“Rumor is that they’re going to move us back with the Fairlies,” Amanda told Finn. She called the gifted residents of their former foster home Fairlies because she considered them to be fairly human.
Finn and Amanda were sitting across from each other at the far end of the cafeteria normally reserved for Losers, over by where kids returned their dirty plates. But it was a place they could talk without fear of being overheard and recently they’d spent a lot of lunches there together.
“No way!” Finn said. He took a bite of cold pizza the texture of extruded plastic. He spoke with his mouth full and watched Amanda wince as he did.
“They can do whatever they want,” she said. She indicated her lip to signal to him that he had some cheese stuck on his.
He wiped it off—and then ate it. She winced again.
“We have no parents, no relatives to object,” she continued. “Never mind that we both like school here. Never mind that we have new friends.” She let that hang there a second. “We are at the mercy of a social worker from—you get the idea. From no place you want to be from. He’s decided that the paperwork is a whole lot easier if we go back to Maryland. Foster care isn’t about how to find the right home for a kid,” she said cynically, “but how to get rid of kids with the least amount of paperwork.”
“There is no way they’re sending you back.”
“You want to bet? And don’t even mention the word fair because Jess and I have this thing about fair: it’s the worst of all four-letter words, along with hope and trust.”
“Trust is five letters.”
“Yeah, but it’s just rust with a t added on to disguise it.”
“Aren’t we in a sunny mood?”
“Excuse me if I don’t want to leave here, if I don’t want to be moved against my will, if I don’t want to be treated like I’m always in the way and that I’m an expense someone has to justify. People get paid for taking kids in foster care. Did you know that? Jess and I are somebody’s paycheck. Nothing more.”
“But not with the Fairlies,” he said. “You didn’t feel like that there.”
“No, it’s more like a family there. That’s true. But it’s so far away from here. You know?” She looked at him levelly in a way that he knew he was supposed to understand, but he was back at the idea of people being paid to take kids into foster care, so he missed her meaning. “Don’t you care what happens to us?”
“Totally.”
“Because you don’t sound like it.”
“I totally care,” he said.
“How’d last night go?” she asked. When Amanda changed the topic you didn’t try to revisit the earlier subject matter.
Finn went with the flow. He debated trying to explain their search for Wayne and the sudden and surprising pursuit by pirates. Instead, he rolled up his sleeve, revealing the poorly bandaged cut.
“Yikes!” she said.
“A sword,” Finn said.
“First comes love, then comes marriage…” said Greg “Lousy” Luowski, returning a plate that had been licked clean.
“Then come morons,” said Finn.
Luowski, roughly the size of a soda machine and probably just about as smart, stepped toward Finn in what was intended to be a menacing gesture. But his running shoe hit some spilled tomato sauce and he slipped and nearly fell and ended up looking like the idiot he was. His threat destroyed, his crush on Amanda obvious, his face about the same color as the sauce, he retreated to plan another insult.
“He likes you,” Finn said.
“I don’t lose any sleep over it,” Amanda said. She reached out and touched Finn’s wounded arm at the wrist. He checked to see if the emergency defibrillator was still mounted to the cafeteria wall. It was.
“It got a little dicey,” he said, wondering how far he could play it.
“But you’ll survive,” she said, withdrawing her hand.
“No sign of…our friend.” He checked the immediate area to make sure no one could possibly be listening. Luowski, at a table with four other like specimens, seemed to be monitoring them closely.
“Don’t let the EMHs bother you,” she said.
“EMH?”
“Early Modern Human,” she answered. “We’re studying them in science. Cavemen.”
“I like it,” he said.
“You don’t want to mess with Greg,” she warned. “You heard about Sammy?”
Sammy Cravitz had had his nose broken by Greg in a fistfight that Greg had started. The whole school had heard about it, except the teachers, apparently. Only the thing was, the teachers probably had heard about it, but they were as scared of Greg Luowski as everyone else.
Finn had one thing going for him that no one else had: he’d learned how to briefly become his DHI while still awake. It still took concentration and practice, but he could suspend himself for a few seconds—sometimes for as long as a minute or two—becoming nothing but light. If a guy like Luowski took a swing at a hologram, he wouldn’t connect. He might even lose his balance and create an opening for a return punch. Finn was almost eager to test his theory. He liked Sammy Cravitz; and besides, Luowski had it coming.
“We have a favor to ask,” Finn said.
“We?”
He lowered his voice. “The Keepers.”
“Which is?”
“We’re not allowed to go into any of the parks without permission.”
“I know that.”
“We’ve looked all over MK for our friend, but we got nothing. The abandoned truck was found near Epcot, so we want to check out Epcot next. Most of the others are afraid to go without getting permission, and they don’t want to ask their parents for permission, because they already know the answer. I’m willing to go, but apparently I’m alone.”
“You? You’re like only the most famous of all of the hosts.”
“Am not.”
“Are too. You’d be recognized in a nanosecond.”
“It’s too big a job for one person.”
“Count us in,” she said.
“I haven’t even asked yet.”
“How dumb do you think I am?” she said. “You want to ask me and Jess to do it for you, but you’re worried about Jess because of what happened last time, and yet you’re worried about our friend even more, and so you don’t know exactly how to ask without seeming selfish, when in fact it’s not selfish of you at all, because it’s all about our friend, not about you.” She pushed her plate to the side. “Are we done here?”
“Jeez,” he said.
“And the answer is yes. And the second answer is no: you can’t come along. You’re a liability—look it up if you don’t know what it means.”
“I know what it means.”
“But how are we supposed to find him?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Philby has this theory that if we get close to him—”
“The temperature will drop,” she said. “Yeah, I heard that one. Like it did last time. Because of her.”
“Her and him,” he said. Maleficent and Chernabog, he was thinking. “They both need the cold. Yes. But who knows? Either that, or the Overtakers will react to our snooping around.”
“I thought you said the Overtakers chased you in the park last night.”
“They did.”
“So why doesn’t that count?”
“I can’t tell you that we’re right about any of this,” he said. “But there was no sign of her. No cold. Nothing felt right. It felt much more like we’d stepped into a snake hole than a beehive.”
“You’re really weird. You know?”
He didn’t comment.
“Good weird,” she said. “But weird.” She picked up her tray and stood from the table. “Check your e-mail,” she said. Neither she nor Jess had cell phones like the rest of them. “I’ll let you know what we find out, if anything.”
Good weird, Finn was replaying in his head. He hardly heard the rest of it.
And there was Greg Luowski staring him down fro
m across the cafeteria. Big, tough Greg.
Once again Finn debated the unthinkable. This time Amanda wasn’t there to warn him off.
* * *
Finn was able to check his e-mail during last period study hall.
wer goin 2day aftr skool. c u 2nite
Knowing their plans made things easier for Finn. He grabbed a baseball cap from his locker and donned a pair of shades on his way out of school. He biked to a bus stop, locked up, and rode the twenty minutes out to the Disney Transportation Center, where he hopped a bus to Epcot. He couldn’t use his Magical Memories Pass to enter the park (a rare VIP pass issued to his family because of his status as a DHI) because it would alert the computer system that he’d entered the park, and he was forbidden from doing so without applying for permission beforehand. But Wayne had given Finn and the other Kingdom Keepers fake employee passes during their search for Jess in Animal Kingdom, and he’d used the pass twice since, and it still worked.
Finn used it now, entering Epcot through a special turnstile for employees and guests and then hiding himself among Leave a Legacy’s rows of stone monoliths, which were covered with one-inch-high metal plates bearing photographs of faces of former park guests. Leave a Legacy had always given Finn the creeps—instead of feeling futuristic, it felt more like the cemetery where the ashes of Finn’s grandparents had been buried.
He knew that Amanda had P.E. last period on Tuesdays, which meant she would shower and change afterward. He felt confident he had a head start on her and Jess. So he waited it out, pacing among the marble markers and keeping a sharp eye on the gate entrance to the park. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. It was dizzying trying to study the faces of the hundreds of people who entered Epcot each minute. He didn’t spot either of the girls, but he did jump back as he recognized the face of an adult.
The woman.
He peered around one of the marble slabs and checked again. He’d only seen her from a distance at school, and yet…he couldn’t be absolutely certain, and yet…he was seeing her in profile now…and yet….
Something tugged at him, told him to look over at the gate.
Amanda and Jess were just coming through one of the turnstiles.
Had the mystery woman’s entrance been designed to coincide with the arrival of the girls? Had she been following them, only to slip into the park ahead of them?
Finn located the woman again in the crowd. She was with the crowd, walking to the left of Spaceship Earth, the giant golf ball for which Epcot was known. In the few seconds he watched her, she didn’t look back once.
“Hey!” Finn called out as Amanda and Jess approached.
They took no notice of him, continuing along, talking to each other.
He tucked his chin low to keep his face from being recognized, and hurried to catch up.
Coming up from behind, he startled them both.
“Psst! Amanda!”
She spun around and puckered her face dismissively, not recognizing him. Then her expression changed.
“What are you doing here?” she said, aghast. “I thought the whole purpose of our—”
“I didn’t want you guys doing this by yourselves,” he said. “Hey, Jess.”
“Hey there, Finn.”
Jess was exotic looking. He found it difficult to separate what he knew about her from her looks, but the fact was her ability to dream the future seemed to agree with her intense beauty, as if she were a fairy or a witch or some kind of unknown being or alien. Her natural hair color was not natural at all, a shocking white, like a grandmother’s. It had gone that color after Finn had rescued her from the clutches of a spell cast by Maleficent. She hid the white hair by dyeing it, becoming sometimes a brunette, sometimes a redhead. For the past month she had been a strawberry blond, an appealing look that made her seem more outdoorsy and playful than he knew her to be.
“Aren’t you taking a risk by coming here?” Jess said. Her voice revealed no emotion, no judgment. She sounded half asleep, as calm as the waters of the lake they now approached. “Amanda explained your…situation.”
“You two are doing Wayne and all of us a great favor,” Finn said. “I couldn’t let you go alone.”
“So it isn’t that you wanted to hang out with Amanda?” Jess said.
“Jessica!” Amanda snapped, blushing.
“I wanted to hang out with both of you,” Finn answered without missing a beat. He could see he had caught Jess off guard. He suppressed a grin.
“And protect us, I suppose?” Amanda said.
“It’s not like that,” he said.
“No, it’s not,” Amanda said, “because if anyone recognizes you—and they are bound to because that disguise is…pitiful—then you mess us up a lot more than if we were just on our own.”
“So you want me to leave?” he said.
“No,” Jess answered, stealing the moment from Amanda. “She wants to pretend she isn’t thrilled that you took a very big chance by coming here to protect us, and she wants to make it seem like it’s no big deal when we all know that it is a big deal. I, for one, want to thank you. I like it that there are three of us. I feel better that you’re here, and so does Amanda, though she’ll never admit it.”
“I don’t have to admit what isn’t true,” Amanda said.
“There’s a lot of park to cover,” Jess said. “Three people are better than two.”
“It may be more complicated than that,” Finn said. He took each girl by the arm and led them behind a stand selling all kinds of merchandise. They quickly picked up on the fact that he was using the stand as a screen, and that made them both curious to try to look around it and see who or what they were hiding from.
“It’s a woman,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I saw her in front of school this morning.”
“Seriously?” Amanda asked.
“And Maybeck said some woman was lurking around Crazy Glaze. Window-shopping, but less interested in the pottery than the people inside.”
“And she’s here?” Jess said.
Finn nodded. “I saw her enter just before you two. If she is following you, she’s good at it, because she never looked back toward the gates, never gave any indication…and I don’t see how she could have followed me, but I’m not ruling that out either.”
“So what do we do about it?” Jess asked.
Amanda lifted onto her toes to see over the stand, but Finn pulled her back down.
“I think I take the woman, while you two search for a temperature drop.”
“We don’t have phones,” Amanda reminded him. “So what good does your following the woman do?”
“If I keep my distance, I can see if she eventually tries to follow you two. If she does then we know she’s trouble—probably an Overtaker—and maybe by me following her she leads us to Wayne.”
“You’re dreaming,” Amanda said.
“That’s genius!” Jess said.
“And if she’s following you,” Amanda said, “which makes sense if she was watching you from in front of the school, then by following her you could be led right into a trap. Then, instead of looking for Wayne, we’d be looking for you and Wayne. That’s helpful.”
Amanda was typically gentle and good-natured. Yet it seemed that the closer they grew as friends, the more sarcastic she became. Or maybe it was the foster-home situation and the threat of her and Jess being sent back to Maryland that was making her this way. Whatever it was, he didn’t like her like this and wanted to say so, but Jess interrupted.
“I say we call for a vote,” Jess proposed. “All in favor of Finn following the woman?”
Jess and Finn sheepishly raised their hands.
“Whatever,” Amanda said. “But listen up, Alex Rider: if anything happens, you’d better leave us some clues. This park is gigantic and we’re leaving here together—the three of us—you got that?”
She sounded concerned—deeply concerned.
Finn bit back a smile. “Sounds good to me.”
“And me,” Jess said, chiming in.
Finn spotted a bright green balloon for sale on the cart. It was the only green balloon.
“Keep a lookout,” Finn said, “for that green balloon. I’m going to carry it low unless there’s trouble. If you see a green balloon following you, it’s probably me, and it means something’s wrong—like maybe the woman is following you, or I’ve been spotted, or something like that. If that happens, you split up. No matter what, we all meet back here in two hours so I can get home by dinner, and you guys can get to your place before curfew. Sooner than that if there’s trouble. Agreed?”
“I suppose,” Amanda said.
“You’re good at this,” Jess said.
“I’ve had a little practice,” Finn said.
He bought the balloon, and hurried off to catch up with the mystery woman.
5
“YOU WERE A LITTLE HARD ON HIM, don’t you think?” Jess asked as she and Amanda headed toward The Land. Not only was Soarin’ their favorite attraction in Epcot, but The Land offered a controlled environment—a cooler environment—and because of that, it seemed a good place to start in their search for signs of Maleficent or Chernabog.
“I was only messing with him,” Amanda said, answering her. “He shouldn’t be here. That’s the whole point of our being here, right? So what’s with that?”
“He’s worried about us.”
“Yeah, right. And who’s the one always getting in trouble?”
“We’ve had our share,” Jess said.
Neither of them could forget the nightmare of Jess’s being captured by the Overtakers, her escape that had led to her being trapped, and the resulting ordeal inside Animal Kingdom. Finn had been the one to find her, and Jess nearly reminded Amanda of that, but knew she didn’t need to.
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