Kingdom Keepers Boxed Set

by Ridley Pearson

  “Check it out,” Maybeck said softly.

  The pavilion, lit only by ambient light coming through the sand-dollar skylights in the roof, was enormous, forty or fifty yards across, its floor filled with colorful marquees announcing attractions, kiosks, red and blue street lamps, and lush green garden beds. At its center was a large carousel. Finn and Maybeck were level with the carousel’s roof, and this was their destination.

  Finn didn’t immediately spot the jesters or crash-test dummies, wondering if Philby had somehow distracted them.

  Where is he? Finn wondered, glancing toward the open vent and wishing Philby would arrive in time.

  “I’m going for it,” Maybeck said. He bent to pick up one end of a narrow aluminum plank from the scaffolding. Finn pitched in, grabbing the opposite end. Together they fed the long, slender piece of metal out toward the tall stepladder, attempting to build a bridge between them and the carousel. On the third try, they managed to land the end of the plank across a step in the ladder. Maybeck tested it and it held his weight. It aimed slightly uphill.

  “We’ll need another from there,” he said, removing a second plank from the scaffolding. Together they placed this plank atop the first. Maybeck drew a deep breath and walked across, his arms out at his sides for balance. Finn stood on the planks at the near end to steady them and caught himself holding his breath. Maybeck was anything but steady. He wobbled and dipped and leaned, and several times appeared to be going over the side but managed somehow to reach the stepladder. He grabbed hold of it like a drowning man to a raft, and looked back at Finn as if to say, Whoa.

  Maybeck fed the second plank out toward the carousel’s canopy, extending the bridge. He crossed to the carousel and waved Finn forward.

  Finn had excellent balance. He crossed easily, being careful to take it slowly, and reached the stepladder without incident.

  “Three o’clock!” Maybeck called out.

  Finn looked down to see the two jesters running toward him. His eye measured the distance to the carousel as his brain calculated the time required to reach it. Maybeck held the end of the plank.

  “Come on!” Maybeck shouted.

  Finn stepped out onto the wobbly plank. Two steps toward the carousel the first jester hit the stepladder, trying to tip it over. But the two planks complicated his efforts. The ladder rocked, but did not fall.

  Finn, however, did.

  He slipped and banged down onto the plank, now halfway between the ladder and carousel.

  The second jester arrived and immediately jumped onto the stepladder and climbed with an unnerving confidence: he, too, rocked the ladder side to side, trying to dump Finn.

  Maybeck reached out a hand toward Finn, whose knee slid off the plank, dumping him to the right. He stretched out a hand for Maybeck, but their fingers only danced around, unable to touch.

  The climbing jester lunged heavily to the left. The stepladder tipped and Finn felt it reach the point of no return: it was going over. He scrambled forward, grabbed Maybeck’s hand, and felt the plank and the whole contraption go down. Maybeck swung Finn strongly like a pendulum. Finn hooked the carousel canopy—metal, not fabric as it appeared—with his knee and, with Maybeck’s help, rolled up and onto it.

  The ladder and bridge collapsed with a crash. The boys watched as the jester jumped away from it at the last second, landing effortlessly on his feet.

  And there was Philby on the scaffolding. He’d come through the air vent but was now stranded by the fall of the bridge.

  Finn saw him, looking for some way to get him over to the carousel.

  “Go!” Philby shouted.

  “No way!” Finn said.

  The silent jesters hopped and ran around frantically. Then one disappeared beneath Finn, who realized with dread that the thing was climbing toward them.

  “Go!” Philby repeated.

  “We go together,” Maybeck said. “Or it won’t work.”

  Finn looked up. Overhead was a large mobile of metal arms and colorful shapes. Above the mobile was a projection room—a booth with lights and projector lenses aimed out of it. Philby’s plan had been to evacuate the pavilion through the small projection room. But now Philby was stuck on the other side—a world away.

  “The arms of the mobile are balanced,” Maybeck said. “We have to do this together or we can’t do it at all.”

  * * *

  Finn saw he was right. If he tried grabbing onto the end of any one of the sculpture’s arms, the arm would simply tilt down to meet him. But if both boys took hold of opposite arms they could balance the structure, keeping it level. With three of them—including Philby—they could include one boy to hold on at the fulcrum in the center of the arc. But if Philby were left to follow, even if he reached the carousel, he wouldn’t be able to climb the mobile alone.

  “I’m not going without him,” Finn said.

  “Are you kidding me?” Maybeck said. “He’s a freaking genius! He’ll think of something.”

  “We go together,” Finn said.

  “In case you missed it, the joker and his buddy are pretty much planning a different ending.”

  Finn strained to figure this out. Philby wasn’t the only one capable of thinking. And there it was, right in front of his eyes.

  “The wire!” Finn shouted, across the void.

  Connecting the top of the carousel to both sides of the pavilion was a wire that had been strung to hang lights. It looked thick and strong enough to bear a person’s weight.

  “You’ll have to tightrope!” Finn called to Philby.

  “But I can’t tightrope!”

  “You’re a DHI,” Finn called back. “You weigh less than half what you normally do. Maybe less than that. You can do this. Push for all-clear. The lighter you are, the easier it’ll be.”

  Two crash-test dummies marched into the space. The jester Finn could see picked up the tall stepladder and dragged it toward the carousel. This was not good.

  “You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to hurry,” Finn shouted.

  “Grab that flag for balance,” Maybeck said, suddenly into the idea.

  Philby reached the end of the scaffold, removed a flag from the wall, and climbed up to the wire. He tore the flag off the short pole and held the pole in both hands at waist level. He put one foot onto the wire and shot Finn a look of pure terror.

  “No sweat,” Finn said.

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Close your eyes. Be as calm as you can be.”

  Philby shut his eyes and took a step out onto the wire. He fluttered back and forth, then found his balance and took another step, and another.

  “Wish I had a camera,” Maybeck said.

  The stepladder was pushed up against the edge of the carousel awning.

  “Hold me,” Maybeck said, going down on his knees.

  Finn grabbed Maybeck’s ankles as Maybeck lay down and stretched to reach the edge of the canopy and the top of the ladder just beyond.

  “Lower!” he called back to Finn.

  Finn leaned forward, clutching Maybeck’s ankles. If he let go, Maybeck would fall to the floor.

  Maybeck’s outstretched hand reached the top of the ladder just as the jester’s hand appeared. Maybeck made a fist and smashed down onto the jester’s fingers, then took hold of the ladder’s top step and shoved.

  The ladder went over, taking the jester with it.

  Finn pulled hard and Maybeck scrambled back up the metal canopy.

  They both turned to look at Philby, who was now three-quarters of the way across the wire. Three more steps and Finn called out. “Open your eyes!”

  Philby’s eyes popped open and he jumped off the wire and onto the canopy. “Piece of cake,” he said.

  With Philby in the middle, Maybeck on one end, and Finn on the other, on a count of three, the boys took hold of the lowest arm of the mobile. Finn moved slightly toward the center and the arm leveled out. Maybeck kicked out, and the mobile began spinning.

&nb
sp; The next lowest arm swung above them. Finn reached and steadied it. “On three!” he said.

  They climbed the mobile as if it were a jungle gym, from one arm to the next, and reached the top. Finn and Maybeck climbed through opposite openings in the projection booth and then joined to pull Philby through yet another. As Philby had discovered, there was a roof-access emergency exit, much like the one they had found in Space Mountain, so long ago now that it felt like a dream.

  Out on the roof, in the night air, there was no time for celebration.

  Looking down, they saw nothing: the lions and Gigabyte had apparently chased the others across the plaza, or had gone off looking for them. The boys descended the fire escape ladder to the ground and took off through the jungle toward the Living Seas.

  “When my eyes were shut,” Philby said, as they ran side by side. “When I was on that wire—”

  “Yeah?” Maybeck said.

  “I figured it out. Wayne’s message.”

  “You’re telling me…” Maybeck said breathlessly, “that while you were tightroping you were working things out?”

  “It’s not like I’ve had a lot of free time,” Philby complained.

  “Figured what out?” Finn said, struggling to keep up with the other two.

  “What connects Mission: Space, Test Track, and Soarin’. What connects what each of us found: you and I, Maleficent; the girls, that maintenance journal; you and Charlene,” he said to Maybeck, “Wayne’s video.”

  “And?” Finn said, huffing.

  “Seat belts.”

  “Huh?” Maybeck grunted.

  “The Overtakers are targeting rides with seat belts. Maintenance problems on Soarin’. Finn would have been killed by being stuck in that Test Track car if he hadn’t been able to go all-clear.”

  “Seat belts,” Maybeck said, with obvious cynicism.

  “I think their plan is to hold hundreds of guests hostage by locking them into seat belts that won’t come undone. Trapping them on rides. Making the rides do dangerous things they aren’t supposed to—just like what happened to all of us. Maybe they plan to make demands. Maybe they just plan to hurt everyone. But if we don’t stop them at Fantasmic!—if we don’t change things—bad stuff is going to happen. The seat belts are going to fail—that’s the message. That’s what Wayne found out.”

  Finn, aching over the loss of Wayne, suddenly found his legs. He didn’t just catch up with his friends, he ran past them. It wasn’t only Philby’s discovery that put a fire under him, or the near miss at saving Wayne, but something much bigger.

  The sky was beginning to soften in the east.

  Morning was fast approaching.

  THE MEETING AT THE rendezvous had gone quickly. Everyone was overtired, irritable, and anxious. Finn had found himself sitting on a couch in the Nemo lounge next to Amanda and, as the discussion had dragged on, she’d reached down and found his hand and given it a squeeze. It was a small gesture of confidence, but to Finn he imagined this was what drinking a double-shot espresso latte must be like. His fatigue vaporized; his heart raced out of control.

  With his racing heart came racing thoughts. Amanda had opened some creative gate in his brain and a dozen ideas came spilling out, most of them finding their way to his tongue. For a moment he babbled at the others, having little idea what he was actually saying. Then a memory popped into his head and he realized that this was where his mind had been leading him for the past several minutes.

  “Five AM,” he blurted out, interrupting Philby who was, for the third time, attempting to explain why he believed the Overtakers planned to take park guests as hostages. But Finn had won the attention of everyone in the room, and went quickly about explaining himself.

  “When I got stuck at the Studios I kind of hitched a ride with some Imagineers—at least I think they were Imagineers. One of the guys was the pyrotechnics crew chief, a guy named Pete. He was talking to the driver and mentioned that all this week they were doing run throughs of Fantasmic! at five AM. He was bummed because he had to get up so early to be there.”

  “That would make sense,” said Philby, ever the philosopher. “It would have to be dark to conduct a tech rehearsal of Fantasmic! with all the projectors and fireworks and lighting. They wouldn’t need all the Cast Members, but maybe there’d be some. And they certainly couldn’t have anyone in the audience in case something went wrong with whatever they’re testing.”

  “It’s our chance,” Finn said. “No audience. Maleficent and Chernabog using it to hide. They act out the parts and the rest of the day no one bothers them.”

  “We attack them there,” Maybeck said.

  “On their turf,” Philby said. “I don’t love that.”

  “It’s where it’s supposed to happen,” Finn said, resigned to the idea. “Wayne told us as much. The sorcerer’s hat. The symbol I found scratched into the chair. He wants us to challenge them at Fantasmic!”

  “He wants us to defeat them,” Philby said, correcting him. “You to defeat them.”

  “Us,” Finn said. “Even if I’m the one carrying the sword, it’s going to take all of us.”

  “And how exactly are any of us supposed to get there?” Maybeck asked.

  “He’s right,” Philby said. “The monorail and buses don’t start running until two hours before opening. That’s seven in the morning.”

  “Yeah,” Finn said, “but Pete has to be there. And so does his buddy, the driver.” He checked his watch: 4:24 AM. “We can still make it.”

  * * *

  Locating a pickup truck with a bobblehead Mickey Mouse on the dash in such short order required them to split up. They kept their direct-connect phones at the ready as they snuck backstage. The “backstage” side of Epcot, as at the other parks, looked entirely different from the side the public saw: flat-roofed, steel-framed buildings housed the rides and attractions, the food storage, the costume and prop storage, the maintenance and administration facilities. There were large parking areas and a network of roads connecting it all. The kids fanned out to search for the pickup truck.

  Word soon came over the phone intercoms that Willa had found the pickup near some cream-colored containers behind China. Finn and Amanda caught up to her quickly, followed a few minutes later by Philby, who brought a tarp with him that he’d borrowed from another vehicle. Charlene arrived out of breath, saying she’d seen Maybeck and Jess heading in the opposite direction, toward America.

  “I think Maybeck might have gotten turned around,” Charlene said. “I don’t think he knew where he was going.”

  It didn’t surprise Finn. It was not only dark but the back of the park was totally unfamiliar. All the buildings looked the same, and there were very few signs.

  Finn was about to check on Maybeck when a man appeared from a trailer who Finn recognized as the driver. The man moved toward them and the pickup truck.

  “Turn your radios off,” Finn whispered, fearing they might be overheard if Maybeck suddenly called.

  “What do we do?” Willa asked.

  “We’re too late,” Finn whispered. “We needed to be in the back of that—”

  The man patted his coat and turned around, returning to the trailer.

  “This is our shot,” Philby said.

  The moment the man entered the trailer, the kids took off running. They climbed up into the truck bed and pulled the tarp over them. It was dark enough out, and early enough, that Finn hoped the guy wouldn’t notice the tarp. Less than a minute later, he felt the truck rock as the driver climbed in and started the engine. Again Amanda found his hand and held on.

  There was still the chance that Maybeck and Jess would find their way to the Studios. Finn considered calling Wanda and asking her for help, and the more he considered this, the more he thought it a good idea. Wayne had mentioned his daughter on the video Charlene and Maybeck had seen. Maybe she would know something about Fantasmic! or be able to help them in some way.

  Finn couldn’t see much in the darkness unde
r the tarp. He texted the others, warning them that once out of Epcot they would be in DHI shadow and would remain so until near or inside Disney Hollywood Studios.

  As the pickup arrived at the Hollywood Studios Security checkpoint Finn’s warning proved critical: the guard pulled back the tarp to have a look. The Kingdom Keepers held their breath and remained perfectly still.

  “Funny,” a guard said, presumably to another guard, “the way it was bunched up like that I could have sworn there was something underneath.”

  “You think too much,” a lower voice said. “I’ve told you that before: don’t think so much.”

  “We’re supposed to think, you jerk,” the first guard said. “How are we supposed to keep this place safe if we’re not thinking?”

  “You’re trying to trick me. Just by asking me that, you’re making me think. I know your type.”

  The guard left the tarp in a heap at the back of the truck, exposing Finn and the others. Finn understood the risk that presented: at any time they could come within range of the DHI projectors; when they did they would reappear, and if the driver happened to look back…

  The truck rumbled and rolled slowly out of the gate.

  “Jump,” Finn said.

  “What?”

  “No time to argue. Jump!” He stood and leaped over the side. As he was in midair, his DHI sparkled, first in black and white and then in full color. He landed feet first on the pavement, but was thrown off balance by his forward momentum and went down hard. Like salmon leaping from a mountain stream, the other DHIs jumped: first Amanda, who had not questioned Finn for a second. Then Charlene and Willa and finally Philby.

  The brake lights on the pickup truck lit up bright red—the driver had felt something and was stopping.

  “The ditch!” Finn called out, as he rolled off the asphalt into the grass and down into a dry ditch meant to carry off rainwater. The others quickly did the same. He didn’t dare lift his head to see if the driver was coming over toward them. All he could do was stay perfectly still and hope.

  And hope.

  Through the chirping of cicadas and the hum of electric power, Finn thought he heard the sound of the tarp being moved around. The driver knew he hadn’t put the tarp in the truck in the first place. Maybe he hadn’t felt them jump from the truck; maybe it had just finally registered that Studio Security had looked under a tarp in the back of his truck. If he’d seen them and now pursued them over to the ditch they would have no choice but to run. It would create big problems for them—park Security would be alerted, and with the testing at Fantasmic! being the only event that was probably taking place at this early hour, their ability to infiltrate the attraction would likely be compromised.