The Bridge to Never Land

by Dave Barry

  Aidan did not turn around.

  Instead he walked toward the Swiss Family Treehouse, an attraction built around a ninety-foot-high “tree” honeycombed with stairs and walkways. The crowd here was even thinner; many visitors, eager to watch the parade, had gone to wait along the parade route.

  Aidan passed the entrance to the tree house and went to a rest area on the right, out of the flow of pedestrian traffic, where six benches were lined up against a curving metal fence. Beyond the fence was a sloping embankment leading down to a waterway; the whole area was covered with dense, tropical foliage.

  As Peter watched, Aidan went to the fence and carefully set the gold box on it. Cautiously, Peter edged forward.

  From his hair, Tink chimed a warning. Peter, keeping his distance, moved to the side so he could see the embankment below, where Aidan had set the box. The lighting was uneven, but after a moment he saw dark shapes moving in the foliage. He realized they were birds—large, black birds. The ground swarmed with them. There were hundreds.

  The foliage moved as the birds crowded together beneath Aidan, who was doing something with the box. Peter edged a step closer.

  What was he doing?

  The thing was leaving.

  This was Aidan’s first real thought since the birds had descended on him and filled him with a cold, evil presence. After that, he had thought nothing, felt nothing, until now.

  But he sensed the cold leaving him. And although Aidan had not yet regained control of his body, he was beginning to become aware again. For just a few seconds, his consciousness was somehow connected with the consciousness of the thing.

  In those seconds, Aidan knew what the thing intended to do. Aidan knew he could not stop it. But he also knew that it was his chance to escape.

  His hands were reaching out toward the gold box. Aidan did not control them; it was as if he were watching someone else’s hands. His hands turned the box on the fence so that the opening was pointing toward the birds. His right hand found the little wheel.

  Aidan knew that the thing was about to leave him. It had to go back into the ravens when the starstuff cascaded down on them. Then it would have the power it needed.

  Aidan watched his right hand turn the wheel. At the same time, he felt the thing leave him completely, flowing into the birds.

  Free now, he stumbled backward.

  He felt someone grab him, keeping him from falling. He turned and saw a boy. He noted his filthy clothes, his bare feet.

  Peter pulled his arm. “Come along,” he said. “Hurry.”

  “Who are you?” said Aidan.

  “I’m…a friend of your sister’s. Come on.”

  Aidan, still dazed, nodded. He followed as Peter started trotting toward the Aladdin ride.

  “There he is!” said the security man, pointing. “He’s running this way!”

  “That’s the Cooper kid,” said Agent Blight. “But who’s the boy running with him?”

  “I don’t know,” said Agent Gomez. “But let’s grab ’em both.”

  Peter and Aidan stopped when they saw them coming—a half dozen Disney security people led by a man and woman in business clothes.

  “We can’t go that way,” said Aidan. “They’re after me.”

  They turned to run back the way they’d come, but stopped again. The ravens had taken flight and were now swarming near the Swiss Family Treehouse. The swirling black mass was forming into a shape that both Aidan and Peter had seen before. A crowd of park visitors gathered quickly, gaping at the sight.

  “We have to get away from here now,” said Aidan.

  “I know,” said Peter. “Get on my back.”

  “What?” said Aidan.

  The security people were almost to them. In the other direction, the raven mass was billowing.

  “Get on my back right now,” said Peter. Without waiting, he grabbed Aidan’s arms and draped them over his shoulders. “Hang on!” he shouted. “When I say three, jump as high as you can. One, two…”

  The closest security man was ten feet away; Gomez was right behind him, followed by Blight. Two more steps and they had them.

  Then the boys jumped.

  And they did not come down.

  Gomez, Blight, and the security people stared, open-mouthed, as the two boys rose straight up into the night and disappeared over the roofs of the Adventureland buildings, heading in the general direction of Cinderella Castle. Around them the crowd of visitors cheered, enjoying this unexpected bit of Disney technical magic. They then turned their attention back to the swirling mass of black birds next to the Swiss Family Treehouse; the birds had formed into a shape that looked like a giant, hooded figure with glowing red orbs for eyes. The shape turned, as if searching, and then exploded in a furious burst of beating wings, streaming off in the direction the boys had gone.

  The crowd applauded. Even the longtime veteran visitors, the true Disney faithful, were pumped. The Magic Kingdom seemed unusually magical tonight.

  Peter flew in a low, wobbly swoop over the buildings. He was straining; he was very experienced at flying with another person—he’d taken the Lost Boys on countless rides over the island—but he’d never flown anybody as heavy as Aidan. It was all he could do to stay above the roofs.

  Aidan’s mood was equal parts terror and amazement—terror because of the buildings below and the birds behind; and amazement because this scruffy boy, who had mysteriously appeared to rescue him, was now flying him. Aidan could think of only one explanation for this, impossible though it seemed.

  “Are you who I think you are?” he shouted into Peter’s ear.

  “What?” answered Peter, focused on flying.

  “I said—” began Aidan, but at that moment Tinker Bell, annoyed by the shouting, poked her head out of Peter’s hair. “Never mind,” said Aidan.

  CHAPTER 41

  OMBRA’S PLAN

  J.D. LOOKED BACK, SCANNING THE CROWD on the Fantasyland concourse. He quickly turned forward and ducked his head. “Bad news,” he told Sarah. “The big guy must’ve spotted us. He’s coming fast.”

  “Can he see us now?” said Sarah.

  J.D. checked. “Not at the moment.”

  “This way,” she said, turning sharply right past a herd of parked strollers and trotting toward the 3-D attraction, Mickey’s PhilharMagic. They melted into the crowd milling around beneath the movie arcade. J.D. kept his face turned away from the concourse. Sarah peeked around him. She saw Armstrong, his head swiveling, walk past the strollers. He kept going.

  “He went past,” she said. “Now what?” said J.D. “Now we need to find Aidan,” said Sarah.

  “Any idea how we do that?”

  “I guess we just start searching, and hope we find him before anybody else—what is it?”

  J.D. was staring at the sky. “I found him,” he said. “And Peter.”

  Sarah followed his eyes and saw them, unnoticed by the crowd on the concourse below—two dark shapes alighting on the arcade of the Peter Pan’s Flight building, only a few feet from statues representing Peter Pan, Wendy, and her brothers in flight.

  Sarah ran toward them, calling Aidan’s name and shouting. Aidan, on hands and knees, saw her, and gestured urgently for her to stay where she was. Then he and Peter crawled along the roof in her direction. When they reached the side of the building, Peter dangled his legs over the edge and, with Aidan clinging to his back, they dropped to the ground. This did not go unnoticed—a small crowd, assuming this little drama had something to do with the Peter Pan ride, gathered, pointing, taking pictures and video, thrusting autograph books toward the bewildered Peter.

  Aidan grabbed Peter’s arm, pulling him through the crowd toward Mickey’s PhilharMagic. “Show’s over, folks!” he said. “You’ll see Peter in the parade!” They made their way to J.D. and Sarah. Sarah gave her brother a huge hug, much to his embarrassment. She turned to Peter.

  “How did you—?”

  “No time,” interrupted Aidan, pushing his s
ister and J.D. toward the entrance to Mickey’s PhilharMagic. “Hurry!”

  They ducked into the building. Seconds later, the first dark, flying shapes appeared over Fantasyland.

  Inside the movie, Aidan and the others joined a line of visitors flowing through the turnstiles. They passed bins filled with yellow 3-D glasses. J.D., Sarah, and Aidan took them; Sarah grabbed an extra pair and handed them to Peter.

  “What’re these?” Peter asked.

  “Three-D glasses,” said Sarah.

  “I don’t need eyeglasses,” said Peter.

  “Just take them,” said Sarah.

  They moved into a large waiting area, filled with families. Aidan gathered them into a little huddle for a whispered talk.

  “We have a big problem,” he began.

  “The police?” said J.D.

  Aidan shook his head. “Ombra,” he said.

  “But you got away from him,” said Sarah.

  “Yeah,” said Aidan. “For now.”

  “What do you mean?” said J.D.

  “Okay, listen,” said Aidan. “I don’t remember most of what happened when Ombra was…when he was inside me. But when he left me, for just a second there, I could feel him. I knew what he was thinking.” Aidan shuddered.

  “What was he thinking?” said Sarah.

  “He’s weak. I mean, he still can do stuff—like the way he controlled me—but he doesn’t have anything like the power he used to have.”

  “Thank goodness,” said Peter.

  “Because he’s weak, he lives in the ravens,” said Aidan. “He’s spread out, a little bit of him in each one, so even if one bird is killed, most of Ombra is still okay. But he wants to bring the birds together.”

  “What do you mean?” said Sarah.

  “Remember what the ravens did outside the hotel in London?” said Aidan. “When they formed into that giant Ombra shape?”

  “Yes,” said Sarah.

  “He wants to be like that, only instead of a bunch of separate birds, he’ll be one being. Like what he was long ago, only bigger. And more powerful.”

  “How’s he going to do that?” asked J.D.

  “Starstuff,” said Aidan. “He wants to use it on the ravens.”

  Peter nodded. “It can change animals. That’s where the mermaids came from.” A chime sounded from his hair. “And Tink,” he added.

  “Exactly,” said Aidan. “That’s why he’s been after Sarah and me; he wanted the box. He’s been waiting a hundred years to get hold of starstuff. He wants to use it to transform the birds, to bring them together with him inside them, so he’ll become this new…thing. That’s why he took the gold box. He had it all set up; he used me to turn the wheel, and when he did he left me and went back into the birds. The starstuff was supposed to transform them. Except—”

  “There wasn’t any starstuff,” said J.D.

  “I know!” said Aidan. “What happened to it?” He nodded toward Peter. “And how did he get here?”

  “We went to Never Land,” said Sarah.

  “What?” said Aidan, drawing stares from people around them. Lowering his voice again, he said, “You went there? When?”

  Before Sarah could answer, the doors to the theater opened and the crowd began to surge inside, carrying Sarah, Aidan, J.D., and Peter along. They sat near the back, put on their glasses, and leaned together to resume whispering. As the movie began, Sarah, with some help from J.D., quickly filled Aidan in on their trip across the bridge, their adventures on Mollusk Island, and their return to the same instant they left. Peter, meanwhile, stared through his 3-D glasses in openmouthed fascination at the screen, which displayed fantastic moving and talking images that sometimes flew toward him, coming so close that he could reach out and touch them—except that, oddly enough, he could not.

  “So,” said Aidan, after several minutes of sometimes- confusing explanations, “you came back with the box empty.”

  “Right,” said Sarah. “We used up the last of the starstuff to get back over the bridge.”

  “But you’re saying you came back at the same time you left—so it looked as if you never left.”

  “Right,” said J.D.

  “And that’s when I grabbed the box,” said Aidan.

  “Yes,” said Sarah.

  Aidan nodded. “I get it,” he said. “Ombra thought the box still had starstuff in it, because it did when you got on the ride.”

  “Who’s that?” said Peter, pointing at the screen, where a cartoon figure was flying over London, clad in a green tunic, green tights, and a feathered green cap.

  “That’s you,” said Sarah.

  “What?” said Peter, drawing shushing noises from people sitting nearby. “I don’t look like that! And who’s the flying girl?”

  “That’s Tinker Bell,” said Sarah. This drew a burst of bells from Peter’s hair, and more shushing.

  “What’d she say?” whispered Sarah.

  “She says that looks like a flying cow,” said Peter.

  “Sarah, listen,” hissed Aidan. “We have a big problem. Ombra really wants the starstuff. Since it wasn’t in the box, he’s going to think we still have it. He’s going to come looking for us. The ravens are outside somewhere, right now.”

  “Not to mention the police,” said J.D.

  The movie was ending. Donald Duck flew off the screen and over their heads, face-planting in the wall at the back of the theater to the raucous laughter of the crowd. The lights came on; the doors opened; the crowd started shuffling out into the night.

  “So what’re we gonna do?” said Aidan, as they approached the exit.

  J.D. stopped them. “Listen,” he said. “Maybe I should just turn myself in to the police.”

  “What?” said Sarah.

  “We don’t need to keep running,” said J.D. “We got the starstuff back to the island. Now we can explain that I didn’t kidnap you guys. I mean, I’ll probably get in some trouble, but…”

  “No,” said Aidan.

  “Why not?” said J.D.

  “Ombra,” said Aidan. “He can get inside the police, get inside anybody. He is not going to rest until he finds the starstuff.”

  “But there isn’t any,” said Sarah. “Eventually he’ll find that out.”

  “That’s what has me worried,” said Aidan. “He’ll be angry. He’ll want to hurt us. And he can. Sarah, you have no idea how evil that thing is. If the police have us, he can get to us.”

  “He’s right,” said Peter.

  “So what do we do?” said J.D.

  “We have to get out of here, away from the police and away from all these people,” said Aidan. “And then we have to deal with Ombra.”

  “How?” said Sarah.

  “We’ll have to figure that out,” said Aidan. “First, we need to get out of here.”

  They were almost to the exit. Ahead of them, the crowd in the concourse looked thicker than ever.

  “All right,” said J.D. “We’re going to separate. We keep in sight of each other, but we don’t walk together. There’s a huge crowd out there; that’s in our favor. We blend in, we head for the exit, and when we get outside we meet at the ferryboat landing. Okay? Watch for police and security guards.”

  “And watch the sky,” said Aidan.

  “I’ll do that,” said Peter. They had reached the exit.

  “Ready?” said J.D. The others nodded.

  “Okay,” said J.D. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 42

  A SUDDEN STORM

  PEOPLE MOVED IN GROUPS IN THE PARK; anyone walking alone stood out. So Sarah, keeping her head down, stayed close behind a family of four as she left Mickey’s PhilharMagic. Disney World had never seemed so big to her; the ferryboat landing had to be a mile away.

  She peeked ahead through the crowd and immediately spotted the woman in the business suit—obviously some kind of police officer—who had been directing the security guards back at the Transportation Center. The woman was standing to the left side of the
concourse; on the right side, Sarah saw the woman’s partner, the grumpy-looking man. They were studying faces as the hordes flowed past them toward Cinderella Castle. She looked to her left, where Peter was moving with the crowd. Catching his eye, she pointed discreetly toward the female officer, then her partner. Peter nodded and darted back through the crowd; Sarah didn’t know where he was going.

  She looked to the right and found Aidan and J.D.; they had positioned themselves in the middle of a group of highschoolers. Aidan fit in well enough, but J.D. stood out. They were heading straight at the grumpy man and apparently hadn’t spotted him yet. Sarah tried to get their attention, but they weren’t looking her way.

  She looked ahead again and got more bad news: her “family” had veered left, toward the female officer. They were going to come within a few yards of her. Worse, the woman’s head was turning Sarah’s way…

  “Hey!” the woman yelled. Sarah jumped, but then realized that the woman wasn’t yelling at her; she was reacting to being hit on the head by a small object that had fallen from the sky. It bounced off and rolled on the ground.

  A half-eaten turkey leg.

  The woman grabbed her head and looked around angrily, trying to figure out where it had come from. Sarah, who had a pretty good idea where it came from, walked briskly past. She risked a glance upward and caught a glimpse of Peter’s silhouette darting across the sky; a second later she heard a yell coming from the right. Sarah didn’t look, but she figured Peter had targeted the male officer, too, which meant—she hoped—that Aidan and J.D. would also get past undetected.

  Sarah picked up her pace, half trotting through the crowd descending the ramp next to the castle. Ahead she saw the end of Main Street, U.S.A.; it was lined with visitors, thousands and thousands of them, watching the brilliantly lit parade floats moving slowly up the street toward the castle.

  Sarah’s heart sank; the parade was blocking Main Street and the sidewalks were so crowded as to be nearly impassable. It would be very slow going to get to the park entrance at the other end of Main Street.