“That is even lamer,” she said.
“But it’s the truth. I promise! Amanda’s friend, Jess. She dreamed the whole thing. We thought it might actually mean something and so we tried to decode it.”
“And it does mean something,” his mother said.
He stared at her, knowing her as he did, knowing that her arms and ankles being crossed suggested a confidence she rarely displayed. This was the Ph.D. mom, the math mom, the rocket scientist.
“You solved it,” he said, aghast. “You solved the riddle.”
“And wouldn’t you like to know the answer,” she said, not denying it.
“You gotta tell me,” he pleaded.
“I ‘gotta’ do nothing of the sort,” she said. “I gotta ground you.”
“So ground me. A couple days, a week? I can take it.”
“Two weeks. And we say nothing about this to your father,” she said.
“As if I’d object to that,” Finn said.
“When I tell you the solution, you’re going to do whatever it is you’re all doing—here. Here, tomorrow night, where I can be a part of it. Where I can keep an eye on you. You’ll have your friends over, and if I find out you’re lying to me about any of this, then not only is the deal off, but I’m calling all their parents, and I’m putting an end to this—to whatever it is you aren’t telling me about.”
“It was a dream, Mom. I swear.” Was she going to make him beg for the solution? The official Walt Disney World Resort calendar had nothing of interest for the following night. It left him with the fireworks displays at the various parks, and not much more.
“Television,” his mother said.
“Excuse me?” Finn said, as politely as possible.
“On television, stars don’t grow up. They stay the same age.”
Finn’s jaw dropped. She could have put a golf ball into his open mouth.
“Genius,” he said.
21
“DUMBO?” Maybeck groaned in complaint.
“It’s so sad,” Charlene said. All the kids looked over at her in disgust, including Amanda and Jess, both too embarrassed to admit they’d never seen the movie.
“What?” Charlene said defensively. “Those ears?”
“Give me a break,” Maybeck said. “Bridge to Terabithia is sad. Dumbo is just…stupid.”
“Is not!” said Willa.
“Is so,” said Philby, supporting Maybeck and quickly drawing a line between the boys and the girls.
Gathered in Finn’s basement family room around a behemoth of a rear-projection television, they talked through the ads while Finn had it on mute.
“I think Wayne meant Wizards of Waverly Place,” said Philby.
“Cory in the House,” said Maybeck. “Has to be.”
“We’re missing the bigger point,” Finn said.
“Which is?” asked Amanda.
“Cartoons,” Finn said. “There’s a place where stars don’t grow old: cartoons. Even child actors grow up at some point. Not Dumbo. Not any of the other cartoon characters. That’s why this show is important to us.”
“And because any of those other shows could be on any night,” said Willa. “This is the fourteenth. This is the night he wanted us to watch, and this is the only night Dumbo’s going to be on. The only night it has been on the Disney Channel in…what?” She addressed Philby, the fount of all knowledge.
“Two years,” Philby said. “It’s tonight’s special movie.”
“It’s gotta be it,” agreed Finn.
“But it’s torture,” Maybeck said.
“It’s not either. It’s a good movie,” Charlene insisted. “And it has a good message.”
“Which is: ‘You’re never too young for plastic surgery,’” said Maybeck. They all laughed, even Charlene.
The ads stopped and the movie continued. Over the next hour, Mrs. Whitman delivered popcorn, soda, cupcakes, milk, and hot chocolate. Finn and Philby took notes about the characters in the movie as well as tracking the plot. Willa wrote down the settings of the various scenes. Maybeck snorted and made derisive comments, some of which would have gotten him thrown out of class at school. Amanda and Jess watched enraptured, with Jess displaying a serious appetite for kettle corn and Amanda for lemon cupcakes with cream-cheese frosting.
By the end, Maybeck said, “I don’t get it.”
Finn muted the television. “Wayne never makes it easy, you know that.”
“Admit it, Whitman,” Maybeck said. “You don’t have a clue why we just watched that movie.”
“We watched the movie,” Finn answered, “because Wayne told us to watch the movie.”