“Great Scott! What’s that!?” your father shouts, finally seeing the snake.
Everyone in the room, including your mother, reaches for a pistol. But your rifle talks first, cutting down the viper in the prime of its venomous life.
“By George, that’s your kid, all right,” says one of the hunters, slapping your father’s back and slapping yours just as hard. Then they all sit down and try to pretend that nothing happened.
“Going for a swim,” you say, heading for a clear-water lake a half mile from your camp. After all, what else is there to do on a hot, steamy night when your clothes are sticking to you tighter than skin?
It takes half an hour to cool off, and then you climb lazily out of the water and into your clothes. Sitting with your back against a tree, you watch the moon and think about Indiana Jones.
What a joke he was on the boat! Round-rimmed glasses, brown suits during the day, white tux at night. The rumors said he was a college professor, and he sure looked the part—until the boat docked. Suddenly the glasses were gone and so were the brown suits. With that beat-up brown felt hat, safari jacket, pistol at his side, and whip around his shoulder, he looked like he was ready to give the jungle the only kind of lecture it understood.







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