Power Play

“Like, why they chose me,” Charlene said.

Finn stretched on his tiptoes holding the Return over the junction of pipes. As they crossed back, the Return would fall from his fingers, lodging in its hiding place. They would need to know where to find it the next time they crossed over.

With the three of them all holding hands, Finn counted down, “Three…two…”

He pushed the button.

3

BEING BACK AT SCHOOL was a major letdown. A regular part of almost every day, it was still the forgettable part; his time as a Keeper dominated Finn’s thoughts. The one bright spot in the school day was, of all things, lunch. Not that the food was edible. It was not. But lunchtime was Finn’s chance to hang with Amanda.

He stopped in the boys’ room to make sure he didn’t have something stuck in his teeth, or a booger lodged up his nose.

When his eyes shifted focus in the mirror, he saw Greg Luowski standing behind him.

“Hey, Greg.” Finn was mindful of the Security photograph showing the Evil Queen talking to Luowski and three other kids. He was a bundle of nerves, especially because Luowski didn’t say anything.

There was something different about Luowski’s sneer. Maybe it was seeing his ugly mug reversed by the mirror. Maybe it was his piggish eyes, or greasy skin. Or maybe it was just Luowski trying so hard to look menacing. It was working. If they’d given grades for imparting terror, Luowski would have gotten an A.

Finn cupped his hands beneath the faucet, filled his mouth with water, and swished it around in his teeth to get rid of any cereal that might be lingering from breakfast. He did this in part to pretend that Luowski’s presence didn’t concern him, in part because his hands were shaking and he didn’t want Luowski to see the effect he could have over him. When Finn stood up and looked in the mirror, Luowski was gone. The door to the boys’ room hissed shut and Finn let out a sigh of relief. But he also wondered why Luowski had passed up the opportunity to bully him. The silent treatment was not Lousy Luowski’s style.

Finn looked around to see if a teacher had entered; looked for some explanation. As far as he could tell, he was alone. He tried to let it go, to forget about it, but Luowski had gotten under his skin. He felt slightly sick, edgy, jumpy. His skin was crawling.

Amanda was sitting off by herself in the lunch room, a hopeful look in her eyes, which brightened as she spotted him. Her tray held salad, a bowl of fruit, and a glass of water. The lettuce was mostly white, not green; the fruit, canned. Even the water looked gray through the scratched plastic cup. He arrived with a yellowish mass on his plate that had been labeled creamed chicken and rice. With enough salt, it could be swallowed.

“Have you seen Greg-the-Gross?” he asked.

“Yes, you may join me,” she said, ignoring his question completely.

“Lousy Luowski,” he said.

“I’d be happy to have you.”

Finn sat across from her. He stabbed at the yellow mound. “It lives,” he said, putting his fork beneath the mass and causing it to wiggle.

She laughed. “In the hall earlier,” she said, finally answering him. “His usual oafish self.”

She looked pretty today, like every other day.

“Did he look…different?”

“A few more zits?” she asked. “A few less brain cells?”

Some creamed chicken and rice caught in Finn’s throat. He washed it down with warm milk.

She stabbed her fruit. The consistency of rubber, it resisted her fork, like she was trying to stab an eraser. “I’m not exactly a fan,” she said. “I don’t usually pay attention to him.”

She had trouble chewing her fruit. She said, “But did you happen to notice Sally Ringwald’s new contacts?”

“Might have missed that.” He sat up taller and listened carefully: Sally Ringwald had been one of the kids with the Queen in DisneyQuest.

“Pigmented. You know? Green. You can’t believe the difference. She’s much prettier now. Kind of Irish- looking.”

“One of my mom’s friends wears the blue ones. It’s really disturbing. It’s like I’m not supposed to notice or something. I’m supposed to pretend her eyes always looked like that. As if!” He paused. “Don’t ever do anything like that, okay? Don’t go changing yourself like that.”

She blushed and returned to stabbing her fruit. Or trying to.

“Where did that come from?” he said.

“I don’t mind.”

In a desperate effort to change subjects, he blurted out, “Philby and I crossed over into Epcot last night to rescue Charlene.”

“Rescue?”

“To help her Return.”

“Did she ask you to?”

“No. It’s just that Philby…he hadn’t arranged for her to cross over in the first place.”

“So you’re the DHI police now? Is that it?”

“Ouch.”

“She can’t cross over without Philby’s permission? What about Wayne? Or maybe the Imagineers? What if they crossed her over?”

“It…” He didn’t have a great answer for that. “As it turned out, it was a good thing we went in after her. We ended up battling some trolls. The CTDs were out everywhere-probably looking for her.”

“Probably,” she said, stinging him.

Should he tell her?

“You can tell me,” she said.

How come girls could read his thoughts like that? He never had a clue what a girl was thinking.

“We think she was under a spell.” He lowered his voice. “The Evil Queen.”

“Seriously?”

He reached into his back pocket-he only changed his pants about every four days-and passed her the time- stamped photograph of Charlene and the Evil Queen entering the DisneyQuest washroom.

He said, “There were two photographs last night. The one of the Queen with Luowski and Sally Ringwald, and this one. Notice the times.”

“You kept this one from us?” She sounded upset.

“We kept it from Charlene, yeah.”

Finn ate some more of the yellowish mush, but bit down on gristle and pushed his tray aside. He said, “She has no memory of the Queen being in the girls’ room with her.”

Amanda’s concern carved lines across her face.

“Maybe the plan,” Finn said, “is to cross one of us over each night until we’re all stuck in the Syndrome. That would get us out of the way.”

“If that ever happened,” she said, “Jess and I would cross over and come find you. The OTs can’t possibly know that you made it so we can be DHIs.”

He spotted Sally Ringwald across the cafeteria. She was too far away for him to see her green contacts, but it prompted him to reconsider his encounter with Luowski.

“What if they were green?” he said.

“What if what were green?”

“Luowski.”

“What about him?”