Kingdom Keepers: The Return Book Two: Legacy of Secrets by Ridley Pearson Page B

hiding.
    “Hello, there,” Charlene said. She stopped the man cold. “Or should I say, ‘Howdy’?”
    He bowed his head slightly. “Pleased to meet you.”
    “You won’t go giving away our secret, will you?” she asked.
    “What secret is that?” he asked.
    “Mr. Disney arranged a little treat for the guests,” Charlene said.
    That surprised and intrigued him. “Do tell!”
    “A new ghost.” She waved her arm so that his hand passed through her. “Impressed?”
    He took a startled step back, keeping his distance. “I’ve never seen anything like that!”
    “Well, if you had, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise now, would it?” She paused. “Enjoying the party?”
    He couldn’t speak. He reached out for her, but she stepped back.
    “Me?” she said, as if he’d asked. “All but the smoking.” The man held a cigarette burning between his fingers. “I find it a disgusting habit. My prediction is that fifty years from now, it’ll turn out to be the cause of heart disease, early death, and spiraling national health-care costs. That’s just a wild guess. Still, you might want to consider it.”
    He looked at her curiously. “I…ah…”
    “Enjoy the show.”
    Wisely, Charlene chose to back away rather than turn around to return to her friends. Managing a two-dimensional self made her feel like Joy in Pixar’s
Inside Out
, during the abstraction chamber scene. Her friends at school talked about envying girls who were paper thin. In truth, it wasn’t so great.
    “Way to go,” Willa said, as Charlene put her flat back against the flat wall.
    “Check it out!” Maybeck said, a little too loudly. He directed their attention to the wings of the stage, where they saw two boys, arms out, preventing the emcee from entering. The emcee was not pleased; the boys were giving no quarter. “You think that’s them?”
    “Could be,” said Willa, keenly interested and edging forward.
    “Why stop the singer?” Charlene said. “Unless…”
    “They have another show in mind,” Maybeck finished for her.

F IVE MINUTES EARLIER, from their perch aboard the Mark Twain Riverboat, Finn and Philby had seen four Cast Members, all boys, approach the Golden Horseshoe. Philby expressed the same reservations about the boys as Maybeck had, believing they looked similar to the ones at the studios.
    Now Finn spotted a group of well-dressed adults coming quickly toward the saloon on foot. At first, he’d thought they were just people late for the party and eager to reach the building. But something about them put him on guard. There was a man at their center with two women and three men surrounding him like a security detail. Those in the detail were younger by far than the man they protected. The 1950s dresses and suits gave the whole thing a theatrical feel; it was hard for Finn to see it as anything more than a scene in a stage play or musical. Like at any second the group would burst into song and start dancing.
    Finn found the displacement into a time six decades earlier as difficult an adjustment as he did his two-dimensional projection. Was he alone in this? he wondered. Willa and Charlene seemed to be enjoying wearing their fancy dresses. Philby and Maybeck were unbothered by the change. All the Keepers seemed in awe of being part of the park’s beginning.
    He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. Focus. This group of adults was real. So were the four guys dressed as Cast Members, who’d already disappeared inside the Golden Horseshoe.
    “Listen to them talking,” Finn told Philby. “It’s not exactly like they’re friends, but they all know each other.”
    “The guy in the middle’s the boss.”
    “I can’t see him perfectly from here, but the guy in the middle is Hollingsworth,” Finn said. “I’m pretty sure that’s the guy from the firehouse.”
    “Could be. The others obviously work for him. Not just the men, the women, too. See how they’re paying such close attention to him? They’re