Kingdom Keepers: The Return Book Two: Legacy of Secrets (3 page)

It was Walt Disney.

Finn dove for the fireman’s pole. He slid down the brass pipe and landed on a hissing cushion shaped like a doughnut. Except for a single silhouetted figure standing in the open bay door, the firehouse stood empty.

Finn tried to catch his breath. The air was hot and smelled of sawdust and pine. Being a projection, Finn didn’t actually breathe, but to him he felt he did. If you asked Finn Whitman, he sweated, breathed, ached, and itched, just like his human, solid self. And he maintained that illusion. By agreement, the Keepers kept their projections secret. There would be far too many questions to answer if found out. Now he just needed to get past this man without incident.

“And just where did you come from?” the man’s thin, almost cartoony voice asked. It had no place in one so tall and formidable. Finn wanted a better angle, a chance to see the man’s face.

Finn had to think quickly. “I run errands for Mr. Disney. I’m an errand runner.”

“Is that so?”

“I like taking the pole. Makes me feel like a fireman.” Even without seeing the man clearly, Finn could tell he didn’t believe him. He could think of several reasons why that might be the case—first and foremost, Finn was a lousy liar. But another possibility was that the man had expected someone else to come down the pole.

Finn heard the muted sound of feet coming quickly down the stairs. The silhouette heard them as well. The stairs led to Walt’s apartment, but Willa and Philby—who wouldn’t make clunky sounds—should have already made it down.

“Mr. Hollingsworth!” the voice of a young woman called. The man spun. Finn saw his face in profile: a Roman nose and cleft chin, wide eyes—brown?—and big ears. Plain looking, not handsome, Finn thought.

The name meant something to Finn—he’d heard it from Philby, maybe.

Hollingsworth shot a final look in Finn’s direction. Though he remained silent, something shouted to Finn: “Watch yourself!” Then Hollingsworth turned and caught up to the two young women, both of whom were dressed in maid uniforms. The three vanished into the overwhelmingly thick crowd.

Feeling threatened and afraid, Finn ran for backstage. He couldn’t get there fast enough.

It would be the last Finn ever saw of the two girls.

T
HEY MET IN THE SHADE
of a pair of orange trees beyond the Shooting Gallery, near the Pack Mules ride. Their projections were caught by the dappled sunlight cast down by the overarching limbs and leaves, making the teens into virtual checkerboards. Wayne sat in a crouch, up on his knees like a runner on the blocks. He checked around for eavesdroppers, and then hastily unrolled a blueprint that showed the construction plans for Main Street USA.

“Here you go!” Wayne said. He spoke nervously, his voice hushed, even though no one nearby appeared interested. “You’re saying the pen will change this, right?”

“Strengthen it,” Finn said. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but we’ve seen it…in the future. I just touched the pen to the paper and it was magic! Magic happened!”

“Gee whiz!”

Finn uncapped Walt’s pen, glad to have at least some control over his projection. “You’ll see! Watch this!” he said excitedly. The other Keepers joined them, surrounding the blueprint. Finn touched the fountain pen’s bulbed nib to one of the darker lines on the plans. He pulled the pen’s lever, spilling a drop and making sure the ink flowed. The blob of ink just sat there. “That’s weird.”

“Maybe that page doesn’t need any magic,” Charlene hypothesized. “Or maybe it only responds to certain people. Like Jess for instance.”

“Who’s Jess?” Wayne asked. “Golly! Are there more of you?”

“Jessica is a friend of ours,” Philby said. “There are two others, her friends, Amanda and Mattie. Special girls. You’d like them. Jess has a particular artistic skill. If she drew something with that pen, we’d know if it’s the right one.”

“No offense,” Wayne said to Willa and Charlene, “but I’m not sweet on any girls. I like my job too much to get all distracted.”

Everyone laughed, including Finn, who considered Amanda more than a friend. He thought of her all the time; he talked to her inside his head. He missed her. Was there a word for how he felt?

The smile fell from his face amid the laughter. He hurt inside.

Philby spoke. “This pen is identical in appearance to the pen we came looking for. It has Walt Disney’s name engraved on the side, just like the one we’re after. It’s black with a silver ring on the cap. That fits. All I can say for sure is that it looks exactly like the pen we need.”

“But it can’t be the right one if it doesn’t do anything,” Finn argued. “Nothing happened.”

“So maybe he has more than one pen,” Maybeck suggested. Since he was the only real artist in the group, his opinion carried weight. “If I had a special pencil, I sure wouldn’t carry it around with me all day. I’d keep it near where I draw. I’d keep it safe so there was no chance of ever losing it. Whether it was magic or superstition, Walt Disney must have believed in his pen.”

“He’s still alive at this point, let’s not forget,” Wayne interjected. “I don’t like you talking about him that way.”

“Right. Sorry. He believes in this pen,” Maybeck said. “So why risk it?”

“Terry’s right,” Wayne said. “If the pen is as important as you all say, Mr. Disney won’t make it easy to find. He’s a careful man. He probably has several of these monogrammed pens. But the one you’re looking for, the powerful pen, is clearly different, maybe enchanted. And if it’s special, then it’s probably old. Oswald the Rabbit, Mr. Disney’s first animated character, came early, right after the war. Did you happen to know Mr. Disney trained to drive and repair ambulances in the Great War? He didn’t ship out until after peace was declared, but he served six months in France.”

“So…what?” Maybeck said bluntly. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Gypsies!” Wayne said. “Mr. Disney has a great love of magic. I’ve always wondered where that came from. And I have a theory.” He stopped, awaiting their interest.

“Okay,” Maybeck said impatiently. “Let’s hear it.”

“I’ve often thought a European witch or conjurer had something to do with Mr. Disney’s love of magic. Maybe one enchanted him. Once he came home from the war, everything started going great for him.”

“That’s…an interesting theory,” Willa said, kindly. She considered mentioning what she’d heard in Walt’s apartment, but decided to tread carefully. The fact that the two girls were looking for a wand—Mickey’s wand?—interested her. “Does anyone think we should be looking for Mickey’s wand instead of Walt’s pen?”

“Mickey doesn’t have a wand,” Wayne said. “A tail, but no wand!”

“He does in
Fantasia
,” Philby said, reminding him.

“You mean his conductor’s baton?” Wayne said. “True enough. I hadn’t thought of that one.”

Maybeck turned to Wayne. “Where does Walt do the most drawing? His favorite place?”

“He always seems to have a pen or pencil in hand. But a pen like that?” Wayne shook his head. “If I were him, I’d want to be able to use it when I needed it, but keep it safe, too, put it someplace where I wouldn’t lose it.”

“But someplace easy to get at,” Maybeck said, “if he still uses it, that is.”

“There is something else to consider,” Wayne said. “He’d have to make sure that Lillian, his wife, would be able to find the pen if anything happened to him. Mr. Disney travels a lot. Airplanes. Trains. He’s a practical man. He’d want either Lillian or Roy, his brother and business partner, to be able to find it. Maybe both.”

“Which leaves us where, exactly?” Finn asked.

“We’re toast.” Maybeck shook his head.

“Toast?” Wayne asked.

“An expression,” Willa said. “We have a lot of strange expressions. It means we’re cooked—we’re in trouble.”

“Ah! Well, I like toast,” Wayne said. “Buttered, with cinnamon.” He licked his lips. “Gee whiz, that made me hungry!” He looked out at five dumbfounded expressions. “What I’m trying to say is that I doubt very much if Mr. Disney would leave any mention of such a special pen in any kind of will or note or legal thingamajig. No lawyers or stuff like that. Gosh, the person he’d trust the most to get the pen to Lillian would be Roy. Mr. Disney trusts Roy with everything. Rumor is Disneyland wouldn’t have been built if it weren’t for Roy believing in Walt. His own board of directors didn’t want Mr. Disney to build this place.”

“Where’s Roy’s office?” Charlene asked.

“At the studio in Burbank,” Wayne answered.

“I don’t mean to be Mr. Negative,” Philby said, “but given that our projections seem to barely work inside the park, I don’t see how the five of us are going to get to Burbank to search an office.”

“He also has a day office above the Story Book Shop on Main Street USA. And I can drive. I could go to Burbank and snoop around for you.”

“We can’t ask you to do that, Wayne,” Finn said immediately. Then he caught himself. “It’s super-duper nice of you to offer,” he added, trying to sound like young Wayne, “but if you got caught, if you lost your job…well, let’s just say it’s incredibly important you keep this job for a very long time. It’s probably more important than the pen.”

Wayne whistled as the five others nodded. “Golly, that’s a nice thing to say, Finn.”

“It’s the truth,” Philby told him. “We need to protect you, Wayne. If anyone’s going to snoop around, it’s got to be the five of us. You have to keep doing your job like always.”

“We could look in Roy’s office here,” Charlene said.

“Walt does all his real work at the studios,” Willa said. “I don’t know about Roy.”

“Roy, too,” Wayne said. “Though his office here is more convenient in a lot of ways, I’m sure.”

“Walt might keep it here,” Maybeck said, “to help with construction plans. It must have taken more than a little magic to get something like this started.”

“You can say that again,” said Wayne. “Just look around, would ya?”

They did, and Willa saw a Disneyland so different from the one she knew that it made her catch her breath. It was, in many ways, like looking into the eyes of a baby. All the sparkle and promise of great things to come. Sure, the flowers and trees needed time to grow. There were great gaps between attractions that new ideas would fill. But the streamers and flags made it so American and wonderful. And authentic. The signs were hand-painted wood. The music was from real bands, not recordings. Disneyland on opening day looked a little like an Old West town with carnival attractions, raw and ready for the years of growth that lay ahead.

“All this, despite the problems,” Wayne said, innocently enough.

“Problems? What problems?” Philby asked. All the Keepers leaned in slightly toward Wayne, collectively aware of what problems in the parks often implied.

“The stuff Mr. Linkletter didn’t tell the people watching TV.”

“Such as?” Willa inquired.

“Well, for one thing, in case you didn’t notice, the place was packed. You want to know why? Mr. Disney invited seven thousand members of the press from all around the world. That’s what today’s opening was supposed to be: reporters, radio people.”

“And?” Charlene said.

“Are you kidding? There were over twenty thousand guests today. Twenty, not seven! No one was prepared. Food service, you name it.”

“How’d that happen?” Philby asked.

“I heard it was counterfeit tickets. Fourteen thousand counterfeit tickets. The public outnumbered the press two to one. It was a nightmare.”

“It seemed all right to me,” Willa said.

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? That’s the way Mr. Disney wants it. But it could have gone very badly. Very, very badly. And think of the reviews we’d get if it had.”

The five kids looked back and forth between them. Finn spoke for the group. “So the counterfeiting could have sabotaged the park, made it look bad, hurt its reputation.”

“It could, still. We haven’t read the reviews yet. And there’s tomorrow to think about. Opening Day for the public, and a VIP reception at the Golden Horseshoe. That had better be Fat City.”

The idea of a world without CNN and Twitter and Instagram, without instant news and constant feedback, took some getting used to. “But it was on live TV. The biggest live show ever telecast,” Philby said.

“The newspapers come out in the morning. Mr. Disney may get copies later tonight. I have no idea. My fingers are crossed for good reviews.”

“You said ‘problems.’” Willa’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Plural. We know of some of them, but can you refresh our memories, please?”

“Well, gee whiz! There was the drinking fountains!” Wayne shook his head. “The water union went on strike late last night. They cut our water supply in half. At 7:30 in the morning, Mr. Disney had to choose between water in the toilets or water in the water fountains. He picked the toilets, thank goodness. Think of the reviews we’d get with no working toilets! And then there’s the asphalt.”

“The asphalt,” Charlene said.

“We hit a whole bunch of delays. A lot of the asphalt wasn’t laid until late Friday, and we’ve had very hot days. Did any of you happen to see the women getting their high heels stuck in the asphalt? Thank goodness most all of the reporters are men or we’d really be in trouble.”