Crowns of the Kingdom

Chapter 19: Jungle Jazz and Jeopardy

It was cool under the canopy of tropical trees. It would have been peaceful, if not for the constant chatter of Joe, doing his job.

"Just up ahead is an ancient Cambodian temple, where it looks like a full-grown Bengal tiger has moved in! You know, a Bengal tiger is capable of jumping an astounding twenty-five feet…but not to worry. We're only fifteen feet away—he'll jump right over us."

The thing was, it—the animatronic tiger—looked like it actually might. Jump, that is. It wasn't that it was pacing or roaring; it merely stood, bobbing its head and growling softly, just like always. But its eyes were alive.

"And here we have a family of deadly king cobras. King cobras are the largest venomous snakes in the world…which is, of course, why they were named after Elvis."

Mickey sucked at the inside of his cheek. Elvis… The old jokes were even worse than he remembered. Not that the current ones were any better, of course, but at least they were current. From a 21st-Century perspective, any reference to Elvis Presley was, in addition to any other deficits, automatically horribly dated. That didn't change just because the bearer of said perspective was time-traveling.

Now they were passing a group of crocodiles—not even animatronics, these, but mere models, incapable of movement. That, in fact, was the theme of Joe's corny jokes about them…until an unfamiliar swift motion on the riverbank seized Mickey's attention.

"Whoa, look at that!" said the skipper without missing a beat. "I guess they're a little more rambunctious than usual today. At this point, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you to keep your hands and arms inside the boat at all times…we don't want another Captain Hook incident."

Mickey swiveled his head to keep an eye on the crocodile as the Zambezi Miss left it behind. It wasn't doing anything now…but it had obviously done something a moment ago. Mickey was pretty sure it had snapped its jaws at a passing bug or something of the sort. To a mouse, certain things are unmistakable even in peripheral vision, and the gleam of a predator's teeth is one of them.

The boat continued to chug along the river, emerging from the ruins into the spacious Elephants' Bathing Pool. And now there was no question but that the Jungle Cruise, like the Submarine Voyage before it, had come to life—not as abruptly or dramatically as the other attraction, but just as surely. The elephants were real live elephants, splashing and spraying and frolicking in the water on their huge, slow scale (and if there is anything more mind-boggling than elephants flirting, it's elephants frolicking). Some of the smaller ones were swimming, snorkeling through their trunks as they paddled their way around basins and cataracts whose murkiness was no longer attributable to artificial green dye.

And as the boat glided through the scene, drawing the curiosity of the placid beasts, the air that wafted over it was suddenly hot, heavy with moisture and with the intensely organic, not-quite-foul odor of a rainforest ecology in full bloom. Clouds of gnats danced over the open water, and larger insects—mantises, horned beetles, dazzling butterflies—could be seen perching and creeping on the tree trunks and branches. Here and there in the river, the blackish or olive brown or silvery backs of fishes were briefly visible as they surfaced to gulp down unsuspecting water bugs.

And everywhere, everywhere, coming from all directions in a magnificent, multi-layered chorus, were the sounds. There were the cries of birds, of course—in numbers and variety to make the twitters that had so thrilled Mickey and Minnie earlier that morning sound like a lone cricket in an empty parking garage. But not all the creatures that sing in the jungles of the world have feathers, and among the clamor could also be heard the hoots and screeches of monkeys, the chirruping barks of agitated squirrels, a whole collection of peculiar sounds that put one in mind of a carpentry workshop but were actually the mating calls of various species of frogs, and, underlying all this, a constant low drone indicating the presence of yet more insects.

None of this seemed to strike Joe as remotely surprising; his only reaction as the Zambezi Miss entered the Elephants' Bathing Pool was to throttle the boat's engine for a minute in order to tell a few cheaply humorous stories about the pachyderms before continuing. But Joe, of course, was not any one real Jungle Cruise skipper from 1975, but a composite of all of them, drawn from the memories of all those who had ridden the attraction that year. In that sense, he was technically as fictional as everything else about the adventure, and for him to be startled by the change would make about as much sense as one of the elephants puzzling over why it was no longer an animatronic.

Mickey, for his part, was just as amazed at the transformation as the rest of the Sensational Six…but he had too much else on his mind to be very demonstrative about it, or to pay much heed to the gasps of wonder around him. Besides, he had experienced just about all the elephants he could handle the previous evening. On top of that, the boat was rapidly approaching the spot at which they would need to disembark in order to reach King Louie's palace, and that involved its own set of challenges. So while the others spun their heads from sight to sight, he kept his eyes firmly on the river ahead of them.

His main concern was how to get to shore. Swimming was probably not an option—the near-disaster of Donald's exploratory dip in the Rivers of America, back in 1955, was all too fresh in his mind, and while this part of the jungle river was not subject to powerful currents, it surely had hazards of its own. Leeches, for instance, or water vipers. Closer to the banks where the water was shallow, its murkiness might be hiding patches of quicksand, and in this jungle of the popular imagination, it wouldn't be the realistic kind that could only get you up to your chest before you achieved buoyancy.

Of course, he realized, he could always just ask Joe to steer the boat over. That was the problem with a perilous adventure—after a point, you started to take the peril for granted and assume that there were no simple solutions to be had. As the Zambezi Miss exited the Bathing Pool, he decided to go for it.

"That's really fascinating, Joe," Mickey said, interrupting whatever it was that Joe was saying about the plants of the rain forest (probably nothing, if he remembered this part of the script correctly), "but I have an important favor to ask of you."

"Sir, please hold all your questions until the end of the tour," said Joe, feigning severe annoyance. "I don't know what things are like where you come from, but here in the uncivilized wilderness, we don't interrupt our skipper when he's trying to educate us."

"I know, and I normally try not to be rude, but this really can't wait. You see, we need to get off the boat here."

Joe laughed nervously. "You're welcome to it, sir, if you don't mind swimming with Indonesian Vampire Worms."

"We do mind," Mickey said patiently. "That's why I'm asking for the favor. Will you please take the boat closer to that bank so we can get off safely?"

There was a pause, during which something in the water to the right of the boat went gloop, and a few bubbles rose and burst. Joe stared blankly at Mickey. Then he said, "Wait…you're serious? You actually want to get off the boat, right here, and march off into…that?" He pointed at the menacingly dense foliage to the left of the Zambezi Miss. "There's no accounting for taste, I guess. Only the thing is, I'm not authorized to deviate from the predetermined course set down by the Jungle Cruise Touring Office."

Something gray and fleshy rose on the right side of the boat, unseen by any of its passengers. There was a snuffling noise, and the gray lump disappeared

"Oh, come on, Joe," said Minnie. "Who's going to know? We're the only passengers you've got this trip."

"You'd be surprised," Joe hedged. Before he had a chance to go further, however, the gray thing returned, emerged to a length of roughly three feet…and let fly a jet of tepid water directly at the head of Donald Duck. With pinfeather accuracy.

Donald emitted a squawk of startled rage and hopped up onto his seat, bouncing on his heels with fists at the ready, spoiling for a fight, while the others stared in mute shock.

"I saw that, Fido!" Joe scolded, shutting off the boat's engine altogether. "Stop hiding this instant!" The head of a full-grown Indian elephant rose from the water in a manner that could only be described as coy, prodding at the boat railings with its trunk and even batting its eyelashes a little.

Donald made as if to lunge at the creature, but Daisy's sympathetic hand on his arm stopped him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is my good friend Fido," Joe went on. "He's a mischievous little squirt, isn't he?" Then he started. "I just got a really great idea! What if Fido here carries you over to the bank? That way you get what you want, and no one back at Dispatch can accuse me of taking the boat off-course. What do you think, Fido? Will you do that for these nice people?"

The elephant trumpeted happily and slapped the water with its trunk, splashing all the occupants of the boat.

"Great!" said Joe, making a token attempt at shaking the dampness out of his sleeves. "And if anyone asks why I let you get out of the boat in the first place, I can say you all overpowered me. Yeah, that's the ticket."

"Sounds terrific!" said Mickey. Without further ado, he climbed over the railing and took up a perch on the pachyderm's head. "Well? Aren't the rest of you coming?"

With little "why not" shrugs, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy followed suit, finding comfortable spots on Fido's back (though Goofy, true to form, slipped in the process and got soaked up to the waist). Pluto, stymied by his lack of hands and upright posture, made a plaintive little whine and was rewarded when the elephant coiled its trunk around his body, holding him up well free of the water. Daisy, however, hung back, resting her hands on the rail and wincing.

"Are you sure this is a good idea? That elephant was just underwater!"

Mickey was puzzled. "So?"

"So, have you taken a look at this water lately? There are larvae living in it!"

"Oh, Daisy, now's not the time to be squeamish," Minnie scolded her. "Just get on already." She leaned over, grabbed Daisy's hand, and bodily yanked her out of the boat and onto the back of the beast, eliciting a yelp of surprise from the startled duck.

"Thanks for your help, Joe," said Mickey. "Don't worry—we'll be back soon. Hup-hup, Fido!"

As the four-ton beast plowed through the water toward land, Joe heaved a sigh. "I hope I don't get written up for this."


The Queen of Hearts was bored. She had thought—because she had definitely heard him say so—that Mickey Mouse was going to meet with her in the morning in order to work out a way for her to communicate with him while she was spying on the other Villains. But then what did the little rodent do? He went traipsing off somewhere else without so much as a by-Your-Majesty's-leave, that's what. It was annoying. And it left her with nothing useful to do.

So, in the best tradition of the idle rich, she wandered around the Fantasyland courtyard and interfered with the hard work of others, generally by watching them for about twenty seconds before loudly clearing her throat and making the most mind-blowingly ignorant suggestions as to what they were doing wrong and how to improve it. She advised the Dwarfs to use pickaxes for their carpentry instead of claw hammers, "since you're so much more used to them," and recommended that the elephants take up yoga so that their trunks would be more flexible. She also averred that leaving the children mostly to their own devices was detrimental to efficiency and good moral character and proposed that they be put to work somehow, or at least made to attend school (a prospect which caused two of the Lost Boys to faint with horror). But when she starting darkly eyeing the Dalmatian puppies and muttering about newspaper, that was the last straw.

Lady Kluck, who had the right combination of traits to confront the bombastic Wonderland monarch (the chutzpah to do it, and a title of nobility so the Queen would consider her worth listening to), cornered her in one of the nooks of Sleeping Beauty's Castle.

"It's like this, Your Majesty. You're gettin' in everyone's way and annoying the livin' daylights out of 'em, and it's got to stop. Didn't Mickey give you something to do?"

"In theory, yes," the Queen huffed. "But then he left without giving us the rest of our instructions! One can't blame us for being at loose ends."

"Y'ought to have spoken up when he was givin' us all the rundown earlier, then," said Lady Kluck emphatically. "In the meantime, you'll just have to figure something out on your own, like the rest of us. But we can't have you busybodyin' around like you have been. Good day to you." And with that, she bobbed a token curtsey and went about her business, leaving the Queen slightly flustered but certainly paying attention.

Much as it galled her to be called out by someone who occupied a lower rung of the royal hierarchy than herself (that is to say, almost anyone), she had to admit in the privacy of her own head that the chicken was probably right: she should just get on with things, with or without a specific directive from Mickey. It wasn't like she needed supervision, after all—what kind of monarch would she be if she needed that?

So, then. Communication. Right. She could handle that…in a way that none of the other Villains would question, even. She gathered her skirts and, with a sweeping stride that let all onlookers know without question who was in command, set out for her own royal aviary.


For the fourth time in as many minutes, a branch swung back and Minnie got a faceful of waxy, bold green leaves. "Oops! Sorry, Minnie," Goofy apologized, also for the fourth time in as many minutes.

"We should have brought—pfuh!—machetes or something," Minnie observed, spitting out foliage.

"Where would we have gotten any?" said Daisy, who had wisely elected to stay behind her friend.

"Good point."

"We should be just about there," said Mickey as they emerged from the tangle into a clearing about the size of a two-car garage. "I recognize the terrain. Such as it is." He pointed at a low hillock that proved, on closer examination, to be a heap of discarded banana skins, long since blackened, half-desiccated, and finally overgrown with wild grass and creepers.

Pluto inched closer to the mound, sniffing until he caught the scent of it full-blast and snorted with distaste. Donald made a low whistle. "That's revolting," he opined.

"It could be worse," said Goofy philosophically. "At least banana skins are biodegradable."

"Thank you, Professor Environmentalist," said Donald.

Suddenly, the air erupted with a cacophony of hoots and screeches, and roughly a dozen hairy figures—rhesus monkeys—dropped out of the trees overhead to surround the Sensational Six. Laughing raucous, they slapped the ground with their palms and curled their rubbery lips to reveal sharp canine teeth.

"Easy," said Mickey. "It's just the advance guard. Hi there, fellas."

The monkeys looked back and forth at each other, whispering and chittering. The largest of them, a dark brown one with a raggedy right ear, stepped forward. "Hi there yourself, Mouse Man. You six are trespassing in the territory of His Swingin' Majesty, King Louie, and as such, can be prosecuted to the full extent of the Law of the Jungle. Or didn't you know that?"

"Oh, we're not trespassing," said Mickey. "We came to tell King Louie something important, and ask him for a small favor."

"His Swingin' Highness will be the judge of that," the monkey said smugly. "Take 'em in, boys."

Five sniggering monkeys seized the bipedal members of the group by the wrists, while a sixth attached a length of vine to Pluto's collar, and the primates began frog-marching the Sensational Six toward their destination.

"Mickey, I don't like this," Minnie whispered. "It's not like King Louie to be this strict with visitors. And it's not like the monkeys to be this…organized."

"I know," Mickey replied. "Remember what I said earlier: play it by ear."

By and by, rhythmic sounds emanating from somewhere in the distance became audible, and shortly resolved themselves into the lively strains of a jazz tune. Pushing through two more layers of trees and lianas brought the group to the edge of the sprawling ruins where King Louie held court. The imperious orangutan lounged on his crumbling throne, peeling bananas with his feet while his hands drummed endlessly on the armrests, the backrest, and the heads of any monkeys who were close enough, providing a counterpoint for his scat singing.

This was normal. While Louie was present, his ersatz palace never lacked for energetic background music, often performed by the monarch himself…but on this particular occasion, Mickey realized as the group drew nearer to the dais on which the throne sat, something was wrong. It was subtle and hard to track (he probably wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't been studied in music himself), but it seemed that every few bars, Louie's usually impeccable sense of rhythm faltered, just a tiny bit, and there was an instant where the music wobbled, only to return to its normal measured cadence in the next instant.

It took Louie a couple of minutes to take notice of the Sensational Six as they were shoved before his throne, but when he did, his face broke into a huge orangutan grin. With an exclamation of "Hey, it's Mickey!", he twirled around on the seat and improvised a quick finish to his jam session, then vaulted down and took a bow. The monkeys erupted in exuberant applause. The Six found their hands released and, with little "when in Rome" shrugs, joined in the accolade.

"A-thank you, a-thank you," said Louie. Then he addressed Mickey directly. "If it isn't my main mouse! What brings you to this part of the jungle?"

Mickey didn't respond right away, distracted by something that was just becoming audible as the monkeys' ovation died away. Not all of the unruly primates had been clapping and cheering: a number of them crouched in nooks and atop broken pillars around the dais, humming and warbling wordlessly, keeping the entertainment going. The really arresting thing, though, was that they seemed to have the same problem with the tune that their king had been having with the rhythm—that is, every so often they would just miss the note, resulting in a split second of almost subconscious discord. If Louie hadn't noticed—as apparently he hadn't, since his usual response to off-key singing was to smack the offending monkey upside the head—then something was wrong.

Someone nudged him. "Mickey, you're zoning out," he heard Minnie hiss.

"You didn't come all this way just to ignore me, now, did you?" Louie was saying. "'Cause that's just crazy, cuz."

"Has everything been all right around here? I mean lately," said Mickey, stumbling slightly over the words. The periodic sour notes tapped at the edge of his awareness like some kind of sonic Chinese water torture.

"Everything's been just peachy keen. Banana-y keen, even," Louie replied, plucking a banana from a bunch, squeezing it right out of its peel, and catching it in his rubbery lips, all in one smooth motion. "Why do you ask?" he continued around a mouthful of fruit.

"Because terrible things are happening in the park!" Minnie put in. "We came to warn you…and to ask for a favor from you to help put a stop to it."

The crooning monkeys raised their volume a tad. Pluto whined faintly. "Terrible things, you say?" Louie repeated. "Well, never you worry your pretty little head about me. King Louie has got everything under control."

"I doubt that," Donald muttered, eyeballing the singers.

"Oh, we're not worried about you," said Mickey hurriedly. "We know you can take care of your own kingdom. But the rest of Disneyland is…well, that's why we need a favor from you."

"Well, lay it on me," said Louie, heaving himself back onto his throne and peeling another banana. "What can the King of the Jungle do for America's Number-One Mouse?"

The singing monkeys leaned in from their perches without missing a badly placed beat in their unstable melody…which suddenly got noticeably more unstable.

Mickey inhaled deeply, exhaled hard, and made the request. "We need to borrow your crown."

Louie's face hardened slightly and he leaned over on one armrest, scratching his head with one hand and rubbing his chin with the other as he mulled it over. The wordless music from the monkeys dropped in volume again, but at the same time increased in intensity, becoming more penetrating.

Minnie suddenly seized Mickey's arm, gripping so hard that he could feel her fingernails through her gloves. "Look at his eyes!" came her frightened whisper.

Louie's posture on the throne spoke of cogitation, but the expression in his eyes was one of alarming blankness—unfocused and a bit glazed, the pupils slightly dilating and contracting in time to the monkeys' unnerving singing. As for the droning monkeys themselves…Mickey swiftly realized that they weren't monkeys at all.

"They're Dispirations. Get ready to run," he said, just loudly enough for the rest of the Sensational Six to hear him. "On second thought, Louie," he added much more loudly, "I guess this is a bad time for you. So we'll just be going now."

"I forbid it!" Louie bellowed suddenly, drawing himself up to his full height on his seat. "You vile trespassers ain't goin' anywhere! Seize them!"

"Now!" Mickey yelled, and the Six scattered, just dodging the hands of the monkeys—real monkeys, who might or might not have been under the same pernicious influence as their king, but who were absolutely loyal to him in any case—who darted forward to grab them.

A fair approximation of chaos ensued, with the Six dashing to and fro across the temple ruins, trying to regroup with one another while simultaneously avoiding the clutches of King Louie, the monkeys, and the simian Dispirations. It was a bad situation—their pursuers greatly outnumbered them and were far more nimble. More than that, they had no qualms about using all the force at their disposal to capture their targets, while Mickey and his cohorts were reluctant to respond in kind. There was no way to tell on an instant's notice whether the shaggy, limber-limbed creature springing out from behind a pillar was a mindless and soulless Dispiration…or a fellow character, misled and fundamentally innocent.

It was Goofy, of all people, who enabled the first stage of their escape, taking advantage of his gangly height to scale a massive block of stone too tall for any of the others—even the agile monkeys—to climb on their own. Then it was just a matter of waiting for each of his friends in turn to pass close enough for him to swoop down with one hand and haul them up too. It wasn't a huge improvement in their circumstances, as the block was isolated from other structures and trees and was soon surrounded by hostile monkeys (and faux-monkeys), but it bought them time to think.

"Okay, now what?" said Daisy.

Mickey scanned their surroundings. It looked like King Louie's entire court was encircling the block, jeering and threatening. And that meant, Mickey realized, that most of the temple was free of danger. If they could somehow get past the monkeys, they would have a clear path out of the ruins and could lose their attackers in the dense jungle on the way back to the river. But that depended on them reaching the dense jungle before the faster primates caught up with them… That was the real issue: speed.

He motioned the others into a huddle. "We need a decoy. Someone's going to have to go back down there and draw the monkeys' attention while the rest of us get away."

"Oh, no you don't," said Minnie. "This is not going to be a repeat of the Submarine Lagoon."

"Don't worry, Minnie," Mickey chuckled. "There aren't going to be any martyrs here. It'll have to be someone who can run fast enough to keep from getting caught, and who can easily find the rest of us afterward." He paused meaningfully, and then looked directly at Pluto. "What do you think, boy? Are ya up to it?"

Pluto made a horrified gasp and tried to duck his head into his own shoulders. Lower lip trembling, he lifted one forepaw and pointed at himself questioningly.

"Come on, Pluto, ol' pal," Mickey cajoled. "I know you can do it. You don't have to fight the monkeys—just lead them on for a while. Then shake them off and meet up with us back at the boat."

With a snort of resignation, Pluto walked to the edge of the block and peered down at the swarming simians. He gulped nervously, and then ducked to one side as one of the beasts hurled a half-eaten mango at him.

"Let's help him out a little," Minnie suggested. She strode to the opposite side of the block, set her arms akimbo and her face in an uncharacteristic sneer, and called down, "Hey, you! What's the matter—forget how to climb? I thought you were monkeys, not sloths!"

"Well, now, that's just rude!" one monkey shouted. "Why don't you come down here and say that?" another added.

"Ha! Maybe I will!" Minnie scoffed. "You don't scare me!"

Seeing what she was getting at, Donald joined her, razzing the simian throng with joyful flippancy. Goofy and Daisy followed suit. Soon the monkeys were no longer heckling the Six but hopping mad, and those who had been covering the other three sides of the stone block moved around to where Minnie and Daisy were blowing mocking kisses, and Donald was prying up little bits of the eroding rock to flick down at them, and Goofy was dangling his legs within tantalizing reach before yanking them back up again. Now it was easy to tell the real monkeys from the Dispirations—the latter showed no reaction to the taunting, though they certainly reacted to the presence of the taunters.

And it was easy for Mickey to help Pluto spring down on the far side of the block. The dog hit the ground running and yelping with terror so loudly that the monkeys could not possibly fail to notice…and didn't.

"Hey, look at that!"

"It's that Mickey Mouse's dog!"

"It was all just a big distraction so they could slip out the back way!"

"Well, let's go after 'em!"

And just like that, the whole hooting, screeching mass of them charged after Pluto, leaving the other five free to climb down and hustle out of the ruins unnoticed. (King Louie's monkeys are clever, and they are cunning, but they're not very smart.) As they dove into the concealing jungle undergrowth, it occurred to Mickey to wonder where Louie was in all this. He risked a look behind him and saw the orangutan lounged once more on his throne, with two Dispirations, one on either side of him, mesmerizing him with their disturbing, off-kilter song.


"It's also—I don't know if I've ever mentioned this to you, Fido—it's also bad for repeat business. It's one thing when it's just you and me, and this shirt's only cotton anyway. But what if I had been a paying customer wearing silk?"

The elephant made a trumpet that sounded remarkably like a chuckle and lifted his trunk, ready to fire again, when there was a series of crashing noises, and Mickey and his friends burst out of the foliage along the riverbank, looking as panicked as if their were a tiger chasing them.

"Start the boat, Joe, start the boat!" Donald commanded.

"They could be right behind us!" Daisy added by way of explanation.

"Wait…where's Pluto?" wondered Mickey. Fortunately, in the next instant, his faithful dog came charging out of the tangled vegetation several yards upstream. He didn't even stop when he reached the water, but plunged on in and dog-paddled straight to the Zambezi Miss, leaving the others to wait for Fido to reach the bank and pick them up. On the plus side, by the time they were all on board, Joe had the engine running and was ready to move on.

"I must say," he said conversationally. "You ladies and gentlemen certainly don't shy away from real adventure! So, where to next?"

"Just get us back to the dock as quickly as you can, Joe," Mickey sighed, collapsing onto the bench. He stroked Pluto's head. "You did great, pal. I knew I could count on you."

"Well, that was an unqualified disaster," said Daisy with justifiable disgust. "We didn't get the crown, we almost got mauled by monkeys, and King Louie's been brainwashed by Dispirations!"

"What are we gonna do, Mickey?" asked Goofy plaintively. "We need that crown so we can get the other crown so we can save Disneyland!"

"I'm sorry, everyone," said Minnie. "If I hadn't turned back last night, maybe I would have gotten to Louie before the Dispirations did."

"And maybe you would have fallen into their clutches right along with him," said Mickey. "We can spend all day playing 'what-if,' but it won't get us any closer to our goal."

"I guess we'll have to try Prince John or King Leonidas after all," said Daisy.

"No, we won't," said Mickey. "We're getting King Louie's crown…because we're getting King Louie out from under the influence of those Dispirations."

Five perplexed but hopeful gazes met his own. "Gawrsh, Mickey, do you really think we can?" asked Goofy.

"I didn't even know the Dispirations could do that to people," said Donald.

"None of us did," said Mickey. "But that doesn't mean we can't figure out how to undo it…and I've already got a hunch."

This time, the gazes were expectant. "What sort of hunch?" prompted Minnie.

"The Dispirations were controlling Louie with that weird music," said Mickey pensively.

"If you can call it music," Donald put in derisively.

"Well, they are ideas gone bad," said Mickey. "These ones must have been songs before they were forgotten. And music is Louie's favorite thing in the world, even more than bananas and figuring out how to make fire. It must have been easy for the Dispirations to shapeshift into monkeys and pretend to be singing along with the jazz, when really they were getting their own tunes into his head."

"So how do we fix it?" said Goofy.

"I bet I know what you've got in mind," said Minnie. "Fight music with music…right?"

"Exactly," said Mickey. "If we can bring another source of music into the temple, one loud enough to drown out the Dispirations' singing, we might be able to snap King Louie out of it."

"That's a pretty tall order," said Daisy. "Don't forget it's only 1975—it's not like we can just borrow someone's boombox."

"You're right," Mickey agreed. "If it were much earlier, we wouldn't have many options at all…but the past few years have been good to this park when it comes to music. And once this boat docks, we're all dropping in a bunch of good friends and enlisting their help."

With that, he settled back in his seat with a self-satisfied smile, leaving the others to put two and two together.

Good friends…good, musical friends…like Henry and Trixie and Wendell and the rest of the bluegrass-singing Country Bears. Like the Singing Busts, who livened (or at least undeadened) the graveyard of the Haunted Mansion with accompaniment by the Rolling Bones. Like Mandolin Mike, Billy Willikins, and Long Dan (and Scruffy), the most disciplined pirate musicians in the Caribbean. Like Jose, Michael, Pierre, Fritz, and all the other birds in the Tiki Glee Club. Like Sam Eagle and Ollie Owl, and their host of all-American critters. Like the children of the world.

Confined to Disneyland (and Walt Disney World, by now), lacking an existence outside the theme parks, none of them would leap readily to the mind of a typical fan thinking about the characters in the Disney Family. But that circumscription was precisely what would make them eager and invaluable allies in the quest. Pushed to it, the animated characters could find a way to retreat, recover in safer territory, and make a comeback later. For the attraction-based characters, Disneyland was literally all they had. It was home, in the purest and most visceral sense of the word, and they would give their all to defend it.

Mickey just hoped their all would be enough.

To Be Continued…


A/N: Pop quiz time! Why did it take Karalora so long to get this chapter out? A) The holiday season. B) Writer's block. C) Work and other projects. D) All of the above. E) I don't care, she just better get the next one out faster or I'm going to reach right through my computer monitor and throttle her tardy butt.

For those of you who didn't pick E, it was mostly a combination of A and C. The writing itself is actually coming pretty easily…when I can find enough time for it!

As you might be able to guess, the next chapter is going to consist almost entirely of the Sensational Six visiting some truly classic attractions and interacting with the characters there. As such, I plan to ease back on the drama and intense action and ramp up the comedy, whimsy, and lush atmospheric description. I'm hoping to make it a fun chapter, both for me to write and for all of you to read.

Thanks for being patient again. Fanfiction is fundamentally a self-indulgent hobby for me, but seeing the reviews I get from my readers makes it as thrilling as any roller coaster. It sounds corny, but it's true.

—Karalora