by Dave Barry
“How do you know it’s p.m.?” said Sarah. “Couldn’t it be a.m.?”
“Nope,” said J.D. “It’s nighttime in the London scene. The time Ben says has to be p.m.”
They were walking back to the line again. J.D. pointed to the waiting-time sign, which now said fifty minutes. “That’s another thing we have to factor in,” he said. “The wait time.”
“This is getting really complicated,” said Aidan.
“And we still don’t know how we’re gonna feed the bird,” said Sarah.
“Well, we’d better figure it out fast,” said J.D., looking at his watch. “It’s 6:30 p.m., which means we have less than three hours left.”
“And we’re going to use up nearly an hour of that taking the ride again,” said Sarah, looking at the line snaking ahead.
“Other than that,” said Aidan. “We’re doing great.”
Armstrong knew Disney was very good at finding missing children in the parks; the company was famed for its efficiency and professionalism in such matters. So rather than try to compete with the experts, Armstrong chose a different tactic: cheating.
He walked slowly along the Magic Kingdom’s Main Street, looking for a Disney security guard. He’d seen the Disney security team at the main entrance, searching handbags; their uniforms consisted of a white, neatly-pressed, collared shirt, dark pants, and black shoes. They wouldn’t be hard to spot amid all the T-shirts and tank tops.
Cinderella Castle loomed into the sky in front of him. He passed a crowd gathered to hear a brass band play Dixieland music. Just ahead, outside the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor, he spotted a security man old enough to be his grandfather.
He was eating an ice-cream cone and listening to the band, his foot tapping to the music.
Armstrong moved in. He came from slightly behind and to the side, bumping hard into the guard’s left shoulder. The top scoop of ice cream—mint chip, Armstrong noted—went airborne, and the security guard instinctively threw out his right hand to catch it.
In that instant Armstrong expertly slipped the black radio off the man’s belt, apologizing profusely at the same time.
“I’m so, so sorry! I’ll buy you another!” Armstrong said, slipping the radio into his back pocket.
“Don’t be silly! Just an accident.”
“You sure?” Armstrong said.
“Absolutely! Forget it! Really!” said the guard. Armstrong suspected that the reason the guard was being so insistent was that he was not supposed to be eating on duty.
Mumbling one more apology, Armstrong backed into the crowd and disappeared.
After walking twenty yards, he fished the radio out of his pocket and pressed it to his ear—security dispatch was directing guards around the park; other guards were checking in and reporting their positions.
Armstrong was hearing it all.
CHAPTER 29
FAIRY TREASURES
AS THE WAITING-TIME SIGN HAD PREDICTED, it took them fifty minutes to get to the front of the line for Peter Pan’s Flight. They squeezed into the flying ship and J.D. pressed a button on his watch, which was in stopwatch mode. The safety bar came down; the ship rounded the corner and flew into the nursery, then out over nighttime London. All of them leaned forward as they approached Big Ben.
“It still says 9:07,” said Aidan.
“Fifty seconds to Ben,” said J.D., looking at the glowing dial of his watch. They flew past the moon into Never Land—the volcano, the mermaids, the Indians. In the distance they saw the form of Wendy on the plank.
“Coming up,” said Sarah, softly. They stared intently ahead.
Caw! Caw!
Skull Rock loomed out of the darkness.
“Two minutes, fifteen seconds,” said J.D. Aidan reached his arm toward the bird; it was well out of reach. The ship turned left; the skull disappeared.
J.D. looked up from his watch. “We’re going to have about five seconds, max, near the bird,” he said. “That doesn’t leave us much margin for error.”
“Assuming we even figure out what we’re supposed to do,” said Aidan.
“We’d better figure it out soon,” said J.D. “It’s almost 7:30. We’re under two hours now.”
They exited the ride; it was still light out, but the sun was waning. The Disney crowd, if anything, had grown. It swirled around Aidan, Sarah, and J.D. as they stood by the stroller-parking area outside Peter Pan’s Flight. The waiting-time sign for the ride now showed fifty-five minutes.
“Okay,” said J.D. “It’s two minutes, fifteen seconds to the bird, so to reach it at 9:07, we need to board the ship at 9:04 and forty-five seconds. Assuming the waiting time is still fifty-five minutes, we’d want to get in line at…8:09 p.m. and forty-five seconds.”
“How do you do that in your head?” said Aidan.
“It’s called subtraction,” said J.D. “They used to teach it in school. Anyway, we’d want to give ourselves a cushion, so let’s say we’ll get in line at eight p.m. That gives us a half hour now to figure out the bridge.”
“I don’t think we should stay out here in the open,” said Sarah. “Let’s go into that gift shop.”
“Tinker Bell’s Fairy Treasures?” said Aidan. “Seriously?”
“You have a better idea?” said Sarah.
“Of course not,” said Aidan, reluctantly following Sarah and J.D. into the shop. “I don’t even know how to subtract.”
Agents Gomez and Blight had split up at Cinderella Castle, Gomez going left into Frontierland, Blight straight ahead into Fantasyland. Like Gomez, she was accompanied by a senior security guard listening to dispatch over a radio earpiece.
The code had been transmitted only minutes earlier—“Christopher Robin.” Missing child! A description of both Sarah and Aidan had then been read over the secure radio. Over five thousand Cast Members in the Magic Kingdom heard the alert. On average, a Christopher Robin would result in thirty-seven false alarms—the wrong child matching the description. But despite that number, on any given day, a missing child was found within the first eleven minutes of the issue of such an alert.
So far there had been sixteen reported matches. The security man had relayed these to Blight, but they had all been in other areas of the park, and had all turned out to be false alarms.
Now dispatch was reporting a seventeenth match—this one nearby.
“Copy that, Crow’s Nest,” the security man said into his radio. “This is one-nine, en route to DC. Stand by.” He said to Blight, “This one’s ours.”
“Review in progress, one-nine,” came the dispatcher’s voice. This meant they were reviewing video footage, looking for Sarah’s likeness.
Blight and the guard broke into a jog, quickly reaching the carousel. They spun in circles, trying to separate one face from another in a moving sea of thousands of park guests. One minute passed…two…
The dispatcher reported. “All units, we have a twenty on Christopher Robin. Last seen passing DC headed in the direction of PPF. Units one-seven and one-three converge. All other units, stand by.”
“We’ve got confirmation,” the guard told Agent Blight. “Your colleague is on his way.”
“That was fast,” said Blight.
“This is Disney,” said the guard.
“Where to?”
“Straight ahead.”
The two hurried to Peter Pan’s Flight. They walked the length of the arcade, studying each face in the long line. They then observed the loading and unloading area, waiting until a group they watched enter the ride came out the exit. They watched each ship intently but saw no sign of the runaways.
“Nothing,” Blight said. “What’s next?”
“Small World,” said the guard, leading her across the concourse. Their attention was focused ahead, on the crowd surging into the hugely popular ride. Neither even glanced at another building close by, though they passed within fifteen yards of it: Tinker Bell’s Fairy Treasures.
Sarah, J.D., and Aidan huddled in a corner of the
gift shop, next to a display of Tinker Bell jewelry. They kept their voices low to avoid being overheard by the steady flow of souvenir shoppers grazing around them.
J.D. glanced at his watch. “We have twenty-six minutes to get back in line,” he said.
“No pressure or anything,” said Aidan.
“Okay,” said Sarah, “to feed the bird, we have to get star-stuff to it, but we can’t reach it from the ship. Could maybe one of us jump out of the ship?”
“I’m not sure, but I think it’s too high up,” said J.D. “You might not be able to reach the bird from the floor even if you managed to jump out without breaking your ankles.”
“Could we throw some starstuff at the bird?” said Aidan.
“Hmm,” said Sarah. “I’ve only handled a little, but I don’t see how you could throw it. It doesn’t seem to have any, I dunno, weight to it. It seems to just…flow, almost like it has its own mind.”
J.D. said, “But you can transport it. You’ve been transporting it, in the gold box.” Sarah’s glance fell on the Tinker Bell jewelry. Suddenly, her eyes went wide.
“The locket!” she exclaimed.
One of the shop clerks looked over and said, “Can I help you with some jewelry?”
“No, sorry,” said Sarah. Lowering her voice again, she said, “We use the locket Pete’s wife gave us!”
“Of course,” said J.D., pulling the locket out of his pocket. “Why didn’t I think of that? That’s why he put the message in there!”
“Along with a little starstuff,” said Sarah. “He was showing us how to use it!”
“What are we talking about?” said Aidan.
Sarah rolled her eyes. “We’re going to put some starstuff in Pete’s locket and throw it to the bird,” she said. “It’s your idea, moron.”
“It is?” said Aidan.
J.D. was looking at his watch. “Okay,” he said, “we have to be in line in twenty minutes. I need to find a pay phone so I can get the exact time and set my watch to it. I’ll go alone so we’re not all together. You guys stay out of sight. Meet me at the line in fifteen minutes, okay?”
“When do we put the starstuff into the locket?” said Sarah.
J.D. frowned. “Not here, obviously. I guess we’ll have to do it when we’re in the line. Aidan and I can huddle around you—do you think you could pour some in quickly?”
“I guess I’ll have to,” said Sarah.
“Okay,” said J.D. “Meet you at the line in fifteen. We’re going to have one chance at this, and that’s it.” Then he was out the door, disappearing into the crowd.
They perched atop the wrought-iron work mounted on the peak of the Haunted Mansion—a decoration with the dual purpose of keeping birds off the roof. They also perched on the stone cap of every gable and the edge of every gutter—hundreds of ravens, in regimented lines. Not a beak turned, not an eye flinched, not a wing stirred.
“Look, Daddy!” a girl cried out from the waiting line. “Look at all the black birds!”
“Amazingly real-looking, aren’t they, sweetheart?”
“But they are real, Daddy.”
“Of course they are!”
“I don’t like them, Daddy.”
“Why not?”
“I can feel them.”
“Here, hold my hand.”
She reached for his hand but kept her worried eyes on the birds.
The father grinned, marveling at Disney’s attention to detail.
CHAPTER 30
THE CLOUD
THEY JOINED THE LINE for Peter Pan’s Flight at 8:01 p.m. The ride was even more crowded than it had been earlier, but the waiting-time sign still said fifty-five minutes.
“I hope I figured this right,” said J.D., eyeing the long, shuffling line ahead, then glancing anxiously at his watch.
They inched forward, keeping their faces turned away from the hordes of people flowing past on the concourse outside the arcade. Each minute felt like an hour.
“Could this line move any slower?” said Aidan. “We’re never gonna make it.”
“If we have to,” said Sarah, “we’ll cut ahead in line.”
Aidan gestured at the crowd in front of them, an army of exhausted parents, cranky kids, and wailing toddlers. “You actually think they’ll let us in front of them?” he said. “Like, we’ll tell them we have an urgent appointment with a bird in a skull and they’ll just step aside?”
“Shut up,” said Sarah.
“Maybe you could both shut up, okay?” said J.D.
“The Happiest Place on Earth,” said Aidan.
A tense and silent half hour later, they were past the midway point—Sarah gripping the backpack straps, J.D. checking his watch for the hundredth time, Aidan staring ahead at nothing. The line was still moving agonizingly slowly, but it was moving. Another ten minutes passed, and J.D. whispered, “I think we’re going to be okay. We might have to let a couple of groups go past us to get it exactly right.”
Sarah said, “When do we transfer the…” She nodded at the backpack.
“Soon,” said J.D., pointing. “Where the line runs next to that wall. We’ll use the wall as a shield on one side.”
“How much?” said Sarah. “If I pour a lot, we’re all going to be flying.”
“I’m figuring you should try to use the same amount as Pete did in the locket Mrs. Carmoody gave us,” said J.D. “Just the tiniest amount, a quick flash. Not like in the van.”
“Okay,” said Sarah.
“Don’t spill it,” said Aidan.
“Shut up,” said Sarah.
Armstrong hadn’t heard much useful lifted from the security guard. There’d been something about on the radio he’d
Christopher Robin at one point—typical Disney World problems. Minnie Mouse would be next, he thought.
The searchers were going ride by ride, but so far hadn’t found the Cooper kids or J.D. Aster. Armstrong had shadowed them for a while but recently had decided to strike out on his own. He had gone through Tomorrowland and, as darkness fell over the Magic Kingdom, was making his way through Fantasyland, scanning the crowd with practiced eyes. His plan, if he saw either runaway Cooper kid, was to move quickly and to be as physical as necessary. The boy had slipped through his fingers once; Armstrong wasn’t going to let that happen again.
“All right,” said J.D. “We need to be on the ship in five minutes. Let’s do this.”
He and Aidan took their positions next to Sarah, shielding her as much as they could from the people in line around them. He handed Pete’s locket to Sarah. She faced the wall and set her backpack down, then quickly knelt next to it and unzipped the top. She reached inside and found the golden box. With trembling hands she positioned the locket next to it and thumbed open the catch. She tilted the box slightly and, holding the locket next to the hole, gave the golden wheel just the tiniest counterclockwise turn. The instant she saw the beginnings of a glow she closed her eyes tightly.
Even through her eyelids she saw the brilliant flash of light that followed, accompanied by a melodic humming sound. She quickly twisted the wheel closed and shut the locket, then opened her eyes.
The brilliant light was dying rapidly, but it still filled the area of the arcade where they were standing. All around them people were blinking, pointing, shouting; voices young and old were asking, “What was that?”
With a roar of wing beats, the ravens exploded into the night sky over the Haunted Mansion. The birds swirled, a tornado of ebony feathers, then formed into what looked like a gigantic airborne spear, its tip aimed at Fantasyland.
Seconds later they were gone, the sound of their wings replaced by the oohs and aahs of the crowd below, marveling at this latest brilliant display of Disney Imagineering. How on earth did they do it?
“Sorry!” J.D. shouted to the crowd as Sarah zipped up the backpack and scrambled to her feet. “Stupid camera flash went off! Sorry!”
“That was a camera flash?” said a man directly behind them. “Making
all that light?”
“It’s a new camera technology,” said J.D. “It uses deuterium-tritium fusion. Very efficient, and it’s environmentally friendly.”
“Huh,” said the man.
“I heard a weird sound,” said a woman who was with the man.
“That’s the energy release from the free neutron,” said J.D.
“Huh,” said the woman. “Sounded like…bells!”
The bystanders didn’t pursue the matter any further, partly because they were almost to the flying ships and partly because everybody was suddenly feeling surprisingly mellow and happy, especially for people who’d been on their feet in the heat all day. Even the babies had stopped crying.
J.D. whispered to Sarah, “Did you make the transfer?” “I think so,” said Sarah. “Good,” said J.D., looking at his watch. “Because we have to be on the ship in exactly two minutes and thirty seconds.”
Armstrong was at Prince Charming Regal Carrousel when he saw the flash of light. He wondered what would make a flash that bright; he half expected to hear an explosion. He decided to trot over and take a closer look.
“Two minutes,” said J.D., his eyes on his watch. They were almost at the front of the line—only four groups were ahead of them. Making a quick calculation, J.D. turned to the couple behind—the ones who’d asked about the flash—and said, “You guys can go ahead of us.”
The couple went past. J.D. eyed the line ahead, then his watch. “One minute forty-five,” he said.
Armstrong was fifty feet away when he saw them, all three together, waiting in line for Peter Pan’s Flight. He had a decision to make: should he wait for them as they exited the ride, or grab them now? Remembering how the boy had gotten away from him last time, he decided to take no chances. He’d grab them now, and he’d make sure he grabbed the boy.
He started toward the trio.