Derek abruptly halted and said, “Cut!” He motioned impatiently to Mickey Cray. “We definitely need to see Timmy’s tongue.”

“His name’s not Timmy,” said Wahoo’s father, “and I can’t make him open his yap if he doesn’t want to.”

“Then what are we paying you for?”

“Mainly to keep you out of the emergency room.”

“Excuse me?”

Wahoo quickly stepped forward. “Mr. Badger, the turtle only wiggles his tongue underwater, when he’s hungry.”

“That’s just great.” Derek looked over at Raven. “I had a bad feeling about this whole operation-didn’t I tell you?”

Wahoo’s dad said, “You wanna see the inside of his mouth?” He broke a thin branch off a pine tree, stripped away the sprigs and handed it to the TV star. “Try this.”

Raven grew concerned. “Derek, you be careful.”

“Yes, Mum!” He laughed and got down on his knees again, this time a bit closer to the turtle. As soon as the cameras started rolling, he used the sharp end of the branch to poke at the pointy snout of the reptile, which shut its eyes and drew itself into its shell.

“C’mon, Terrible Timmy,” Derek cooed, “say aaahhhh.”

Wahoo knew he had to do something fast. Quietly he moved behind the cameraman nearest to Derek and made a pushing motion with both hands, a signal to back off. Either Derek didn’t see him, or pretended not to.

The bite was a hissing blur. Everyone flinched at the crack of the branch being chomped in half, a few short inches from Derek’s wide eyes. He gasped in surprise and tumbled sideways into the lagoon. The turtle wasn’t far behind, paddling furiously toward the cool, quiet bottom, where Alice the alligator had been-until that moment-peacefully snoozing.

The director hollered, “Cut! Cut!”

Mickey Cray was applauding. “Hey, that’s good stuff.”

Two crew members hurried forward to drag Derek, cursing, from the water. The beak of the snapping turtle had peeled a sliver of flesh from the tip of his artificially tanned nose, now punctuated with a bright red dot of blood.