Kingdom Keepers III(132)

His mom. The performance of a lifetime.

Pete and the other parents were still talking when Philby showed up between the containers.

“Mom? Dad?”

Philby’s parents—for they turned out to be the other two adults—cried out in surprise.

Everyone’s attention focused on Philby as he stepped out. “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say: I’m sorry.”

Finn’s mom slipped the line off the cleat that bound the barge to the dock. She stood up and stepped away from the barge.

Amanda locked her legs under a crossbeam that secured the globe, rose to her knees, drew back her hands, and pushed them forward.

The guard fell over. Mr. and Mrs. Whitman fell over. And the barge jumped away from the dock.

Charlene pulled the start cord and the engine kicked to life.

The guard scrambled to his feet, turned, and ran for the barge. He jumped, but splashed into the murky water, missing the barge.

Charlene motored them away from the dock.

Finn hurried forward, figured out the carabiner, and removed it from the clasp. He swung open the door, fell to his knees, and felt tears running from his eyes.

Wayne, his feet pressed up into his chest, his white hair like a beacon of light, was crammed into the small box.

He was smiling.

“What took you so long?” he said.





48


DAYS BLENDED INTO WEEKS. Philby used his control of the software to keep them from crossing over in part because their parents were monitoring them closely and “heads would roll” if they went DHI again.

Philby’s only conversation with Wayne had been brief, on the day of his rescue. Wayne had spoken in a whisper, not out of weakness, but in the interest of secrecy.

“There is more going on than meets the eye. It’s much bigger than you think.”

“The seat belts?”

“A small part of it, yes. Present your evidence to the Imagineers. They will believe you. They will do the necessary safety checks of the seat belts. It’s not an issue if they have Maleficent. And I’m assuming—”

“She and Chernabog…I heard they were taken to the Animal Kingdom. To the vet clinic for her, and the elephant cages for him.”

“That may buy you the time you need.”

“Time to do what?”

“To finish it. They aren’t done. There are more of them—many more than we knew. And the only way to stop them…”

But the paramedics approached. They grabbed Wayne’s gurney and whisked him off into the ambulance. It was the last Finn had seen of him.

Finn had turned in his cell phone and computer as part of his punishment, accepting that it would be a month or more before his parents loosened up and gave him back some of his freedoms. But despite all the discipline, he and his mom would catch eyes every so often—at the dinner table, across the kitchen when Finn was doing his homework—and he would see her eyes smile back at him. It was more than his being safe. It was that she’d been part of the team—in solving the cryptogram, in untying the barge. She’d briefly experienced the thrill he lived with nearly every day. She’d touched it. She knew now. She would never look at him the same again.

School was school: b o r i n g…except at lunch, when a certain friend would slide onto the bench next to him off in the far corner, and sometimes he would feel her hand glance against his or would catch a look in her eye, or see her fighting back a smile.

“I don’t know what happened outside the stage,” he finally gathered the courage to say one day. “But whatever it was, it wasn’t right. I like Charlene and everything, but I don’t know why you said the things you said.”

“Neither do I.”

“And that’s it?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain this.”

“It would help by trying to in the first place.”

“I’m a Fairlie,” she said.

“I think we’ve established that.”

“We all have special…traits. Qualities.”

“Powers,” he said.

“We don’t think of them that way. But okay. Whatever. We have them.”

“I was talking about Charlene,” he said.

“Shut up, Finn. Let me talk if I’m going to talk.”

He felt himself blush. There weren’t many people who could tell him to shut up without getting him steamed. But when Amanda said it, he wanted to laugh.

“My quality is…what I’m good at…what I’m able to do is to push. To levitate. To move objects away from me.” He directed the intensity of her eyes onto his. “To move things away from me.”

He swallowed. “And if they don’t want to be moved?”

“I can move almost anything I want to. No matter how large. I mean, maybe not a building, but I moved a truck once.”