Mary Ann wandered along an avenue of aluminum-sided soundstages and parked cars, bewildered by the strange kaleidoscope of people, vehicles and creatures that flowed by. Maintenance men in blue coveralls and make-up girls with heavy kits hurried past swaggering civil war soldiers and sultry, evening-gowned beauties, past cowboys on tall horses and even a group of bubble-helmeted space aliens with three arms apiece in a rolling miniature flying saucer. It was all even stranger than the island…if that were possible.

Suddenly she heard the welcome, familiar tones of "Lovey! Lovey, my sweet!" right behind her. Breaking into a delighted smile, she was about to turn around when the familiar voice drawled on, "Whatever do you think you're doing, you silly bitch?"

Mary Ann halted in mid-turn, her smile freezing in disbelief. At last she turned to see to two very well-dressed figures accompanied by a tiny brown Chihuahua in a diamond collar. The little dog was sniffing inquisitively at the man's pantleg.

"M-Mr. Howell!" Mary Ann gasped. "D-did I just hear you say—"

Mr. Howell's mirror image grinned. "A thousand apologies, my dear Dawn. Wouldn't do in front of the CBS censors, would it? Silly old farts that they are. I'm just afraid this ridiculous creature will start making amorous advances towards my leg."

The woman with him rolled her eyes as she twirled her parasol. "Don't be ridiculous, Jim. Lovey's a girl! It's only the males that have nothing but sex on their minds--rather like their human counterparts. Don't you agree, Dawn?" She frowned. "Are you all right, Dawn dear?"

Jim looked concerned as well. "You look as though the canteen's been serving those breakfast burritos again. Avoid them like the plague, my dear. That chipotle sauce would burn the skin off Natalie's faux alligator bag."

Mary Ann swayed a little as the world went wobbly. She had seen Alan, and the TV episode, but this! It was impossible to think that these people were not Mr. and Mrs. Thurston Howell the Third, and yet impossible to think that they were.

Natalie's gloved hand flew to her mouth. "Heavens, Jim, run and get the girl some water! She's going to faint!"

"No, no, I'm all right. Oh." Mary Ann wiped her hand across her brow. "Oh…I've never heard anything like the two of you!"

"Oh, come now, dear." Natalie flicked a hand in dismissal. "You don't turn a hair when I ask you about your sex life, and I do it several times a week."

"You do, my dear, or Dawn does?" asked Jim.

Mary Ann's eyes widened to twice their size. She felt she would never be able to look Mr. and Mrs. Howell in the face again.

"Watch your language, you dreadful cad. There's a lady present."

"Well, I can see there's at least one, anyhow."

"Oh!" Natalie peered imperiously through her lorgnette. "Just for that, I'm going to improvise the pants off of you in our hut scene today."

"Is that a promise, my dear?"

Jim skipped lightly out of the way as Natalie aimed a friendly blow at him with her bag. "Go on, you poor old Vaudevillian has-been. Get going before I make you as blind as Mr. Magoo."

"Delighted, my dear antiquated beauty. Ta-ta, Dawn dear. See you at the shoot."

As Jim disappeared behind the huge soundstage doors, Mary Ann took a long, slow breath of astonishment. "It's amazing! The way you talk…but anyone can tell you're really both very fond of each other!"

"Of course we are, dear. I love old Jim to pieces. Wherever would I find another sparring partner like him?" The older woman reached out and touched the girl's arm fondly. "And what have you been doing with yourself this morning?"

"Oh, I got up to have breakfast with--" Mary Ann thought quickly "– with Russell and Bob." The thought of the Professor and Gilligan made her feel slightly more grounded. "Golly. It was delicious, but it felt so strange to eat a breakfast I didn't cook myself!"

"My, you are the industrious one! I consider making my own cup of tea an Olympic sport."

Mary Ann chuckled at the unexpected quip. "Then I sat and watched while the make-up artists got everybody all ready. My, they're so talented, those make-up men! I could have spent all day watching them!"

"Pick up any tips, dear? For me, I mean. You hardly need them."

"Oh no, no. Not that kind of make-up. It was amazing." Mary Ann's eyes lit. "They were gluing on beards with spirit-gum and working with wigs and doing all kinds of things. It was like magic, the way they made people look so different! They even let me practice a little!"

Natalie raised an eyebrow. "Well, I suppose everyone has his own idea of fun. Mine would be shopping on Rodeo Drive. Time to update my wardrobe.

At the word 'wardrobe', Mary Ann's eyes went incandescent. "Oh, the wardrobe department! That was even better! Oh, how I'd love to work on those darling beautiful costumes!"

"You'll be a designer someday, darling. I'm convinced of it!"

"Oh, my gosh, do you think so? Me, a designer? Oh, I'd love to do that! Imagine! Women all over, wearing my fashions! London, Paris, Rome…" Mary Ann heaved a sigh and gazed at the heavens like Dorothy looking for her rainbow.

"Well, then, no time like the present! After all, you're already famous, my dear. You can trade on your name, and we'll all be even more famous next year."

"Oh? Why do you say that?"

Natalie adjusted her broad-brimmed hat against the sun's glare. "Dear me, my love, don't you read the trade papers? Our ratings are over the moon. We're almost certain to be picked up for a fourth season. After all, you don't kill the cash cow. You keep it going, no matter what." She smiled ruefully and sighed. "So I suppose there's no going home to New York for me – at least not for a while!"

Her sad smile was mirrored by Mary Ann's. "No going home for any of us."

Little Lovey suddenly sent up a machine-gun volley of angry yips as a touring trolley filled with very fussily dressed women rolled into view.

"That's it, Lovey darling," cooed Natalie, flashing her teeth in a predatory smile that was very unlike Mrs. Howell. "About now I wish you were a boy. You could pee on the tire as they go past!"

Mary Ann blinked in surprise. "Gosh, Mrs.- I mean Natalie. The tourists don't mean any harm! They're just so excited to be here. They've been snapping my picture all morning, and they've been very sweet."

"These aren't your run of the mill tourists, dear," Natalie snarled gently. "You're still relatively new around here, but the old guard know that battle-axe when we see her."

"Why? Who is it?"

"Mrs. Richard Bailey and her entourage of high society parasites. She behaves as though she owns the place – just because her husband does."

"Oh," said Mary Ann, not daring to ask more. Fortunately, Natalie seemed to love to talk of nothing better.

"Did I say that cash was the bottom line as far as the network execs were concerned? Well, not Bailey. He's as hen-pecked as they go."

"Poor man."

"Poor man? Oh, please." Natalie rolled her eyes. "Any man that lets a harpy like that push him around deserves whatever he gets."

A deep, fruity female voice in an accent not unlike Mrs. Howell's was warbling on as the trolley drew nearer. Natalie elbowed Mary Ann in the ribs. "Here she comes. Sounds like someone singing Brunhilda in a Wagnerian Opera. Looks like it too. All she's missing are the blond braids and the horns."

As the trolley drew near they did indeed see one very large woman in a designer suit and a hat even larger than Natalie's holding forth at the front of the carriage. "And in a few moments, ladies, we shall arrive on the set of Gunsmog, the most successful program my husband's network has ever produced. We shall actually see the set where that splendid actor, James Harness, plays the Marshall!" She gave a fluttery sigh, and the ladies in the trolley clapped and "oohed" as if on cue.

The trolley ground to a halt as a wrangler led a string of horses across the road ahead. "Oh, look!" cried Mrs. Bailey. "One of those might be Mr. Harness's horses! What a horseman he is! Headquarters in the saddle!"

"Really, Mrs. Bailey?" quipped Natalie in a loud voice. "I thought that's where his hindquarters are supposed to be!"

Mrs. Bailey turned, and when she saw the speaker, her lips bent in a stiff smile. "Oh, it's you, Ms. Schliffer. Miss Bells. What, no filming today? Your writers run out of inane ideas, have they?"

"Who are these people, Eugenia?" asked one of the women in the trolley.

Mrs. Bailey's tone was honey laced with acid. "Oh, I'm not surprised you don't know them, Emily. They're part of a little sitcom that's hung on for three years. I've heard its largest audience is children: not surprising, of course, considering that most of the humour derives from that people being hit with coconuts. I believe one of the critics said one wouldn't even know it was written for adults."

"I guess that's why we've won our evening slot every year." said Natalie sweetly. "Even though your husband moves us around like a game of Chinese checkers."

"There's no accounting for taste," purred Mrs. Bailey. "After all, your little show is hardly Shakespeare."

"You mean you missed the Hamlet episode?"

Mrs. Bailey's penciled eyebrows buckled. "I beg your pardon?"

"The one set to Carmen and the Tales of Hoffman. Oh, dear." Natalie's smile could have frozen beer. "Those are operas, my dear. Not horse operas. The kind with music, not manure."

Mrs. Bailey swelled up like a ruffed grouse. "Wilkins! Are those horses out of our way yet?"

The driver called back. "All clear, ma'am!

Mrs. Bailey flashed a set of teeth as gleaming as her pearls. "So sorry I can't stay, Natalie dear. I'm hosting a rather important party at my penthouse this afternoon. The cream of society will be there – including Mr. James Harness himself! Do have a lovely afternoon, ladies. And try not to get hit by the coconuts." She called forwards. "Carry on, Wilkins!"

The trolley hummed and trundled forward as Natalie shook her head. "Poor James Harness. He's going to wish somebody had headed him off at the pass."

"Can't he get out of it?" said Mary Ann

"He'd be a fool if he did. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, as they say. Besides, that penthouse of hers is a fairly swanky affair, I'm told. Right in the heart of Beverly Hills. Sunken living room, sauna, wrap-around terrace. A nice little home away from home. Thankfully it's a fair distance from the studios, so she's not around here much. Oh, she makes me tired, that woman." Yawning elegantly, Natalie looked at her watch. "We've a little time before the next shoot begins. Care for a stroll?"

"Uh…well…" Mary Ann had a horror of becoming lost in this place. It would look far too strange if she were suddenly stopping people and asking for directions. "I think that as long as I'm here at our soundstage, I'll just pop in and see how the Professor – I mean Russell is doing."

"Very well, dear. Ah, such a come down, shooting in a soundstage, I mean."

"How's that?"

"Things were a trifle more realistic when we shot the pilot in Hawaii." Natalie put her hand to her mouth in embarrassment. "Oh, dear…but you weren't there! They had that little blonde playing the secretary instead. Confidentially, dear, you were a great improvement.

Mary Ann momentarily grappled with the idea of some blonde secretary – another woman – being her. "Well, thank you! I just couldn't imagine Mary Ann being played by anyone else!"

"Indeed. And that other girl did get a free trip to Hawaii out of it. So did we all. Ah, Hawaii!" she sighed dreamily. "Such a beautiful place! Have you ever been there?"

"Once," said Mary Ann, smiling.

"You know, I make no secret of the fact that I truly thought this show would fail! I never was much for farce comedy. The free trip to Hawaii was my sole inducement for signing on! But you know, my dear, even though it didn't turn out the way I expected, I wouldn't change a thing. I made some of the dearest friends I've ever had." Natalie shook her head sadly. "But someday our little island will be no more. What will I ever do without them?"

It was with difficulty that Mary Ann swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. "I don't know," she murmured.

Natalie patted her arm again. "Don't worry, my dear. We'll keep in touch, I promise. Well, I'll see you shortly!" With a smile and a flick of her lorgnette, Natalie and little Lovey strolled away.

Waving goodbye, Mary Ann slipped inside the soundstage doors. Once within, she stared about in wonder. The giant hanger of a building was a dark Aladdin's cave of strange discoveries: lofty catwalks, camera cranes and dollies, tall, swiveling spotlights, and everywhere scurrying folk carrying clipboards, stacks of scripts, potted plants and every kind of prop imaginable. At last she spotted the Professor and rushed to meet him. "Boy, am I glad to see you!" she cried.

"Hello, Dawn," he called, unusually loud. Putting an arm about her shoulder, he whispered, "Let's keep our voices down if we want to talk as ourselves, not our counterparts. Godwins and the crew are right over there."

"Oh – all right." She spoke softly, looking around. "I just met the actors who play the Howells. It was bizarre!"

"I know. I just met Jim myself. This is all tremendously disconcerting!"

"Is Gilligan here?"

"No, not yet. Apparently he and Alan were shooting scenes at the lagoon all morning. They're just having a quick break before they join us."

"I see. Did Gilligan manage all right?"

The Professor nodded, impressed. "Just fine. Nobody's on to him at any rate, and the crew all seem to think he's awfully funny. But apparently he was delayed half an hour signing autographs for his adoring fans!"

The girl sighed and put a hand to her forehead. "How on earth do these actors manage? Somebody brought three huge sacks of fanmail to my dressing room this morning! Oh, Professor, my head hurts. I could use a healthy dose of reality right now!"

He shrugged apologetically. "You're not going to get it here, I'm afraid. Have a look."

Mary Ann looked to where he was pointing and had to rub her eyes to make sure she wasn't dreaming. "Oh, my gosh…it can't be!"

Standing before them was their island camp, and yet it was as weirdly wrong as the landscape of a dream. The blue sky and lush jungle were a huge cyclorama painting that spanned the stage and rose twenty feet above it. Above this blazed a fierce row of spotlights suspended from the gridwork of an iron truss, while higher still loomed the soaring darkness under the roof. Down below five bamboo huts huddled around the communal bamboo table as if in fear of the army of cameras and microphones that glowered at them. In front of the stage, Leslie Godwins and his crew were busily manoevering their equipment into position.

Mary Ann put a hand to her mouth. "My flowers! They've even got the flowers I planted in our window box last month! Oh, Professor, seeing ourselves on tv last night was bad enough, but this!"

"Extraordinary, isn't it?" he murmured, only half-listening in his fascination. "The synergy between our two dimensions is unprecedented."

"Downright creepy is what I call it!" she said, shivering. "I'm almost half afraid to look in my window! I'd hate to see my room with all my things here."

Her fearful tone snapped him out of his trance, and he turned to face her. "Why do you say that?"

"Because I'd start to think that maybe I'm not real. That someone else…dreamed me up!"

The Professor shook his head reassuringly. "It's not dreams, Mary Ann. It's science. Come on – let's make some laboratory tests. They might make you feel a bit better."

He took her hand and together they stepped onto the stage, faltering at the unforgiving hardness beneath the sand. Mary Ann scratched at it with her foot. "This ground! There's no earth underneath it! It's made of wood!"

The Professor wandered over and fingered one of the innumerable potted bushes that stood crowded alongside small trees all the way along the stage. "These plants aren't real. They're made of plastic!"

Astonished, Mary Ann went to the table and picked up a bamboo tumbler. "This cup! It's made of glass!"

With a smile and a lift of an unsurprised eyebrow the Professor strolled over to his own hut and peeked in the window. "Don't worry, Mary Ann. No one's going to find out if you haven't swept your hut lately."

"What do you mean?"

"Come have a look."

She hurried over and peered past the wooden door. "Why, there's nothing! Not even a back wall! It's only the front façade!"

The Professor nodded. "You see, Mary Ann? This is all just a copy. It's like the story Plato told of the cave where men saw only shadows of the world outside. For them, the shadows were reality. Then one day one man escaped and saw the real world outside."

"And what happened to him?"

"He couldn't believe his eyes. And when he got back, nobody believed him. They all thought he'd lost his mind."

Mary Ann rolled her eyes. "I know how he feels! When we go back, that's what our friends will say to us!" She bit her lip. "If we get back, that is."

He gripped her gently by the shoulders. "We will get back, Mary Ann. I promise you. Now don't lose your spirits – or your mind!"

She smiled. "I'll do my best. Thanks, Professor."

Just then Jim appeared, amusement glinting in his dark, clever, ageless eyes. "Hullo Dawn, Russell! Well - just when we were certain they couldn't get any sillier on us. Jumping in the lagoon and disappearing! Only an idiot would believe such rubbish!"

He mounted the stage, flipping idly through a pink copy of the script. "And we're on the second version, I see. Not bad, considering it's only the second day of shooting." The man looked up and noticed the Professor's green copy. "Not got yours yet, Russell? Good heavens, do they expect you to memorize a whole new selection of silly scientific gobbledegook in minutes? What do they think you are, a Professor?"

Jim chortled heartily at his own joke while Mary Ann bit back a smile. The Professor, meanwhile, frowned at the pink copy as though it were a student's report submitted a week late. "No, I didn't get one. Did you get one, M-uh, Dawn?"

"I did, actually. They'd brought it to my dressing room this morning. I thought you already had yours."

"No, I didn't." He sighed in frustration. "I'm afraid I was doing some exploring this morning and didn't visit my dressing room."

"What a shame, my dear boy! They delivered it to my door this morning." Jim grinned affably. "Oh, pshaw, Russell, don't look so downcast. You'll be fine! I'm forever amazed at the way you manage to reel off all of those multisyllablic horrors. And to think that when they auditioned you they made you take off your shirt. You are so much more than just a pretty face!"

The Professor's eyebrows bounced as though on a trapeze as Mary Ann burst into helpless peals of laughter. Blushing, the scientist tugged at his buttons as though to make sure they were still done up.

Godwins looked up from the floor. "I say, Jim dear, Russell darling. Chop chop. Places please. Just like in rehearsal yesterday. Dawn, my love, you can be off to stage right, waiting for your cue." At that moment the director spotted the Professor's green script and grabbed a great hankful of his blond hair. "Oh, give me strength! Don't tell me you haven't got your pink copy yet, Russell?"

The Professor looked helplessly from Jim to the director and shrugged. Jim stepped forward before the Englishman had a coronary.

"Leslie, old man, Russell's lines are all the same. Why don't we just wing it for a space? All Russell has to do is watch for my cue when I finish, and if he has a problem I can simply ad lib."

The Englishman raised a sardonic eyebrow. "Ad lib, eh? Did you have a hand in Russell's script vanishing, by any chance?"

"Me?" The familiar face broke into Howell's impish grin. "Now what reason could I possibly have to do that? It's not as though I ever improvise, is it?"

"Well – you're the best damned ensemble cast I've ever known so – very well. Give it a go. We've got to get these scenes shot, for heaven's sake! George! Where are the Professor's props?" A stagehand rushed up to hand the Professor a slide rule, pencil and sheets of paper. Godwins beckoned imperiously. "George, grab their scripts, will you? Nobody got any cigarettes in their hand? Right-o. Places!"

The Professor started towards the façade of his hut, but stopped when Jim didn't follow him. "Uh…"

The director scowled. "What is it, Russell?"

The scholar pointed to Jim. "Isn't he supposed to come out of my hut with me? 'Mr. Howell and the Professor exit Professor's hut and appear by bamboo table?"

Mary Ann called over. "That's one of the changes in the new version. You exit alone now and discover Mr. Howell seated on the chaise lounge."

"Well done, my dear," said Jim. He looked down at the crew. "The shot begins with the camera trained on me, doesn't it, Leslie? Then after a minute of two, Russell walks in?"

"Yes, Jim," sighed the director.

"Ta, ta, Professor." Jim waved cheerily. "Exit, stage left."

Thoroughly confused, the Professor ducked into the façade of his hut and waited behind the wall. At last he heard a voice call out, "Gilligan's Comedy of Errors, Scene 2, Take 1."

Then came Godwin. "Lights, camera, action!"

The Professor opened the door to the hut and walked straight out into the blinding stage lights. Instinctively he threw his arm over his eyes.

"Cut!"

The Professor tentatively lowered his arm as the glaring lights faded. He blinked rapidly, but could only see blobs out in the stygian black.

"Russell, you bally fool, what are you doing?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Godwins," he stammered into the darkness. "That light! It's unbearable!"

"Oh, for pity's sake! It's nothing you don't face every day! Well, pretend it's the tropical sun or something!"

"What?"

He could see coloured blobs now. Jim's voice came floating from somewhere on his right. "Shade your eyes and murmur, 'Oh! That's a hot day!' or some such thing. Then look away. That ought to do it."

"Oh…all right. Shall I try it again?"

"Do, please," muttered Godwins, sinking into his folding chair.

The Professor fumbled his way back into the hut's façade, grateful for its relative shadow.

"Action!" called Godwins.

The Professor came out again, this time with his arm already in place. "Oh my. The sun is very hot today."

"Cut!" roared Godwins.

The Professor lowered his arm. "What is the matter now?"

He could hear Jim chuckling off to his right. "What are you meant to be, Russell? A cigar-store Indian?"

"Russell!" This was Godwins again. The Professor could see that he was on his feet. "Kindly infuse some life and natural emotion into your performance, if it isn't too much trouble!"

"Like this!" called the shadow that was Mary Ann. "Oh! Good heavens, that sun's bright!"

"Oh." The Professor blinked. "Shall I try it again?"

"If you would be so kind," Godwins gritted through his teeth.

Blushing to the roots of his hair, the Professor turned and disappeared into his hut again.

"Gilligan's Comedy of Errors, Scene 2, Take 3," someone called (unnecessarily loudly, thought the Professor).

"Action!"

The Professor stepped out. "Oh! Good heavens, that sun's bright!" When nobody shouted to stop him, he breathed a sigh of relief and crossed to where Jim was lying on the chaise, sipping from one of the bamboo tumblers. "Mr. Howell? May I speak to you for a moment?"

Jim looked up, and suddenly it was as though the spirit of Thurston Howell the Third had thoroughly possessed him. "Now what's this all about, Professor, old man?"

The Professor was thankful they'd rehearsed this scene in the hotel room, even if parts were changed. At least he could seem half-way professional. Assuming his most scholarly tone, he recalled, "Well, Gilligan, it's about my experiment concerning the Mayan Amulets."

"Cut! Gilligan???"

Roy Hinkley winced. He heard Mary Ann's tentative voice over the groaning of the director. "Uh…that's not Gilligan, remember? That's Mr. Howell."

"Thank you, Miss Bells! Russell!!"

It wasn't often that the Professor felt out of his depth, but now he was floundering. "I-I'm very sorry, Mr. Godwins. I'm afraid I didn't get much sleep last night. Shall I – start again?"

"Yes! I mean no." Godwins sighed. "Just start from where you greet Howell. We'll cut it in from there."

"All right." He stood up straight. "Mr. Howell?"

"Russell!"

"Yes?"

Godwin's voice had taken on a tinge of sorrow. "May I please say 'action' before you begin?"

"Oh…of course."

"Thank you." There was a pause, as though for prayer. "Action!"

"Mr. Howell? May I speak to you for a moment?"

Jim was as cool as the lights were scorching. He rose languidly from the chaise, drink in hand. "Now what's this all about, Professor, old man?"

"Well, Mr. Howell, it's about my experiment concerning the Mayan Amulets." The Professor could hear the sigh of relief from the director's chair.

Jim clutched his arm in excitement. "My dear chap, I'm behind you all the way! This will simply revolutionize the travel industry!"

The Professor blinked for a minute. Then he stammered, "Uh…it will?"

"Why, of course! Virtually no overhead: no need to buy a fleet of jumbos or pay salaries for thousands of pilots or stewardesses or airplane mechanics. Heavens, we won't even need coffee, tea or milk! Just the amulets!"

The Professor had no idea when to leap in. Seeing this, Jim grinned and ad libbed on. "But people will pay, Professor! Dollars, Deutchmarks, Lira, Yen! They'll pay from all over the world for such a safe and simple means of travel. I'll make millions! They'll have to invent a whole new income tax bracket!" He looked at the Professor in pity, and at last said what the Professor was waiting for. "So you simply must get Gilligan to dive down into the lagoon and find more of these marvelous things!"

For a moment the Professor didn't speak. Jim eyed him nervously. "Well, Professor? What do you say? About my plan, my splendid plan? Is it…simple?"

"Oh!" The word snapped the Professor out of his daydream. "No! No, it's not that simple, Mr. Howell!"

"Well, what do you mean? I'll pay the dear lad fifteen dollars an hour. Double that on weekends. And I'll enroll him in the company pension plan – with regular payroll deductions, of course."

Again the Professor stood as if pole-axed. Jim rolled his eyes. "I could even send Gilligan on a holiday to Mexico!"

The Professor jumped at the cue. "Mexico! Oh, yes! Yes, well, that's where the rest of the amulets are, if they even exist at all. Gilligan won't have much luck diving in our lagoon for them."

Jim seemed to decide that perhaps this was not the best day to ad lib. This time he kept it simple, for which the Professor was grateful. "Details, details! Professor, you've got to think big!"

"But I haven't worked out all the details, Mr. Howell!" At least here was some dialogue the Professor could feel comfortable with. "The hydrostatic and photostatic properties, the interface of the positive and negative ions in the atmosphere, the synergy of the lunar tides – it's all interconnected!"

"Good grief, Professor! All that and you put Gilligan in charge of finding the amulets? What were you thinking?"

"He's the best swimmer on the island, Mr. Howell. He simply does what I tell him."

Jim threw an arm about the Professor's shoulders. "Then you'll be the head of my organization, Professor! Planning flights all around the globe! I'll give you your very own research laboratory. No more building nuclear reactors out of coconuts for you, old boy!"

The Professor frowned. "I never built a--" he oofed as Jim's arm left his shoulder and elbowed him in the ribs. "a—oh, yes. Of course. But we still have a long way to go, Mr. Howell. We're not out of the woods yet."

"And cut!"

The great lights dimmed, revealing the crew, Godwins and Mary Ann like ghosts appearing out of the darkness. "What did I do now?" called the Professor unhappily.

"Nothing," said Godwins. "You got through it, Russell old man, thanks to Jim here. Let's just hope the rest of the scene goes all right." He turned around. "Are the rest here yet?"

"I'm not the rest, Leslie darling. I'm in the first season credits, remember?" Natalie had stolen up behind Mary Ann. "I saw most of that. Jim, you old scene-stealer. I don't know why they bother writing lines for you – or anybody else, for that matter."

Jim blew her the unmistakable kiss of a very old friend. "You're too kind, my sweet. En guarde!"

"But I think you're going to have to share the limelight today, Jimmy. Listen! Hail the conquering hero comes!"

The Professor and Mary Ann turned as a noise came rolling through the soundstage like wide, slow-moving ocean swell.