A text bubble appeared above Willa. She told them about nearly being drowned at Winnie the Pooh, and that she had called Philby prior to this meeting and had told him about the S she and Charlene had discovered. It was Philby’s job to make sense of the clues.
Philby’s character explained that he’d run the letters FMEYIR and S through an Internet anagram generator. The program rearranged the letters into every possible combination and then printed up the results.
philitup: there are only two decent possibilities. MY FRIES and YES FIRM. Neither makes much sense.
Finn: So we need more. The last clue mentioned in the fable is “stone.” Any ideas what ride that might be?
philitup: I thought about Tom Sawyer Island. There are rocks over there. But then I realized it has to be Thunder Mountain. I mean, give me a break! Talk about rocks. That place is all rocks.
Finn: So we’ll start there, at Thunder Mountain—Philby and I.
Mybest: Sounds good to me.
angelface 13: But we’ll all cross over, just as we do every night. Are we supposed to just wait for you?
Finn could just imagine Charlene whining as she typed.
Finn: At some point, we’ll need to get Wayne. He lives above the fire station. By the time Philby and I are off Thunder Mountain, we should have all the letters. We’ll get back together and try to solve the riddle. If we do, if we’re successful, we’ll need Wayne. He should be told what’s going on.
Mybest: I can get over there and give him a heads-up. The girls can keep a lookout from the apartment. It looks right down Main Street. We’ll set up some kind of signal in case they see trouble. That’ll help.
philitup: sounds like a plan.
The five characters formed a huddle in the middle of Finn’s guest room. They all put their hands into the center, like players on a sports team. And then they left the room.
Finn headed downstairs and found his mother bent over the kitchen sink doing dishes.
She asked, “Do you want to help me?”
“Sure.”
Finn bagged and took out the trash. He cleaned the kitty litter. He was about to put some dishes away when his mother reminded him where his hands had just been; so he washed his hands and was putting away some dishes when she said, “We need to talk.”
“Sure.”
“Let’s sit at the table.”
The table? This was bad—very bad.
“I need something explained to me, and I want you to be honest,” she said. The kitchen table grew impossibly long in his mind, as if his mother were a judge way down at the far end.
“Okay,” he said.
“The laundry.”
“Yeah? What about it?”
“I’m your mother, Finn. Each day you come home from school, I look at you, both because I love you and because it’s my job to keep your clothes clean. If your pants are clean, for instance, I say nothing and you can wear them another time. If they’re dirty, I ask you to put them in the laundry.”
“So?”
“Remember, I need you to be honest. That’s more important to me than anything else.”
“Mom…”
“I’d rather not involve your father, but if you insist on lying to me, I most certainly will.” She paused and then said, “Your clothes are dirtier in the morning than they are when you go to bed. A week ago, they were damp and smelled like…well…awful.”
Evidence! He hadn’t thought about this aspect of his adventures. He had tried to keep himself looking the same: taking showers in the morning to get the dirt off. Yet he had just tossed his clothes into the hamper. Now he saw the stupidity of that.
“It’s not what you think, Mom.”
“Enlighten me.”
“I haven’t lied to you. Not exactly.”
“You either have or haven’t. There’s no in-between when it comes to the truth.”
“I have not snuck out of the house. I promise.”
He saw a tremendous relief in her eyes, but still her voice quavered, “Finn…”
“I swear. Mom, I have not snuck out of the house. I told you I wouldn’t, and I haven’t.”
“Finn…”
“I have worn my clothes to bed a few times in the past couple of weeks. If they look more wrinkled in the morning than they did when I went to bed—”
“Wrinkled? They’re filthy! Wet. With holes in them. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t sound like the truth to me. Let’s start over, one more time. Please, trust me. You can tell me whatever it is. Whether or not we involve your father…well, we’ll see.”
“It stays between the two of us?” Finn asked nervously. “I gotta hear you say it, Mom.”
“It stays between the two of us,” she said.
“Okay, but you’re not going to like it.”
“Finn! Just tell me.”
Finn drew in a deep breath, wondering if he actually should tell her. What choice was there? The evidence had busted him; he needed to explain it without getting himself into more trouble.
He said, “Something crazy happened when they made the DHIs out of us—the five kids.” He watched her face grow curious and concerned. “When we go to sleep, we aren’t exactly asleep. We wake up in Disney World…as DHIs—as holograms.” Now she seemed to be fighting a smile. “Trouble is, whatever happens there, carries over here. So when I get all dirty there, I end up dirty back here. But you can’t tell Dad, remember? You promised.”
For a moment it didn’t appear she was breathing. Then, her lips unpuckered, her nostrils flared, and she grinned. “That is the lamest, though the most creative excuse you’ve ever tried.”
Finn stared at her, dumbfounded. So this is what he got for telling the truth. “Mom, it’s the truth.”
She tried to compose herself, lost it to a creeping smile, and then suddenly grew very serious as Finn’s expression did not change. Now she seemed to believe him.
“The burn you saw on my arm? A laser fired at me inside the park, at night. I have a bruise on my leg where a doll bit me.”
“A doll?” There was that twitching smile again.
“It’s a Small World. One of those dolls.”
“I see.”
He couldn’t understand it. She didn’t believe him.
“You said you wanted the truth,” he reminded her. Maybe she thought he was losing his mind. “No doctors,” Finn said, defending himself.
“You actually believe this?”
“How do you explain my muddy clothes? Huh, Mom? I am not sneaking out. I knew you wouldn’t believe me!”
His reasoning clearly perplexed her.
“Let me get this straight,” she said.
He interrupted. “You won’t get it straight. Because we haven’t gotten it straight—the five of us. You can’t stop it, Mom. I can’t stop it. None of us can. It just happens. And until we solve—There’s stuff that’s got to happen before this is going to stop.”
“Finn, you’re worrying me.”
“You promised you wouldn’t tell Dad.”
“But I thought…I don’t know what I thought.”
“You promised. Just remember you promised.” He added, “The wet clothes. Tom Sawyer Island. You know that lake around it?”
“This is not funny, Finn. Okay? A-plus for originality. You really had me going. Now, please tell me the truth. The real truth.”
“‘There’s no in-between when it comes to the truth,’” he said, quoting her. “If you can’t handle the truth, it’s not my fault.”
“Finn, do not leave. Not like this,” she demanded as he stood from the kitchen table. “Where are you going?” she called out, stopping him in the doorway.
Finn turned and faced his troubled mother. “There’s only one way to end this, to get this over with.” He hesitated, thinking of all the things he could explain if she would only believe him. “I’m going to sleep.”
If Finn had to tackle Thunder Mountain with any of his fellow hosts, he was glad it was Philby. Philby was the kin
d of smart that made other school kids ask him to do their homework. By now he would have done as much Internet research on the ride as possible. They’d both ridden it dozens of times. But climbing around the ride at night was altogether different, as they’d learned the hard way at It’s a Small World and Splash Mountain.
They stood at the entrance to the ride. Moonlight glinted on the tracks. Finn said, “The letters we’re missing could be anywhere. On any stone, any rock.”
“You got it.”
They were surrounded by maybe ten thousand rocks.
“Anything I should know before we start?” Finn asked, knowing there had to be.
Philby said, “There are security cameras. A lot of them. Some are infrared and can see at night. And it’s like Splash Mountain: we can’t leave the track. That’s all we’ve got to worry about.”
Finn knew that wasn’t the case, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to jinx them.
The boys started down the roller coaster’s track. It rose and twisted and turned, extremely tricky to walk. They both wore their 3-D glasses and looked everywhere possible for clues. Philby, in the lead, occasionally stopped and listened and looked around. It made Finn nervous.
They continued along the empty roller coaster track, sometimes walking almost crablike. They made it through two long climbs without incident. The roller coaster rose higher and higher.
“Where are we?” Finn asked.
“A little over halfway, I’m thinking.”
They stopped to rest. The moonlight shone down onto the red rocks. Neither boy saw any letters written on the stone.
Finn said, “Hey, guess what? We haven’t got a clue.”
“That’s a sick joke.”
They entered a canyon with steep walls. It grew darker the farther in they went. Finn felt his nerves tighten. He didn’t exactly love roller coasters. Walking one in the dark didn’t help matters.
The boys lowered themselves down a short drop in the tracks as the canyon widened. The scene was part desert floor, with cactuses and mining equipment, and part rock canyon. Massive stone walls rose on all sides.
“Too cool!” Philby said, lifting and dropping his glasses onto his nose and pointing.
At first, Finn thought he meant the Indian drawings and the dinosaur fossil that stuck out from the farthest rock wall.
But then he looked more closely. The letters: T, P, N. Each letter appeared to be engraved on its own rock in the ride’s rockslide.
Finn checked with and without the glasses. This was definitively their clue.
“Way to go! Okay, that’s it,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“We’re closer to the end than the start of the ride. It’s over this next rise. We’ll get off the tracks there without being seen by the cameras.”
“Okay. Let’s just go,” Finn said, wanting to be gone. Something wasn’t right here. He couldn’t identify what it was, but he felt it.
They struggled up the roller coaster track, for it was suddenly much slipperier than before.
“Almost there!” Philby called from the top.
The next scene looked like Yellowstone Park. Geysers spit into the air. There were pools of water in luminous shades of green and yellow.
The ground beneath them shook. Philby touched the rail to see if it was vibrating, meaning that the ride had turned itself on. He shook his head.
“Maybe it’s just an effect. You know: Yellowstone. Earthquakes and stuff like that.”
“I’d have read about that,” Philby declared. “I don’t think so.”
The ground shook even more furiously, and now Finn was scared. Too much weird stuff had happened on the rides for him not to be afraid.
A few yards down the track, Finn felt the first touch of cold creep into his legs.
“Philby!”
“Yeah, I feel it too,” Philby answered.
With his legs going numb, Finn found it hard to walk. He whispered, “The only time we’ve felt this before—”
“Maleficent,” Philby answered.
“Yeah.”
Water at the top of the geysers turned first to ice and then snow, which fell thickly.
Finn’s cold legs were nearly impossible to move. “We’ve got to get out of here!” He could feel the chill seeping into his chest, his breathing tight and difficult. Too much longer, and he wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Philby stopped them both and said, “Listen to that!”
Like something cracking apart, Finn thought. Ice? It didn’t sound exactly like ice.
“We’ve got to hurry!” Philby barked out.
“Hurry? I can barely move.”
The cracking sound grew frighteningly loud. It came from the scene behind them—the Utah desert scene they’d just left.
They cautiously climbed back up the small rise in the track, to look back from where they’d just come. They peered over the rails, following that loud cracking sound.
Across the way, rock splintered around the enormous dinosaur fossil.
“That’s a T. rex,” Philby whispered. “Forty feet long. Eighteen feet high. Fifty-eight teeth. Runs forty miles an hour.”
Finn didn’t need all the facts. Sometimes he wished Philby would just keep them to himself.
The two boys watched in horror as, one by one, the bones vibrated and broke free from the rock. They did not fall. They did not break. They held together as one…giant…
“Run!” Philby shouted.
A cloud of dust rose behind them as the ground trembled with a rhythmic clomp, clomp, clomp.
Footsteps. Big footsteps.
All at once, the T. rex skeleton came over the hill, following the tracks. The thing was huge.
The dinosaur had all its bones, with no eyes, no skin, no flesh—but all its teeth.
Philby shouted, “Keep running! Don’t slow down!”
Finn’s cold, unwilling legs slowed him. He scrambled ahead. The T, rex charged, lowering its head and coming for them. Finn was behind Philby, close to the charge.
Clomp! Clomp! Clomp!
The ground shook so violently that Finn fell. He slid down the rails, caught hold, and regained his balance.
The bones clattered as the dinosaur charged. The boys climbed the next rise and jumped over. The beast moved faster.
Finn made a mistake by glancing back. The beast snorted dust out of the holes in its skull where nostrils should have been. It lowered its head once again and picked up speed, the jaws clapping open and shut, sounding like a door being slammed.
Finn cleared the top of the roller coaster’s next rocky peak, with the dinosaur’s jaw bones snapping only a few feet from him now. Finn was going to be eaten. He slid down the last descending slope of the roller coaster, as if he were sliding down an enormous banister.
The track leveled off here, giving the dinosaur the advantage. It snapped and caught a piece of Finn’s shirt.
The track curved ahead. Finn, finding speed he didn’t know he had, cried, “Help!”
“Physics class!” shouted Philby back at him. “The track is banked.”
“What do I care?”
The T. rex stumbled and lost a few yards. The boys hurried up the slight rise into the steep turn.
“The track is banked!” Philby repeated.
Finn understood then what had to be done. He was the one trailing. His heart lodged in his throat as he stopped just before the apex of the turn. He faced the beast, making a target of himself.
“Come and get it!” he shouted at the T. rex.
He waved his arms like a matador taunting the bull.
The huge mass of rattling bones, surrounded by a cloud of dust, bore down on him. Faster and faster it came.
Finn waited…and waited…knowing he had to time his move perfectly.
The T. rex charged.
Just as the skeleton’s teeth were a foot away from his chest, Finn dove off the track.
The beast faltered, lurched, and tipped to its left w
hen the track suddenly curved to the right. The bones of an outer leg splintered and snapped at the knee. The monster rolled, broke through the plywood of the scene’s mountain backdrop, and tumbled over the side.
Finn watched as it landed with a noisy explosion of broken bones that scattered like tree branches.
Philby, who had also stopped, looked down at Finn and helped him up to the rail.
“Wait till they see that on their cameras!”
The boys turned and hurried off into the night.
SINCE ALL OF THE KIDS were hungry, they left the apartment together and reconvened at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe. Finn led the way, passing right through the locked front door.
Maybeck surprised the others by cooking up decent-tasting turkey burgers. They stayed in the kitchen area and kept the lights off so as not to be seen. Exit signs and a few overhead security lights provided the only illumination. Finn and Philby fashioned a table out of a rolling cart with locking wheels. Inverted plastic tubs and buckets served as chairs. The two girls sat together on one side, Finn and Philby on the other. Maybeck joined them last and took the head of the table.
Philby placed a paper napkin in front of them.
“This is everything we have,” he explained, jotting down the letters they’d acquired by following the clues in the fable:
F M E Y I R S T P N
“They must spell something,” Charlene said.
“If I was at a computer…If I had an anagram generator,” Philby said.
He wrote the letters out again, this time leaving more room around each one. He tore the letters apart. A few minutes later they had Scrabble letters made out of a torn napkin.
The kids studied the letters, calling out words they saw.
“MEN,” Charlene said.
“Leave that to you!” Willa quipped.
Philby set the letters aside.
Finn said, “SPIT.”
He pulled these out as well.
“FRY is left,” Philby pointed out.
“MEN FRY SPIT?” Willa asked.
“MEN SPIT FRY?” Charlene suggested.
Kingdom Keepers Boxed Set Page 15