Kingdom Keepers III(4)

Philby remained as a lookout somewhere outside the teepee. This, because they’d had unwanted visitors before.

“So? What now?” Willa asked. “I mean we’ve looked for Wayne everywhere and I just don’t think he’s here in MK.”

“If he is here,” Charlene said, “we’re not going to find him. I agree with Willa.”

“We can’t give up,” Finn said.

“That was a trap tonight, Whitman,” Maybeck said. “You and I…we walked into it. We can’t be hanging around MK anymore. They’re onto us.”

“I’d like to disagree with you,” Finn said, “but I can’t. I say we move on to the Animal Kingdom.”

“But our DHIs aren’t set up there, right?” Charlene said. There had been a time when Charlene had understood little of the technology that allowed them to cross over and become DHIs by night inside the park. But now she spoke as the expert they all had become.

“Correct,” Finn said. “If we look for him inside AK, then it has to be during the day, and we have to go as ourselves.”

“We’d be mobbed,” Maybeck said. He made a valid point, Finn thought. The DHIs had become so popular that even at the mall and at movie theaters the five kids were approached and often overwhelmed by fans. Inside one of the parks it would be insane. There were also contractual rules limiting their visits to the Disney parks in order to protect the “brand” of the Disney Hosts. The kids often ignored these rules, going in disguise, but…

“My parents would kill me if I got caught,” Willa said. “Now that they’ve added us into Epcot and the Hollywood Studios, the cruise line and the ice show, my parents are freaking. It’s apparently a lot of money Disney is paying into the college account. I blow that and I’m dead.”

“Yeah, same here,” Maybeck said. “My aunt has lectured me about a million times on not messing with that college fund.”

“So we don’t look for Wayne?” Finn said. “That’s not happening.”

“If it means we have to go into AK, Epcot, or the Studios as ourselves, I’m out,” Charlene said. “Or, if we go in, we’ve got to tell the company, and everything the contract says to do. I’m in the same situation as Maybeck and Willa. My parents are counting on this college money.”

“I can’t believe you guys would bail on Wayne,” Finn said. He found it a little strange to be talking to a dark, empty teepee, but it wasn’t the first time.

“Psst!” It was Philby just outside the door of the teepee. His DHI glowed in the darkness. “We’ve got company.” He stepped inside and, as he crossed into the projection shadow, a black line sliced through his image and slowly ate him. His DHI disappeared.

“Ouch!”

Philby had sat down on Finn’s crossed legs. Finn moved over, and Philby’s butt made an impression in the sand beside him. “Not a peep,” he whispered. “It’s all of them!”

A moment later, the crunch of dry palm fronds and jungle leaves could be heard as the pirates entered the Indian Village.

“They probably skedaddled,” said a man in a low and ominous voice. It sounded as if he had gravel in his throat.

“Footprints!” called another man’s voice.

A shudder passed through each of the Kingdom Keepers. They had gotten careless. A year earlier they would have taken the extra precaution of dragging a branch behind them to erase their footprints. When Finn was pure light, a true DHI, he didn’t leave any footprints, but that wasn’t often and it wasn’t for long. The other DHIs were always part human, and therefore left tracks. Finn and the others understood perfectly well where those footprints led: directly to the teepee they now occupied. They’d trapped themselves. Their only defense was their invisibility, and their invisibility lasted only as long as they were deep within the teepee and in the projection shadow.

The voices drew closer—the pirates were following the footprints closer and closer.

“It’s here,” a low voice growled, immediately outside the teepee.

A face appeared, partly in silhouette, with a scraggly beard, dark brown moles like warts, and winding scars. The man stepped inside.

Finn spotted the black plastic fob hanging from the pole by the door of the teepee. The remote control device could send them all back to the safety of their beds. Their homes. But it was out of reach now. The pirate blocked the way.

In the past, Wayne had typically kept the fob himself. But without Wayne around, they had to hide the fob safely in the park so they could use it to leave. They’d been using the teepee as a hiding place, but now that would have to change.