The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 2

by Roy MacGregor

  Sarah looked up from her skates, and smiled. “Nice game, though,” she said.

  After the win against Boston, the school bus headed back to the campground. Mr. Dillinger drove slowly, with the windows down for fresh air and Derek handing out cold bottles of Gatorade from a case his father had purchased and put on ice for just this moment. Several of the Owls fell asleep, the game, the warm air, and the rhythm of the rolling bus relaxing them until they could no longer keep their eyes open.

  Everyone woke, however, when Mr. Dillinger turned off the turnpike and suddenly braked hard, coming to a stop behind a string of cars. Up ahead, they could see a police roadblock.

  There were patrol cars everywhere, several with their lights flashing, and the police and several husky men in suits were stopping the traffc in both directions.

  “What’s up?” Mr. Dillinger called, as he finally rolled the big bus up to the checkpoint.

  The two police said nothing. A man in a light-brown suit–and with a wire running up from under his coat collar to an ear plug in his right ear–answered for them.

  “FBI,” he said.

  Mr. Dillinger nodded, smiling, and waited for more information, but he got none. The police walked the length of the bus, staring up into the windows, and then signalled back that all was okay. Another police officer waved Mr. Dillinger through. The man with the ear plug said nothing.

  “What did he say?” Jenny called from where she was sitting with Sarah.

  “Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Data called back impatiently, as if she should have known.

  “What’re they looking for?” Wilson asked.

  “Drugs maybe,” Data answered knowingly. “Murderers, smugglers, kidnappers, terrorists, extraterrestrial visitors–take your pick.”

  Once back at the campsite, the roadblock was all anyone could talk about. A man who’d had his trunk searched said the police had a clipboard with photographs of criminals on it. Another man said it was simply a precautionary sweep of the area before the President of the United States and his family visited Disney World the following week. A woman with her hair up in curlers said she knew for a fact that there were “illegal aliens” in the area.

  “Aliens?” said Lars. “Like in the movie?”

  Data happily corrected him. “‘Illegal aliens’ means people who shouldn’t be in the country–not monsters.”

  “Oh,” said Lars, a bit embarrassed.

  But clearly, no one really knew the reason for the roadblock. Perhaps it was connected with the helicopters and the trucks searching the campground. But what were they searching for? It had to be more than merely looking for people who had sneaked into the country. Probably, Travis figured, the man who said it was just a routine sweep of the area before the President’s visit had been right. Nothing to worry about.

  The next morning the Screech Owls were headed back to Disney World, this time to line up for the popular Space Mountain ride at Tomorrowland and then, later, to take in some of the more athletic attractions like Blizzard Beach, where they would all change into their bathing suits and spend the afternoon flying down the greatest water slides in the world.

  When Travis rolled out of his sleeping bag, Data was already up, sitting at the picnic table outside the tent and staring hard at some photographs he had laid out carefully in front of him.

  “Have a look here, Travis,” Data said, when he turned to see who was coming out through the tent flap.

  Travis, blinking in the morning sun, rubbed his eyes as he walked over to the picnic table. All the photographs, he noticed, were of Goofy, several showing Goofy and Nish together.

  “Which one’s Goofy?” Travis asked, trying to make a joke.

  Data didn’t respond. He picked out two of the photos.

  “Take a look at these two shots and tell me if anything’s different.”

  Travis took the two Polaroid photos and examined them. One showed Nish, with his left arm around Goofy, grinning from ear to ear at the camera. The other showed him on Goofy’s other side, again grinning from ear to ear.

  “Taken from different sides?” Travis suggested. “I don’t know–what?”

  “Take a close look at Goofy’s clothes.”

  Travis did as he was told. In the first photo, Goofy was wearing a yellow vest; in the second, the vest was orange.

  “Goofy changed his clothes?” Travis suggested.

  “He wouldn’t have. He was racing off to catch the parade, remember, when this picture was taken.” Data tapped a fingernail on the photo of Nish and Goofy at the Hall of Presidents.

  “Maybe it’s just the camera,” Travis suggested. “Yellow, orange–they’re practically the same. Maybe it’s just the lighting. My camera does that all the time.”

  “Not this one,” Data argued. “It doesn’t mess up colour.”

  “Then there are two Goofys,” said Travis. “Disney World’s a huge place, you know.”

  “Maybe,” said Data, looking unconvinced.

  The lineup for Space Mountain was only thirty minutes long, and sooner than they expected the first of the Owls were being moved into little six-passenger rockets and heading off into the universe, shooting stars and meteors included.

  The cut-off for loading one of the rockets came right in front of where Travis stood beside Simon. An attendant, holding out an arm, said, “Sorry, boys, next one,” and for a moment the two Owls were alone with their thoughts.

  “I’m just as glad,” said Simon.

  “So am I,” said Travis.

  Simon looked at Travis, wondering, afraid to ask.

  Travis smiled, and all of a sudden he heard himself say, “I skipped out on the Tower of Terror, too. But no one saw me.”

  Simon’s eyes went wide. “You did? Honest?”

  “Honest. We’ll do this one together. And if we can handle this, we’ll do the Tower before we head home. Deal?”

  Simon looked at him for a moment, blinking. He wet his lips nervously. “Deal,” he said, and stuck out his hand. They shook just as the attendant waved his arm for the next six riders to board.

  Less than three minutes later, their knees a bit shaky and their hearts still pounding, the two Owls stepped off the Space Mountain rocket and high-fived each other.

  To get to Blizzard Beach, the Owls first had to walk back through the Magic Kingdom. Travis again noticed a maintenance truck parked to one side of the Hall of Presidents.

  The back doors were open, and a uniformed maintenance worker was rolling electric cable off a drum and cutting it.

  The man looked up.

  Travis recognized him: it was the same worker they had seen here yesterday, but this time he was without his work cap and Travis could see that his head was shaved. It was the man from the campground who had been rowing the boat!

  “Look!” Travis said to Nish and Data. “That’s the guy from the beach.”

  The worker turned quickly and headed into the side door, the cable dangling behind him.

  “I think you’re right,” said Data.

  “So he works here,” said Nish matter-of-factly.

  It didn’t seem right to Travis. Why would a worker at Disney World be living in a campsite? He kept worrying about it as they rode the monorail to the main entrance. There was a place just inside the gates labelled “Information,” and while the others checked out a souvenir store, he made his way across to the stand.

  A man in a Disney World uniform turned and smiled at him. “What can I do for you, son?”

  “I just have a question,” Travis said in a small voice.

  “Shoot.”

  “Would they have more than one Mickey Mouse here?”

  The man chuckled. “There’s only one Mickey Mouse, son.”

  “But I mean for the parades and everything. Would there be two Goofys? Two different people in Goofy costumes, I mean.”

  The man shook his head. “Not a chance, son. People who come here believe. You understand what I mean? What if a little kid saw tw
o Goofys? You can’t have two Santa Clauses together, now can you? Same goes for Mickey and Minnie and Goofy. As far as this place is concerned, they’re real people. We couldn’t have two of them any more than your parents could have two of you.”

  “I see,” said Travis. “Thanks.”

  “No problem,” the man said.

  But it was a problem. And Travis didn’t know what to do about it.

  "There’s no other way,” said Data. “you’re going to have to dive.”

  Travis felt his heart flutter like the wings of a hummingbird. His breath caught. He felt clammy with sweat. But he also knew he could not show his fear. He may have chickened out of the Tower of Terror, but he couldn’t back out of this.

  The six boys had held a meeting in their tent. Data–and, to a lesser extent, Nish–was also sure that the maintenance worker outside the Hall of Presidents and the man in the rowboat had been one and the same. Data had photographic evidence that there were two Goofys. And the man at Disney World had said there could not have been two Goofys–at least not officially.

  Those things the boys all knew for themselves. What they didn’t know, perhaps couldn’t know, was what the roadblock was all about, why the FBI was checking car trunks, why there were helicopters flying low over the campsite, and why there had been security personnel driving around in trucks with big searchlights.

  And what, they kept asking each other, had been thrown from the rowboat?

  Data was convinced it was a body. “The FBI solves murder cases,” he said with authority. “Probably it’s both kidnap and murder.”

  “Drugs,” said Nish. “That’s what they were getting rid of. They’ll stash them at the bottom of the lake and then dive down and get them again when the heat’s off.”

  “I agree,” said Andy. “Drugs.”

  Travis didn’t know. All he did know was that they were on their own with their wild suspicions. If they went to Muck or the parents, everyone would say that they were imagining these things just because they’d heard someone say “FBI.” The photographs made sense to the boys, but anyone else would just think it was different film or a change in light that had made Goofy look different. Only the kids knew the other things that counted: the suspicious attitude of the first Goofy, the angry maintenance worker, the incident with the rowboat–and no one wanted to tell Muck why they had been spying on the young woman and her two companions. So it was up to them to get to the bottom of it.

  And getting to the bottom of it, in Travis’s case, meant diving.

  “You’re the one with the equipment,” Andy had said.

  He was right. Hoping that they might get out to the Gulf Coast and perhaps see some ocean life around the beaches, Travis had thrown his snorkelling mask and flippers into his backpack and brought them along.

  “It’s shallow,” Lars had added, offering some comfort. “It’s not even a real lake. It’s man-made–a pond, really.”

  Travis knew he had no choice. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

  They got the rowboat out onto the water with no difficulty. The boys all had bathing suits on. They had a strong rope that Data had found in the back of the bus, and Travis had his Swiss Army knife with him, tucked into the pocket of his bathing suit. Andy would row. Lars had borrowed a diving mask from another kid in the camp and was going to hang over the bow, looking down into the water. Nish and Data would sit in the stern for balance.

  “Four’s enough,” Nish said, looking at the water line. “Besides, there’re only four life jackets here.”

  Simon was odd man out. Travis had his snorkelling gear and would be swimming. But Simon had neither gear nor a seat.

  “I’m a good swimmer,” Simon said. “I’ll support Travis.”

  Travis was grateful for the company. Together, he and Simon pushed the boat out into deeper water and then held on to the stern, kicking while Andy rowed out to where they remembered the men dumping the mysterious bundle. Once they made it to the general area, Andy began rowing in slow circles while the two with masks stared down through the water.

  Travis felt uneasy. The water was clear, but the bottom muddy, with weeds. They could see fish swimming, mainly minnows at all levels, but once in a while a darker, larger shadow near the bottom. Travis presumed they were bass. He knew they couldn’t be sharks in a freshwater lake.

  “Th-glub-r-glub!” Lars shouted, his face in the water, from the front of the boat.

  No one understood what he said, but everyone knew what he meant. Andy jammed down hard on the oars, bringing the boat to a stop. Travis and Simon let go and swam to where Lars was leaning over the water, pointing.

  Lars lifted his face out of the water and yanked off the mask. It left dark red lines around his eyes and nose.

  “I think I see it!” he shouted.

  The Owls in the boat all glanced over, nearly tipping themselves into the lake.

  “Watch it!” shouted Nish.

  “I see it!” called Data. “We’ve found it!”

  Travis stared down. He, too, could see the dark bundle. It was deeper here, but less weedy. He could see sunlight dancing on the bottom as little waves played on the surface of the lake.

  He blew hard on his snorkel to clear it of water; then he dived.

  He dived into instant silence. He felt excited, but also afraid. What if there were alligators in the water? No, there couldn’t be–the beach was safe for swimming. But what about snapping turtles? Why couldn’t the little lake just dry up the way his grandparents’ lake always emptied in his dream?

  Travis was afraid. He knew it–he admitted it to himself–but he couldn’t let fear stop him.

  He looked up. Simon had taken the mask from Lars and was floating on the surface, staring down. Simon raised a thumb in support, and Travis felt a little calmer.

  His breath was running out. He circled over the object. It was wound up in a dark plastic tarpaulin and held together with bungee cords. Lying to one side, attached to the bundle with rope, were the concrete blocks weighing the object down. He wouldn’t be able to lift it himself. They’d have to use the rope.

  Travis swam back up, his lungs vacuuming in fresh air the instant he broke the surface. He grabbed onto the boat, caught his breath, and realized there were four faces hanging over the gunwale and one staring at him from the water, all waiting for him to speak.

  “That’s it!” he gasped. “Hand me the rope.”

  Andy fed one end of the rope over the side; the other end he tied around a seat. Travis grabbed the rope, took several deep breaths, and dived again.

  This time he had to go all the way down. He kicked hard with his flippers and felt the pressure rise. His mask pushed hard against his face. He kicked even deeper. He had good breath and felt strong, but he knew he was shivering.

  A large shadow flickered underneath him. Travis could feel his heart slam against his chest, the effect all the more alarming under the pressure of the water.

  The shadow moved again, slipping away. A largemouth bass.

  If Travis had been able, he would have gasped in relief. But he needed every last bit of breath. He kicked again and headed straight down through a long curling mass of weed until he reached the bundle.

  He quickly tied the end of the rope around two of the bungee cords binding the object.

  His breath was running short again. He opened up the Swiss Army knife and cut away the lines attached to the concrete blocks.

  He reached up and tugged hard on the rope, the signal that it was now tied on.

  Before kicking to the surface, his lungs almost ready to burst, he took a final look. His tug had loosened the tarpaulin, a corner of which wafted back and forth in the water.

  As Travis watched, a hand floated out!

  His heart thundered. He almost choked, but he kept his breath, turned his face upward, and began kicking toward the surface.

  He was panicking. It was as if all the nightmares of a lifetime were chasing him. He felt the hand wrap around h
is ankle, clenching, holding–tugging–pulling him back.

  Travis wanted to scream, but couldn’t! He kicked hard.

  Then, even more firmly, something caught his wrist!

  He looked up. It was Simon, his eyes bulging behind Lars’s mask. He must have seen the hand come free, too. But he had still swum toward Travis to help, his bare feet kicking fiercely to get him down deep. Simon yanked hard. Whatever it was that had hold of Travis’s ankle slipped.

  Travis glanced back. It was just the weed. His foot had caught in the weed.

  The hand was still hanging free, seeming to wave at the two Owls as they kicked hard and burst through the surface.

  “It’s a body!” Travis shouted as he broke the surface and spat out the mouthpiece of his snorkel.

  “What?” Nish shouted, disbelieving.

  “I saw a hand!”

  “I saw it, too!” shouted Simon. He was trying to scramble into the boat.

  “Careful!” Andy yelled. “You’ll tip us!”

  “I’m not pulling up any dead guy!” Nish announced.

  Lars, fortunately, was in control of himself. “Everybody just calm down,” he said. “We came out here to do a job, and we’re going to finish it.

  “Travis and Simon–you guys swim around to the other side to stabilize the boat, okay? We’ll do the lifting from this side.”

  Simon and Travis quickly swam to the rowboat’s far side, reached up, and grabbed onto the gunwales. Andy began working the rope under the seat so they would have some support as they raised the body.

  The four in the boat gave a mighty heave, but nothing gave. They tried again, and suddenly the boat rocked violently from side to side.

  “It’s coming!” shouted Andy.

  “I–I’m scared,” Simon whispered to Travis. Travis could see he was trembling, even though the water was quite warm.

  “So am I,” Travis said. “We get through this, the Tower of Terror’s nothing.”

  Simon smiled, but his teeth chattered hard.

  “Heave!” Andy called.