They ran out into the street where they caught a final glimpse of the back of the ice truck as it sped away.
“What now?” a gasping Philby said, clutching his sides.
“They got away,” Finn said.
“But we can’t just let them go!” Maybeck said.
“We got Jez back,” Finn said, “and we crippled the second server.” He looked at each one of his friends. “I think it’s safe to say that Jez and Amanda are now officially Kingdom Keepers.”
The others nodded.
“We have work to do,” Willa mumbled.
“Let’s get some sleep,” Finn said. His suggestion met with no resistance.
66
THE STORY MADE THE morning news: a refrigerator truck, being driven poorly, had been pulled over by the local police. The officer swore that he’d been knocked over when he’d gone to open the back of the truck, and that two creatures had been seen hurrying away. He refused to describe them. He said only that they had traveled in the general direction of Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park, and that from everything he’d seen, that was where they belonged.
For nearly two weeks, Finn—who’d been grounded for a month—sneaked onto VMK the way Wayne had told him. He hoped to find Wayne by typing the name into a text screen. When the white-haired avatar failed to appear, Finn organized the other kids, most of whom were also currently grounded.
So it was that exactly a month after the event at Expedition Everest, Finn went to sleep fully dressed, holding a small black remote button in his right hand.
As he fell asleep that night, he intentionally dreamed of the Magic Kingdom, and he awakened there on a Park bench, his body glowing under the moonlight.
He was at the hub near the entrance, at the end of Main Street, USA.
Soon, the other Kingdom Keepers joined him. Only Charlene was still in her nightgown, having forgotten to change into street clothes before going to sleep. Or maybe this was how she wanted to dress.
The five headed up and into the small apartment above the firehouse in the Magic Kingdom. It was exactly twelve midnight.
This was Wayne’s apartment. Most had visited it before. There was incredibly sour milk in the refrigerator and food that now wore a coat of green fuzz—Wayne had not been here in a very long time.
They searched for over an hour for the Stonecutter’s Quill, but to no avail. If Wayne had hidden it, he’d hidden it well.
“What now?” Charlene asked.
“Is there any choice?” Finn asked.
“But without the pen,” Philby said, “what leverage do we have? We can’t win his release without that pen.”
“We’ll think of something,” Finn said.
“Or maybe Jez will dream it,” said Charlene, “and give us more clues to follow.”
“The point is, we did save Jez, and we pretty much saved the Animal Kingdom from being overrun by DHIs. We can’t be giving DHIs a bad name, after all.”
They laughed. Five shimmering kids, glowing as they enjoyed a rare moment of levity.
“Maleficent used us to bring Wayne out of hiding,” Finn said. “We failed him. And although we don’t know enough about Chernabog, we’ve seen his power. And I have a hunch that the bat with green wings was him all along, although I’m not sure how to explain that.”
“We know that even Maleficent cannot transform herself for very long,” Philby said. “Especially in this heat. She and her animal army may have been planning to take over AK. They had the ice truck as their backup, in case they failed. It was only when we crashed the server that she resorted to moving Chernabog. What’s strange is that if they hadn’t captured Jez, if she hadn’t been in that tunnel to have that daydream, we might never have known what Maleficent was planning, might never have been there when she was freeing Chernabog.”
“I think it was intended—us being there. I think if we’d failed to defeat the server then the animals would have caught us all and taken us to her. I don’t know what would have happened, but I think she had plans for us. Amanda saved us all by levitating her. Without that…”
“I always thought staying up that late would be fun,” said Charlene. “But it—”
“Stank.” Although Maybeck used another word.
“We’ve got work to do,” Finn said. “And we need to act quickly. Who knows what secrets Wayne might have in that old head of his? Secrets no one should know.”
“Tell us what to do,” Willa said.
All eyes fell on Finn. They waited for him to say something.
He smiled, a warmth filling him and making his DHI glow even brighter.
Wayne would have been proud.
“We’ll meet after school. We’ve got to find Wayne.”
He raised his right hand. In it was the black remote with the small button at its center.
“Ready?” he said.
The others nodded.
He pushed the button.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Kingdom Keepers novels depend on a team, in part because the research conducted inside the Parks, and also about the Parks, is both complex and time-consuming, and ultimately essential to the story.
First, I want to thank my co-writer (from other novels), Dave Barry, who, during a car ride to Orlando’s airport made suggestions to the outline that formed and framed the book, forever changing it. He jokes how I’m the “plot guy” in our partnership, but for once he is “making this up.” He set the clock in the book ticking and gave me one of the most important twists. Thanks.
The real dedication of the book should probably be to Alex Wright, a Disney Imagineer, a man with tireless patience, who has endured (and I am not making this up!) hundreds of e-mails where I picked his brain for details. Alex also hosted several behind-the-scene tours for me in Animal Kingdom and introduced me to:
Dr. Joseph Soltis—Wildlife Tracking Center
Dr. Don Neiffer—Veterinary Hospital
Debbie Weber—Animal Nutrition Center
Matt Hohne—Animal Barns
Jason Surrell—Disney Imagineer (and AK tour host/insider)
I’d also like to thank my niece, Blair M. Daverman, for filling in some blanks about the sport of lacrosse.
My wife, Marcelle, along with Laurel and David Walters, as always, copyedited the various drafts. And Tanner Walters, who in sixth grade reads more than I do, gave me an early read and caught a bunch of problems. So did my daughter Paige. And thanks to daughter Storey for reading KK1 and telling me what she liked!
Special gratitude to Nandy Litzinger, my office manager; Wendy Lefkon, Disney editor; Amy Berkower, agent; Matthew Snyder, film agent; and Jennifer Levine, Disney publicist.
It obviously takes a village.
—Ridley Pearson
January 2008
St. Louis, Missouri
RIDLEY PEARSON
is the award-winning coauthor, along with Dave Barry, of Peter and the Starcatchers, Peter and the Shadow Thieves, Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, and Science Fair. He has also written more than twenty best-selling crime novels, including Killer Weekend, and the young adult novels Kingdom Keepers—Disney After Dark and Steel Trapp—The Challenge. He was the first American to be awarded the Raymond Chandler/Fulbright Fellowship in Detective Fiction at Oxford University.