Disney in Shadow (32 page)

“I
T’S THE SAME SMELL
as the match,” Willa said, placing her face into Wayne’s sweatshirt again. “It’s sulphur or something.”

“Let me try,” Philby said, sitting in front of the keyboard. He placed the sweatshirt in both hands and sank his face into it. He drank in a huge snort.

“Cordite,” he said, pulling his face out. “Black powder. Fireworks.”

“Fireworks,” Finn echoed.

“IllumiNations,” Willa said.

They all faced her.

“When I fell onto that barge from the bridge, it went all the way across the lake, under the drawbridge by China and around backstage to where they store that stuff until the next show, I guess. There are a bunch of the barges back there. Guards and all sorts of security. They were complaining about the Earth Globe. It was malfunctioning—‘flashing’—they said.”

“Wayne,” Philby said.

“We don’t know that!” Maybeck objected.

“Flashing? Are you kidding me?” Philby said.

“Flashing as in Morse code? Flashing as in SOS or ‘somebody save me’? Flashing as in: somebody come try to fix this thing and find me hidden on the barge where my sweatshirt got all smelly from the fireworks?”

“Do you think?” Jess said.

“No,” Philby said. “I know.”

“He wanted his sweatshirt found,” Finn said.

“As a clue,” Willa added.

“Well, I’m tired,” Maybeck said. “If we’re going to do this, let’s do it before we’re all discovered in the Syndrome and put through what Philby’s going through.”

“But if Willa’s right,” Finn said, “then there are guards. That works for the Overtakers—no one’s getting in there who doesn’t belong. But it’s not so good for us.”

“One if by land, two if by sea,” Philby said.

Maybeck groaned. “We’ve got to get him crossed back over before he hurts himself.”

Philby said, “They’re guarding the docks. The explosives. But Willa, you got out of there.”

“I swam,” she said.

“She swam,” Philby said. “Two if by sea.”

“She swam,” Finn said.

* * *

The sun had just cleared the horizon as Finn, Amanda, and Charlene—the three best swimmers of the group—lowered themselves into the chilly water north of China.

They stayed near the edge of the canal and swam slowly and silently through the dark water until facing a view of the dock area where all the barges were tied. Near the back of the group, on the right, loomed the Earth Globe.

The dock appeared empty. Finn assumed it was a trick. He motioned for them to stop swimming and the three grabbed hold of rocks on the wall of the canal and waited.

And waited.

Charlene began shaking from the cold water. Her lips were blue.

“Are you going to make it?” Finn whispered.

“I hope they hurry,” she answered.

As if on cue, the dark shape of a guard appeared onto the dock. He’d come from the Earth Globe, something that Finn took as a good sign.

“Now?” Amanda asked.

“A little more,” he answered.

“Who goes there?” shouted the guard.

His calling out prompted the door of a Quonset hut to open. Pete appeared—the pyrotechnics chief Finn had first seen when he was smuggling himself into Epcot. Pete appeared to speak to the guard, who then pointed off toward a grouping of several storage containers.

Pete motioned the guard forward and he headed slowly in the direction of the containers.

“Okay,” Finn said. “Here we go.”

The commotion behind the containers was Maybeck.

Willa appeared on a Segway from the guard’s left. She came at him fast, and turned at the last moment, keeping out of reach. The guard shouted at her as well.

Finn, Amanda, and Charlene swam the sidestroke, the quietest of all the strokes, drawing closer to the flotilla of pyrotechnics barges. Maybeck and Willa took off, the guard chasing after them.

As the three reached the water side of the Earth Globe barge, the Quonset hut door opened and three more guards appeared. Pete directed one to pursue the kids. The two others separated and began a thorough search of the area.

Finn pulled himself up the side of the barge slowly, making as little noise as possible. He lay flat on his stomach. Amanda arrived next, and Charlene last.

At the base of the huge globe, which glowed in a color map of the world at night, was a metal box about the size of a desk standing on its side.

About the size of a person,
Finn thought. There were cables running into the box. It looked to be some kind of control room, encased and enclosed to keep whoever was in there safe while fireworks rained down all around it.

There was a carabiner holding a clasp shut on the front of the box—a door.

Finn crawled toward the box.

A van pulled up and off the pavement, skidding to a stop. It threw up a plume of dust.

Finn crept one knee closer to the box, but he still lay a good ten feet away.

He heard his mother’s voice.

For a moment he didn’t believe it. He had to be feeling the effects of the all-nighter. It couldn’t actually be
his mother
. But she spoke again.

“I want to talk to whoever is in charge,” she said.

That was his mother. No doubt about it.

Pete hurried over in that direction. Finn peered through the bottom of the globe. His father. His mother. And two other adults.

“We have been searching this park for over an hour,” his mother complained. “And then, just now…we saw two—”

“Kids,” Finn’s father said.

“Yes,” his mother said. “Running from this direction. If you have harmed these children in any way…!”

“Harmed?” Pete answered. “What children? We saw some vandals, some trespassers just now, and I sent a couple of guards after them. If those are your kids, they’re in big trouble, lady.”

“Do not ‘lady’ me, mister.”

One of the remaining guards moved closer to the Earth Globe barge. He did so slowly so as not to arouse suspicion. But he was too close now. There was no way Finn was going to get the box open with that man standing there.

Finn felt a tug on his wet shirt. He looked over his shoulder. Charlene was pointing down to the far end of the barge where Finn finally spotted what she was trying to get him to see: an outboard engine strapped to the back. Unlike the other barges, the Earth Globe did not need to be towed into place.

Charlene pointed at herself, and then at the engine.

Finn understood the message. He nodded.

Charlene took off, slowly crawling on her belly down the far side of the barge, keeping herself flat and low, her wet, black clothing blending in perfectly with the barge’s black paint.

Finn’s eyes roamed, looking for…he spotted it: a single thick line tying the barge to the dock. But how was he ever going to get to it?

Amanda tugged on him next. He met eyes with her and she held up both hands. Then she pointed to herself. Then the hands again, and she slowly pushed.

Finn nodded:
Brilliant!

Only that one rope remained.

There are some things in this world that will never be fully explained. Even the existence of Fairlies did not explain them all: how a friend can think of a friend and the phone will suddenly ring with that same friend on the other end; how a twin will know the exact moment when his or her twin has unexpectedly died; how the same song will come into the heads of two people at the exact same instant; how a mother can see her child no matter how well the kid is hidden in a crowd.

Finn’s mom spotted him. He saw the change in her face, and there was no doubt in his mind. Next, she spotted Charlene crawling toward the back. She went rigid. She was turning toward Finn’s dad as Finn shook his head no, once and quite violently. She stopped.

Her father said something to her. She shook her head, her eyes never leaving Finn. They filled with tears and she wiped them away and made excuses to Pete about how upset she was. She had no idea what to do. She stood there like a stone statue.

Finn knew it was now or never, but no matter how he planned to get to the line and release the barge, he knew the guard would stop him. He might avoid capture by going all-clear, but that would also prevent him from taking hold of the rope. And if he tried to get the door open to the box, he’d never make it. The guard would pounce on him and he and the girls would be hauled off. They had no right to be on the barge or the Disney property. By the time anyone got a look in that box Wayne would have been moved and would be long gone.

Maintaining eye contact with his mom, Finn pointed at the line holding the barge to shore and watched as her eyes found it.

She looked back at her son, then once again to the line. Finn used his hands to mime untying and he pulled his arms apart to indicate separation.

If his mother turned him in now, all was lost. He was putting Wayne’s fate in her hands. All their fates.

He waited. And waited.

“Oh, dear,” his mother said. Her knees went out and she fell forward. She’d obviously caved under the pressure. Finn’s plan had failed.

Pete caught her. Then Finn’s dad took her under her arm and tried to stand her up. But she used being off-balance to propel herself toward the barge.

“If I can only sit down for a moment,” she said. She practically dragged Finn’s dad to the side of the Earth Globe barge, and she sat down on the edge of the barge next to an old tire used as a bumper. Right next to the line that tied it to shore.

His mom. The performance of a lifetime.

Pete and the other parents were still talking when Philby showed up between the containers.

“Mom? Dad?”

Philby’s parents—for they turned out to be the other two adults—cried out in surprise.

Everyone’s attention focused on Philby as he stepped out. “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say: I’m sorry.”

Finn’s mom slipped the line off the cleat that bound the barge to the dock. She stood up and stepped away from the barge.

Amanda locked her legs under a crossbeam that secured the globe, rose to her knees, drew back her hands, and pushed them forward.

The guard fell over. Mr. and Mrs. Whitman fell over. And the barge jumped away from the dock.

Charlene pulled the start cord and the engine kicked to life.

The guard scrambled to his feet, turned, and ran for the barge. He jumped, but splashed into the murky water, missing the barge.

Charlene motored them away from the dock.

Finn hurried forward, figured out the carabiner, and removed it from the clasp. He swung open the door, fell to his knees, and felt tears running from his eyes.

Wayne, his feet pressed up into his chest, his white hair like a beacon of light, was crammed into the small box.

He was smiling.

“What took you so long?” he said.

D
AYS BLENDED INTO WEEKS
. Philby used his control of the software to keep them from crossing over in part because their parents were monitoring them closely and “heads would roll” if they went DHI again.

Philby’s only conversation with Wayne had been brief, on the day of his rescue. Wayne had spoken in a whisper, not out of weakness, but in the interest of secrecy.

“There is more going on than meets the eye. It’s much bigger than you think.”

“The seat belts?”

“A small part of it, yes. Present your evidence to the Imagineers. They will believe you. They will do the necessary safety checks of the seat belts. It’s not an issue if they have Maleficent. And I’m assuming—”

“She and Chernabog…I heard they were taken to the Animal Kingdom. To the vet clinic for her, and the elephant cages for him.”

“That may buy you the time you need.”

“Time to do what?”

“To finish it. They aren’t done. There are more of them—many more than we knew. And the only way to stop them…”

But the paramedics approached. They grabbed Wayne’s gurney and whisked him off into the ambulance. It was the last Finn had seen of him.

Finn had turned in his cell phone and computer as part of his punishment, accepting that it would be a month or more before his parents loosened up and gave him back some of his freedoms. But despite all the discipline, he and his mom would catch eyes every so often—at the dinner table, across the kitchen when Finn was doing his homework—and he would see her eyes smile back at him. It was more than his being safe. It was that she’d been part of the team—in solving the cryptogram, in untying the barge. She’d briefly experienced the thrill he lived with nearly every day. She’d touched it. She knew now. She would never look at him the same again.

School was school: b o r i n g…except at lunch, when a certain friend would slide onto the bench next to him off in the far corner, and sometimes he would feel her hand glance against his or would catch a look in her eye, or see her fighting back a smile.

“I don’t know what happened outside the stage,” he finally gathered the courage to say one day. “But whatever it was, it wasn’t right. I like Charlene and everything, but I don’t know why you said the things you said.”

“Neither do I.”

“And that’s it?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain this.”

“It would help by trying to in the first place.”

“I’m a Fairlie,” she said.

“I think we’ve established that.”

“We all have special…traits. Qualities.”

“Powers,” he said.

“We don’t think of them that way. But okay. Whatever. We have them.”

“I was talking about Charlene,” he said.

“Shut up, Finn. Let me talk if I’m going to talk.”

He felt himself blush. There weren’t many people who could tell him to shut up without getting him steamed. But when Amanda said it, he wanted to laugh.

“My quality is…what I’m good at…what I’m able to do is to push. To levitate. To move objects away from me.” He directed the intensity of her eyes onto his. “To move things away from me.”

He swallowed. “And if they don’t want to be moved?”

“I can move almost anything I want to. No matter how large. I mean, maybe not a building, but I moved a truck once.”

“Just because you’re good at something,” he said, “doesn’t mean it has to own you. There are people that let that happen, and there are people that don’t. It’s a choice, not a prison sentence.”

“That makes it sound easier than it is.”

“Let me put it this way: you can push me away all you want, but I’m like a human yo-yo. I’m going to come right back at you.”

“It’s what I do. I pushed my family away without meaning to—or I wouldn’t be without them.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know what happened to them.”

“I can imagine.”

“Wayne taught us to imagine the good, Amanda. It is an option, you know? Seriously.”

“The thing with Charlene.”

“You were pushing me. I get that,” he said.

“I’ll never let anyone get close.”

“You don’t know that. You can’t say that.”

She sighed, deeply frustrated.

He placed his hand onto hers on the bench. Hers was icy cold. His, phenomenally warm from nerves.

“A human yo-yo,” he repeated.

He won a smile from her.

“You’re Kingdom Keepers now. You and Jess. You know that, right?”

She nodded.

“There are ways we do things,” he said. “As a group. For each other. We always team up. No one ever goes alone.”

She looked totally stressed out.

“No one ever goes alone,” he repeated. “I’ll tell you something: I don’t like girls. But I like you. I don’t care about girls, but I care about you, and Willa, and Jess, and yeah, Charlene, too. Nothing bad is ever going to happen to them. Never going to happen to you. That’s just the way it is. You’re a part of that now. You can’t get out of it. We won’t let you. No one ever goes alone.”

“You going to eat that?” she asked, pointing to something that had pineapple in its name but was the texture of a kitchen sponge.

“No,” he said. “Go for it.”

She reached over and snagged it and ate it in two bites. “You haven’t forgotten about Jeannie Pucket, right?”

“Who’s Jeannie Pucket?” he asked.

“My roommate. Jess’s and my roommate. You promised you’d meet her.”

“Oh, great…”

“I was thinking an ice cream cone at The Frozen Marble.”

“You make it sound like a date.”

“It kind of is.”

“Help!”

“I could come along,” she offered.

“It’s sounding better,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said, still chewing.

“Well if it isn’t Thin Wit-less!” growled a voice from behind them.

Luowski now had a string of zits from his nose all the way over to his ear. Mike Horton stood to the side and slightly behind him.

“And the evil witch,” Luowski added. “Blown any houses off-course lately?”

“Take a hike, Luowski,” Finn said.

“You and me, we’ve got unfinished business.”

“Mike,” Finn said, “I thought you were going to get him a better writer?”

Horton tried to keep the grin off his face.

Luowski said, “Your girly-friend isn’t always going to be around, Whitman. Don’t you think it’s kind of spineless to need a girl to do your fighting for you anyway?”

“Sticks and stones, Luowski. You know I’m not going to fight you. You’re a cretin. And if you don’t know what that means, look it up. You’ll be enlightened.”

“I’m coming for you, Whitman.”

“Mike,” Amanda said, “do me a favor and get Greg out of here before there’s trouble.”

Horton led Luowski away. Luowski tried to look like he wanted to hang around, but Finn knew better. Amanda had him and half the school scared.

“You realize we’re outcasts?” Finn said.

“Yes. I’ve been one my whole life. It’s not so bad really. You get used to it.”

“I’m working on it.”

“I can help you,” she said.

“I’d like that, I think. But remember: I don’t like girls.”

“Yes. So you said.”

“Just so we’re clear on that.”

“Perfectly.” She wiggled her hand under his. And he squeezed hers just a little bit tighter.