Jess stared ahead.
“You got us into this,” Amanda complained.
“First we calm down,” Jess said without any trace of tension in her voice. “I’m coming up with a plan.”
“Now? Now you’re coming up with one?”
“I am,” said Jess. “If you’ll allow me to think, that is.”
The guide was saying, “Please remain seated. Please keep your legs and hands inside the boat at all times…”
“That’s it!” Jess said.
Amanda looked quickly around, expecting to see something.
“Where?” she said. “What?”
“Do exactly as I say,” Jess instructed.
“Oh yeah, that’s worked real well so far,” Amanda snapped sarcastically.
“There’s no room for hesitation,” Jess explained. “As in none. We either do this together, or it’s your turn to come up with a plan.”
“Okay. I get it.”
A recorded female voice took over from the guide. The narrator warned of a storm, then identified the rain forest, and the desert. There was a brief explanation of the diversity and importance of each to the earth’s ecosystems.
“The American prairie once appeared as desolate as the desert,” the voice continued.
“Get ready,” Jess hissed.
“Psst! Girls?”
Jess and Amanda froze. It was a woman’s voice coming from directly behind them. They didn’t have to guess which woman it was.
“Psst! You, two! I need to talk to you. It’s about—”
“If you’d please keep your voice down,” said the guide, cutting her off.
The boats had moved into a dark tunnel where movie screens showed working farms, ladybugs, and beetles.
“Now!” Jess said. She stepped off the boat and onto a walkway, ducking down into the dark to hide. Amanda was right behind her.
An alarm sounded. The boats stopped immediately. Several guests were talking at once.
“They got off!…I saw that!…You can’t do that!”
They had tripped some kind of emergency stop.
“Come on! Let’s go!” Jess said.
Together the girls headed for the light ahead and reached the greenhouse where banana and other fruit trees rose from a beachlike floor of sand.
Two men in coveralls appeared.
“You can’t leave the boat!” one of them hollered.
“My sister can’t hold it in another minute,” Jess said. “Mexican food, you know?”
A twitter of laughter carried to them from down the tunnel. The guests on the ride had heard her.
“Oh…thanks,” Amanda said through clenched teeth. “This was your plan?”
“You can’t leave the boat!” the greenhouse worker repeated. “Mister, if you don’t get my sister to the girls’ room, you’re going to need a boat. Or at least some rain boots.” The alarm stopped. The boat started moving again. “Your tickets will be pulled for this,” the worker said.
“You’re through for the night—probably for the year.”
Through for the night, Amanda heard. They’d barely just gotten started. Then again, Jess’s plan had worked: the woman was stuck back on the boat. They’d gotten away from her.
Probably for the year.
Could Disney do that? She supposed they could probably do a lot of things that didn’t seem possible.
“There’s a lavatory down there,” the worker said, pointing, having ushered them away out of view of the ride.
Jess elbowed Amanda.
“Huh?” Amanda said.
“The girls’ room,” Jess said emphatically.
“Oh, yeah,” Amanda said, “right.” It wasn’t a stretch to try to look embarrassed. She headed toward the sign.
Behind her, two workers in lab coats appeared and moved directly for Jess.
Amanda hoped they weren’t Overtakers, hoped like mad that Jess hadn’t gotten them out of one trap only to lead them into another.
6
MRS. NASH, ARMS CROSSED, looked down on Jess and Amanda with fire in her eyes. She was a woman who, to judge by her appearance, ate well, and had no love of cosmetics, nor of hairdressers or fashion magazines. She was currently stretching out a green T-shirt to the point that the writing on it was too distorted to be legible. Her arms bore white patches of dried skin scratched to scarlet, flaming islands that came down her arms like the Alaskan archipelago.
“What exactly were you thinking?” she wheezed. Mrs. Nash had trouble breathing.
“Amanda had to use the facilities,” Jess said.
“I thought we had an understanding that the Disney parks were off limits,” Mrs. Nash said. “After everything that happened to you, Jessica, I’m surprised you’d get anywhere near that place.”