Kingdom Keepers IV(17)

He launched into a memorized explanation of the game. Finn and the other three listened intently. Didn’t miss a thing.

“Any questions?”

“I think we’ve got it,” Finn said, checking with his friends.

“Off you go. Return it here, please. I’d tell you to enjoy yourselves, but I’m not sure that’s appropriate.”

The phone’s screen told Finn to step away from the cart and to press OK.

The crowds for the fireworks clogged the pathway encircling the lake, forty people deep. The Park music charged the air with excitement.

Finn pressed OK.

The cartoon image on the screen of Kim Possible changed to a photograph of a tree. A written message read:


Go to this tree by the bakery café and press “OK.”



“Where is it?” Finn said, spinning around.

“There!” Amanda and Charlene said at the exact same moment, both pointing.

“Okay. But let’s not advertise,” Finn said.

The girls lowered their arms.

Once at the tree behind the café, Finn pushed OK.

The tree began speaking. Or at least it seemed so real that Charlene jumped back. Finn felt shivers run up his arms as an old man’s voice—a voice he knew to be Wayne’s—spoke to them from a speaker in the shrubs designed to look like a rock.

“We all need a waiter now and then,” said the voice. “Some can get a waiter’s attention faster than others. This can have disappointing results.”

As Finn slapped his pockets hoping to find a pen, he noticed Jess already scribbling on a piece of paper. Jess carried a pencil and paper whenever she was inside the Parks. She had previously had daytime “dreams” or visions of the future here while awake. She came prepared. Her uncanny ability to dream about future events had earned her a place as a Fairlie alongside “sister” Amanda. That power was corrupted and nearly harnessed by Maleficent, who’d put Jess under the effects of a horrible spell, which brought her together with Finn and the Keepers when Amanda had sought their help to free Jess of the spell. Now, the Keepers benefited from her unique ability; on more than one occasion the Keepers had used a Jess diary page to “see” an event before it happened. They’d learned to pay strict attention to anything she sketched.

The phone’s screen said to press BACK to hear the message a second time. Finn pressed the button. Jess continued writing.

“Got it,” she said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Charlene asked.

“We keep going. You know what he’s like,” Finn said.

The screen on the phone changed. An animated Kim Possible said, “Find a friend around front. Push OK and watch what he does.”

Again, a photo appeared. It showed two garden gnomes and some shrubs. They located the identical setting just inside the Norway plaza, past the Stave Church.

Finn pressed OK.

The gnome spun around, his backside facing them. Finn pressed OK and the garden sculpture pivoted to face them again. He triggered the phone to repeat the effect.

“Whoa!” Charlene exclaimed. “Way cool.”

“Please write it down,” Finn said to Jess.

Charlene leaned against him from one side; Amanda the other. A Finn sandwich.

A cartoon of a dorky kid appeared on-screen. He said that Kim Possible had identified a signal post and that she needed their help in locating it. If the enemy saw that signal, they were told, bad things might happen.

“Is that supposed to be some kind of code?” Charlene asked.

“Don’t know,” Finn said. But he was thinking, So many questions from her.

The camera offered another photograph. The four of them returned to behind the bakery. Jess, with her keen artistic eye, found the scenery that matched. She positioned them all with their backs to the bakery patio and pointed to their right where the building ended at a knot of rocks and foliage.

“Go ahead,” Charlene said. “Try it.”

Finn pressed OK.

Nothing happened.

“Try again,” she said.

“Up high,” Amanda said. She knew better than to point and attract attention. One by one the other kids saw it: a red, triangular flag popping up from behind a wrought iron lamppost each time Finn pushed BACK. The flag reappeared and sank.

“Better write it down,” he said, but Jess was already on it.

The Kim Possible character reappeared on the phone and told them how well they were doing and that they had one last clue to find.

Another picture.

Charlene spotted the location immediately: it was a rock face on the way back to the Kim Possible cart where they’d started.

The screen read: Push “OK” to have your picture taken.

“I don’t know about having your picture taken,” Amanda said.