“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.
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.”