ALSO BY RIDLEY PEARSON
Kingdom Keepers—Disney After Dark
Steel Trapp—The Challenge
WITH DAVE BARRY
Blood Tide
Cave of the Dark Wind
Escape from the Carnivale
Peter and the Secret of Rundoon
Peter and the Shadow Thieves
Peter and the Starcatchers
Science Fair
www.ridleypearson.com
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Copyright © 2008 Page One, Inc.
Illustration on page vi by Greg Call
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First Disney • Hyperion paperback edition, 2009
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file.
eISBN 978-1-4231-0708-8
ISBN 978-1-4231-0708-8
This book is dedicated to all those readers who,
by e-mail, demanded it be written.
You see?
Someone’s listening….
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
1
LIGHTNING FLASHED ON THE HORIZON. A breeze swirled around the Cast Members. The air tasted dusty, almost bitter, with electrical charge.
Finn Whitman, one of five kids on top of the final parade float, pointed to the far gate where the Magic Kingdom’s DHI-Day parade was to pass through, where five identical kids, wearing identical clothing to theirs, stood waiting.
DHI stood for Disney Host Interactive or Daylight Hologram Imaging—depending on whom you asked—a recent addition to the Magic Kingdom that offered the holograms of five teenage kids as Park hosts. The five kids who had auditioned for those roles were typically forbidden to enter the Magic Kingdom. But tonight was speciaclass="underline" it was a DHI celebration.
Finn sensed trouble coming, wondering if it had to do with the electronic illusions waiting by the gate.
“How weird is that?” he said, seeing himself as a hologram not thirty yards away. The Finn Whitman standing by the gate looked no different from himself, except for a slight sparkle, a glow, when viewed from a certain angle.
“It gives me the weebies,” said Charlene, regarding her identical, though electronically projected, twin. She too wore a cheerleader’s outfit; she too had her blond hair pulled back severely into a ponytail, not a hair out of place; she too looked slightly embarrassed to have the body of a young woman, instead of a girl. Charlene was an athlete and champion gymnast and had clearly been recruited as a Disney Host for her clean, cheerleader looks and her uncanny physical ability. She was good with people and could make friends with anyone. Most kids at school were jealous of her—but the other DHIs appreciated the skills and abilities she brought to the team.
The hologram of Charlene stood next to the hologram of Finn, but the software had all five holograms in PAUSE, making them look more like glowing mannequins than kids. They awaited the start of the parade with the patience of the robots they were.
“We’ve been here before as them,” said Willa, “but never with them.”
“I was, once,” corrected Finn. “Only the one time, and I was being chased by Security. I have to admit, it was plenty strange to see myself guiding some guests while I was also running for my life.”
“What’s that?” asked Philby, pointing up at the rise behind the tall boundary fence inside the Magic Kingdom.
“Cinderella Castle,” answered Charlene.
“No, the gray balloon,” Philby said. “It’s massive.”
“Looks like a weather balloon,” said Terry Maybeck, who seemed to stand more than a head taller than all of them. An African American, Maybeck currently wore his hair in dreads, making him look older than the others.
The swarming clouds suddenly swallowed the large balloon.
“It doesn’t make sense,” said Philby. “You don’t release a weather balloon in an electrical storm unless you’re Ben Franklin.”