Kingdom Keepers III(7)

“That’s a first.”

“I really am sorry.”

“No more. Okay? We’ve talked about this.”

She turned and headed back down the hall.

Finn celebrated his small success. It wasn’t easy trying to save Disney World from the Overtakers.

Harder still being the son of disbelievers.

He rode his bike to school. It was a serious stunt bike and he was proud to be seen riding it. He locked it with two locks along with a bunch of other bikes, but in his mind none were as slick as his Hawk Tracer BMX. He rounded the corner from behind the gym where the bikes were parked and headed for the entrance.

He wasn’t sure exactly how it happened, but he caught sight of a woman on the sidewalk out in front of the school. She was walking slowly, carrying a purse over her right shoulder, and a Disneyland 50th Anniversary Celebration tote over her left. Finn knew that particular khaki-colored tote bag—and it was a big deal, a serious collector’s item. He could see a couple dozen pins attached to the tote’s fabric handles and didn’t need to get any closer to know that these, too, would be collectible pins—the ones that sold for hundreds of dollars on eBay. He knew women like her. He could spot the Disney freaks a mile away.

What raised his hackles was that she was looking at him. There was a huge distance between them—fifty yards or more—and yet Finn knew what he knew: she was focused only on him. Him, and him alone. It wasn’t something that made any sense; nor was it something he could explain; he just knew it. That was all.

What made matters more complicated was that this was not the first time he’d seen her. Yesterday, after school, he’d seen a woman—maybe this same woman—out there. She hadn’t been carrying the tote. Was that some kind of signal for him? he wondered. Was he supposed to go out there and talk to her because she had a collector’s-item tote? Did that make any sense?

Just the idea sent shivers through him. Disney freaks came in all shapes and sizes—and all ages. He’d learned that the hard way. He didn’t want some grown-up stalker following him around. Maybeck had reported a woman window-shopping too long outside his aunt’s pottery shop. He’d seen her out there a couple of times.

Was this the same woman? Finn wondered. Was she an adult Kingdom Keepers stalker? How random was that? Were they all going to need bodyguards before long? What had started out as something cool focused only on the Disney parks had now grown considerably with the DHI program’s expansion. Was it going to wreck his life and leave him hiding from adult freak shows, like this woman stalking him here at school?

He hurried up the stairs, stopping just outside the front doors. He looked back toward the street. The woman had moved on, showing absolutely no interest in him or the school.

So was he making this up? he wondered.

Or was she some kind of professional?





4


FINN WASN’T SURE WHAT IT WAS. All his male friends hated girls. They made fun of girls behind their backs, went to great lengths to embarrass them in person, and yet never stopped talking and complaining about them when they weren’t around. Making things more complicated for Finn was that he didn’t mind girls so much. One in particular he didn’t mind at all.

He’d met Amanda in a weird sort of way and had eventually been involved in saving her sister—in fact, a girl who wasn’t really her sister, a girl once called Jez, now it was Jess or Jessica, depending on what week it was and what color hair dye she was using; girls liked to change their names, their looks, and their friends as often as possible. Amanda, sometimes called Mandy, wasn’t like the other girls—though Finn had said that to his friends once and had been laughed at until he’d turned red. So now he kept thoughts like that to himself, a process that, as far as he could tell, only caused him to think about her all the more.

For a long time, Amanda and Jess had lived in an abandoned church on the outskirts of Orlando. No one knew for exactly how long (except them), but Finn knew why. Both girls were orphans, both had been in foster care in a home for kids with “special needs”—only in their case it was more like “special powers.” Jess had dreams that turned out a lot like the future; Amanda could move things with the power of thought. Neither girl understood her gift, but each had learned to accept it. Since the crazy events inside Animal Kingdom on a particular Saturday, the girls had been swallowed up by Family Services. Living in the church was history. They were in foster care now.

“Rumor is that they’re going to move us back with the Fairlies,” Amanda told Finn. She called the gifted residents of their former foster home Fairlies because she considered them to be fairly human.