They were directly below several character balloons secured to the ceiling: Buzz, Bolt, and the five members of the Incredibles family.
Maybeck pointed to himself, then up.
Philby nodded.
Maybeck climbed the ladder strapped to the wall.
* * *
From up close, the Buzz Lightyear balloon was all color and clear plastic. Maybeck didn’t know whether he was looking into the guy’s side or his arm, but what he saw caused his heart to leap in his chest.
He panicked, a rare and unnatural state for him. Throwing his feet to the outside of the rungs, he slid down the ladder like it was a firehouse pole. His sneakers squealed against the metal. He landed on the stage with a loud thud.
“Sheesh!” Finn reached out to steady Maybeck.
“We’re out of here!” Maybeck said. He took two steps.
“Who’s there?” A man’s voice carried across the stage. “Hello?” It came from their left.
Philby waved for Maybeck and Finn to follow him. The three boys hurried away to a set of dark stairs leading to the theater auditorium.
They were cornered. If they went through into the theater, they’d be seen; if they stayed where they were, they’d be caught.
Finn wasn’t going to stand around. He yanked open the door and dove beneath a seat in the first row, crawling forward and tucking his legs into a ball. Philby and Maybeck followed. The three boys lay on the auditorium floor beneath three side-by-side seats.
Footfalls pounded out onstage.
“Anybody there?” The man’s voice was incredibly present and close. “Answer me! Who’s there?”
More footfalls. One, maybe two more people.
Finn used the loud sound to cover his rolling onto his back and wiggling forward to beneath row three.
Philby had the nerve to grab hold of him to try to stop him. Finn shook off his hand a little too harshly, pulled himself to sitting, and peered through the spaces between seats.
He saw a squat but wide-shouldered stagehand looking up into the dark where Maybeck had climbed. Finn sensed the other man before he ever saw him, a man standing as still as a predator cat, only the whites of his eyes ticking left to right as he searched the auditorium. Finn didn’t so much as blink. The man was looking right at him. He held his breath; fought to keep from moving.
At last, the stagehand turned away. A second later he could be heard descending the stairs.
Finn finally rested his eyes, relief flooding him.
The stage stood empty.
The boys gingerly extricated themselves from under the seats and moved quietly into the aisle. They crept toward the back of the theater and the glowing exit signs.
“You! Stop!” The sneaky stagehand had tricked them.
“Don’t show them your faces!” Finn told Philby and Maybeck as the three ran.
The stagehand jumped and took off after the boys, supernaturally fast.
“Go!” Finn shouted to Maybeck and Philby as he skidded to a stop and turned to face the man coming for them.
Finn possessed a confidence acquired over time by being the unanointed leader of the group. But usually it was Maybeck or Charlene, not him, who stuck around for the battles. Without thinking now about what he was doing, he dropped to one knee, grabbed hold of either side of the aisle carpet, and pulled. Pulled hard.
Nothing happened. What the heck had he been thinking?
The stagehand drew closer. Anger and frustration overcame Finn. He gave the carpet one ferocious tug. To his surprise, this time it tore loose and rose like a wave, rippling powerfully as it pulled free. The wave surged beneath the stagehand—a magic carpet— dumping the man flat onto his back and knocking the wind out of him.
The boys ran out the theater’s main doors reaching Mickey’s Mainsail shop in record time.
“What was that, Whitman?” Maybeck asked.
“No clue.”
“Since when do you go for the Superman stuff?”
“Since never.” Finn panted. As if to prove it, he was out of breath.
Then, arriving down the opposing hallway alongside White Caps, came the second stagehand, the one with the shoulders of a weightlifter. He glowered at the three boys.
“Well,” he growled, “if it ain’t the Three Stooges.”
“Split up!” Philby shouted as the three boys took off.
Finn and Philby headed aft; Maybeck peeled off and bounded down the amidships stairs.
The stagehand ignored Maybeck, increasing his odds by going after two of the kids.
Though he tried to focus on fleeing, Finn couldn’t help wondering what had happened back there. That surge of strength…was it a fluke? Something he could learn to do? He glanced over his shoulder.
No question the man was after him, not Philby. Time to act.
Finn bumped Philby, sending him tumbling.