Above the giggles and shrieks of excited children and the scornfull reproaches of their exhausted parents, the purr of a train approaching could be heard.

“We’re off to a late start,” Philby announced, checking his watch. Charlene’s cheerleader practice had delayed them. “It’s almost a quarter to five.”

“One Man’s Dream closes at five,” Willa informed them. “We’re okay. We’ll make it.” She turned to Finn. “What if we were ‘accidentally’ inside when it closed for the night?”

Philby shot down her suggestion. “There’s no way five of us will be able to hide out in there and get locked in. Forget it.”

Finn said, “But one of us might be able to.”

Philby said, “There are at least nine security cameras inside One Man’s Dream. If even one of us is seen in there after closing, we’re in big trouble.”

“Maybe not.” A familiar voice came from behind Finn. It was Amanda.

She was sitting in the front part of the train car, her back directly to them, exactly behind Finn.

This is anything but coincidence, he thought.

Finn had barely spoken to her since that day at the skate park where it had seemed to him she’d known too much, or was keeping something from him. His intentional avoidance of her hung in the air between them.

Finn introduced her around to those who had not met her.

She told Finn candidly, “You saw me in the park last night. Main Street. Not far behind you.”

The four other DHIs looked at Finn as if he’d betrayed them. “That’s because I followed Jez there after school,” Amanda explained.

“Jez?” Maybeck blurted out.

Amanda said, “Jez never left the park at closing. She went into Pirates of the Caribbean and never came out. I hid in the bathrooms behind Pirates and waited for the park to clear. Then I hid in a stairwell and waited.”

“Are we supposed to believe this?” Charlene asked.

“Believe what you want,” Amanda snapped at her. “After closing, it was her turn to hide. She took a place on Main Street. You guys just…arrived all of a sudden. I mean, one minute no one was there on the bench, and then there you were. It was the weirdest thing. And she followed you.”

“And you followed her,” Finn said.

Philby tested her. “She followed us where?”

Amanda answered, “She followed you and Finn to Thunder Mountain, and so did I.”

Maybeck nodded. What he heard made sense. “This is solid, guys. This girl Jez is trouble.”

“Later she went over to Cosmic Ray’s,” Amanda said.

Charlene went pale. “But why?”

“Yeah. Why would Jez follow us?” Philby asked curiously.

Amanda said, “Curiosity killed the cat.”

Finn and Maybeck exchanged glances. Finn asked, “Where is she now?”

“She followed you, Finn, today. After school. I lost her at the Transportation and Ticket Center, but she’s around here someplace.”

Charlene snapped, “Since when did you become our guardian angel?”

“My mother works at MGM,” Amanda said. “In administration, in one of the old bungalows. I’ve been there, like, a zillion times. They know me. The main security office for the park is in that building.” She hesitated a moment and then said, “I know those guys. I can distract them. If I think they’re going to see you on one of their screens, I can draw their attention.”

“I’ll just bet you can,” snarled Charlene.

“I don’t know about that,” Finn said. It sounded complicated to him. Risky.

“I can help you,” she suggested. “I can signal if they’re on to you.” Still Finn hesitated. “You need someone to warn you.”

He’d known for some time that she wanted to be a DHI, wanted to be part of the adventure.

Showing off her knowledge of the area, Amanda told Philby, “Listen, there’s a sound-and-light tower right there at the side door to One Man’s Dream. From up there, one of you would be able to see pretty much all around the park. You’d be able to spot the security patrols way before they reached the attraction.”

Willa suggested, “All in favor of Amanda helping us out?”

Everyone’s hand went up, but Finn’s was noticeably slower than the others. Noting his reluctance, Amanda scrunched her face at him.

“I just don’t want you getting into trouble—or worse!—for something you’re not involved in,” he said. “This can be dangerous, Amanda. You need to know that before you volunteer.”

Amanda’s nostrils flared. She looked angry. “I can take care of myself.”

Willa and Charlene grinned.

Charlene, usually the most reluctant of the five, said, “Okay then, it’s decided.”

Once inside MGM park, they quickly split up to avoid recognition.

Finn and Willa headed up Sunset Boulevard. Amanda split from the group, presumably to reach Security. Philby sought out the sound-and-light tower, with Charlene as his runner, in case he spotted trouble.

“You don’t look so hot,” Willa told Finn.

“I’m just…nervous, I guess,” Finn said. They had come up with a decent plan on how he might hide inside One Man’s Dream, but he wasn’t eager to test it.

He asked, “What if they count heads? What if they know how many go in and out of the theater?”

Willa considered this and then said, “Nah, they don’t do stuff like that. Maybe they count people going into the park, but not onto the rides. That doesnt make sense.”

“They might.”

“They might, but they don’t.”

The two passed the fifty-foot-high replica of Mickey’s sorcerer hat that stood in front of the Chinese theater and served as a bandstand. They stopped at a kiosk selling pins and film, hats, stuffed animals, and postcards.

One Man’s Dream was crowded with grandparents and mothers with strollers trying to escape the muggy heat. Finn passed several displays dealing with the history of the park and the ways in which the Imagineers had realized Walt Disney’s dream. Willa waited near the entrance, doing a good imitation of a girl waiting for a friend.

One of the displays showed Walt Disney’s second-grade school desk from Marceline, Missouri. Finn studied the desk carefully, wondering if Disney’s “first pen” might be inside. Its wooden top was hinged, with a shallow circular well cut into it for a bottle of ink.

“Not exactly like your desk at school, I’ll bet,” said a woman standing behind Finn. She was very old, with kind eyes, translucent skin, and a faint white moustache. She wore an employee name tag that said CHARLOTTE. Her hair was the color of laundry lint. Her eyelashes were so pale they were almost invisible, which left her eyelids looking like weird flesh-colored cups that blinked down over her eyes like a bird’s. Her voice sounded like the squeal of a pinched ball oon.

Finn, who’d hoped to go through the exhibit unnoticed, blurted out, “I—it—didn’t do anything.”

“I didn’t say you did, young man.” She looked at him curiously.

“Am I too late to watch the movie on Walt Disney’s life?”

“No, not at all . There’s a final showing in…” She checked her watch. “Well! You’ll have to hurry. It’s just down the hall and to your right. It’s biographical, you understand? It’s not like the Bug movie or PhilharMagic. Nothing like those.”

“I know,” Finn said. The woman’s heavy perfume made him dizzy. It trailed after her like car exhaust. She apparently felt obliged to make sure he made it in time. Together they walked past other displays. Finn caught sight of Walt Disney’s West Coast office—the display Wayne had mentioned.

“Here we go, young man,” the woman said. “Wait here and they’ll show you inside.”

Finn saw another display, this one open to the air, not sealed under glass: a drafting table with a bunch of pens and papers. Wayne had mentioned this as well. Which display? Finn wondered.

The doors to the theater opened. Finn and a few others were shown inside. Finn took a seat near the back.

The lights dimmed almost immediately and the film started. Finn watched a few minutes of it, slouched down in his seat, and then slipped onto the floor. He curled up tightly under the seat in front of him in order to hide. The film ran about fifteen minutes. Finn was already feeling stiff by the time it finished.