Chapter 1: The Carpenter The late August sun beat down on his tense body and mosquitoes whined in his ear as Jake Evans bent over the narrow deck of his nearly finished halfpipe, drill in hand and a screw between pursed lips. "Now, where the heck was I going to sink this last screw?" he mumbled as its metallic taste seeped into his mouth. Then, "Aha." But as he poked strands of sweaty brown hair back under his baseball cap and lifted the drill to its target, two screeches made his body jerk around: the sound of a skateboard sliding down the metal stair railing behind him, and the "Yahoo!" of his buddy Peter Montpetit landing victoriously just inches from Jake's work-in-progress. The screw in Jake's mouth dropped out, but a bitter, unwanted taste remained: jealousy. "Jake, my man, it's comin' along, lookin' good. But all work and no play can make a dude boring. Dare you to grind the rail fifteen steps, old buddy, one for each year we've lived.

And we do know how to live, don't we?" Jake, wiping sweat from his brow and casting his eyes on the grass for his lost screw, tried hard to keep his tone even. "Peter, I'd just as soon make it to sixteen. I'm not ready for that rail. And if you hadn't noticed, I seem to be doing all the work on this half-pipe, even though I know you're going to use it as much as me." Instead of prompting Peter to set his skateboard down and help, this only brightened Peter's smile as he stepped off his board and put a hand on Jake's shoulder. "Never would I mess with the work of a master carpenter,' he declared. "I'm all thumbs and no patience. Better that I be the official tester -- and scope out the best places for us to do tricks while you're occupied.

Think Sam will mind if I wax this ledge over here so it grinds better?" In answer, Jake hurled the drill onto the ground and sprinted up the back steps of Sam's Adventure Tours' two-storey garage. But as he reached for the door, it opened outwards, nearly sending him tumbling. "Oh, Jake, sorry. And hello, Peter" said Sam Miller, the bulky red-bearded owner of the outdoor adventure company for which Jake and Peter worked. Sam let the door close behind him. "I see you put those spare pieces of plywood to good use. I don't mind you boys having a little fun on your time off back here. Maybe you can teach me a trick or two on those dangerous-looking boards, you think?" He chuckled at his own joke, tugged his beard, nodded at Jake, then hurried past him down the stairs to a dirt path leading to his truck.

Mid-stride past Jake's construction project, he paused and peered at the half-pipe. "Jake, you built this with no plans in two days? I tell you, you've got your dad's gift. He was the best mechanic and carpenter I ever knew 'round these parts." Jake felt his throat constrict, but before his face could burn with unwanted emotion, he converted it to a steely mask and exhaled slowly. Sam's eyes darted to Jake and quickly away, as if he knew he'd said something wrong. Then he smiled overly wide. "You boys been hearing rumors about a big-name stunt coordinator from Los Angeles coming to town this week?" Jake, still smarting from the mention of his dad, merely shuffled his feet on the landing. "We've heard stuff7 Peter enthused as he plunked down on the bottom step.

"What's going on with that?" "Well, I'll let you be the first to know. He's hired Sam's Adventure Tours to coordinate stunt work for a low-budget sports-action movie. It'll be his debut as a director. There's whitewater rafting and heli-skiing in it, even skateboarding. We're doing logistics for the stuntmen on the whitewater rafting and skiing parts." "Skateboarding?" Peter's voice cracked with excitement, prompting Jake to roll his eyes. Here it comes, he thought: Peter who aspires to be a movie star and has the looks for it, Peter the all-around athlete who nev.