Disney at Dawn

“But why here?” Fi

“We need to keep watch on the bat enclosure,” Maybeck proposed.

“I can go places none of you can,” said a girl’s voice from behind them. Once again Fi

“Up here,” said the voice.

He and the others looked up to see a vine-covered leotard, with no face and no arms. It was Charlene, in costume as DeVine, her face painted green and black. The overall effect was disarming: she’d been standing there all along, immediately behind Fi

Philby applauded. “Outrageous!” he said.

“Whoa,” said Maybeck. “You totally blend in.”

“I can’t believe it!” said an exhilarated Willa. “I’m looking right at you and I almost can’t see you.”

“I’ll need to leave the area before the real DeVine comes out. But I can go almost anywhere undetected. Even Maleficent isn’t going to see me in this.”

“Okay, Charlene will watch the bat enclosure,” Fi

Charlene, blending into her surroundings, waited for some Park guests to pass and then said, “Will someone please hand me the page from the diary?”

Amanda produced it, stood on the bench, and passed it up to her.

Charlene studied it. “Monkeys…tigers…a bat…This is enough for now,” she said.

“It’s possible that everything on that page is significant,” Fi

Catching Philby dozing off, he punched him in the arm. “And NO falling asleep,” he reminded them.

“I’m exhausted,” Willa said.

“We ca

Maybeck indicated a food cart. “Cokes all around!”

A few minutes later they were all loading up on caffeine. “Maybe Maleficent can’t get Jez out of the park until after it closes,” Amanda said, “or maybe the plan is to run all of you around until you tire out. If she can trap you all in the Sleeping Beauty Syndrome, she eliminates the enemy and is free to rule without challenge.”

“You think she took Jez to bait us?” Willa asked.

“None of this means anything,” Maybeck said, “until we find Jez. The challenge is to stay awake long enough to find Jez and crash this cloned server—if it even exists. Then maybe we hunt down Maleficent, if we’re still standing. But until we find Jez, none of it matters.”

“Listen!” Charlene said from high on the stilts.

The kids turned their attention toward the jungle.

“Not to me!” Charlene clarified. “To the music.”

The kids perked up their ears. It was Ashley Tisdale’s “Kiss the Girl,” coming over the Park’s speaker system.

“Yeah? So?” asked Willa. “Radio Disney plays that all the time.”

“I know that,” Charlene said. “But me and my family come as often as possible, and I’ve never heard that song in this Park before.”

The kids listened some more. “You’re right. It’s always Lion King and stuff like that.”

“It’s Jez,” Amanda stated.

“What’s Jez?” Fi

“‘Kiss the Girl’is Jez’s favorite song,” Amanda said. “She abuses that song on her iPod. If it doesn’t belong in this Park, then it’s her. It’s some kind of message.”

“I think you’re more tired than the rest of us,” Maybeck said.

“Which is completely understandable,” Willa chimed in, “given the stress…”

“Listen…listen!” Amanda demanded, raising a finger to try to shut them up. “Raven-Symoné is going to sing ‘Under the Sea’ next.”

“Yeah, right,” said Maybeck. “I suppose if your sister can dream the future, you can hear it.”

“Philby,” Amanda said, “Jez had her iPod with her. Is there some way she could use it over the sound system?”

“Hijack the sound system?” Philby said, considering the question. “Depends, I suppose. If she stripped a wire from the earbuds and tapped into—”

But he was cut off by the music changing.

Raven-Symoné was singing “Under The Sea.”

All the kids went quiet.

Some visitors walked past talking about going on Expedition Everest. The parents sounded reluctant to try the ride.

But it wasn’t the guests that had silenced the kids.

“Coincidence,” Maybeck said in a whisper. He didn’t sound at all convinced.

“It’s Jez,” Amanda countered, her voice noticeably brighter.

“I know for a fact that they never play that song here,” Charlene said from up high. “I believe Amanda. And besides, it’s softer than the regular music—not as loud. It doesn’t sound right.”

“Which would also explain why Fi

Fi

“Then why doesn’t she just send us Morse code, or something?” Maybeck complained.

“Because she can’t give away what she’s done,” Amanda said, trying to think as Jez would think. “She doesn’t want them figuring it out. So she’s trying to communicate with us, without it being really obvious.”

“Wait right here,” Philby said, taking off at a run. The kids watched him go.

They used the downtime to review the page taken from Jez’s diary.

“The animals could symbolize different things,” Willa suggested.

“Like what?” a skeptical Maybeck questioned. “Listen, I see the drawing of the lightning striking a castle, and even I’ve got to admit it’s pretty coincidental. But the rest of these? They’re animals. So what? She likes animals. It doesn’t mean they mean something.”

“It doesn’t mean they don’t,” Amanda countered. “You don’t know Jez. They’re clues. Clues we’re supposed to follow.”

Philby came ru

As he did, there was suddenly no music at all: a rarity in any of the Disney Parks.

Then “Under the Sea” began playing again.

One thing all the kids knew: music never repeated in any of the Parks. Not ever.

Out of breath, Philby said, “It’s playing on this side of the Park and in Asia. Discovery Island and Africa have different music going.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Maybeck said. “How do we know that isn’t always the case?”

Philby explained, “From what I know, the system is designed to be able to move sound around the Park. The parades require that the music follow the floats. It’s a sophisticated, computer-controlled sound system. I’ve never read anything about one half of the Park being sent one kind of music, and the other half another.”

“That confirms it’s Jez,” Amanda said excitedly. “She just repeated ‘Under the Sea.’ We know that song doesn’t belong here, and on her iPod it follows ‘Kiss the Girl.’ Pretty obvious she wants someone to hear it. Maybe us. Maybe someone to try to fix it, someone to go looking for the problem.”

“Or maybe,” said Willa, “the song itself is significant. Ariel. Or Ursula—”

“I hate Ursula,” Charlene tossed out.

“Or it has to do with where they’re keeping her,” Amanda continued. “Or it fits into her dreams in some way.”

“We’ve got to take it seriously,” Willa pleaded, looking at Fi

Fi

“Let’s run down everything to do with The Little Mermaid,” Fi

Maybeck groaned. “Isn’t that wasting time? The bat is real. That monkey is real. The dragon was real. Let’s follow things we can actually see.”

“How do we know that?” Charlene asked from atop her stilts.

“Ariel’s Grotto,” Willa said. “Magic Kingdom.”

“We split up,” Fi