If his mother turned him in now, all was lost. He was putting Wayne’s fate in her hands. All their fates.
He waited. And waited.
“Oh, dear,” his mother said. Her knees went out and she fell forward. She’d obviously caved under the pressure. Finn’s plan had failed.
Pete caught her. Then Finn’s dad took her under her arm and tried to stand her up. But she used being off-balance to propel herself toward the barge.
“If I can only sit down for a moment,” she said. She practically dragged Finn’s dad to the side of the Earth Globe barge, and she sat down on the edge of the barge next to an old tire used as a bumper. Right next to the line that tied it to shore.
His mom. The performance of a lifetime.
Pete and the other parents were still talking when Philby showed up between the containers.
“Mom? Dad?”
Philby’s parents—for they turned out to be the other two adults—cried out in surprise.
Everyone’s attention focused on Philby as he stepped out. “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say: I’m sorry.”
Finn’s mom slipped the line off the cleat that bound the barge to the dock. She stood up and stepped away from the barge.
Amanda locked her legs under a crossbeam that secured the globe, rose to her knees, drew back her hands, and pushed them forward.
The guard fell over. Mr. and Mrs. Whitman fell over. And the barge jumped away from the dock.
Charlene pulled the start cord and the engine kicked to life.
The guard scrambled to his feet, turned, and ran for the barge. He jumped, but splashed into the murky water, missing the barge.
Charlene motored them away from the dock.
Finn hurried forward, figured out the carabiner, and removed it from the clasp. He swung open the door, fell to his knees, and felt tears running from his eyes.
Wayne, his feet pressed up into his chest, his white hair like a beacon of light, was crammed into the small box.
He was smiling.
“What took you so long?” he said.
DAYS BLENDED INTO WEEKS. Philby used his control of the software to keep them from crossing over in part because their parents were monitoring them closely and “heads would roll” if they went DHI again.
Philby’s only conversation with Wayne had been brief, on the day of his rescue. Wayne had spoken in a whisper, not out of weakness, but in the interest of secrecy.
“There is more going on than meets the eye. It’s much bigger than you think.”
“The seat belts?”
“A small part of it, yes. Present your evidence to the Imagineers. They will believe you. They will do the necessary safety checks of the seat belts. It’s not an issue if they have Maleficent. And I’m assuming—”
“She and Chernabog…I heard they were taken to the Animal Kingdom. To the vet clinic for her, and the elephant cages for him.”
“That may buy you the time you need.”
“Time to do what?”
“To finish it. They aren’t done. There are more of them—many more than we knew. And the only way to stop them…”
But the paramedics approached. They grabbed Wayne’s gurney and whisked him off into the ambulance. It was the last Finn had seen of him.
Finn had turned in his cell phone and computer as part of his punishment, accepting that it would be a month or more before his parents loosened up and gave him back some of his freedoms. But despite all the discipline, he and his mom would catch eyes every so often—at the dinner table, across the kitchen when Finn was doing his homework—and he would see her eyes smile back at him. It was more than his being safe. It was that she’d been part of the team—in solving the cryptogram, in untying the barge. She’d briefly experienced the thrill he lived with nearly every day. She’d touched it. She knew now. She would never look at him the same again.
School was school: b o r i n g…except at lunch, when a certain friend would slide onto the bench next to him off in the far corner, and sometimes he would feel her hand glance against his or would catch a look in her eye, or see her fighting back a smile.
“I don’t know what happened outside the stage,” he finally gathered the courage to say one day. “But whatever it was, it wasn’t right. I like Charlene and everything, but I don’t know why you said the things you said.”
“Neither do I.”
“And that’s it?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain this.”
“It would help by trying to in the first place.”
“I’m a Fairlie,” she said.
“I think we’ve established that.”
“We all have special…traits. Qualities.”
“Powers,” he said.
“We don’t think of them that way. But okay. Whatever. We have them.”
“I was talking about Charlene,” he said.
“Shut up, Finn. Let me talk if I’m going to talk.”
He felt himself blush. There weren’t many people who could tell him to shut up without getting him steamed. But when Amanda said it, he wanted to laugh.
“My quality is…what I’m good at…what I’m able to do is to push. To levitate. To move objects away from me.” He directed the intensity of her eyes onto his. “To move things away from me.”
He swallowed. “And if they don’t want to be moved?”
“I can move almost anything I want to. No matter how large. I mean, maybe not a building, but I moved a truck once.”
“Just because you’re good at something,” he said, “doesn’t mean it has to own you. There are people that let that happen, and there are people that don’t. It’s a choice, not a prison sentence.”
“That makes it sound easier than it is.”
“Let me put it this way: you can push me away all you want, but I’m like a human yo-yo. I’m going to come right back at you.”
“It’s what I do. I pushed my family away without meaning to—or I wouldn’t be without them.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know what happened to them.”
“I can imagine.”
“Wayne taught us to imagine the good, Amanda. It is an option, you know? Seriously.”
“The thing with Charlene.”
“You were pushing me. I get that,” he said.
“I’ll never let anyone get close.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t say that.”
She sighed, deeply frustrated.
He placed his hand onto hers on the bench. Hers was icy cold. His, phenomenally warm from nerves.
“A human yo-yo,” he repeated.
He won a smile from her.
“You’re Kingdom Keepers now. You and Jess. You know that, right?”
She nodded.
“There are ways we do things,” he said. “As a group. For each other. We always team up. No one ever goes alone.”
She looked totally stressed out.
“No one ever goes alone,” he repeated. “I’ll tell you something: I don’t like girls. But I like you. I don’t care about girls, but I care about you, and Willa, and Jess, and yeah, Charlene, too. Nothing bad is ever going to happen to them. Never going to happen to you. That’s just the way it is. You’re a part of that now. You can’t get out of it. We won’t let you. No one ever goes alone.”
“You going to eat that?” she asked, pointing to something that had pineapple in its name but was the texture of a kitchen sponge.
“No,” he said. “Go for it.”
She reached over and snagged it and ate it in two bites. “You haven’t forgotten about Jeannie Pucket, right?”
“Who’s Jeannie Pucket?” he asked.
“My roommate. Jess’s and my roommate. You promised you’d meet her.”
“Oh, great…”
“I was thinking an ice cream cone at The Frozen Marble.”
“You make it sound like a date.”
“It kind of is.”
“Help!”
&
nbsp; “I could come along,” she offered.
“It’s sounding better,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said, still chewing.
“Well if it isn’t Thin Wit-less!” growled a voice from behind them.
Luowski now had a string of zits from his nose all the way over to his ear. Mike Horton stood to the side and slightly behind him.
“And the evil witch,” Luowski added. “Blown any houses off-course lately?”
“Take a hike, Luowski,” Finn said.
“You and me, we’ve got unfinished business.”
“Mike,” Finn said, “I thought you were going to get him a better writer?”
Horton tried to keep the grin off his face.
Luowski said, “Your girly-friend isn’t always going to be around, Whitman. Don’t you think it’s kind of spineless to need a girl to do your fighting for you anyway?”
“Sticks and stones, Luowski. You know I’m not going to fight you. You’re a cretin. And if you don’t know what that means, look it up. You’ll be enlightened.”
“I’m coming for you, Whitman.”
“Mike,” Amanda said, “do me a favor and get Greg out of here before there’s trouble.”
Horton led Luowski away. Luowski tried to look like he wanted to hang around, but Finn knew better. Amanda had him and half the school scared.
“You realize we’re outcasts?” Finn said.
“Yes. I’ve been one my whole life. It’s not so bad really. You get used to it.”
“I’m working on it.”
“I can help you,” she said.
“I’d like that, I think. But remember: I don’t like girls.”
“Yes. So you said.”
“Just so we’re clear on that.”
“Perfectly.” She wiggled her hand under his. And he squeezed hers just a little bit tighter.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Nancy Litzinger Zastrow for running my office. To Amy Berkower, Dan Conaway, and, especially, Genevieve Gange-Hawes—all of Writers House, New York. Also to Matthew Snyder, of CAA.
At Disney Book Group I want to thank Wendy Lefkon, Jennifer Levine, Nellie Kurtzman, Frankie Lobono, Jessica Ward, and the whole publishing team for all the help on these projects.
The Kingdom Keepers books wouldn’t exist without the on-site research, and this time around (Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios) the research wouldn’t have happened without the dedication and time from all of the following: Alex Wright, Jason Grandt and Debra Wren, Pete Glim, Jeff Terry, Brian Ripley, Tom Devlin, Rachel at Soarin’, and Lorraine and Philip at the Engineering Base.
Thanks to everyone for keeping the magic alive.
—Ridley Pearson
2010
St. Louis
Keep reading for a preview of Kingdom Keepers IV—Power Play, the next book in the Kingdom Keepers series!
“LET’S GET LOST,” Finn said to the two girls.
DisneyQuest was a maze, a place where it was difficult to know where you were. An electronic funhouse filled with virtual rides, video games, and interactive attractions, the enormous building in Walt Disney World’s Downtown Disney consisted of five floors subdivided into virtual worlds and activities, all interconnected in a way that seemed designed to disorient. Finn Whitman actually was currently lost—he couldn’t quite figure out where he was or how to get out of there—but his suggestion to “get lost” stemmed from his spotting Greg “Lousy” Luowski at the other end of the gaming room, over near the Guitar Hero consoles. Luowski was the ninth-grade bully. Roughly the size of a kitchen appliance, the zit-faced, fingernail-chewing Luowski had it out for Finn, and Finn knew enough to stay clear of trouble. At least, avoidable trouble.
Over the past few years, trouble had defined him, had followed him as he and his four friends—now known as the Kingdom Keepers—had gained notoriety for their efforts to save Disney World from the Overtakers, a group of fanatical Disney villain characters within the Parks bent on taking over and “stealing the magic.” Guys like Luowski didn’t appreciate sharing the spotlight with anyone, and at the moment Finn was roughly a million times more popular than Luowski.
“How about the simulators in CyberSpace Mountain?” Charlene said. Charlene was to beautiful what Mount Everest was to high. A cheerleader and phenomenal athlete, she was the poster child for the Kingdom Keepers. Her Facebook page had more friends than Ashton Kutcher’s—well, not really, but close enough. Boys liked her. Girls liked her. Teachers liked her. Parents liked her. It was enough to make you hate her. But no one could. She was too ridiculously Charlene to ever have an ill thought aimed at her.
Finn considered the suggestion and glanced over to Amanda to get her read. Amanda was a different kind of pretty: mysterious, her looks often changing from slightly Asian to Polynesian or Caribbean. Amanda was not officially one of the five Kingdom Keepers, but she and her “sister,” Jess, had unique qualities and unusual abilities that made them important to the team.
Amanda and Jess had once been part of a group of foster kids called the Fairlies—as in “fairly human.” Kids who could bend spoons just by staring at them, or hear clearly at absurd distances, hold their breath underwater for ten minutes at a time, light fires by concentrating, dream the future, see the past. Kids labeled freaks and weirdos; kids once studied by the military but dismissed to a special home in Baltimore when scientists failed to duplicate or explain what was termed their “controlled phenomena.”
Currently, Amanda and Jess lived in an Orlando foster home for wayward girls run by the iron-handed Mrs. Nash. Despite sharing not only the same address, but also the same bunk room, they now attended different high schools; Jess had qualified for an AP program and went to Edgewater High along with two of the Kingdom Keepers, Willa and Philby.
Amanda had come to DisneyQuest this evening because the event was a school-sanctioned function. She’d brought Jess as her one allowed guest. To Finn, it seemed like the entire ninth grade of Winter Park High was there.
Finn liked Amanda, which roughly translated to: he couldn’t stop thinking about her, was often tongue-tied when trying to talk to her, and made a fool out of himself when trying to come off as cool. There was a friction that existed between Amanda and Charlene that he knew had something to do with him, but which he didn’t like to think about. In general, he didn’t like to think about girls all that much, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“Okay,” he said. “I guess.” Finn didn’t like roller coasters—actually was terrified of them—but wasn’t about to admit it.
The other three Keepers were also in DisneyQuest somewhere, as was Jess. Even though only Finn and Amanda attended Winter Park, it had been months since the whole group had done anything fun together. Their last outing, to Disney’s Hollywood Studios’ Fantasmic!, had led to an encounter with the Overtakers that nearly got Finn killed. The idea tonight had been to meet here and stick together, but they’d separated by ride and interest—Philby and Willa had gone to the ground floor to battle pirate ships, while Maybeck and Jess had gone to the bumper cars. Charlene had taken off to the bathroom a few minutes earlier, and Finn had considered ditching her in favor of being alone with Amanda; but it had only been a passing thought and one he didn’t fully understand. He liked Charlene. A lot. But not in the same incomprehensible way he liked Amanda.
Luowski spotted Finn and made a face like a football player who’d taken a knee in the wrong place. Finn didn’t want to get drawn into that.
“Come on, let’s go,” he said, as Charlene returned.
The three took the stairs to the second floor, and Charlene led them to CyberSpace Mountain.
The ride was a virtual roller coaster that allowed visitors to pick preexisting twists and turns or to design their own. There were five levels of challenge, from easy to terrifying.
“I’ll take mine lite,” Finn said.
“Me, too,” said Amanda. “I get sick on roller coasters.”
“We should go to
gether,” Finn said, confessing, “because I’m basically a chicken.”
“Oh, right,” said Charlene. “You a chicken? I don’t think so.”
“Seriously! The Barnstormer is about as tough as I can take.”
Both girls laughed. Then they exchanged looks that had they been Taser shots would have dropped each other to the ground.
Bill Nye the Science Guy tutored Charlene as she scrolled through selections to create a wildly scary roller coaster for herself. Maybe she was trying to make a point to Amanda, maybe she just loved roller coasters; but it had enough loops and jumps to make an astronaut puke.
She used her entrance ticket to store it. Then she quickly worked with Bill Nye to make another, very basic, ride. She saved it onto Finn’s ticket.
“I love it as scary as it gets,” she said looking directly at Amanda. “It’s awesome.”
They headed for the short line of people that waited for the next simulator. Charlene was bumped into by someone, so hard that had she not possessed the grace of a dancer, she would have fallen to the floor.
Greg Luowski.
She dropped the two tickets in the process. In a surprisingly polite gesture, Luowski asked if she was okay and collected the tickets and returned them to her. Finn caught this look in Luowski’s eyes—the jerk liked Charlene; his bumping into her had been no accident.
“Lay off, Luowski,” Finn said.
Amanda took Finn by the arm.
“Lay off what, Whitless? My bad for the knockdown. Can’t I help her up?” He faced Charlene. “I really am sorry.”
“No problem,” she said. But Finn was still seething. “As in: we don’t want any problems.” She said this slowly, making sure Finn heard every word.
“I’ll be around, Whitless. If you want me, you can find me.”
“Try some deodorant, Luowski.”
Charlene cupped her mouth, hiding her smile.
Luowski didn’t just smell like a jock, he smelled like an entire team that had been working out in the summer heat for five hours. He smelled like a guy who hadn’t showered since sixth grade.
Kingdom Keepers Boxed Set Page 78
