“Humph!” snorted Miss Scrimmage. “How disgraceful! A wealthy young man like that should be buying his own flowers!” And she stormed off, muttering something about filing more lawsuits.
The next reaction to the floral tribute came from Goose Golden. At quarter past seven, he wandered out of his trailer without his glasses. Since Miss Scrimmage’s prize-winning cacti and some of the larger ferns were as high as three metres tall, he saw only a blur of green where Jordie’s trailer was supposed to be. In a panic, he decided that the camper and his client had been towed away during the night. Howling, he ran forward, tearing his white pyjamas and scratching his hands and face on the cactus needles, which also lifted the toupee clean off his head. In his distress, he surged forward, running headfirst into the trailer door.
It was the first time anyone had seen Seth Dinkman laugh since Jordie Jones’s hockey debut.
* * *
All the commotion went unnoticed in Dormitory 3, where Bruno and Boots were laying out gear for their wilderness survival trip. They had the day off classes to make sure they had exactly the right equipment and supplies and to get plenty of rest for tomorrow’s 5 AM departure.
“Let’s see,” said Boots, checking the things spread out on his bed. “Sleeping bag, underwear, socks, boots, flannel shirts, jacket, three pairs of jeans, long johns and raincoat.” He put a toothbrush, toothpaste and a comb into a plastic bag and tossed it onto the pile. “I think that’s everything.”
Bruno was sitting on the edge of his bed, arms folded, sulking. In his open duffel was exactly one item — bug spray.
“Bruno, there aren’t going to be any bugs this early in the year.”
Bruno didn’t look up. “There are always bugs. Who else would be stupid enough to go on this trip? Us and bugs.”
Boots took out his own bag and began jamming his clothes inside. “Hurry up. Mr. Fudge’ll be by any second to check our stuff.”
His roommate didn’t seem to hear him. “I can’t believe The Fish ordered me to stay away from the movie — just like that! Where am I ever going to get another chance to be in a movie?”
“Why pin it on The Fish?” said Boots. “For him, he’s been great about this. Blame Dinkman and, mostly, blame yourself. Think of all those second chances Jordie got for you. You goobered up every one of them. Now, why don’t you just chalk it up to experience and forget it?”
“That’s easy for you to say,” said Bruno. “You’re in the movie, tossing around some stupid baseball while Cutesy walks from point A to point B. So are Larry, Wilbur, Pete — even Sidney finally made it to a crowd scene. Everybody’s in that idiotic movie. I mean, do I have the plague or something?”
At that moment, there was a knock on the door, and Boots admitted Mr. Fudge.
“Now, let’s see how we’re doing,” the Housemaster said briskly, examining Boots’s duffel. “Yes. Excellent, O’Neal. A very efficient job of packing. And how’s Walton coming along?” He turned his attention to the bag with the bug spray. “Hmmm. Travelling light, I see.”
“Sorry, sir,” mumbled Bruno. “I’m having a little trouble getting my act together today.”
“Here are your kits.” Mr. Fudge placed two canvas drawstring bags on the floor at the door. “Speed it up, Walton. Just follow O’Neal’s example. And make sure you don’t forget anything. Survival in the bush is eighty percent planning and preparation.” And he marched out to check on the other campers.
“I wonder what the other twenty percent is,” mused Bruno darkly. “Outrunning the cannibals?”
“Bruno, we’re going to a provincial park! There aren’t going to be any cannibals — except maybe Wilbur if the food runs low.” He opened up his kit and dumped its contents on the bed beside his bag. Out spilled a tin mess kit, a coil of rope, a small bottle of alcohol, gauze bandages and a Swiss Army knife.
Bruno stared at the pocketknife. “Good thing Sidney’s not coming. We’d be sliced to bits on the bus.”
Boots had to laugh. “Just hurry up and pack.”
In the room Wilbur and Larry shared in Dormitory 2, Coach Flynn stood, arms folded, as Wilbur removed jar after jar of peanut butter from his luggage.
“Couldn’t I just keep one?” whined the big boy.
Flynn laughed. “This is a survival trip, Hackenschleimer. We take along minimal rations and forage for the rest.”
“Forage?! If you think I’m going to eat a chipmunk —!”
Larry butted in, almost hysterical. “He means berries and roots and nuts and stuff. Take it easy. You can live for five days without peanut butter.”
Wilbur said nothing, but his expression clearly indicated that he didn’t think so.
Down the hall in room 201, Elmer Drimsdale was excitedly preparing for a comprehensive nature study. He was busily filling his backpack with spiral notebooks for observations and small containers for specimens. For the next five days, no leaf would go unsketched, no soil would go unsampled, no wildlife unstudied in all of huge Algonquin Park.
Like Bruno and Wilbur, Mark Davies also had reservations about the trip.
“I can’t go,” he told Sidney, his roommate, for the umpteenth time. “What about my documentary? I’ll miss all the stunts!”
Sidney shrugged. “Don’t tell me. Tell The Fish.”
“I already did. He said no one gets out of Die-in-the-Woods.”
“Well, don’t let it spoil the trip for you,” counselled Sidney. “When I went, we had a lot of fun.”
Mark stared at him. “You mean to tell me you went for a five-day trip without busting the whole thing up?”
“Of course,” said Sidney defiantly. He looked thoughtful. “Well, there was that one time —” He frowned. “— and then I — yeah, and —” He shrugged at Mark. “Okay, I did six clumsy things. That’s not so bad.”
“Not for you,” his roommate agreed. He hefted his video camera. “I guess I’ll get in my last filming. I hope there’s something good going on.”
* * *
“I can’t believe you still haven’t even started packing,” said Boots as he and Bruno strolled through the greenery at the northern fringe of the campus.
“That’ll take two seconds. I can do it anytime,” Bruno replied lethargically.
“Bruno, if you think just because you’re not packed you won’t have to go on the trip, you can forget it!”
“It’s not that,” said Bruno. “Now that I know I’m not going to be in Academy Blues, I can’t get up very much energy for anything, let alone Die-in-the-Woods.”
“Hey, look,” said Boots, pointing towards the east lawn, where the three-metre-high model of the Faculty Building now sat, finished.
“I can’t look at that thing anymore,” said Bruno. “I keep expecting a miniature Fish to come out the door and put me to work washing very small dishes.”
“I guess we won’t be here to see them blow it up, or burn it down, or whatever,” commented Boots.
Bruno sighed. “You want to know what the worst part is? Cutesy hasn’t even come to see us, after all we’ve done for him!”
“Like putting him in the hospital?”
“Like assisting in his social development,” Bruno amended. “We gave a poker night in honour of his birthday, we brought him to a dance, we let him join our hockey team — we adopted him, Boots! And where is he now? He knows we’re going away tomorrow and he’ll be gone when we get back. I think we deserve at least a good-bye.”
Boots nodded. “I can’t figure that out, either. Maybe he’s planning to come by sometime tonight.”
“Maybe,” said Bruno dubiously. “But I’m not holding my breath.”
“Hey,” Boots pointed up the path ahead of them. “Isn’t that Jordie over there?”
The two hurried to the top of the grassy knoll to join the blond figure poised on a racing bike. Just as Bruno was about to hail the actor, one of Seth Dinkman’s production assistants ran up the hill. “Relax,” he called to the rider. “Camera three’s acting up
. It’ll be twenty minutes, minimum.”
The figure dismounted and removed his jacket and a blond wig, and Bruno and Boots could see that he was not Jordie, but a short, slight, dark-haired man in his early twenties.
Galvanized with excitement, Bruno grabbed Boots and hauled him into the bushes.
“What’s the big idea?” Boots complained.
“Shhh!” Bruno hissed. “That guy — he’s a double for Cutesy! That’s why he’s wearing the wig!”
They fell silent. Bored and restless, the man began to explore his surroundings. Whistling nervously through his teeth, he wandered by them on the path.
Bruno waited until he had gone, then dragged Boots over to the bicycle. Flopping to the ground, he crawled forward and peered over the top of the hill. At the bottom was the Academy Blues crew, camera lenses directed towards the path down. “See that?” he whispered. “They’re going to film this guy, posing as Cutesy, riding down that path.” His eyes sparkled. “Only it isn’t going to be him. It’s going to be me.”
Boots was horrified. “Are you crazy? You promised The Fish no more sneaking into the movie!”
“Not exactly,” grinned Bruno. “He said he didn’t want to catch me anywhere near the east lawn. Well, this isn’t east. It’s north.”
“It’s north and east,” said Boots.
“Look,” said Bruno, “no one’s going to catch me. The reason they can use a double for this scene is because it’s a long shot. All you can see is the wig and the jacket. It can be me just as easily as that guy.” He scrambled into the jacket and clapped the wig on his head. “See?”
“Well, what about the guy, then?” Boots challenged. “You think he’s going to let you do his job?”
“That’s where you come in,” Bruno explained reasonably.
“Me?!”
“Go find him,” Bruno instructed, “and tell him the scene’s been delayed another half hour. Then engage him in conversation to make sure he doesn’t come back here. Simple.”
“I won’t do it!” said Boots stubbornly. “I’m not helping you get suspended!”
Bruno looked hurt. “Well, that’s just great. First Cutesy spits in my eye and now my best friend. All I ever wanted to do was be in the movie. But no. Melvin can’t put himself out for me.”
“Aw, come on, Bruno —”
“Well, at least now I’ve learned my lesson,” Bruno continued dramatically. “Friendship isn’t a true thing. It’s just something you have until it becomes inconvenient. Then you throw it away like garbage, old shoes, apple cores, the two of clubs —”
“Oh, all right!” cried Boots. “I’ll do it! But when we get expelled, you have to explain it to my folks.”
Bruno awarded him a hearty slap on the shoulder. “You’ll see! It’ll be great! Now get going!”
Boots jogged off in search of the Jordie Jones stand-in. He found the man along the same path, just around a corner, sitting in a small grove of pine trees, munching on a chocolate bar.
“Hi,” said Boots. “Mr. Dinkman sent me with a message.”
“Yeah, yeah. More trouble with camera three, right?”
“Right,” said Boots, pleased to have the story made up for him.
“Let me guess — another thirty minutes?”
“At least,” confirmed Boots.
“It figures,” the man muttered. “They call me at midnight L.A. time, throw me on the red-eye to Toronto — five hours in the air — rush me up here and sit me on top of a mountain to wait.”
Boots smiled lamely. “That’s show business.”
“Tell me about it!” said the man. “The stars — they get treated like royalty. Nobody makes them wait. But we stuntmen — forget it!”
Boots goggled. “You’re a stuntman?”
The man nodded. “You’re talking to the best, kid. A specialist. We’re the guys they call when the regular stunt people chicken out.” He broke his candy bar in two. “Want some Baby Ruth?”
But Boots was already running up the path, screaming, “Bruno! Get off that bike! It’s a stunt! Bruno!” He roared around the corner just in time to hear a megaphone voice declare, “Action!” For a split second he could see Bruno atop the bicycle, poised at the edge of the incline. Then his roommate pushed off and dropped out of view.
“No! Come back! It’s a stunt!”
Heart pounding, he ran to the crest of the hill and looked down. Bruno was rocketing down the path on the bicycle, the hair of his fine blond wig streaming out behind him, his feet on the pedals just a blur. He shot to the bottom of the hill and levelled off, streaking toward the film crew.
Boots frowned. That was the stunt that the regular people found too dangerous? They brought a guy all the way from California for this? To ride a bike down a hill? What was the big deal about —?
BOOM!!!
The ground under Bruno’s front wheel blew to pieces, sending dirt and grass flying in all directions. A geyser of water shot straight up with tremendous force, hurling bike and rider three metres in the air. At the highest point atop the pillar of water, Bruno let go of the handlebars and curled himself up into a ball. He hit the ground with an enormous splash, rolled and lay flat on his back, dazed. Water poured down on him.
“Cut! Perfect! Print it!” came Seth Dinkman’s voice over the megaphone.
Boots was tearing down the path as fast as he could go without gravity taking him head over heels to the bottom. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the real stuntman roaring over the crest of the hill, bellowing, “What happened? What was that noise?”
Boots kept on running, his eyes on his roommate’s inert form. The stuntman would be furious, but all he could think of was that Bruno was probably dead.
“Shut off the water,” ordered the director.
A technician turned a large valve, and the geyser petered out.
Dinkman jogged up to where Bruno lay. “Charlie, that was fantastic! I can’t believe something finally went right!”
The entire crew gathered around the weary and waterlogged stuntman, including Mark Davies and his video camera.
Bruno sat up, and the wig fell off.
The director took one look at him and dropped his megaphone in the mud.
“Aaaaah!”
Chapter 11
Nothing and Nowhere
“You mean after all that you’re still not in Academy Blues?” Boots asked in disbelief.
Bruno sighed wearily. “It’s a conspiracy. You can’t be in a stunt unless you belong to the stuntmen’s union. They should have told me that before they tried to blow me off the face of the earth.”
“You’re the one who made such a big deal about the scene where they were fixing the sewer pipe. You said, ‘How can it be broken if it didn’t break yet?’ Well, today it broke.”
“Yeah,” said Bruno. “But nobody said it was going to break on me. Who would have thought one little grapefruit could do so much damage?”
“You’ve got no right to complain!” said Boots hotly. “You make your own problems. Mr. Dinkman didn’t exactly handcuff you to that bike and push you down the hill, you know.”
Bruno crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to his ears. “You’ve made your point, Boots. And let me tell you, I am finished with the movie business! I don’t want anything to do with an industry where they take a guy and put him through what I went through today, stuntman or not. I’ve never been so scared in all my life!”
“Boy, was Mr. Dinkman ever mad!” said Boots.
“No kidding. He said it’s going to cost eighty thousand dollars to reshoot that scene.” Bruno sighed heavily. “At least he’s not telling The Fish. That would be the finishing touch to this perfect day. I’d get on that bike again before I’d face The Fish over this.”
“Lucky for us, so would Dinkman,” Boots replied. “The Fish would kick the whole movie company out if he knew one of us got caught in a stunt, even if it was our fault.” He climbed into bed and reached for the lamp. He paused. “I
guess Jordie’s not coming.”
“Guess not,” mumbled Bruno sleepily.
Boots hesitated. “Maybe we should go over there, and — you know — say good-bye.”
“Not me,” was Bruno’s reply. “Cutesy knows where to find us. If he didn’t come, it’s because he wasn’t interested.”
“Yeah, but maybe with all the media people around he hasn’t had a chance —”
“He’s the big hotshot,” said Bruno. “If he gets sick of doing interviews, he just has to say ‘bug off.’ Can we say that to our teachers when homework gets too heavy? Besides, if I get caught on the east lawn, I’m hamburger. Let Cutesy take some risks for a change.”
“Why are you being so stubborn?” asked Boots. “At least talk to the guy.”
Bruno rolled over, and at first Boots thought his roommate was asleep. But then Bruno’s voice reached him.
“Call me stupid, call me old-fashioned, call me a wimp — friendship is not a two-week hobby. Not even for movie stars.”
Boots switched off the light, frowning. “I’ve got this weird feeling we forgot to do something.”
Bruno groaned. “Whatever it is, it can’t be as important as me getting some rest. The sooner this lousy day ends, the better.”
“Goodnight.”
Bruno was already snoring.
* * *
They were awakened by an insistent banging at the door.
Bruno rolled over and opened one eye just a crack. It was pitch-dark. “Are you crazy?” he moaned plaintively. “It’s the middle of the night!”
“It’s four forty-five,” came Mr. Fudge’s voice. “Get up, Walton. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”
“The trip!” hissed Boots, darting to the bathroom and splashing cold water on his face.
“Oh, yeah, the trip,” mumbled Bruno. “How could I forget about the — uh — uh — whatever it was —” He sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed. That was as far as he got. His upper body slumped back to the mattress.
“Hurry up, Bruno!” coaxed Boots frantically, slipping into his clothes. He zipped his duffel shut and tossed it over his shoulder, tucking his sleeping bag under the strap.