Welcome to Wonderland #4

by Chris Grabenstein

  “Air Fur One is going for the assist!” said Mr. Ortega, shifting into his excited play-by-play announcer voice. “Look at that dog go! A great individual effort!”

  Six yards away from the frog slide, the dog leapt into the air, gave the camera an amazing barrel roll twist, hovered for half a second, and snared the shiny black Frisbee with his teeth.

  He didn’t dunk the disc into the basket.

  He hit the ground and took off running!

  Two seconds later, so did everybody else.

  Johnny Zeng leapt for Air Fur One just as the dog completed another lap around the pool.

  He missed.

  And ended up in the water.

  “Help!” screamed the golf wiz, thrashing his arms. “I can’t swim!”

  Terrified, he was standing in the shallow end with his eyes closed, so I guessed he couldn’t see that the water was only up to his waist.

  “Hang on, Johnny,” cried Mr. Ortega, dashing to the fence where we store our water-rescue stuff. “I’ll throw you a life preserver!”

  He did.

  The Styrofoam ring on a rope bonked Johnny in the chest, because, like I said, he had his eyes shut. He was also flailing his arms a lot, and that makes it super hard to catch stuff.

  Bradley stopped chasing after Air Fur One. The dog saw his chance and slipped down a path of pavers leading to the beach.

  “Something like this would never happen at the Super Fun Castle!” Bradley told the world. “If a guest fell into one of our water features, trained professional lifeguards would immediately take them out of harm’s way.”

  “He’s not in harm’s way,” I said. “He’s in the shallow end. It’s the kiddie part of the pool.”

  “I can’t swim!” blubbered Johnny.

  “Rescue him,” demanded the woman in the suit. No way was she jumping into the pool.

  “Follow my voice up the steps!” shouted Gloria. “Marco!”

  “Polo,” said Johnny weakly. But he trudged through the water in the right direction.

  Dill scampered over to help Gloria.

  “Marco!” they both shouted.

  “Polo.”

  “Open your eyes!” I yelled.

  “Polo” was all the teen said in reply.

  While Gloria and Dill kept Marco-Polo-ing Johnny Zeng out of the pool, I noticed that Bradley was grinning.

  I marched right up to him before he could shout more nasty stuff about us to the judges.

  “You wanted this to happen! You sabotaged us!”

  “Of course I did, kid,” he said with a sideways sneer. “Because that’s how winners win.”

  “My pants are wet!” whined Johnny Zeng.

  He had climbed up the three steps out of the shallow end of the pool.

  “And the dog still has my disc!” growled Bradley.

  “We have other discs you could borrow,” I suggested.

  “No!” said Bradley. “Only losers play with borrowed gear!”

  “Agreed,” said Johnny’s agent. “Plus, we’re looking at a product endorsement deal with a major disc manufacturer.”

  “Don’t worry, you guys!” chirped Dill. “I know exactly how to make Air Fur One drop Johnny’s disc!”

  He ran over to the Banana Shack.

  “Chef Jimbo? I need one burger—no bun, no lettuce, no tomato, no onion. Just the meat—well done.”

  “Comin’ right up.”

  Jimbo flipped a burger off the grill with his spatula and slid it onto a paper plate.

  “Perfect!” said Dill.

  He took off for the beach.

  “Good idea, Dill!” I shouted as Gloria and I raced after him.

  Down on the beach, I saw that surfer dude, Corky, helping a man with a very hairy back step into a kitesurfing harness.

  But I didn’t see Air Fur One.

  All of a sudden, a clump of guys and girls in bathing suits hooted and squealed. Air Fur One was racing around their beach towels and coolers. He still had the shiny black plastic disc locked in his jaws.

  “If that dog’s teeth puncture the plastic, you’re going to pay,” roared Bradley, who’d raced down to the beach behind us.

  Dill, who was amazing on the Frolf course, as you might recall, threw his circular meat patty sidearm. It went spinning through the air. Air Fur One dropped the disc and took off in hot pursuit of the burger, which arced slightly to the right—to where Corky was helping Mr. Hairy Back into his harness.

  The dog barked, startling Corky. He dropped a strap. A gust of wind blew in from the Gulf and filled the kite, which yanked Hairy Back off his feet and dragged him along on his belly like a sand plow just as Air Fur One caught the burger and started chowing down.

  Corky chased after his customer, screaming. “I’m going to so totally sue you people! I went to law school!”

  Then he shouted at the hairy guy being blown down the beach. “Bail out, brah! Don’t ding the merchandise!”

  Surprisingly, Bradley didn’t run down to retrieve his precious, superspecial aerodynamic disc. Instead, he was studying Dill.

  “You’re that kid,” he said.

  “Excuse me, sir?” said Dill.

  “The little whiner I tried to turn into a winner. You were the worst miniature golfer I’ve ever met.”

  “So?” I said. “He’s awesome at disc golf.”

  “Enjoy your stay at the Wonderland, little man,” scoffed Bradley. “It’s where you belong.”

  Bradley headed back to the motel grounds.

  “Don’t you want your disc?” Gloria called after him.

  “Nah. Keep it, kid. You can sell it in your rinky-dink souvenir shop up front. Call it a memento of the last professional disc golfer to ever set foot on your crummy little course.”

  Just when I didn’t think I could feel any worse, Mr. Frumpkes charged up the beach.

  “Aha!” he said, pointing at Air Fur One. “I see you’re once again terrorizing the beach with your unleashed mutt. Well, guess what, Mr. Wilkie? I am, once again, calling the police.”

  He patted down his pockets, searching for his phone. Couldn’t find it.

  “Check that. I am going to my mother’s house, where I will call the police.”

  “Do you need the number for 911?” I cracked.

  “I know the…Oh, why do I even bother talking to children on my days off? That filthy beast is going back to the pound, where I imagine you found him.”

  “He’s Jimbo’s dog, not mine,” I said as I rubbed Air Fur One’s ears. “But I sort of wish he was.”

  “And did this Jimbo character rescue his dog from an animal shelter?” demanded Mr. Frumpkes.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, why do you think that dog was in the pound in the first place?”

  “Because—”

  “That was a rhetorical question. I only asked it because I already know the answer. That nuisance was behind bars because someone knew they had a dud on their hands, so they dumped him. They knew it was a loser!”

  Mr. Frumpkes stomped off to call the police.

  And that was when it hit me: I had a choice to make.

  A big choice.

  And this time, I wasn’t going to blow it.

  Remember when I asked Dill to “take a dive” and lose his Frolf match against the judge’s son so the Wonderland could win the St. Pete round of the competition?

  Well, I sure do.

  Because I shouldn’t have done that. It sort of erased the whole fun part of the Florida Fun in the Sun contest.

  Did I really want to be like funmeister Bradley, totally obsessed with winning, winning, winning—no matter what?

  Nope.

  I’d rather be like me and let the Wonderland be what it was supposed to be: wacky, goofy, sill
y, and, above all, fun.

  And I had a feeling that if he had to make a choice, Grandpa would rather be remembered for all the smiles he had put on people’s faces over the years and not for winning one magazine contest.

  “Okay, guys,” I said to Dill, Gloria, and Air Fur One, who was still looking up at me with an eager smile. “Huge change of plans.”

  “What?” said Gloria.

  “It’s time we all put on our pirate costumes and grabbed our squirt guns.”

  “Huh?” said Dill. “I’m supposed to put a pirate costume on top of my dog costume?”

  “No. Forget being a mascot. Mascots are for super-professional places like the Fun Castle and Alligator Alley and major-league baseball teams. We need you in your pirate getup—the one you wore when we did that poolside raid to impress Geoffrey and his mom.”

  “Cool!”

  “I’ll grab Jack and Nate,” I continued, basically making things up as I went along. “Gloria? Call anybody who isn’t already here. Tell them to bike over here as fast as they can.”

  She nodded as she pulled out her phone. “I have our top cast and crew members on speed dial.”

  “Good. Because I want to do this thing in fifteen minutes.”

  “Woo-hoo!” said Dill.

  Gloria raised her hand.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “What exactly are we going to do in our pirate costumes, precisely fifteen minutes from now?”

  “What we do best: act like a bunch of goony goofballs and knuckleheaded maniacs. We’re going to finish off this Frolf tournament with some Wonderland razzle-dazzle.”

  “Awesome!” said Dill.

  Gloria was smiling. “I believe full-scale silliness will prove to be both actionable and deliverable.”

  Air Fur One barked. It sounded like he wanted in on the action, too.

  We still had a lot of Frolfers enjoying the course. The judges hadn’t left. They were getting a lecture from Bradley.

  “This motel is a disgrace to the PDGA,” I heard him say.

  Johnny Zeng and his agent were long gone, but we still had an audience.

  It was time to give them a show.

  We loaded up our squirt guns and water cannons and went to work.

  “Pirates, ho!” screamed Dill, who ran out of his room in full pirate gear, waving his Tampa Bay Buccaneers banner.

  Air Fur One leapt into the air to snag a Frisbee that just happened to be floating by.

  “Hey!” a guy said with a laugh. “That pirate dog just plundered my disc, man!”

  “Arrrrgh,” I said in my best pirate voice. “That he did, matey. We be needing all your treasure. Do you know how much my piercings cost? A buck an ear.”

  My audience laughed.

  “You know what they call a pirate who skips school? Captain Hooky.”

  More laughs.

  “Arrrrgh, thank ye,” I said. “I be here all week. But now we are going to attack ye. ‘Why?’ you might wonder. No real reason. We just arrrrrr!”

  I fired the first shot in what would turn out to be the most incredibly ridiculous squirt gun, Super Soaker, and water-balloon battle ever waged in the state of Florida.

  I aimed for Ms. Matchy-Matchy. She squealed and shivered. Fortunately, it was a happy squeal. Did I mention that it was ninety-eight degrees in the shade? I think she found my opening salvo very refreshing.

  All the other pirates took that first squirt as their cue to start whaling away with their water weapons. The crowd loved it. Because being spritzed with cold water was a better way to beat the heat than chasing after flying Frisbees. Or maybe they loved it because it was exactly what the whole contest was supposed to be about: fun in the sun!

  Even Mom and Grandpa grabbed water blasters and joined in. It was like an old-fashioned pie fight, but with water blasts instead of whipped cream.

  Mr. Ortega’s camera crew caught all the wacky action.

  “Here you go, folks,” said Gloria, handing out a bunch of water pistols to our guests. “No charge. It’s today’s free souvenir.”

  “How about towels?” giggled a Frolfer who’d just been soaked by Nate and Jack. “How much for a towel?”

  “Those are free, too!” I shouted. “Because this is Walt Wilkie’s Wonderland—the happiest place on earth!”

  “Nope, nope, nope,” said Grandpa, squirting Mom in the ear, which made her giggle like a little kid. “That’s Disneyland. The Wonderland is the wackiest place on earth!”

  In the middle of the mayhem, Mr. Ortega turned to his camera and said, “Isn’t this what true sport is all about, folks? Playing games and having fun?”

  “No!” shouted Bradley, who was blocking Gloria’s prolonged water-cannon stream with a sideways disc.

  Dill snuck up behind the big blowhard and lobbed a water balloon.

  It was a direct butt shot.

  It knocked Bradley off-balance. Arms whirling, he twirled, toppled forward, and belly flopped into the pool.

  While Bradley was thrashing around in the deep end, a kid with what looked like his mom and dad strolled up to Mr. Ortega. The kid was twirling a Frisbee on his finger.

  “Are you Mr. Ortega?” asked the mom.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Johnny,” said the mom. “Johnny Zeng. We’re his parents. We’re here for the interview?”

  Mr. Ortega and I both blinked a lot.

  “You’re Johnny Zeng?” asked Mr. O.

  “Yes,” said the boy shyly.

  “We received the message from your personal assistant Bradley late last night,” said Johnny’s dad. “About moving the interview back an hour?”

  We looked at Bradley, treading water in the pool.

  “Hey, hey, Tampa Bay,” I said to Mr. Ortega. “You’d better get to it.”

  “Right you are, P.T.”

  Mr. O, his camera crew, the real Johnny Zeng, and his parents hurried off to find “better light.”

  I looked down at the fibbing funmeister.

  “The first Johnny was a fake? You set the whole thing up.”

  Then it hit me.

  “Of course! His ‘agent’ was Heather! That greeter girl from the Fun Castle on St. Pete Beach. Your fake Johnny works there, too. He’s the guy from the parking lot!”

  “You mean Todd?” said Bradley. “Prove it.”

  “Um, you just did,” said Gloria.

  “So?”

  “So,” said Ms. Matchy-Matchy, striding over to join us poolside, “you and the Super Fun Castle in Tampa are hereby disqualified from this competition. Winners never cheat, young man, and cheaters never win!”

  “What?” shouted Bradley from the middle of the pool, where he was being soaked by a twenty-one-water-gun salute. “That’s stupid. Winners do whatever it takes to—gurgle gurgle…”

  Nobody heard what other motivational words Bradley might’ve had to share.

  Every time he opened his mouth, Dill blasted him with his squirt gun.

  Bradley finally climbed out of the pool and, with his pants all kinds of squishy, motorcycled away.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Ortega landed his one-on-one first-ever exclusive interview with the real Johnny Z while the wackiness around the pool continued until sundown.

  Later, after the judges left and the crowds drifted away, we were sitting around the Banana Shack—still laughing—when Mom’s cell phone chirruped.

  It was the folks from Florida Fun in the Sun magazine.

  “Thank you for letting us know so quickly,” said Mom after she’d heard what they had to say. “Oh, really? Good to hear. Thank you. We appreciate that. It’s quite an honor and a surprise. Thank you again.”

  When she hung up, we were all, of course, staring at her. Well, everybody except Dill. He was busy munching on a pickle spear. />
  “So?” said Grandpa. “Did we win?”

  Mom shook her head. “I’m afraid not, Dad. They said our production values weren’t up to the same professional standards as those of our competitors.”

  Grandpa put his hand on mine. “Standards, schmandards. I thought you kids did a fantastic job, P.T.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Sorry if we let you down.”

  “Let me down?” he said. “No way. If folks had a few laughs, if we made them forget their work-a-day world for a few hours, well, fugheddaboudit, P.T. We won!”

  I smiled. I’d guessed right. Grandpa was more interested in smiles than trophies.

  “As we know,” Mom continued, “the Super Fun Castle will not be moving on to the next round, either. Snarlin’ Garland’s Alligator Alley will be representing Tampa Bay in the state finals.”

  “Woo-hoo!” we all shouted, with Dill shouting it the loudest.

  “But,” said Mom, her grin growing, “the magazine and its partner, TripsterTipster dot com, want to award us a special prize. Apparently, our mystery shopper just raved about how much fun he had staying here.”

  “ ‘He’?” I said. “So it was Jim Nasium, not Ms. Matchy-Matchy.”

  “Huh?”

  “Sorry. That’s just what we called our two primary suspects.”

  “Well,” Mom continued, “like I said, we’re being awarded a special prize.”

  “A trophy?” asked Grandpa eagerly.

  Mom nodded. “And it’s something Disney World has never won, because the magazine has never given the prize before. This is its first-ever Florida Kids’ Choice Award.”

  “We did it, P.T.!” cried Grandpa. “We finally beat Disney! I knew we would. It was just a matter of time. Woo-hoo!”

  He leapt up and did his happy dance. There was a lot of strutting, elbow flapping, and bruck-bruck-brucking involved.

  When he was finished, Mom told us some more good news.

  “They’re putting a special article about us in the magazine. Plus, we’re getting a five-star ‘kids’ top choice’ rating on TripsterTipster dot com, and our trophy will be inscribed with a direct quote from our mystery shopper’s review: ‘In my opinion, it was the MOST fun I ever had!’ ”