“Must have been during the three years you were dead,” I cracked.

  I looked around to see if there was a way to get out of talking with Dad. That’s when I noticed Mom about ten yards away, looking at us.

  Oh no.

  I would have thought Mom would faint or scream or something, seeing Dad alive after all that time. But she didn’t. She just stood there, frozen, her mouth slightly open.

  “Meredith!” Dad exclaimed, limping over to her. “You’re as beautiful as ever.” He went to kiss her, but she pulled her head back and folded her arms in front of her.

  “And you’re as…alive as ever, I see,” Mom said coolly.

  “You don’t look very surprised to see me, Meredith.”

  “I’m not,” Mom replied. “I always suspected you survived. Everybody always said you were indestructable, Joe.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I hoped to talk John out of doing this gag.”

  “It’s useless,” Mom said sadly. “He’s as stubborn as you are.”

  I didn’t know what to say. It was really weird and awkward seeing my mom and dad together again. Mom obviously didn’t like it one bit. Dad looked like he was happy to see her, but clearly that wasn’t the reason he had shown up.

  “John,” he said to me seriously, “I know I can’t talk you out of doing this gag. But I want you to know something. I’ve been thinking about why it’s so important to you to do it.”

  “Why?

  “Because I couldn’t do it,” he replied. “Remember that game we used to play when you were little? You would jump off the curb and I would jump off a chair, and then you would jump off the car and I would jump off something higher?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, the game is over. You won, John. While I was gone these past three years, you accomplished more than I did in my entire career. You grew up to be a man. You don’t have to prove that to me anymore.”

  His words rang in my ear like a bell. People always wondered why I did the crazy things I did. I always wondered why I did the crazy things I did. I never knew until that very instant. Suddenly it was all clear to me. I did what I did because I was trying to top my father.

  At that moment, Roland strode over. “Ready to rock and roll, Johnny?” he asked excitedly.

  “Roland Rivers, I want to introduce you to someone,” I said. “This is Joe Thyme. My dad.”

  “Joe Thyme?! You’re alive?” Roland said, trembling as he shook Dad’s hand like he was meeting the Pope or something. “I—I’ve memorized all your films frame by frame. You have been my inspiration.”

  “Great,” Dad said, unimpressed. “Look, Roland. The scene you’re about to shoot is not going to work. This river moves thirty-seven, maybe thirty-nine miles an hour at the edge of the falls. There’s no margin for error. If your helicopter is six inches too high, too far to the left or right, it will miss John. You obviously can’t use a safety net in this scene. If John goes over the falls, there’s a good chance his parachute will get tangled up in the rocks before it fully opens. It’s too dangerous, and I know a thing or two about danger. I’m asking you as a professional—and as John’s father—to call off the stunt.”

  Mom put her hand on Dad’s shoulder in silent agreement.

  Roland looked at my parents without saying anything. I could imagine what was going through his mind. My dad was probably the most daring stuntman in history. If he thinks a gag is too risky, it must be too risky. To send a thirteen-year-old boy into a situation like that—with the kid’s parents standing there telling him not to—would be crazy.

  On the other hand, Two Birds, One Stone was Roland’s dream film. If he canceled the gag right now—after Paramount put so many millions of dollars into it—he would probably never get the chance to make a movie like this again. In fact, if Paramount was angry enough, Roland might not get the chance to make any movie again.

  “You present me with a dilemma, Mr. Thyme.”

  Roland rubbed his beard and walked around in circles, as he always did when he had a tough choice to make. Finally, he whispered something into Dad’s ear and picked up his bullhorn.

  “Attention everyone!” Roland boomed over the parking lot. “Listen up.”

  Everybody in the cast and crew straggled over. Roland waited until the whole group had settled around him in a semicircle. He was about to speak when there was a commotion at the back of the crowd. I squinted my eyes to see what was going on.

  Ricky Corvette was making his way up to the front.

  “Ricky’s gonna talk! Ricky’s gonna talk! Ricky’s gonna talk!” everybody buzzed.

  Ricky whispered something to Roland, who nodded and handed him the bullhorn. Everybody leaned forward and hushed up quickly. Ricky hardly ever talks to anybody, unless they’re very rich, very famous, or can help his career in some way.

  “I have a short announcement to make,” Ricky said. “I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I decided that I’m going to do the Niagara Falls gag myself.”

  Everybody laughed. Clearly, Ricky was trying to loosen us up a little. Break the tension. It was a classy move, I thought. Very un-Rickylike.

  “No,” he said a little more loudly. “I mean it. I’m going to do the gag.”

  He meant it! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This might have been the biggest news to hit Niagara Falls since the Ice Age.

  For a moment there was stunned silence. When everybody realized Ricky wasn’t kidding and they got past the shock, the crowd started buzzing. It was as if it had just been announced that Christmas would be in July this year.

  Roland was the first to get to Ricky. The Paramount lawyers were right behind, pulling out their cell phones and dialing frantically. The rest of the crew just sat there, shaking their heads in wonder.

  My dad breathed a sigh of relief. Mom put her fists up over her head and looked up in the sky with her eyes closed, as if her prayers had been answered.

  Ricky’s mom let out a shriek, and then fainted. Somebody caught her before she hit the ground.

  “My decision is final,” Ricky said calmly. “So let’s shoot the scene, shall we?”

  “You’re crazy!” Roland shouted at Ricky, gesturing wildly. “You have no experience doing this! You’ve had no training! It’s suicide!”

  “I know how to paddle a canoe,” Ricky said. “I can do a chin-up on a bar. It doesn’t look so tough.”

  “I refuse to be responsible for your safety,” Roland said.

  “I’ll be responsible for my safety,” Ricky replied.

  “It’s way too risky,” one of the Paramount lawyers moaned. “This is a two-hundred-million dollar picture. We can’t risk you getting hurt. The insurance company won’t cover it. I won’t allow it.”

  “Fine,” Ricky said, getting up to leave. “Then get yourself another movie star. Either I do the stunt myself, or you can take my name off the credits.”

  “Wait!” the other Paramount lawyer cried. “You mean you want to sit in the canoe, right? Then they pluck you out of the water and Johnny will do the helicopter part, right?”

  “Wrong,” Ricky insisted. “I’m doing the whole gag from start to finish.”

  Ricky had a determined look on his face. There seemed to be no talking him out of doing the gag himself. Nobody could do anything about it. Paramount had invested too much money in the film to shut the whole production down. Ricky, the star that he was, had the power to do whatever he wanted to do.

  But nobody ever thought he would do this. Up until now, Ricky had always been content to have me replace him in any scene that didn’t call for a close-up.

  The Paramount lawyers did some frenetic cell-phoning to their bosses. They made Ricky sign a piece of paper saying Paramount wouldn’t be responsible if he got hurt. When they were done jawing, they went over and talked to Roland. He shook his head a few times, and then picked up his bullhorn.

  “Okay, people!” Roland announced, waiting for everyone to quiet down. “Money talks, I guess. Instead of Mr. Hangtime being the stunt double for Mr. Corvette, Mr. Corvette will do his own stunt. Let’s set up for the shot.”

  Everybody started moving their gear toward their places around the Horseshoe Falls. The camera guys set up on the observation deck, on Goat Island, at the base of the falls, and on the Rainbow Bridge. There would also be a camera in the helicopter that would be scooping Ricky up just before the canoe went over the falls.

  The emergency crew took up stations all over. There were two ambulances, doctors, nurses, a full medical staff. Boats got in position downstream from the falls in case they had to pull Ricky out. Everyone looked grim, nervous, serious.

  I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Usually, I spend the minutes before a gag thinking it over in my head. Running it through one last time to make sure I don’t mess up.

  As I watched everyone getting ready, it occurred to me that I felt a certain amount of relief in knowing I would not be going to the brink of the falls. It was the first time in memory that I wasn’t itching to get out there and do a gag. I didn’t have to top my dad anymore.

  At the same time, an unpleasant thought came to me. If something happened to Ricky Corvette doing the gag, it would be partly my fault. If I hadn’t told Ricky off when he told me to get him a Mountain Dew, he probably wouldn’t have decided to do this.

  I ran over and caught up with Ricky as he was walking toward the helicopter that would take him upstream to begin the gag.

  “Ricky!” I shouted. “Look, I’m sorry about what I said yesterday. I was just mouthing off. It was stupid.”

  “Forget it,” Ricky said, without breaking stride. “This isn’t about you. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”

  “Let me do the gag for you this time,” I suggested. “Then maybe on the next movie you could do some car gags. Jumps. Falls. You know, get used to doing your own stunts.”

  “If I don’t do this now,” he insisted, “there may be no next movie.”

  “You don’t have to do this, Ricky. You don’t have to prove how tough you are.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Ricky stopped and looked at me. It may have been the first time he ever spoke to me man to man.

  “I’m so envious of you,” he said. “Everybody knows you’ve done all the hard stuff for me. People think I’m a fraud, and they’re right. I could always smile for the camera and look cute. But I can’t get away with that now. I’m not a kid anymore. If I don’t do this, my career is over.”

  “If you do it, your life may be over,” I said.

  “My career is my life.”

  Despite everything that happened between me and Ricky, I actually felt sorry for him. We walked in silence the rest of the way to the helicopter. When we got there, Dad was helping the pilot and cameraman load equipment into the chopper.

  “Get in!” Dad yelled over the roar of the rotors.

  Ricky put on his helmet and strapped on the life vest. It was a specially designed vest that had a parachute in the back. The chute didn’t even have a cord to pull. There’s a computer chip in it that can sense downward acceleration. If the person wearing it suddenly drops ten feet, the chute opens automatically.

  The chopper took all of us two miles upstream, where the canoe was waiting. A guy was tinkering with a tiny video camera that had been mounted on the front of the canoe. The camera would be destroyed, of course, when the canoe tumbled over the falls. But it would shoot some incredible video first, and beam it over to a truck in the parking lot.

  “Don’t stand up in the canoe,” Dad instructed Ricky as he stepped off the helicopter. “It will rock too much. Wait for the helicopter to come low enough for you to grab on, okay?”

  “Okay,” Ricky replied.

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks, man,” Ricky said, shaking Dad’s hand.

  Roland was in position on the observation deck overlooking the Horseshoe Falls, so he could be as close as possible to the edge. He had walkie-talkie communications with all the cameramen.

  “Sure you want to do this, Ricky?” Roland asked through the helicopter’s walkie-talkie.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Then we’re ready when you are. Roll cameras!”

  Ricky put a foot in the canoe and pushed off. I gave the canoe a shove for good measure. There was no turning back now. I scampered back aboard the helicopter and we lifted off. The helicopter would shadow Ricky and rescue him at the edge of the falls.

  The current was moving swiftly, much more swiftly than an ordinary river. Once Ricky paddled out to the middle, he didn’t need to paddle at all. The current just pulled him along. The chopper pilot kept pace with Ricky, about ten feet in front of him and thirty feet above the water. He told me we were moving at thirty-six miles per hour. So far, so good.

  From where I was above the river, I could see the Horseshoe Falls a mile and a half ahead. I knew Ricky couldn’t see it, and that was probably for the better. It was frightening enough being in the river without having to see the point where the river suddenly drops away.

  The water started getting choppier about a mile from the Horseshoe. I could see the canoe bobbing up and down. I didn’t know how much canoeing experience Ricky had. You could probably never have enough experience to prepare yourself for this.

  “Be ready to pick him up early in case he capsizes or chickens out,” Dad yelled to the pilot.

  “Camera number one,” Roland barked, “are you on him?”

  “Affirmative,” the pilot replied.

  “Camera number two. Can you see him yet?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Camera number three—”

  “Not yet, Roland.” A voice crackled over the radio. “Wait, I see him now!”

  The helicopter was one hundred yards from the falls. The pilot accelerated, rushing ahead of Ricky’s canoe to get into position for the rescue. Between the sound of the ’copter and the sound of the falls, it was so loud my ears were ringing.

  We were hovering at the edge of the Horseshoe, and the view was incredible. When I looked out one side of the chopper, I could see Ricky’s canoe coming toward us. Out the other side, there was nothing. Just a long way down.

  “This is awesome!” the cameraman hollered.

  “Stop sightseeing!” Dad barked. “Bring it down!”

  The pilot lowered the chopper until I could feel the spray of water in my face.

  “Lower!” Dad shouted. “Lower!”

  “I’m only five feet over the top!” the pilot shouted back. “Any lower and we’ll hit it.”

  “Get ready to make the scoop!” Roland hollered over the walkie-talkie.

  I could see Ricky’s face now, the fear in his eyes. The canoe was bouncing and bumping through the whitewater like a Ping-Pong ball. It was heading a little to the left of us. The pilot moved over so the canoe would slide right below us.

  “Grab it!” Dad screamed to Ricky when he was close enough to hear. “Grab hold!”

  Ricky reached up for the skid on the bottom of the helicopter. He missed it at first, then stood up so he could reach. He wrapped his fingers around the skid, the way you do when you do a chin-up.

  “Wrap your arm around it!” Dad yelled down to him. A chin-up hold, I knew, wouldn’t be strong enough.

  “If you’ve got him, go!” Roland yelled. “Go!”

  Ricky was hanging on to the skid with both hands, trying to pull himself up so he could wrap an arm around it. I could see in his face that he was struggling. He didn’t have the arm strength. He probably never played on monkey bars in his life. The pilot lifted up the helicopter and moved away from the edge of the Horseshoe.

  That’s when Ricky’s fingertips slipped off the skid.

  18

  THE SECOND SUBSTITUTE

  I saw the look of terror on Ricky’s face as his fingertips slipped off the skid. I saw his mouth open to scream, but the noise of the water and rotors drowned it out. And then I watched Ricky fall.

  I may not have liked Ricky Corvette, but you don’t want to wish something like this on your worst enemy. There was nothing I could do to help him. Dad spat out a four-letter word that you’ve probably heard but won’t see here.

  “We missed him!” the cameraman screamed.

  “Good Lord in heaven!” Roland yelled over the walkie-talkie.

  The parachute popped out of Ricky’s life jacket. Because the helicopter had moved away from the falls before Ricky fell, the chute had just enough room to open. I watched it drop.

  “Get him out of there as soon as he hits the water!” Roland ordered. “Get an ambulance ready!”

  Sirens were screaming when our helicopter landed in the parking lot. Everyone there was running in all directions. Police cars had arrived.

  By the time Ricky hit the bottom, I was told, four rescue boats were already chugging toward the churning water. They got as close to the falls as they could without capsizing. For a few anxious seconds, there was no sign of Ricky’s body.

  Finally, one of the rescue divers spotted Ricky, bobbing up and down lifelessly in the whitewater. Ten divers dove in and pulled him out.

  In seconds, they had Ricky in the boat and the boat sped back to the dock. An ambulance was waiting there. A paramedic crew carried Ricky into the ambulance and slammed the back doors shut. It screeched off. Three cop cars, sirens blasting and lights flashing, provided an escort to the hospital.

  There was no way of knowing if Ricky was dead or alive. It depended on how he hit the rocks at the bottom of the falls.

  All we could do was wait. Filming was suspended for the day, of course. The crew was walking around in a daze. The helicopter pilot looked worse than anyone. Everyone told him it wasn’t his fault, but I’m sure he was wondering what would happen to him if Ricky died.

  When I found Roland, he was just sitting on a chair under a tree. He looked like he was in shock.

  “Nobody has ever been seriously hurt on a Roland Rivers film,” he said, staring off into space. “Ever.”