The Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark

Splash Mountain is dark, and Finn and Philby must walk through the watery troughs. They climb up conveyor belts and sometimes float, carried by the current. In a cave filled with animatronic robots, Finn begins to stand up, but Philby pulls him back down, warning him about infrared cameras. They slide down a couple of drops; at one point, they hear machinery and realize the ride has been turned on, and the log boats are headed their way. The ride’s robotic figures sing and dance; it feels creepy.

Philby sees clouds painted on a backdrop, and the boys don their glasses. They notice nothing unusual there or at the next set of clouds. The current pulls them toward the final four-story drop. Desperate, they swim against the water until Finn remembers that, in the park at night, they’re both made of light, which water can’t move. Instantly, he can swim upstream. Philby plummets over the fall, but Finn, now in a log boat and right behind, reaches out, grabs Philby’s arm, and pulls him aboard.

They notice pink clouds on a blue-sky backdrop as they pass through the final scene. Finn puts on his glasses and sees, amid the clouds, the letters “F M E” (171). They have their first clue.

Charlene and Willa report that they also saw letters on a backdrop at the Small World ride. Willa says, “Y, I, and R. Three letters! They look painted, added on later” (172). The girls say Maybeck looked at his watch and ditched them at the ride entrance. They haven’t seen him since. If Maybeck went to the Castle hideout and returned to his bedroom holding the button fob, the rest of the team might be trapped.

They hurry toward the Castle, then hide nearby to watch for security guards. Lurking inside the entrance are two pirates who fought them days earlier. The kids guess that Maybeck is either spying or he’s been captured, and the pirates are waiting for the rest of the team.

Philby says he overheard two people talking about pushing on a stone to open a door. The kids spread out along the Castle’s wall and begin pressing stones until Willa finds one that reveals a small entrance hole. They crawl through, shove the door closed, and walk through darkness until Finn stumbles against some stairs. They climb until they reach a wall with an iron handle, which they push, and a door opens into the anteroom of Cinderella’s Royal Table. 

The kids make their way to Escher’s Keep and climb steadily. From below, they hear, “Thar they be!” (177), and the two pirates chase after them. At first, the pursuers are lucky and make progress, but they take a wrong turn and disappear, cursing, to splash into the moat below.

The team makes it to the hideout apartment. It’s unoccupied, and the fob still rests on the table. Maybeck might be at the teepees, so Finn uses Wayne’s quick exit by pushing the wall button, which opens the floor beneath him, and he slides down a long chute and pops out onto a grassy area next to the Castle. The other kids follow, and they hurry to the teepees.

Maybeck isn’t there, either, but Maleficent is. Calling them “nasty children” and frustrated because she can’t see them, the witch reaches into the tent, her beautiful, if green, face staring about, but Charlene and Will dart past her and escape. Calling Finn by name, Maleficent tosses dirt inside, which reveals Philby. Finn knocks her down, and Philby gets away. Finn also dives out, but Maleficent turns into a crow that attacks him as he runs. He dives into the river, followed by the crow, which morphs into an eel that wraps around him and squeezes. Finn grows faint.

A raft, driven by Philby, appears, and Philby stabs at the eel with an oar. The eel pulls away, Finn drags himself aboard, and they reach the shore. The team races back to the Castle. On the way, Finn keeps thinking, “She knew my name” (185).

Amanda and Finn bike to Crazy Glaze, where she keeps Jelly occupied while Finn pokes around looking for Maybeck. Jelly tells Amanda that Maybeck isn’t feeling well. Finn climbs the rear fire escape, finds Maybeck’s window, and looks in: Maybeck is fast asleep, wearing his clothes from the previous night. Finn calls to him, but he doesn’t react. Jelly shouts at Finn from downstairs, so Finn jumps off the fire escape. Jelly confronts him; he says he needs to wake up Maybeck. Jelly says Maybeck has some sort of sleeping sickness and will go to the hospital for tests after waking.

Finn realizes that Maybeck’s consciousness is still trapped in his holographic form back at the Magic Kingdom. He admits to Jelly that Maybeck’s sleeping problem is connected to being a Disney host and that he can help. Jelly doesn’t want to trust her nephew to a 13-year-old. Finn says, “I’m fourteen next month” (191).

As they ride back, Finn and Amanda sense a great chill, and Finn glances around, searching for Maleficent. He finds himself thinking in rhymes: “Black cars, red cars, blue cars, and white. Small cars, big cars, dull cars, and bright. Where did they come from? Where were they going? Some cars were driving; some cars were towing” (193).

Finn asks Amanda if she ever thinks in rhymes; she says it’s a sign of something, but she won’t say more. Annoyed, Finn stops and demands to know what she knows but won’t tell. She confesses that rhyming signifies “dark fairies” and then pedals off toward a skate park. Finn follows.

A motorized minibike, its rider wearing black and a mirrored helmet visor, chases them. Finn and Amanda ride down into a skating bowl and up the other side, catch air, then split up, riding through bowls and halfpipes while the minibike follows. They turn and ride toward the minibike, and its rider drops and skids past. Finn feels a familiar chill. The rider stands back up, but Amanda, intoning strange words, points her arms at the rider, who flies backward.

She and Finn pedal away and escape. Finn demands to know who Amanda is, but she declares that they must split up, and she rides off quickly.

Finn broods at dinner. His parents ask about his day, but his answers are brief and disengaged. He asks to be excused, then rises and suddenly falls over in a half-faint. Alarmed, his folks carry him up to his bed. It’s too soon to go to sleep, but his eyes grow heavy, and he drops off.

Finn finds himself on a bench near the Magic Kingdom fire station. The park is still open, and kids flock to him. He looks around and stumbles over to Philby. They agree that something happened with the computer servers to make them fall asleep early. Philby thinks the Overtakers captured Maybeck so they can resume their interference with the computers and slow the team down.

Phil remembers that Wayne lives above the fire station. They go there, and Wayne welcomes them into his apartment, which is filled with books and Disney collectibles, some decades old. Wayne explains that Maleficent is the boss of the Overtakers and that they’ve probably hidden Maybeck in a place where his shouts won’t be heard. Philby reasons that the loudest ride is Space Mountain; Finn adds that the ride may contain areas that shadow holograms and thus would make Maybeck invisible.

Wayne admits he has no idea where Maybeck is being held. He says the team is being distracted to keep them from figuring out how to deal with the Overtakers: "Rescue your friend. Solve the fable. Only then will we know what’s expected of you” (205). He says there’s a secret trap door at the pinnacle of the Space Mountain roof accessible by a steel ladder. They must first get onto the roof; for that, they borrow ropes from the fire department.

The boys sneak over to Tomorrowland, throw a rope over the Space Mountain roof railing, and shimmy up. Keeping away from the edge, where they might be spotted, they locate the ladder and climb to the top. They find the hatch, open it, and shimmy down an inside ladder. The interior is dark, tangled with roller coaster tracks and catwalks.

They split up. Finn notices a wire-mesh storage room, drops down, and inspects it. He hears someone inside. The door is locked. Remembering he’s made of light, he concentrates, moves through the shed’s wall, and finds Maybeck gagged and trussed up. He unties Maybeck. The door is locked on the inside; Finn shows Maybeck how to focus and put an arm through the door. Maybeck practices and finally walks through the wall. He realizes he could have escaped anytime but instead believed he was trapped. Finn says the ropes that tied his arms are from “this side,” though, and might have constrained him.

Maybeck confesses that he ditched Charlene and Willa and walked over to the carousel, expecting to meet Jez. Instead, he felt intense cold and could barely move. Finn thinks, “Been there, done that” (213).

The kids, spooked by Maybeck’s kidnapping, meet at the park for a few minutes every night, then quickly return to their beds. They catch up on sleep and homework. Then Philby reports that a power station outside the resort got raided by a group wearing Disney outfits. The girls decide to use their complimentary passes and visit the park during the daytime to hunt for clues when it’s safer.

Wearing disguises, Charlene and Willa first visit the Winnie the Pooh ride. When the ride attendant says, “Happy winds day” (215), the girls don their 3-D glasses and search for clues about the wind. Willa finds an “S” written on the leaves of a wall painting of a tree. Charlene notices that none of the cars behind them are occupied. The car stops; rain smatters them and then falls in torrents, soaking them while the car floats toward the ceiling.

The exit doors are stuck. Willa notices a sawed-off piece of pipe jammed between the doors; she and Charlene tug on it until it comes free. The doors open, releasing a giant wave of water that pours out onto the waiting crowd, drenching them. The car settles back onto the track; Willa and Charlene jump from it and hurry away.

The kids meet later in Philby’s virtual room. Philby has included the “S” the girls found in an online anagram solver but gets only “MY FRIES and YES FIRM” (220). They need more letters. Philby reckons the fourth clue, “stone,” probably hides among the rocks of the Thunder Mountain ride.

Before dinner, Finn’s mom confronts him about the dirty clothes he leaves in the hamper in the morning after he gets up. Finn realizes he’s left a trail of evidence that suggests he’s sneaking out at night. He decides to tell her the truth and describes his weird nighttime adventures at the Magic Kingdom. Naturally, she doesn’t believe him. He insists it’s the truth, then says: “There’s only one way to end this […]. I’m going to sleep” (226).

Finn and Philby stand at the foot of Thunder Mountain. They must search every one of the 10,000 rocks that make up the ride. They hike along the track as it twists and climbs. At a desert mining scene, they find, painted among the stones, the letters T, P, and N.

They start to leave, then feel a chill and hear a cracking sound. The skeleton of a T-rex dinosaur pulls free of the mountain and starts after them, but their legs, made cold by the sudden chill, move slowly. The dinosaur bites at Finn and tears a piece of his shirt. The boys slide down the rails of the ride’s final slope. Philby shouts, “The track is banked!” (233). Finn turns and waves at the giant skeleton, which charges at him. He dives off the rails while the dinosaur skids forward, falls off the track at a turn, and crashes down, bones breaking and scattering. The boys escape.

The kids meet at the apartment and, hungry, go to Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café. They walk through the front door, and Maybeck cooks some juicy burgers. They write the letters they’ve found on napkins, “F M E Y I R S T P N” (235), and try to figure out what they might spell. Charlene is excellent at Scrabble, and she works the letters rapidly into a series of phrases, but none jump out at them as answers.

Maybeck sneezes, sending the letters flying. As they settle, Finn sees a combination: “M Y F I R S T P E N” (238). They decide it’s a writing implement used by Walt Disney. Willa mentions a museum at Disney’s Hollywood Studios with some of Walt’s early equipment.

They decide to visit Wayne for advice. They split up into two groups that leave the apartment at separate times and sneak down Main Street through the shadows. On the way, Finn senses someone watching them. They arrive at the fire station, where Wayne agrees that their solution to the letter puzzle makes sense.

Believing they’ve finished, the kids want Wayne to take over the problem, but he says their work isn’t done yet. Wayne can’t get to the pens without getting fired. The pen they must “borrow” from the Disney museum will be locked up, and it won’t pass through doors the way the DHIs can. They must retrieve it during the day.

Security guards knock on Wayne’s door. Apparently, the kids were spotted. Wayne has an extra fob with him, and he sends the kids back to their beds.