They all ran in different directions. The Skyflinger launched the sphere, smashing it down where they had been standing just moments before. June sprinted for cover, still holding the blueprint in her hand. The honey bee doll and the rabbit doll she’d made for the gift shop were now in the Skyflinger.
She didn’t have much time.…
Gus and Cooper ran into one of the Skyflinger spheres for cover, but then they got trapped inside. Steve hopped onto June’s back. He was too scared to move, so June carried him all the way to the fish carousel and hid behind one of the fish-drawn chariots.
“We gotta get out of here,” June said, watching as the Skyflinger launched Greta through the air. The boar landed in one of the swing seats, and she was so round she got stuck. “Think, June, think, think, think, think.…”
Steve stared off at the concession stand. “We go in five.…”
June frowned. “That could never work.”
What was Steve thinking? They couldn’t just run to the concession stand. Honey Bee and Rabbit would see them.
“Right, we skip,” Steve corrected. “Skip like there’s no tomorrow!”
Without finishing his thought, Steve took off toward the concession stand. As soon as the Chimpanzombie looked at him, he lost half his quills from fright. He scrambled away, but the Skyflinger chucked a metal sphere at him, catching him inside.
“Tra-la-la-la! Ow! Ow!” he said as the ball rolled through a vat of chocolate fondue near the snack bar.
With four of the mascots captured, June knew she was their only hope. She jumped onto the carousel fish and took a deep breath. “Please work, please work.… When you push the fin…” she said to herself, pressing down as hard as she could on the fish’s fin. “The fish will come to life!”
The fish started spinning in circles. June’s head whipped around, and she screamed. Then the fish took flight, soaring into the air. But June couldn’t get control of it. It did another pirouette, then another, as she tried to steer the wild fish.
“Would you like to go to Fireworks Falls?” the fish said finally, as if it were her tour guide.
“No! Take me to Happy Happy Land!” June yelled.
“Detouring to Happy Happy Land,” the fish said politely.
June pulled at the reins, trying to hold on, but the Skyflinger was right behind her. It stomped along, crushing rides and games in Toddler’s Paradise. When they got to Happy Happy Land, cheerful music filled the air. Then the Skyflinger crushed the ride with its giant foot, reducing it to rubble, and everything went silent again.
“Would you like to stop for an ice cream?” the fish asked.
“No, no! Exit, exit, exit!” June cried. The Skyflinger chucked the metal sphere Gus and Cooper were in. It went rolling past her and disappeared from sight. She could still hear the two beavers screaming inside it.
Within minutes, June could see the exit up ahead. Her heart leaped. She’d figure out what went wrong in Wonderland later. Right now, she had to get out—she had to get back to her dad.
“Not today, Chimpanzombies!” June yelled as she flew toward the gates. “See ya later!”
She was laughing as she went through the exit, but when she passed the threshold, the forest didn’t appear. There were no trees or hiking trails or overgrown bushes. Instead, she was somehow back in the park, right back at the carousel. She hadn’t escaped at all.
“How did I get back here?” she asked, confused.
She was about to return to the exit when the Skyflinger appeared again. This time it was ready for her. It struck the fish with its giant mechanical arm, knocking June to the ground. She stumbled back, trying to find cover under the carousel and accidentally hitting a fish. It flew into the air.
It was just the distraction she needed. The Skyflinger went after it, trying to knock it away. June released another fish, and then three more, sending them soaring. The Skyflinger attacked each one, but it wasn’t long before it was focused on her again. This time she had no escape route. The Skyflinger reached out for her, its giant arm just inches away.
“I got you, June!” a voice called out.
June looked up, spotting Greta charging toward her. Greta had managed to get free of the swing, and now she grabbed on to one of the last carousel fish with her teeth. She ran around the carousel in a circle, tangling up the Skyflinger’s mechanical arm, slowly bringing it to the ground.
June squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t dare move. Then she heard Greta’s voice again, more urgent than before.
“Come with me!” Greta shouted. “Hurry!”
It took them a while to get to the safe house, which was a water tower on the far edge of the park. As soon as they were all there, Greta started shouting orders. “Gus, Cooper, check the north and west perimeter wires,” she said. “Steve, get to the lookout and make sure we weren’t followed.”
The three of them ran around, doing what they were told, and Greta secured the door to make sure no one could get inside. June’s heart was still racing from earlier. She took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
“You’re alive!” Boomer emerged from the other room. “I was so, so worried. I didn’t know what to do. I started baking marshmallow calzones.”
Greta didn’t even smile. “We lost Happy Happy Land.…”
“We did?” Boomer’s brown eyes were sad.
“That’s over half the park gone now,” Greta said solemnly.
“What happens if we lose the other half?” Gus asked.
“Yeah, what’s going to happen to us?” Cooper asked.
“I don’t know,” Gus muttered. “But at least we have calzones.”
“And her.” Boomer pointed at June.
“Her?” Greta sounded annoyed. “When the going got tough, she ran for the exits.”
“I need to get home to my dad.” June tried to defend herself.
Greta looked skeptical. “And if she really did create Wonderland, whatever that means,” she went on, “she would know that those exits aren’t really exits anymore!”
“Well, they were exits when my mom and I created the park,” June snapped back. “Sorry I wasn’t around when this whole place went haywire, and it became impossible to exit from an exit marked EXIT.”
Steve climbed down the ladder leading to the lookout and peeked into the room. “Did you know exit comes from the Latin verb exeo-exitum , which derives from the Greek verb eximi-exite?” June and Greta shot him annoyed looks. “Seems I backed into the middle of something here.…”
For a minute, everyone was silent.
“Okay.” Boomer tried to lighten the mood. “So we know the only way to open the exits is to get the park back up and running. Turning on Clockwork Swings is the key to that.”
“There’s no way to turn it back on,” Cooper said.
“Yeah, we’ve been there a bunch of times,” Gus added. “Looked at it every which way—”
“But she hasn’t,” Boomer said, pointing to June. “And if she created it, she can fix it.”
“Uhhhh…” June murmured. This was starting to feel like a lot of pressure.
“So Wonderland is just a figment of your imagination?” Greta asked.
“Something like that,” June said.
“Let me guess,” Greta went on. “That means we’re all figments of your imagination.”
June tilted her head to the side, trying to decide how to answer that. How was she supposed to tell the mascots they existed only because of her? That they were tiny dolls she designed with her mom years ago? That they were only as real as she’d made them?
“I wouldn’t put it exactly—”
“Oh, an existential crisis!” Steve laughed. “I knew this day was missing something!”
Greta looked skeptical. “Well, you can imagine this may be a little hard for us to wrap our heads around. Perhaps you will indulge me with some proof.…”
“Fine!” June put her hands on her hips. If Greta wanted proof, she would give her a whole bunch o
f it. “Every morning, Steve drinks his morning tea: two point six grams of loose Earl Grey to two hundred and fifty milliliters of eighty-six-point-one-degree water, steeped for three minutes and eleven seconds and garnished to perfection with a spot of almond milk.”
It was so quiet in the water tower June could hear each of her breaths. The beavers were nodding, recognizing every word June said. One of Steve’s quills popped out in embarrassment.
“Haha!” Boomer laughed. “See? All hail June!”
“Yeah, let’s not get carried away,” June said. “But I may be able to fix Clockwork Swings.”
Greta snorted. “Look, these guys have suffered a lot already. And I’m willing to follow your lead here, ’cause I’m running out of options, but you gotta promise there’s a real shot at this. Tell me that you’re not serving up false hope.”
June looked into Greta’s warm brown eyes. Even now that they were away from the Chimpanzombies, Greta was still protecting her friends. She was a natural leader, and June respected that. She’d never lie to her.
“Well, I was pretty good at fixing things,” June said. “But you gotta get me to Clockwork Swings.”
Greta stared at June, and June stared right back. Then June snorted. A tiny, playful snort to show Greta she was serious. Greta snorted her reply.
June smiled.
She was pretty sure they’d reached an agreement.
The group started through the park, keeping their eyes on their surroundings. June walked in the middle of the mascots, with Gus and Cooper flanking her on either side, and Greta and Boomer covering the front and the back. Steve was using the journey to ask June a million questions.
“Just walk me through this, would you?” he said, striding beside her. “I understand making Boomer the Welcome Bear of the park, and it makes proper sense that the beavers would be builders, but why did it seem like a good idea to make the quill-covered porcupine the safety officer?”
“I don’t know!” June laughed. “I was six. My mom gave me a pincushion.”
Steve did not seem to like that answer.
“I am nobody’s pincushion, sister,” he quipped.
“I came up with you around the same time I gave Gus the power to yodel in four languages,” June explained.
“Little old lady, who!” Gus sang out. “Viejita, quien! Petite vieille dame, qui! Kleine alte dame!”
“Keep it down!” Cooper whispered. He put his paw over Gus’s mouth. “The Chimpanzombies will hear us.”
That was all it took for the two beavers to break into a huge argument. They got in each other’s faces and started name-calling. Boomer shook his head disapprovingly. “Those two…”
“They shouldn’t be fighting all the time,” June agreed.
“Well, they never used to, but ever since that got here…” Boomer stared up at the Darkness. “Why did you create it, June?”
“I didn’t, Boomer,” she tried.
“But I thought you created everything in the park.…”
June had thought so, too. But why would she create something so terrible? She never wanted anything bad to happen to the mascots. She loved them, even though she’d stopped playing with them as much as she used to.
“Come on, slowpokes!” Greta called out from the front. “The clocks are just up ahead!”
They climbed the hill toward Clockwork Swings. Greta stayed in front, making sure it was safe, while the beavers and Boomer fell behind. Steve spent the last part of the journey admiring Greta’s beautiful reddish-brown coat, her boar strut, and her “come-hither” tusks. June laughed, realizing he was totally smitten with her.
“Oh boy,” June said as she approached the Clockwork Swings tower. She stared at the control panel with all its buttons and wires. “This is a little more complicated than the model we made.”
She climbed underneath the ride and stared at the open gears. “The hydraulics seem to be sealed and stuff,” she called to the mascots. “No leaks or anything. It must be that one of the gears is jammed.”
“Eureka!” Boomer cried. “She’s fixing it! We’re witnessing a miracle!”
“More of a diagnosis,” Steve corrected. “But it does bring us closer to a solution.”
June studied the gears, trying to figure out which one was causing the problem. She was used to taking things apart and putting them back together again. She’d fixed the vacuum and the toaster, but this was a little different. The ride was massive.
She pulled the blueprint out of her pocket, comparing the technical drawing to the actual gears.
“I gotta get this ride started,” she said. “And I know you have the answer. Please tell me the answer.…”
June held the blueprint up to the light. When her mom had drawn the heart, she’d covered a little bit of the Clockwork Swings model. It was difficult to see where the drawing and the real gears matched up.
“Well, what does it say?” Greta asked.
“I can’t see. My name’s covering it.… Ugh, Mom,” she said under her breath. “Why did you write on this?”
June moved around, trying to get a better look at the gears. Everywhere she went, Greta trailed behind her, as if she were just waiting for June to admit she couldn’t fix it.
“Don’t do this to me,” Greta said, frustrated. “It’s your blueprint, isn’t it?”
June turned back, worried the others were listening. Boomer had fallen asleep at some point. Thankfully, Steve and the beavers didn’t seem to be paying too close attention.
“Yeah,” June said. “But it’s been a while since—”
Just then Boomer rolled over in his sleep and whacked Steve with his paw. Boomer shot straight up, feeling the quills go right through his skin. Steve was stuck to the giant bear. He started to panic and more quills shot out of him.
“Duck and cover!” Steve yelled as three more gray quills went flying.
“Look out!” Gus screamed.
But it was too late. One of the quills came at June and pierced the blueprint piece, sending it shooting through the air. Cooper reached for it but missed. Then Gus took a running leap off Cooper’s back and grabbed the quill as it passed.
“Got it!” Gus yelled.
He held up the quill in triumph. There was one problem: The blueprint wasn’t on it anymore. It had ripped off and was now floating in the wind.
“We need that blueprint!” June cried, running after it.
Gus and Cooper joined her, trying as hard as they could to catch it. But every time they got close, it blew just a little farther out of reach. Greta and Boomer joined in the chase, too, running up toward Fireworks Falls, but as Boomer went, he accidentally knocked Steve into a trash bin. Steve was stuck in place. All the bits of garbage were now lodged in his quills.
“Stop!” Steve called out after them. “Fireworks Falls is a deathtrap!”
But June was running so fast she couldn’t hear him.
We have to get it!” June yelled, darting out onto the glass walkway that led to Fireworks Falls. “We can’t lose it, guys!”
Gus and Cooper ran over to Boomer.
“Throw me—I’ll get it!” Gus said, watching as the piece drifted farther away.
“No, throw me!” Cooper argued.
“No, no, throw me!” Gus said.
“Throw both of them!” June knew they had only a few seconds before their chance was gone. Boomer grabbed a beaver in each paw and sent them hurtling through the air. They were still fighting, whacking each other with their tails and yelling about who would get to it first. They landed on the observation deck with a thud, but the blueprint was already gone.
“Your fault,” Cooper grumbled. He narrowed his green eyes at Gus.
June and the rest of the mascots caught up to them. Together they watched the blueprint drift farther away.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” June said. “Of all the—”
“Enough!” a voice yelled.
They turned to see Steve, who was standing behind them.
His gray quills were sticking up in every direction. He kicked a fast food container off his foot.
“I command you to remove yourself from this platform!” he said. “I have been putting up with this reckless abandon for months on end, and it is chipping away at my soul. I’m so very tired—what… what is that sound?”
Tink! Tink! Tink!
A faint creaking was coming from somewhere below them. June looked down, noticing that the glass walkway of the observation deck was now spider-webbed with cracks. Far below, a dozen Chimpanzombies in mountain-climbing gear were making their way up the glass walkway, clinging to it with ice axes.
“Oh no…” June whispered.
Seeing the group, the Chimpanzombies chipped away even faster.
“Fear not,” Steve said. “We simply must reach higher ground!”
But when they looked up, toward the top of Fireworks Falls, they saw a dozen more Chimpanzombies. Wooden boards covered the mouth of the falls. The chimps were prying them off one by one.
The Chimpanzombies sped up, winding the machinery of the falls up to speed until the whole top of it blew off. All the fireworks started going off at the same time. There was nowhere to hide. A whole wall of explosives was raining down on them.
“Run!” Greta yelled.
She darted out in front, leading the group to a few lunch tables on the other side of the observation deck. Each one was covered with a large umbrella. They ran as fast as they could, but they couldn’t get there in time. The fireworks smashed into the observation deck, breaking it into pieces.
June felt the ground beneath her feet slipping and then coming apart. She grabbed on to one of the tables and felt it tip to the side. All at once she was falling, falling… until she wasn’t anymore. She looked down, realizing she was on the one section of deck that hadn’t completely broken away.
“Hold on, June!” Greta called from below. The mascots had made their way onto the nearby shore, using a giant railing as a slide to guide their fall. Now they were all staring up at her.
June clung to the table. She glanced up, noticing a Chimpanzombie right above her. It inched forward, a mischievous grin on its face. With one final tink! of its pickax, it broke the piece of glass that held the table in place. June plunged toward the river below.
Wonder Park--The Movie Novel Page 4
