Disneyworld Vacation
Part One, Chapter Three
DISCLAIMER: I don't even own a computer. This is my mom's. She just lets me use it. I'm lucky I've got a learner's permit. For driving, that is, not for computer-using. I can do that perfectly well, thank you.
Incidentally, you can thank today's early update on the fact that it is the... (counts) FOURTH anniversary of the day I started getting into Batman. The sixties version. I'd get into darker stuff later. But the sixties version sure as heck beats Batman Returns, and it's still my fave. (throws confetti) Wheee, pretty colors! Happy anniversary to me...!
The next day was bright and sunny. It would have been perfect for touring Disneyworld if it hadn't been for the ever-present Florida humidity. Still, the boys were very eager to get out there and explore the Magic Kingdom.
While waiting for Ollie to get up, the trio of teenagers hung out in the open-air hallway, which got a very good view of the grass, bushes, and trees just outside their hotel rooms. At one point, Roy spotted a rabbit among the foliage and tried to point him out to his friends but only ended up scaring the poor thing away.
"So what do you want to do first?" Dick queried after losing sight of the rabbit.
"I dunno," Roy shrugged, hopping onto the railing and swinging his legs over the edge. Wally hopped up to join him. "How do you guys feel about Splash Mountain?"
"What is it?"
Wally took the guide map from Roy and read the description aloud:
"'Hop on this log ride to Brer Rabbit's Laughin' Place. Beware of the soggy… FIVE-STORY DROP?'" Pause. "Got my vote!"
"I'm there."
"Okay, all settled."
Roy pulled a pen out of his shirt pocket and circled the little number '13' on the map that indicated the roller coaster before Wally added, "Hey, how about the Jungle Cruise?"
"Sure, why not? But just make sure we're back in time to see the parade," Dick said. "And tomorrow I want to check out the Lights, Motors, Action stunt show and the Philharmagic 3-D show and Soarin', and don't forget—"
"Dick," Roy said, interrupting Dick as he listed all of his favorite rides in very rapid succession. "Relax. Dick, really. We're here for a week. We'll have time for everything, okay? Besides, I can't circle everything that fast…"
They went on this way until about eight-thirty when Roy's legal guardian finally showed up to take them down to breakfast.
"Hey, guys, you wanna know somethin' funny?" Dick said with a big grin.
"Sure. It'll be nice to see if you actually have a sense of humor," replied Roy with an equally huge smirk. "Just a minute, Ollie."
The man sighed and told them to be quick before walking off down the hall by himself.
"So what is it? It better be good," said Wally.
"Oh, I think you'll agree that this is pretty good." The Boy Wonder snickered slightly before saying, "I meant to tell you before but I forgot. You know that railing you were just sitting on?"
"…Yeah…"
Dick pointed to a piece of paper that was taped to the railing. Then, much to Ollie's surprise, Dick sped past him down the hall, laughing his head off, while Wally and Roy ran after him yelling at the top of their lungs. What was even more surprising, however, was the white paint all over Roy and Wally's pants…
Aside from that little incident, breakfast was uneventful. And before they knew it, the meal was over and they were on the bus headed for the Magic Kingdom. And yes, Wally and Roy had changed pants first.
"Good morning, everybody, my name is Tom," the bus driver said, "and I'll be driving you to the Magic Kingdom today. I just want to remind you to…"
The boys impatiently waited through the rest of the usual boring announcements, but soon the bus got moving and they were in the Magic Kingdom before they knew it. Getting through the security took a little longer, but hey, that's life.
The first thing Dick felt when they finally got in was a sudden overwhelming sense of realization: he was at Disneyworld. Disneyworld! He had wanted to come here for years but Bruce's entire attitude had scared him out of asking long ago. And now he was finally here! The impact of the realization took only a few moments to wear off, and he suddenly thought himself to be the happiest person on earth.
He was about to thank Mr. Queen for bringing him here when Wally yelled in his ear that Goofy had just arrived.
"The only 'Goofy' I see around here is you!" Dick shot back. "Ow, my ears…"
"Let's get our picture taken!" suggested Wally, ignoring Dick.
"Don't you think we're a little old for that?"
"Alright then, Grandpa, you can take the picture!" Roy snorted. Wally laughed and followed Roy over to the line that had already formed to see the popular Disney character. Dick scowled and went to join them, muttering stuff that Alfred most definitely would NOT have approved of. Ollie just checked the film in the camera.
The line moved surprisingly fast. That's one thing you should remember about Disneyworld; it doesn't always take as long to get to the front of the line as you may expect. But just as they neared Goofy, Dick spotted something that caused him to go running off down Main Street, U.S.A. Wally followed.
"Hey, come back!" yelled Wally.
Dick was too intent on giving chase, however. He had seen a familiar face among the early morning crowds. He knew he had.
The same one he had spotted yesterday in the hotel lobby.
But by the time he made it halfway down Main Street, the figure had vanished once again.
Dick stood there, puzzled. Who was that guy, and how did he manage to sneak around so well? Dick was supposed to be a highly-trained professional crime-fighter. Even all these people shouldn't cause him to lose a suspect so quickly!
The boy was still standing there when Wally caught up to him, equally confused but for different reasons.
"Hey, what was that all about?" Wally demanded to know.
The other boy said nothing, still looking around for the mysterious figure. He was sure the guy had come down this way!
Seeing that Dick wasn't paying any attention to him, Wally grabbed Dick by his collar and yanked backwards, practically choking him.
"Ack! Hey!"
"Hello! What happened?"
"Um… nothing."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"…Well, you'd better, because that's all I'm gonna tell you!"
Wally just sighed.
"Okay, fine then," he grumped. "Let's get back to Goofy, shall we? We're supposed to be having fun, here!"
Dick grinned.
"Sure," he said.
They turned around, only to bump into Roy, who had long since finished with the picture and had come to see where his friends had gone.
"Hey, Dick, I know you didn't really want to get your picture taken, but you didn't have to scare us all half to death to avoid it!" Roy said, looking a bit peeved. Then, after a slight pause, he added, "Hey, don't turn too quickly, guys, but I think we're being watched."
"What! Where?" Dick hissed.
"Check it out."
Roy subtly pointed across the street. At first, all Dick and Wally could see were tourists in brightly-colored clothes and a person selling balloons. But after staring for a moment, they finally spotted a man with a brown hat pulled low over his face, effectively hiding his features. But they all had the distinct feeling that he was watching.
The fact that he quickly walked away as soon as he saw the boys staring at him seemed to prove the theory.
"Now you guys know why I ran off!" Dick said, watching him disappear into the early-morning crowds. "I recognized him from yesterday at the hotel lobby, too…"
"You mean he's been tailing us since yesterday?" said Wally, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.
"Yeah. And you know something? I keep feeling like I know the guy…"
"Eh, you're nuts," Roy declared dismissively. "Point now is that we are definitely being followed."
The boys stood there, shifting uncomfortably. They were supposed to be on vacation, but it looked like they had another case to solve whether they liked it or not.
"So what do we do?" asked Dick.
"Well I ain't tellin' Ollie! You guys may have proven yourselves already, but I haven't! I'm solving this with or without you!" Roy decided.
"We're with you, Roy," agreed Wally with a nod.
"Sure, but how do we get rid of Mr. Queen?" Dick asked.
"Why must you always be the party pooper?"
"I am not a party pooper! I'm the one with the sense!"
"Party. Pooper," Wally enunciated.
"Am not!"
Roy had been a little too quiet throughout this whole discussion. And when the others turned to face him, they knew he had developed a plan.
At the inquisitive looks of his friends, Roy just grinned devilishly, pulled out a cell phone, and dialed a number.
"Hello, Orlando Daily News? Hi. Boy, have I got an anonymous tip for you…!"
Within minutes, Oliver Queen had been completely surrounded by reporters and newsmen, leaving the boys free to begin the investigation.
-
"Oh, come on, will you let it go already!" Wally yelled. Roy rolled his eyes as the argument continued behind him. For the past fifteen minutes, they had had no luck in finding the man with the hat. What was worse, Dick's conscience had been bugging him about what they had done to Oliver Queen.
"Hey, you don't know what it's like to be mobbed by paparazzi; I do," Dick was saying. "There must have been another way to get rid of the guy!"
"Look!" Roy hollered, finally having enough of it. "If I'm not having a guilty conscience—and the man is my legal guardian—then the least you can do is shut up about it!"
Dick glared, but clamped his mouth shut nonetheless.
"Oh, great, now we're back where we started!" Roy grumbled under his breath. He had recognized the old-fashioned little buildings of Main Street, U.S.A.
"Now," said Wally slowly, "if you wanted to follow us, where would you go?"
"Any place with food," Roy teased, jabbing Wally in the ribs with an elbow.
"But seriously," Dick said after snickering a little, "if I wanted to track one of you guys, I'd probably try to think like you and figure out which ride you'd go on first. In this case, Splash Mountain."
"Hey, alright! Splash Mountain, here I come!" Roy cheered. Without even checking to make sure the others were still with him, Roy made a mad dash down Main Street, ignored the famous statue of Walt Disney with Mickey Mouse, and turned left at the Castle to get to Frontierland, where Splash Mountain was located.
"HARPER!" Dick hollered, once again lamenting the high pitch of his voice. "Harper, get back here NOW!"
But Roy was long gone.
After muttering a curse or two, Dick and Wally followed, the latter just barely resisting the urge to use his super speed. Dick, of course, didn't have that problem. Although he would have liked to stop and look at that statue…
By the time they found and caught up with Roy, he was already staring up at Splash Mountain, watching hypnotically as one of the log-shaped vehicles suddenly plummeted straight down the fifty feet into the briar patch. All of the people onboard screamed and threw their hands up into the air as they made contact with the water below.
To Roy, this all basically translated into 'paradise'.
"Wow…" Roy breathed. "I'm gone!"
"Whoa, hold it there, Harper!"
Dick and Wally grabbed their friend by the sleeves, trying to hold him back.
"First we have to find that guy. THEN we ride Splash Mountain. Got it?"
"Hey, who died and made YOU boss?" Roy shot back. "I'm the one who suggested we go after him in the first place!"
Wally rolled his eyes, but as he did so, something caught his eye…
"I see him!" he exclaimed. But just as Dick and Roy turned, the man disappeared again.
"Quick! I thought I saw him head that way!"
Before they knew it, they were at Tom Sawyer Island, a fun little place indeed. If you can stand the raft-ride over, that is. You see, it's a very small raft with a large amount of people just standing around, and the stupid thing doesn't move any faster than .000001 miles an hour. And with no protection from the sun, it was like torture.
"Will you quit poking me with your elbow?" Dick commanded snappishly.
"If I didn't poke you with my elbow, I'd fall overboard!" growled Roy.
"That's not such a bad idea, Harper! This barge is crowded enough without your big head onboard!" Wally added his grouchiness to the mix.
"Oh, shut up, West!"
"Same to you!" Dick snarled.
"Ack! Alright, who's the moron who just stepped on my foot!"
The other passengers either glared at the three teens or just rolled their eyes. It was a VERY sunny day, so the painfully slow raft ride was making just about everyone hot and irritable. They'd be lucky if a fistfight didn't erupt before they made it to the island.
Meanwhile, the argument continued:
"Your hair is tickling my nose! You need a haircut!" Roy whined, taking a swipe at Dick's black mane. Which was WAY past the time for a haircut, by the way.
"Oh, YOU'RE a fine one to talk!" said Dick, tugging on Roy's equally-long hair.
"Ouch! Don't do that, you little—"
Roy's insult was cut off when the raft suddenly jerked to a stop. The boys had been too busy arguing to notice that the raft was about to stop, and so were thrown across the raft and into the people next to them.
"Sorry!" they chorused.
And before anyone could kill them, the boys scampered off the raft and leapt onshore to find the man with the hat, who had caught the raft before they had. He couldn't possibly have gotten off the island already; there was only one raft which went back and forth between the island and the rest of the park.
"Now where'd he get to…?" Dick thought aloud.
"Oh, who knows? It took us so long to get here that he's had time to get just about anywhere," Roy grumped. He was still in a bad mood.
"It can't be that big, Harper," sighed Wally. He was quickly losing his patience, and taking it out on Roy was currently the most convenient way of expressing this. After all, if he tried taking it out on Dick, he'd be in big trouble. Dick just couldn't take a joke… then again, neither could Roy, but at least he didn't punch you for it right off the bat.
'Bat'? Yikes, Dick's rotten puns must be getting to me…
Dick, taking charge, decided that they should split up to explore the island faster. Roy headed over the barrel bridge while Dick and Wally both took the other paths. They agreed to meet up at the duck pond in a half-hour, if they didn't bump into each other before then.
Dick: Something's telling me you exaggerated about the speed of the raft. I was there with ya, TAP, it wasn't that long a ride and it didn't move at that speed, either. Slowly, yes, but not THAT slow.
Me: Probably. I don't know, I didn't ask how fast the stupid thing went. Oh, and we stayed at the same hotel that the guys are staying at during our trip to Disneyworld (like you couldn't guess), and there really were 'wet paint' signs on the railings, except the paint wasn't wet anymore, so keeping the signs up was pretty pointless. Is Orlando Daily News a real newspaper? If it is, I apologize, I didn't know that. If not, it's MINE! MINE MINE MINE! BWAHAHAHA...!
Dick: (sigh)
Me: (cough) Anyway, here's a vacationing tip for all you people: if you go to Disneyworld, you will get wet. No question about it. If you ride Splash Mountain, you'll get wet. If you go to the 3-D shows, you'll get wet. If you walk past the fountains or go on the Backlot Tour at Disney-MGM Studios, you'll get wet. If you pass by that annoying employee with the water spritzer--
Dick: --you'll get wet. Yes, we know, Panamint. By the way, does Roy even have a cell phone? I dunno, I'm guessing that Ollie probably wouldn't let him have one, but you never know...
Me: 'While this nut's busy rambling, I think I'll do the replies,' she said to herself...
Reviewer Replies
CrazyInsomaniac-I must take credit for the Fawlty Towers insert, don't blame Dick. And besides, he's not the type to go stalking people. Trust me. ;-) Anyway, thanks for putting me on your fave authors' list! I love it when that happens...
Zarz-Well, they're at the park, and things are NOT going to be getting any better (heehee...). Here's your update, and thanks for taking the time to review!
SarahC4321-I'm guessing Roy had nothing to do with heroin when he was thirteen, though, right? Thanks for the info on his hair, much appreciated! I wouldn't know about being a lifeguard, but chemistry has really been taking a downhill turn lately... (cough) Nice to hear from you again!
Yourperfectdisaster-Thanks, I'm glad I got Roy right! Wow, he's more popular than I thought! I would have put him in sooner had I known he was this popular. Here's your update!