Kingdom Keepers III : Disney in Shadow (9781423151104)

by Pearson, Ridley

  “He’s handy to have around at times like this,” Jess said.

  “I suppose. But it’s risky for him—for all of them. I think it’s stupid of him to come.”

  “You’re worried about him! Do you have a crush on him?” Jess said.

  “As if! You’re the one he can’t keep his eyes off of. Him and every other boy.”

  “That is so not true!”

  “We both know it is,” Amanda said. “Hey, I’m good with it, so don’t fight it.” She lowered her voice. “Why do you keep checking your watch? We’ve got plenty of time before we have to be back.”

  “It isn’t that,” Jess said. “My watch shows the temperature. Elevation. A bunch of stuff. It’s like for rock climbers or something.”

  Amanda moved closer trying to see the watch face. “And?” she asked.

  “No change so far. Eighty-two degrees.”

  “As in, boiling.”

  “Yeah, but my watch may pick up on a change before we do. You realize we’re lucky it’s so hot out?”

  “Because?”

  “Because it’ll be more obvious if the temperature drops all of a sudden, like Finn says it will. And because any kind of sudden chill will need some kind of explanation. It’s not as if anything’s getting colder out here, you know?”

  It was true. Everything around them was concrete or stone, storing or reflecting the intense afternoon heat. Any drop in temperature could only be explained by something man-made or unnatural.

  The Land was housed in an inelegant glass-and-concrete structure with a huge sign bearing its name. As the girls approached it, they walked slowly, trying to sense a change in temperature. Jess monitored her watch carefully.

  “Nothing but hot,” Jess said.

  “Personally, I think this is hopeless,” Amanda said. “I mean I know Finn and those guys have felt a chill before, but you’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Any other ideas?”

  “No. That’s the thing, I guess. Finn is super-close to Wayne. His being missing is eating him up. We’ve got to do something, but I’m not sure there’s any point to—” Amanda turned because Jess had stopped walking. “Sis?” she said, using a favorite nickname.

  Jessica stood there staring into space. She looked as if she was studying the sign on the building, but Amanda knew something was wrong. She hurried back to her.

  “Sis?”

  “I don’t want to lose it,” Jess said.

  Amanda was about to say something when she thought better of it. Her “sister” was a rare and unusual creature herself; her gift of “sight” made her different in the same way that Amanda’s own gifts separated her from others. In this way neither of them felt that she belonged, which only solidified their friendship and their bond. Amanda knew better than to speak. She knew it intuitively without needing to be told. She took Jess gently by the arm and steered her toward a concrete bench. At the same time, her concern for their safety told her to search for any security cameras in the area; in the Magic Kingdom, Finn had believed some of the security people worked in concert with the Overtakers.

  Again, she was about to speak; again, she controlled herself.

  “Pencil,” Jess said. She sounded sleepy. “Something to write on.”

  Amanda dug through her purse. No pen, no paper, but she found some mascara. She slipped Jess’s purse off her shoulder and rifled through it as well. She came up with a Winn-Dixie receipt. She put the mascara brush into Jess’s right hand and the receipt onto her leg and steered Jess’s hand to the receipt.

  “Okay.” She spoke softly.

  Jess had that faraway look going. But her hand began to move, and the mascara brush smeared black onto the receipt. It was no good: her effort was illegible. Amanda frantically dug through Jess’s purse. In a zippered pocket she found a stumpy wooden pencil. She replaced the mascara with the pencil. Jess’s hand began to scribble again.

  She shaded and crosshatched, making the receipt darker. Then she pressed hard and wrote several letters, making them fat and black.

  MKPFP IFP

  Amanda looked up. Later, she wouldn’t be sure exactly why she did this. Had something instinctive told her to do so, or had it been only coincidence? These kinds of questions pestered her lately, the reasons behind events, the power of intuition and thought and what role fate played in her life and the lives of others. She didn’t mention any of this to anyone—not even Jess. It was “heavy,” deep stuff—and she was afraid she’d be teased for thinking about such things—but she lay awake at night considering the connection of her life to the lives of others, what her life might have been like had she not been orphaned, what it would mean for her and Jess to be sent back to the Fairlies, whether Finn liked her as more than a friend, where she was going to be in another three years when she turned eighteen and the foster-care system released her.

  She spotted a green balloon coming toward her. Carried high above the heads of the guests pouring in to The Land, it bounced with the movement of the person carrying it.

  Finn? If so, they had no time to hang out on a bench.

  “We’ve got to get going,” she said to Jess, whose hand suddenly went rigid as she stopped writing. She blinked.

  “Jess!” Amanda continued. “The balloon. Finn. The woman. We can’t stay here.”

  Jess looked over at Amanda, then took in her surroundings. “Whoa,” she gasped. She looked down at the receipt as if seeing it for the first time. “What’s going—?”

  “Now!” Amanda said, grabbing the pencil and receipt and stuffing them into her purse.

  The green balloon wasn’t traveling at the speed of the other guests, but much faster. She knew it was Finn. She knew it meant trouble was coming toward them as quickly as the balloon.

  She pulled Jess to her feet. “You okay?”

  “Yes. Fine.”

  They started toward The Land.

  “It was like…one of my dreams,” Jess explained.

  “You know? Like when you get in the zone. In a daydream? Like that.”

  “You were totally gone,” Amanda said. “Like sleepwalking.”

  “Exactly! That’s exactly it. That’s never happened to me before. Nothing like that. I mean, when I’m asleep, sure. In my dreams. But never like that. Never awake.”

  Amanda glanced back. Her eyes fell briefly on a woman coming toward them, a woman more put together than ninety percent of the other park guests. She had her hair up in a fancy way, and wore a nice necklace, a pressed white shirt. Amanda knew immediately it was the woman, though she spent no time considering how that might be possible.

  “It’s her,” she told Jess. “Follow me.”

  She picked up the pace, leading Jess into the enormous, circular pavilion. There was an escalator and stairs ahead. A balcony running around the perimeter looked down into the lower plaza. Miniature hot-air balloons were suspended from the peak of the tent with colorful streamers cascading down on all sides.

  She avoided the pileup at the escalator and took the stairs, careful not to run and draw further attention to them.

  Below them was a sea of tables, most with colorful umbrellas overhead. The umbrellas did not exactly hide whoever was sitting beneath them. So she plotted a course away from the stairs.

  “This way!” she whispered as they reached the plaza. She glanced quickly up. There was the green balloon, now only a few feet behind the woman. Finn was taking a huge risk getting so close to the woman.

  Amanda cut quickly to the right and dodged a few tables, now in a location screened from the stairs. For the time being, they’d ditched the woman. She wanted to keep it that way.

  “How are we supposed to hide in this place?” she asked Jess. But there was no answer: Jess seemed dazed, like she’d just woken up.

  Amanda considered the girls’ room, but they’d only trap themselves.

  “Can’t see the forest for the trees,” Jess said. She was pointing at the waiting line for Living with the Land.

  Am
anda tried to make sense of what Jess had just said. Trees? There were fruit trees inside Living with the Land, but if they tried to jump out of the boat they’d be busted.

  “It’s a basketball team, right?” Jess interrupted, sounding much more awake. “Or volleyball, maybe. Come on!”

  Jess reversed their roles, taking Amanda by the hand and steering her toward the line.

  “I don’t think this is such a good idea,” Amanda said. She spotted a group of tall girls all wearing a team uniform. The forest for the trees, she realized. “We don’t want to get stuck on a ride.”

  But Jess ignored her.

  “Excuse me,” Jess said, maneuvering the two of them between the team and the far wall, as if keenly interested in the wall’s photographic mural. The athletes continued talking among themselves, not the least bit interested in the two girls.

  Jess had effectively put a human screen between herself and Amanda and the mystery woman. There was no way the woman would see them unless she, too, joined the line and pushed forward; but that would be nearly impossible: several families had filed in behind the team. The woman would have to cut the line to have any chance of seeing the girls, and that would only draw attention to her.

  The hardest thing for Amanda was not looking. She kept an eye for the green balloon but made no effort to see through the tall girls, for fear of her being seen.

  “Good call,” she said to Jess.

  “Finn had better be careful,” Jess said.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  The line surged forward. The sisters stayed with the team, keeping up against the wall and out of sight of the vast hall.

  “Oh, no,” Amanda said. The green balloon appeared and stopped about five yards behind them.

  Finn was in their line. He had not lowered the balloon, which meant only one thing.

  “No more looking,” Jess instructed. “We keep our backs to her. We’ll be on the ride—in the boat—in less than a minute. What’s she going to do then?”

  “No idea,” Amanda answered, “but I don’t think I want to find out.”

  “We’ve just got to hope—” Jess cut herself off. It was too late: the volleyball team filled up the back of a boat. This forced the two girls into the front of the next set of boats. Behind them, other park visitors took their seats.

  Amanda stole one look in that direction. The balloon, still aloft, had moved farther back in line. Finn had stopped, allowing those in line to pass him.

  In that fleeting glimpse, Amanda spotted the woman as well. She was boarding the ride on the same set of boats as Amanda and Jess, only a few behind.

  “She’s right behind us. Like three rows. What do we do now?” Amanda whispered into Jess’s left ear.

  Jess stared ahead.

  “You got us into this,” Amanda complained.

  “First we calm down,” Jess said without any trace of tension in her voice. “I’m coming up with a plan.”

  “Now? Now you’re coming up with one?”

  “I am,” said Jess. “If you’ll allow me to think, that is.”

  The guide was saying, “Please remain seated. Please keep your legs and hands inside the boat at all times…”

  “That’s it!” Jess said.

  Amanda looked quickly around, expecting to see something.

  “Where?” she said. “What?”

  “Do exactly as I say,” Jess instructed.

  “Oh yeah, that’s worked real well so far,” Amanda snapped sarcastically.

  “There’s no room for hesitation,” Jess explained. “As in none. We either do this together, or it’s your turn to come up with a plan.”

  “Okay. I get it.”

  A recorded female voice took over from the guide. The narrator warned of a storm, then identified the rain forest, and the desert. There was a brief explanation of the diversity and importance of each to the earth’s ecosystems.

  “The American prairie once appeared as desolate as the desert,” the voice continued.

  “Get ready,” Jess hissed.

  “Psst! Girls?”

  Jess and Amanda froze. It was a woman’s voice coming from directly behind them. They didn’t have to guess which woman it was.

  “Psst! You, two! I need to talk to you. It’s about—”

  “If you’d please keep your voice down,” said the guide, cutting her off.

  The boats had moved into a dark tunnel where movie screens showed working farms, ladybugs, and beetles.

  “Now!” Jess said. She stepped off the boat and onto a walkway, ducking down into the dark to hide. Amanda was right behind her.

  An alarm sounded. The boats stopped immediately. Several guests were talking at once.

  “They got off!…I saw that!…You can’t do that!”

  They had tripped some kind of emergency stop.

  “Come on! Let’s go!” Jess said.

  Together the girls headed for the light ahead and reached the greenhouse where banana and other fruit trees rose from a beachlike floor of sand.

  Two men in coveralls appeared.

  “You can’t leave the boat!” one of them hollered.

  “My sister can’t hold it in another minute,” Jess said. “Mexican food, you know?”

  A twitter of laughter carried to them from down the tunnel. The guests on the ride had heard her.

  “Oh…thanks,” Amanda said through clenched teeth. “This was your plan?”

  “You can’t leave the boat!” the greenhouse worker repeated. “Mister, if you don’t get my sister to the girls’ room, you’re going to need a boat. Or at least some rain boots.” The alarm stopped. The boat started moving again. “Your tickets will be pulled for this,” the worker said.

  “You’re through for the night—probably for the year.”

  Through for the night, Amanda heard. They’d barely just gotten started. Then again, Jess’s plan had worked: the woman was stuck back on the boat. They’d gotten away from her.

  Probably for the year.

  Could Disney do that? She supposed they could probably do a lot of things that didn’t seem possible.

  “There’s a lavatory down there,” the worker said, pointing, having ushered them away out of view of the ride.

  Jess elbowed Amanda.

  “Huh?” Amanda said.

  “The girls’ room,” Jess said emphatically.

  “Oh, yeah,” Amanda said, “right.” It wasn’t a stretch to try to look embarrassed. She headed toward the sign.

  Behind her, two workers in lab coats appeared and moved directly for Jess.

  Amanda hoped they weren’t Overtakers, hoped like mad that Jess hadn’t gotten them out of one trap only to lead them into another.

  6

  MRS. NASH, ARMS CROSSED, looked down on Jess and Amanda with fire in her eyes. She was a woman who, to judge by her appearance, ate well, and had no love of cosmetics, nor of hairdressers or fashion magazines. She was currently stretching out a green T-shirt to the point that the writing on it was too distorted to be legible. Her arms bore white patches of dried skin scratched to scarlet, flaming islands that came down her arms like the Alaskan archipelago.

  “What exactly were you thinking?” she wheezed. Mrs. Nash had trouble breathing.

  “Amanda had to use the facilities,” Jess said.

  “I thought we had an understanding that the Disney parks were off limits,” Mrs. Nash said. “After everything that happened to you, Jessica, I’m surprised you’d get anywhere near that place.”

  “I love Disney World,” Jess said. “Especially Epcot. And it had been forever, and we just wanted to go there.”

  “Did you plan on missing dinner and curfew as well? Did you realize you might lose your passes? You know how much one of those costs?”

  For Mrs. Nash everything came down to dollars.

  There was a stomping upstairs that won her attention and distracted her. Seven other foster girls lived in the house along with Jess and Amanda, in a total of three bedrooms, with two
baths. Making a ruckus was strictly forbidden and the rule against it even more strictly enforced. Mrs. Nash had been born strict.

  “We had no intention of missing dinner,” Jess said. “The meals here are so…wonderful.”

  “There’s no need for sarcasm, young lady.”

  There was great need for sarcasm where the meals in this home were concerned, but Jess held her tongue. “Yes, Mrs. Nash.”

  “Why wouldn’t you wait for the weekend?” she asked, still concerned with the money involved.

  “We acted spontaneously,” said Amanda, answering her. “We realize now that was a mistake.”

  “You’re both grounded for two weeks. Do you understand me? Directly from school to this front door. ‘Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.’ Are we clear?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Nash,” both girls said, nearly in unison.

  “Your behavior reflects poorly on this house and my ability to care for you girls. I hope you’ll consider that the next time you think about doing something as foolish as what you’ve done. And next time,” she said directly to Amanda, “you think about going on a ride, you might think about using the girls’ room first. You’re a young woman, for heaven’s sake, not a four-year-old.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Nash.”

  “Up to your room,” she said. “You will do your homework and miss dinner. I’ll keep plates for you in the fridge. You can warm them up after you show me your homework.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Nash.” Again, nearly in unison.

  Mrs. Nash eyed the girls suspiciously, wondering if they weren’t mocking her by saying her name in concert. But Mrs. Nash wasn’t intelligent enough to understand fully what people were thinking or trying to do; it was everything she could do to understand what people were actually doing. She understood punishment. If something confused her—which was often—she punished the offender. It was a simple formula for her that had worked nicely for nearly twelve years of looking after wayward girls: punish first, figure it out later.

  “Well? What are you waiting for?”