Hidden Mickey Adventures 1

by Nancy Temple Rodrigue

  Giving a groan as a reply, Peter had forgotten all about his family in all this excitement. He made a quick decision. “Let’s try riding Alice in Wonderland. I think it has the most black lights. Remember how funny your white shirt always looked all the way through the ride? I’ll read off the letters and you write them down. You still have your pen and the game book, right? Use that. Then we’ll meet Mom and Dad and figure this out at home. Okay?”

  “Just you and me?” Michael sounded a little shy. He liked the idea of working alone on something new and fun like this with his older brother.

  Peter looked at the hopeful look on Michael’s face. Usually their family did things together as a unit, but he thought he understood Michael’s desire to keep this just between the two of them. “Yeah.” As a promise, Peter lightly punched him in the arm and gave him a big smile. “Just you and me.”

  As they walked toward the edge of Fantasyland and the Alice ride, Peter thought of something else. “Hey, Michael, remember the last time we went over to Uncle Adam and Aunt Beth’s house? Right after the twins broke that vase?”

  “Yeah.” Michael let out a snort. “I thought Alex and Catie were really going to get in trouble for that! You know, I really like their dog Sunnee. You think Dad will let us get a dog now?”

  “I don’t know.” Impatient, Peter didn’t want to get sidetracked by another discussion about a possible pet. “Listen, remember over their fireplace? Uncle Adam was showing us all those Snow White animation cels he had put into frames and hung up there.”

  “What about them?” as they wound through the shady chain-linked queue. Michael’s thoughts were still focused on their friend’s huge Golden Retriever, Sunnee.

  “They were the same size as…” Peter clamped his mouth shut as his eyes darted around. No one seemed to be listening to him. Lowering his voice to a whisper anyway, he continued, “They were just the same size as the Mickey we found. And they were also signed. Isn’t that weird?”

  “I don’t know. Should we ask Mom about the dog? Andrew’s already seven and our house is bigger than Uncle Adam’s. Do you think Aunt Beth would let me drive her keel boat now? I am nine now. Alex got to drive it and he’s only eleven.”

  Used to Michael’s sudden thought shifts and random questions, Peter didn’t answer his brother. He was thinking about animation cels and Walt Disney.

  As the boys went to meet the rest of their family with the new clue safely stowed in Peter’s backpack, a red warning light was blinking on and off on a map in a secret room in the nearby city of Fullerton, high in the hills. This locked, unmarked room located on an upper floor was called the War Room and there were only three people alive on the earth who knew about it.

  The map was a large holographic map of Disneyland that glowed and shimmered and hung in the air in the middle of the huge room. There were also a bank of computers and information stations, a large filing cabinet system, monitors that showed live feed from countless hidden cameras throughout the Park, and a wall of telephones in that room. With the touch of a button on the main console, the map of Disneyland could be instantly replaced with a map of the world—also showing many yellow dots here and there around the globe.

  This room had been designed and built by Walt Disney himself decades earlier. The building in which the room was hidden was also designed by Walt and presented as a gift to the man who would watch over and protect all that Walt had built—his first Guardian. When that man suddenly died several years ago, his daughter and son-in-law had proven worthy of taking over the role as Guardians of Walt.

  The blinking red dot of light was surrounded by many solid yellow dots. Each of those lights indicated special places to Walt that he wanted protected—no matter what was going on in Disneyland. They could pinpoint rides that he didn’t want changed, or they could indicate something special that he wanted to remain in place—like the petrified tree he had given to his wife as an anniversary present and soon thereafter found a place in Frontierland to remain forever. Or, more importantly, they could represent hidden clues or messages Walt had put into place to preserve his legacy. When a light turned red and started to blink, it meant that something Walt had put there had been found, removed, or damaged. It was then up to the Guardians to find out what had happened and either fix it or observe what was going on and act accordingly.

  The red light that just started to go on and off was located on the west side of Disneyland, in Frontierland. It indicated that something happened inside the Golden Horseshoe.

  However, there was no one in the War Room to see the warning light. The Guardians were not at their post.

  For the War Room was located on the third floor in the mansion where the Brentwood family lived and two of the three Guardians—Kimberly and Lance—were off having a fun day at Disneyland with their boys Peter, Michael, and Andrew.

  “It takes a thief to catch a thief.” Theodore Raven smugly smiled to himself as he patrolled the shops on Main Street U.S.A. It was a bright, warm Saturday, one of the busiest days at Disneyland. Dressed in casual clothes consisting of khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, he wandered in and out of the stores looking for possible pickpockets or shoplifters.

  Theodore, or Todd to most people, despite all his efforts to be known as Raven, preferred working the Fox Patrol over his usual assignment of late-night security guard. This Fox Patrol was an undercover position in Disneyland’s Security Department designed to quietly apprehend thieves working inside the Park. He had been trained by the best on the Force, Wolf. His admiration of Wolf and his abilities led Todd to try and change his own moniker to Raven, thinking the title would make him sound edgier and more dangerous. But, to no avail. His nametag, now hidden from view under the loud Hawaiian shirt, still proclaimed him to be Todd.

  As he followed one likely suspect from the Emporium across Main Street into the Disney Clothiers shop, Todd kept an eye out for other likely marks for his own use. There was one thing Wolf never learned in Todd’s background check when he was hired at Disneyland two years ago: Todd himself was an accomplished liar as well as a seasoned thief. And what better place was there to work his trade than in a popular amusement Park filled with tourists and all their tourist dollars, traveler’s checks, and credit cards?

  Todd had been doing very well for himself since he was hired—both as a security guard and in his secret profession as a pickpocket. He had a brilliant record of apprehensions of thieves. What the record failed to show, though, was that approximately half of all the money that was recovered was never reported as missing or stolen. He knew that the average tourist usually had no idea exactly how much cash had been in the wallet that had been stolen from their purse or back pocket, or just how many credit cards had been stuffed inside. Todd saw that he could start making a lot of easy money on the sly, and that’s exactly what he did. To keep suspicion to a minimum, he would split the money he recovered from the supposedly ‘lost’ wallets: Half would be kept for himself and half would be turned in to the unknowing Disneyland office. He also lifted more than a few wallets to keep for himself.

  Like most thieves, Todd was very self-satisfied and thought quite highly of his own abilities. To pull one over on the intrepid, well-respected Wolf was quite a big deal in his mind. With a silent chuckle, Todd felt it was a shame he couldn’t share the knowledge of his superior abilities with anyone else. Keeping to himself within the Security Force, he was mostly known to be a loner—another wasted effort to heighten his perceived image and earn the nickname Raven.

  As Todd followed a sticky-fingered guest into the Crystal Arts, his interest wavered. Other than a couple of Goofy pens the man had stuck into his pocket back in the Emporium, he didn’t seem to be able to find anything easy to pick. Todd knew that the colorful pens weren’t worth the time it would take to process the man and throw him out of the Park. Alerting the woman cast member who worked the cash register that there was a possible thief in the store, he left her to watch the man as he returned to Main Street. Reg
ulations required that he would be called if the man decided to go for a bigger haul.

  Back on the sidewalk, Todd let the ebb and flow of the guests move around him. People were coming and going at various speeds depending on whether they had just come into Disneyland to begin their day of adventure and fun, or whether they had to drag sullen children out of the Park to go to lunch somewhere else or, even worse, to go home. When he spied a woman with a small child in a baby stroller—along with an open purse—struggle when the wheels of the stroller got stuck in the horse trolley tracks, he rushed over to help. As he helped lift the stroller out of the tracks, he also helped himself to her wallet by lifting it out of the gaping purse. Grateful for the help, the unknowing victim smiled her thanks and continued up Main Street toward Sleeping Beauty Castle and Fantasyland.

  With the wallet safely hidden in the deep pocket of his cargo shorts, Todd looked around for whatever else he could find. He preferred to work the Emporium near the time the Park was closing. People were more frantic to make last-minute purchases and were quite unmindful of how they carried their purses and wallets. Now, however, it was just after noon. The guests were more interested in lunch and finding a nice quiet location in some welcome shade.

  As he walked down Main Street to head over to the Hungry Bear Restaurant and its tightly-packed, inattentive guests, he couldn’t help but notice two boys in the Penny Arcade. Kids usually spent a little time in the arcade to try out the different old-time games and machines. However, since they were used to the modern, high-tech video games, most kids quickly tired of the old machines you had to crank by hand or games that had limited targets. As he neared the brightly-lit entrance, he paused next to Esmeralda, the fortune teller’s box. Not interested in having his fortune revealed for a quarter, he peered more closely at the boys. They looked somewhat familiar to him. But, what was more interesting to Todd was that they seemed to be awfully interested in one particular machine, not having left it since he spotted them.

  Their heads had been bent close together, as if sharing great secrets that only the two of them could know. When they broke apart to look at the machine in front of them, Todd recognized them as one of his fellow security guard’s kids. These two had to be Lance Brentwood’s boys. He had seen the whole family together at different Park events—especially noticing the beauty Lance had married. He couldn’t remember the boys’ names just then, but he wondered why they were acting so funny. They would refer to a beat-up piece of paper again and again, and then would compare it to the old-fashioned movie projector in front of them. Todd could see by the title card on the top of that particular machine that it starred Charlie Chaplin in something called “Dough and Dynamite.”

  Slowly he moved closer, fishing in his pockets to find some coins to operate the bright green and gold machine that was located next to theirs. Spaced about four feet apart, he figured he wouldn’t alert them of his interest. As he turned the crank, he barely watched the cards as they flipped one by one to show him the “Battling Twins.” As close as he was, he now could clearly hear the younger, shorter boy as he talked.

  “Are you sure this is the right one, Peter?”

  Peter again referred to his notes. “Well, I showed you what I found on the Internet last night on Mutoscopes. They were invented back in 1894 and they have about 850 different cards like a cartoon flipbook. When you turn this crank,” he pointed to the recently painted machine, “the pictures fall past this viewer one at a time, but the flip action makes it look like a real moving picture. It only lasts about a minute. The reference said they were used in penny arcades a long time ago. That’s how I figured it might be here.”

  Now assuming the boys were just doing some sort of research, maybe for a school project on old picture machines like this, Todd was just about to turn and walk away when he saw the younger boy look around the Penny Arcade, a frown on his face. The boy didn’t notice when he hurriedly ducked back down to look in his own Mutoscope. “I guess.” Uninterested in the history lesson, Michael finished looking at the other machines. “It looks like this is the only one that has Charlie Chaplin in it. What do we do now? Did you bring the pennies Walt left us?”

  Todd’s interest piqued when Peter immediately shushed the younger boy’s reference to a Walt. It could be anyone named Walt, but why the secrecy?

  “Shh, don’t say that too loud, Michael. No, I brought some pennies out of Andrew’s piggy bank. Hey, don’t give me that look! I left him a shiny quarter instead.”

  Peter now referred to a different piece of paper in his hand. “It says to try, try, try again if we don’t succeed. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to see. Do you want to do it first?” He held a penny out to his brother.

  “Me?” Michael looked shocked. “No. You do it,” as he pushed the coin back at Peter.

  Peter stifled a groan at his brother’s reluctance. “Tell you what, let’s both look. If I take the right side of the viewer, you can have the left side. Put your right eye on the view thing. We can both watch while I turn the crank to make the pictures move. How does that sound?”

  Michael moved to the left side of the colorful machine. It was almost too tall for him since it was designed for adults to watch the show. Standing on his tip-toes, he nodded. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  “Here goes.” Peter dropped in a penny and started to turn the crank. The darkness inside the view screen suddenly lit and they could see faded images of Charlie Chaplin dressed as a baker. There was another man who seemed to be in competition with Charlie. They tried to sabotage each other’s work and a stick of dynamite was put into a loaf of bread. The oven finally exploded as the images faded from view and the screen faded back to black.

  “That’s it? I don’t get it.” Michael moved aside to look at Peter. He had been pressing his face so hard against the machine that it left curved marks on his forehead. Giving a sudden smile, he added, “I did like the dynamite part!”

  “You would.” A knowing grin on his face his brother decided not to mention the dents on Michael’s face. “The note said to try, try again, so let’s do another penny.”

  Their heads huddled close together, the motion was repeated—with the same results. Peter dropped in a third penny and tried to turn the crank faster this time. However, the images moved at the same rate of speed and they saw the same movie a third time.

  “Again?” Michael sounded eager, even with their lack of any noticeable success. He really liked it when the oven exploded and flour went all over the men.

  A fourth penny was dropped in and Peter turned the bright crank. But, after the third rotation, the screen went suddenly blank and they could hear the sound of something automated move inside. Afraid to take their eyes off the viewer, the boys held their breath as the noise quickly stopped and the screen lit up again.

  As Todd continued to listen in, he too heard the strange noise come from a machine known for its quietness. Since the boys were glued to the eyepiece, he stopped pretending to watch his own show. This was proving to be more interesting than he had hoped.

  Peter, totally immersed in what was happening, continued to crank and the screen came back into focus in the Mutoscope. However, the image had changed from Charlie Chaplin to that of someone very familiar.

  “It’s Walt!” Peter whispered needlessly to his brother.

  “Keep turning.” Not moving his face, Michael kicked out with his foot.

  “I am turning. Just watch.”

  The black and white images—much clearer than the images had been of Chaplin—showed the camera pull back from a close-up of Walt’s smiling face. It revealed him to be in a familiar tropical setting. He held a long stick in his right hand and he walked over to a parrot above his head and tapped the perch on which the bird was sitting. His lips moved, but there was no sound. A black card edged in curly white lines popped into view and read: “Wake up, Jose!” As the parrot started to move and the perch turned this way and that, Walt put his fingers to his lips and motioned for t
he camera—and the viewer—to follow him. He walked over to the right to a wall in the room and pointed at a totem pole full of carved faces. He pointed at the topmost face with his stick, tapped it twice, gave a wink, and the light began to fade with Walt frozen in position.

  Peter found the crank no longer turned as the mechanical noise returned inside the machine. As the boys stared, afraid to move, the new cards that had appeared with Walt on them began to turn dark and fall off the circular reel that held them. It was as if they were turning to dust right before their eyes. When the last of the new cards looked like they were completely destroyed, the Mutoscope whirred again and Charlie Chaplin came back into view, his little movie continuing where it had been interrupted. When it finished, the view screen returned to being completely dark once more.

  As fast as he could, Peter inserted another coin and another, trying it again and again. But, no matter how many times he did it, he only got to see the 1914 film “Dough and Dynamite.”

  “We broke it.” Michael’s face had turned white.

  They both backed away from the Mutoscope. Peter didn’t quite agree. “No, I don’t think so, Mikey. I…I think that was what we were supposed to see. I hope.”

  “You…you don’t look too sure.” Michael’s chest rose and fell with his rapid breathing.

  “Come over here, away from the machine.” His own eyes wide with indecision, Peter pulled on his brother’s arm.

  As soon as they walked a ways off, a man in a very colorful shirt immediately took their place at the Mutoscope and inserted his own penny. The boys warily watched him for the time it took the film to play, and then the man inserted another coin. They could tell by his actions that he saw the same Chaplin movie again because he lost interest and wandered over to a nearby rifle game and inserted a quarter to play.

  Ignoring him once again, the boys returned to their previous discussion. Todd had to really strain to hear them as his rifle popped ineffectively at the unmoving targets.