Kingdom Keepers V(16)

Mr. E., who could put up with all sorts of distractions, did not appreciate being interrupted. Ever.

“Mr. Philby? Miss Angelo? Something you’d like to share with us?”

“No, sir!” Philby answered.

“Let me have both your phones, please.”

The class oohed and stirred. A teacher reading through one’s texts promised nuclear devastation. Ridicule. Social-life disaster. Romantic embarrassment. Detention.

“But—”

“Now!” Mr. E. extended his hand.

“I wasn’t texting him!” complained Willa, hoping to take the pressure off him. The girls in the class giggled.

Philby turned to face Willa and clearly mouthed, I don’t need your help!

“I don’t want to hear it! And if I see your hand anywhere near that keyboard, Mr. Philby, it’s automatic detention.” Another collective gasp from the class. Detention had been moved to Saturdays several months earlier and was a curse of epic proportions.

Philby dragged himself to the front of class, understanding why some kids deleted their messages each night (to hide them from spying adults). He had never had any reason to do that. His only texts were with Finn and the other Keepers. But now, a few steps from handing over his phone, he was paralyzed by the idea that Mr. E. might intercept those particular texts. They suddenly struck him as top secret. Adding to his paranoia was that Willa’s texts would, in many instances, reference or reply to Philby’s. The existence of a group of teenagers battling the evil forces inside Walt Disney World was rumor compounded by speculation. Newspapers had written about it. A few blogs and Internet radio shows had reported it as if fact. To some, Finn, Philby, Maybeck, Willa, and Charlene were cult heroes. But there had never been any proof. They were stories, and that’s all.

But Philby’s phone contained a good deal of circumstantial evidence, and he was seriously reluctant to turn it over to Mr. E.

“I give you my word, Mr. E.: I wasn’t texting anyone. I promise! I was just…scared,” he lied. “That’s all. Camazotz looks way creepy.”

The class guffawed.

“Me too,” Willa said from her desk.

Philby’s phone hovered over Mr. E.’s open palm. He eyed each of his students warily. Perhaps he’d heard the rumors or read the newspaper articles. Perhaps he didn’t want to twist the lid off this particular can of worms.

“I’m willing to stay after class and discuss it,” Philby said, sensing the man’s reluctance.

“Me too!” Willa repeated. She won some unappreciated giggles from the others.

Mr. E. accepted the phone from Philby.

The class reacted and he shushed them. He placed Philby’s phone on his desk without looking at it.

Philby breathed for what felt like the first time in the past several minutes.

Mr. E. continued the class. Philby returned to his seat and waited out the longest twenty minutes in recent memory.

Once the bell had rung and the students had left, leaving Philby and Willa at the front of the class with their teacher, Mr. E. said, “Don’t you have to be somewhere?”

“Study hall,” the two said, nearly in unison.

“If you’re expecting your phone back, Mr. Philby, you can apply for it at the end of school today.”

“Actually, Mr. E., I was wondering if I could mess with your PowerPoint for a minute.”

“It’s Keynote. What do you mean by ‘mess with’?”

“I’d like to combine—”

“Two of the images,” Willa said, knowing exactly where Philby was going with this.

Mr. E. smelled a conspiracy. He looked distrustfully between the two.

“Be my guest,” he said, motioning to his laptop.

“It’s why we…what caused…I’m sorry I interrupted,” Willa said.

A straight-A student, Willa wasn’t one Mr. E. could get too upset with. He said nothing.

“It’s actually something the class may find interesting,” Philby said, sounding like a teacher himself. No stranger to computers, he took over Mr. E.’s laptop, his fingers dancing across the keyboard. Less than a minute later two images appeared on the projected screen.

“On the left, the Minotaur. On the right, Camazotz. And now…”

On the screen, the images of the creatures—one, half bull, half man; the other, half man, half bat—centered, overlapped, and dissolved into a single image. For a moment, the level of transparency was off, the Minotaur dominating. But Philby quickly adjusted the images to blend together. The face became a Venn diagram, and yet was unmistakable.

“O…M…G…” Willa said.

“What is it?” Mr. E. said.