Free Just One Wish by Janette Rallison Page A

keep myself from staring at large painted backdrops of forests and mountains. I went past a room filled with mannequin heads. I’m sure the room had other things stored in it too, but once you see a crowd of disembodied faces staring back at you, you don’t really notice anything else.
    I kept walking, kept looking. A few people gave the snake curious glances, but no one said anything to me. A clock I passed read 11:45. I’d been here for almost an hour. I tried not to count how much time I had left until I had to leave. Off in the distance I heard voices and wondered if they were shooting something right now. What would happen if a girl in jeans and a baseball cap—not to mention wielding a large snake—wandered into the middle of a tender Robin Hood and Maid Marion scene?
    I passed a man flipping through a stack of papers. He held his clipboard down when he saw me. “What’s the snake for?”
    I was in trouble. In the three seconds it had taken him to speak, I could sense his competency. The authority flowed off of him like heat waves on hot pavement. I wasn’t going to be able to talk my way around him. I smiled and shrugged anyway. “They need it for the shoot.”
    “What shoot?” he asked. “We’re only using horses today.”
    My insides grew brittle. “Oh. Maybe I looked at the wrong schedule then. I thought my boss told me it was snake day.”
    “Snake day? Which script calls for a snake?”
    “Um, I really don’t know. I was just doing what I was told.”
    “Who told you to bring in a snake?”
    I said the only name which would make sense. “Mr. Powell.”
    At the director’s name, the man backed off from me a bit and looked thoughtful. To himself he said, “Why would Dean want a snake in a nunnery?” Then louder, he called, “Hey, Jim, can you come here for a sec?”
    This would have been the appropriate time for me to see my life flash before my eyes, but my gaze stayed firmly on the man in front of me. My stomach, however, fell down to my knees.
    When Jim didn’t answer, the guy turned to me and said, “You stay here, and I’ll find out what you’re supposed to do.”
    Oh, I knew what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to go running down the hall wearing a snake who, during this conversation, had decided my neck was the most comfortable spot on my body. He was circling my collarbone like a reptile necklace.
    “Okay,” I said.
    As soon as the guy turned away from me, I walked as quickly as I could back the way I had come. I couldn’t run, as that would draw attention to myself; besides, if Herman grew frightened and tensed his muscles now, he might choke me. This is not how anyone wants the newspapers to report their death. Girl choked by nervous python while fleeing movie set.
    I made it back down the hallway I’d come from, pushed open the door to the outside, and headed toward the trailers. Had my cover been completely blown, or did I have a few more minutes before security was called?
    Before I could analyze this question, I noticed a security guy heading around the corner of the building. I wasn’t sure if he was looking for me, but I wasn’t about to take a chance. I ducked into the closest trailer. Which turned out to be the wardrobe trailer.
    Clothes racks stretched across the room; rows of medieval dresses of every color surrounded me. Wimples, scarves, and headdresses hung on one wall. Shelves of shoes took up another wall. I couldn’t see what was on the third wall because too many boxes were stacked up against it.
    I ought to get away from the studio as fast as I could. I walked to the nearest box and opened it. It contained silk flower arrangements of pale pink roses. Well, not anymore. Now it contained silk flower arrangements and one large python. I shut the flaps of the lid, then looked for something to put over the box so Herman couldn’t escape. Later I’d make an anonymous phone call from a pay phone somewhere in Burbank telling the receptionist to rescue him.