Power Play

“That makes sense,” Jess said. “It should probably be just you and Charlene in the picture.”

“Agreed,” Finn said. “You and Amanda keep an eye out, while Charlene and I do this.” His personal phone vibrated in his pocket. He read the text. It was from Maybeck.

CTDs on Segways headed this way.

“Crash-test dummies,” Finn said. “We need to hurry.” Finn texted back:

Diversion needed.

His phone buzzed back.

No prob

He and Charlene hurried out in front of the rocks and Finn pressed OK.

The cartoon character’s thin voice told him to face the lake and press OK again when he was ready to have his picture taken.

He had no idea what might happen. A trap door? A net falling from the trees? With everyone’s attention now focused on the lake, anything could happen to them and it would go unnoticed. If it was a trap, it had been cleverly planned. He and the others had walked right into it, eyes open.

His thumb hovered over the phone’s OK button.

He pushed OK.

A bright light flashed quickly from within the bushes.

Finn believed this to be part of the trick-to blind them while someone attempted to capture them. He bumped his shoulder against Charlene and reached down and grabbed her hand.

But no one came charging toward them. Finn spotted Amanda looking back at them, and immediately released Charlene’s hand.

Return the phone to get your photos.

Press “OK”

Finn pressed OK and was told what a great job he’d done for the Kim Possible team. How they couldn’t have done it without him.

Jess and Amanda joined them.

Amanda said, “Did you see Maybeck? He was running through the crowd, a pair of crash-test dummies after him.”

“Did they catch him?” Finn asked, anxiously.

She pointed. The CTDs stood well above the crowd on their Segways. But they were barely moving because of all the people. Maybeck had led them past Norway and had to be way ahead of them by now-a good job of creating a diversion.

Finn and the girls reached the Kim Possible cart.

The Cast Member greeted them. “Have a good quest?”

“I guess,” said Finn, returning the phone.

“Here’s your picture,” the man said, pointing out the snapshot pinned to a corkboard.

As all three girls stepped up to see it, the Cast Member blocked Finn from joining them and slipped something into Finn’s right hand. Slippery paper. Photos-Finn could tell by the texture. He stole a glance at the first of the photos but slid them into the only pocket in his absurd gym pants as the Cast Member shook his head, suggesting Finn wasn’t to share these.

The image on the photo hit him hard: the Evil Queen somewhere in DisneyQuest. She was standing in front of four students: two girls, Greg Luowski, and a boy wearing a striped T-shirt, whose face couldn’t be seen because of the Queen.

He’d only seen it for an instant, but there was no question in his mind of what he’d seen. The Queen was talking to the four kids and, more importantly, they were listening.

It hit him like a slap in the face. He had to show it to the others. He simply had to. But the Cast Member had warned him not to. Worse, he still didn’t know what was on the second photo. He needed a minute by himself.

“I gotta go to the bathroom,” he told the girls, as they turned from the posted photo.

“I don’t get it,” Charlene said. “So what if our picture was taken? What’s it mean?”

“This is yours,” the Cast Member said. “I hope you enjoyed your mission and will join us another time.”

Charlene accepted the photo, though unhappily. “Can’t you wait?” she asked Finn. “I don’t think we should split up just now.”

Sticking together was his rule. “Yeah, okay. I’ll text the others. We’ll meet at the ice cream place by the fountain. There are rest rooms near there.”

“Why meet? Why not just go home?” Charlene asked.

“The mission is over, so we’ve been given all the pieces,” Finn said. “We need to figure out what it means while it’s still fresh in our heads.”

“But those guys are out there buzzing around looking for us,” she said.

Finn already had his phone out and was sending a group text.

“Ice cream,” he said.

* * *

Maybeck was the last to reach the ice cream parlor. The other kids stood at the counter. The fireworks show continued, so they owned the place. Even so, they kept their voices low between greedy bites of mint chip, cookie dough, and royal fudge. If there was one thing the Keepers could agree on, it was eating vast amounts of ice cream.

Finn wasn’t sure the others noticed Jess sketching on a napkin as the discussion began with Maybeck’s heroic description of eluding the crash-test dummies.

“We need to figure out the Kim Possible mission,” Charlene said, still edgy.

Finn looked at her differently now. He’d been to the bathroom, and he’d dragged Philby with him. There he’d taken out the two photos and, for the first time, taken a good look at both.

“That’s Sally Ringwald,” Finn said, naming a girl who went to Winter Park. “And that’s-”

“Luowski,” said Philby, who knew about the bully.

“Talking to the Evil Queen.”

“I don’t recognize the second girl-maybe Maybeck or Charlene knows her. What’s the other photo?” Philby asked, for Finn had kept it tucked below the first.

“Who knows if we can trust these pictures?” Finn said.

“Are you going to show it to me or not?”

“I just think we have to keep open minds.”

“Come on! You know me.”

Finn peeled away the first photo revealing the second.

The photo was actually two images divided by a black line. Both black-and-white, they appeared to be freeze- frame photographs taken from a Security video. On the left, it showed Charlene entering a rest room-time and date stamped as the night before while they’d been in DisneyQuest; to the right, was the Evil Queen entering the same doorway.

“Twenty seconds later,” Philby said. “Charlene was still in there.”

“We don’t know that,” Finn said.

“Of course she was! Who can pee and wash her hands in less than twenty seconds? She obviously met with the Evil Queen, just like these other kids.” Philby looked back and forth between the various shots. “The question is not