Kingdom Keepers VII (23 page)

F
INN CROSSES OVER INTO THE
P
LAZA
with only a minor incident. He knows where to find Club 33 and is feeling more familiar with Disneyland. As a result, he is more confident and relaxed. The issue is one he’s faced before: the problem of how to deal with the astonished guest.

This time it’s an eight-year-old boy who’s familiar with the Keepers from
Disney 365
on the Disney Channel. The boy witnesses Finn’s materialization—a shadow forms, particles of light sparkle, and the three-dimensional projected image of Finn Whitman appears—as real as any boy he’s met before. Finn’s celebrity is all that registers, not his being a hologram; in fact, it never occurs to the boy that he’s looking at a hologram. He’s seen so many special effects in his short life, he can no longer distinguish reality from the movies and shows he sees. Tell him Iron Man can’t fly and he’ll scoff at you; try to explain that Percy Jackson is just a story and he’ll dismiss you as stupid and ignorant. This is Finn, the Kingdom Keeper.

“Is it really you?” the boy asks.

“It is.” Finn steps up to the boy and kneels down onto one knee so he can look him in the eye. “And I’m on a mission,” he whispers, “so I need you to keep a secret. You can’t tell anyone you saw me. Can you do that?”

The boy nods, now unable to utter a word.

“Attaboy. Thanks!”

Another nod, this time sheepish. The boy looks back and Finn follows his line of sight to a woman busy with a toddler in a stroller; he takes her to be the boy’s mother. Finn spots an autograph book sticking out of a pocket on the back of the stroller.

“The thing is,” Finn says, “if other kids see me sign your autograph book, then maybe they’re going to want my autograph too, and that means other people will know our secret, and then it won’t be our secret any more. So let’s do this: you sneak over there like the best Kingdom Keeper Insider spy we’ve ever had. Okay? Do your best to hide the autograph book as you bring it over to me.” The boy is now nodding so hard, it looks like his head might pop off. “I will pretend to tie my shoe. Don’t forget a pen! Bring me the book, place it by my shoes and I’ll sign it and you can sneak it back. Deal?”

“Deal!”

“Great. You’d better tell me your name now.”

“Phillip. My name’s Phillip.”

“Nice to meet you, Phillip. Okay. Start your mission!”

A minute later, the autograph book is signed, and Finn is on his way, wishing he and the Keepers had more interaction in the parks with the guests. The encounter will be something the boy remembers always—Finn is certain of that. The astonished eyes, the sincere excitement—that’s what the parks stand for: the thrill of imagination, the magic of the mind. All that is what he and the Keepers are fighting for—quite literally at times: the opportunity to dream. Finn’s brief encounter with the boy has satisfied some empty space in him that needed filling. The Overtakers want to blot out such thrills, destroy one of the few places left where mind triumphs over matter.

His head lowered so that his face will not be recognized, Finn follows the sea of running shoes, sunburned legs, ankle socks, canes, crutches, and wheels of many sizes and varieties. Reminded of his reason for coming here, he feels emboldened. Might cannot be allowed to triumph over right.

Finn’s destination remains only marginally uncertain. When the Keepers solve one of Wayne’s riddles, they try not to second-guess themselves. The solution involved a battle of wits and demanded a combination of both knowledge and experience.

* * *

Hours earlier, the Keepers had gathered for dinner at the Studio Commissary, taking a table away from other workers. Food fueled their collective power of reasoning. They did some of their best group thinking at places like Cosmic Ray’s or the Disney
Dream
’s cabanas.

What has one head, two hundred sixty-four legs, and consumes more than thirty pounds of meat a day? At nine o’clock Friday night, hide where ears never listened.


Maybeck began sketching almost immediately, first drawing legs: many, many people, each with two legs.

“Too many legs for any kind of sports team,” he said, very quickly.

Willa stole the pencil from Maybeck and sketched out the curving arc of a choir.

“A choir!” she said. “A big choir has hundreds of legs and a conductor who could be considered the head. And a choir could easily eat thirty pounds of meat!”

“Or a band. One of those marching bands that visits the parks,” Finn said.

“Or girls at a cheerleading contest. You do not want to see how much food cheerleaders can pack away!”

Philby had trouble keeping up with his iPhone. He was on the Disneyland Web site, checking out the nighttime activities. The others waited for him impatiently.

“It’s a no on the choir,” Philby said. “There
was
a band in the park today, from Alberta, Canada, but they were part of the afternoon parade and that’s all over.”

“Cheerleaders?” Charlene inquired.

“Nada,” Philby answered.

Maybeck took back the pencil and drew an ugly centipede. As he sketched, the group fell silent. Maybeck spun the napkin he’d drawn on so that the creature faced each of them. They didn’t need any encouragement to envision the centipede at a gargantuan size—with 264 legs, a single head, and a voracious appetite for meat—or human flesh.

“Yeah, okay,” Finn said, “point taken. But what about the second part, the hiding ‘where no ears listened’? How does a monster centipede fit into that? And why would Wayne tell me about a giant insect anyway?”

“A new Overtaker?” Maybeck said.

“Like Gigabyte,” Charlene said, reminding them all of the thirty-foot snake that had attacked them in Epcot.

“Gross,” Willa said.

“No ears,” Charlene said. “Maybe the thing is deaf. Maybe Wayne’s trying to warn us the bug is deaf.”

“And I’m supposed to hide where the thing doesn’t have ears?” Finn said.

“Furniture,” Philby said.

“What?” Maybeck asks.

Philby slid his blank napkin to Maybeck. “Furniture has legs.”

“At last check,” Maybeck said, “furniture doesn’t eat thirty pounds of meat.”

“Math!” Willa said excitedly. She plucked the pencil from Maybeck before he could start sketching. “Two-hundred sixty-four divided by four—tables, chairs, doesn’t matter, they all have four legs. It’s—”

“Sixty-six,” Philby said.

“Show off!” Charlene can’t help herself.

“A head table?” Finn asked. “Like in Harry Potter at the end of the dining hall?”

“A headwaiter!” said Willa. “It’s a dining room! A restaurant in the park.”

“If there are sixty-six tables, there are hundreds of people,” said the Professor. “Easily enough to eat thirty pounds of meat.”

“But if it’s sixty-six
chairs,
” said Willa, “then we know the capacity of the restaurant. It’s smaller. Easier to identify. Wayne’s telling you,” she said to Finn, “to meet him at a restaurant.”

“Sixty-six people eating thirty pounds of meat?” Charlene said. “That’s disgusting.”

“That’s a half-pound hamburger per person. It’s logical,” Philby said. “And the number of chairs is the key. Willa’s right.”

Willa blushed.

Philby was already busy surfing the Internet. His head snapped up. “Wait a second!” He took in the group. “The math doesn’t work, but I’m not sure it has to. Sixty-six is the important number. That, and the name of a restaurant…if you cut it in half.”

“Thirty-three!” Willa spat out, wanting to solve the math ahead of everyone else, but having no idea of the number’s significance until Finn spoke up.

“Club 33.”

“It’s a private club!” Maybeck complained.

Philby’s fingers flew. “I can’t confirm the capacity, but I mean, come on! Club 33. Yes, a private club. But an old-time Imagineer like Wayne would probably belong, right?”

“What about hiding ‘where ears never listened’?” Charlene said, clearly skeptical.

“I don’t know,” Philby said. “I admit it. But sixty-six chairs in Club 33? It’s possible, right? It would be so Disney to make a play on the number, wouldn’t it?”

“And if it happens to seat sixty-six people, then even the thirty pounds of meat makes sense,” Willa said. But Willa tends to support Philby when it comes to such things, and by now each of the Keepers was trying to make sense of it for him- or herself.

Having gone back to his phone, Philby looked up and said, “Trust me, it has to be it. There aren’t any restaurants close to that small in Disneyland. Not that size
and
with a headwaiter.”

“I’ll have to figure out the part about hiding ‘where ears never listened’ when I get there,” Finn said. “But it’s worth a try.”

* * *

Now as a DHI, Finn makes his way with the teeming crowds,
trying
to move quickly enough not to be recognized;
trying
not to move too fast for fear of sticking out;
trying,
even now,
to make sense of “hide where ears never listened.” He notes the past tense. Wayne said not
listen
but
listened
. That’s significant. Even the tiniest part of one of Wayne’s clues is significant. The ears had failed to listen sometime in the past, meaning that whatever they had heard but failed to attend to had to be something
known
, something to do with Disney history or lore.

It takes Finn several minutes to find a pay phone, several more to borrow a quarter to use it: he reaches Philby on the first ring.

“It’s me. Who’s the woman at the Archives?”

“Becky Someone,” Philby says. “Why?”

“You need to call Becky. Make something up about us doing a report or something and ask her about any lore that has to do with Club 33 and something that happened in the
past
, an incident when someone didn’t listen.”

“Are you feeling all right?” Philby asks.

“Yeah.”

“Because you sound a little strange,” Philby says. “You want me to call some woman I’ve never met and—”

“We saved the Archives. She owes us. She will be happy to help.”

“You know this, how?”

“Call her. I’ve only got twenty minutes. You’ve got to hurry. Now, Philby. I need this now. Disney history. Disney lore. Wayne used the past tense.”

“You’re going all language arts on me?”

“Mickey Mouse could be the ‘ears’ in ‘where ears never listened.’”

“I’m on it!” Philby says excitedly. Finn has finally gotten through to him. “How do I reach you?”

“I’m on a pay phone, but it says it doesn’t receive calls.”

“So you’ll have to call me back.”

“That’s a hassle. I don’t have any quarters. It would help if you’d get version 1.6 stable enough that we could bring our phones with us.”

“I knew you were going to say something like that. No matter what I do, it’s never enough.”

“Cue the violins. You’re sounding like Maybeck.”

“As if.” Philby pauses, then blurts out, “Maybe I can get the information to Willa before she crosses over.”

“Wait! What?”

“Willa.”

“I got that part,” Finn says.

“She thinks I set you up to fail. She’s crossing over as we speak.”

“You can’t do that! It could be a trap!”

“A point I tried to make. Live with it. She’s coming.”

“I’ll call you back.” Finn hangs up. He doesn’t like sparring with Philby. It only seems to happen in moments of crisis; the rest of the time, they get along well enough. Arguing makes him suspicious of Philby, a feeling Finn doesn’t like. He knows that Philby, with his superior smarts and keen sense of reasoning, feels like the real leader of the Keepers and feels denied by Finn assuming that role. For a long time Finn did not want the leadership position; he even let Philby have it. But for a brief period when Wayne seemed to favor Philby, Finn did not like it one bit. He realized how much he valued Wayne’s attention, how much Wayne’s faith in him mattered. He wanted to be the one getting assigned the missions, the one setting the agenda. He wanted to have the inside track, to know stuff before anyone else did. He knew how dangerous a road it was to walk—balancing your sense of self-importance against humility and what was truly important: ego versus reality.

But Finn can’t shake the dread that surfaces occasionally, the fear that Philby might sacrifice him in order to lead the others. Not kill him—Philby is no murderer. But Philby is brilliant; he could easily orchestrate a situation that would make Finn look like an idiot or (and this was the worst thought of all) a situation in which a decision of Finn’s might injure the other Keepers. What are Philby’s goals and aspirations? Like all the Keepers, he must have his own reasons for staying in the group. How much is Finn in the way of his friend’s ambitions?

Finn can’t let Willa, DHI or not, put herself at risk by getting too close to him. He has to move fast.

“Excuse me? I’ve lost my family and I need a quarter to call my mom’s cell phone. I wonder if you happen to have a quar—”

“Here. Use mine.” Finn faces a girl who looks to be his own age, but slightly taller. Her arm extended, she holds out a cell phone. She has a toothy smile revealing a mouthful of braces. She can’t quite bring her bright eyes to focus on him. It’s then Finn sees she’s wearing a Kingdom Keepers T-shirt. Maybeck had once shown them all a Web site selling the Keepers Kharacters shirts, but it’s the first time Finn has seen anyone wearing one.