!” his father exclaimed, and thrust both arms underwater. He brought up a banded water snake about three feet long.
Wahoo was relieved. Water snakes release a foul musk, but they aren’t venomous. This one whipped back and forth, snapping wildly, before Mickey got a grip behind its neck and dunked it again, to wash off the stink.
“Four minutes to spare,” he reported after checking his wristwatch.
“Not too shabby,” Wahoo admitted. He’d never seen a better snake catcher than his father.
But now what? he wondered.
As they slogged back toward the boats, Mickey didn’t seem upset about what was supposed to happen to the newly captured reptile.
“Hey, let’s call him Fang,” he said.
Wahoo shook his head. “Let’s not.”
“How come?”
“Because.” Wahoo was annoyed. Why give the poor thing a name if it would be roasting on Derek’s TV campfire by sunset?
The director’s grin seemed to split his sweaty beard.
“Super!” he crowed when Mickey showed him the captured snake. “Derek, have a peek at tonight’s delicious entree!”
“Oh, surprise me,” said Derek, who was busy getting his tan freshened and his facial makeup retouched.
As soon as Wahoo climbed back in Link’s airboat, Tuna grabbed the fleshy part of his left arm and
