Free Kingdom Keepers: The Return Book Two: Legacy of Secrets by Ridley Pearson Page B

all.”
    “Okay, okay,” she said, flexing her fingers to test them. “Keep it coming.”
    Maybeck tried pushing Finn, but his hand went through his friend’s body. Finn, who’d always had a degree more control than the others, returned the shove and managed to connect with Maybeck, turning him violently.
    “You got frustrated, not being able to hit me,” Finn taunted. Maybeck pushed back. This time, he made contact. Now they were going, both boys shoving each other while speaking meanly to Charlene.
    “You and Willa cry too much,” Finn said, a complete lie.
    “Do not!” She shoved him, and he felt it.
    “Do too!” he said, egging her on. The three Keepers were well on their way to being partial holograms and capable of retrieving the handbag from Wayne, who was waving at his employer. Walt waved back, a good sign.
    “Shouldn’t stop,” Charlene said. They kept smacking one another in the shoulders and pulling on each other’s arms. From a distance, it appeared to be quite the quarrel, and when Maybeck struck Charlene so hard she stumbled back, a man crossed the path, heading toward them.
    “Uh-oh,” Maybeck said. “Don’t look now, but we’ve got company.”
    Finn did look, and just in time. “Backs to the wall,” he ordered, not wanting them exposed from the side.
    “Excuse me, sir!”
    The sound of Philby’s voice turned the heads of his friends, as well as that of the man on the way to rescue Charlene from what appeared to be a slickly dressed assailant. The man looked in Philby’s direction. And Philby disappeared.
    In fact, he’d reduced himself to a thin blue line of one dimension, but given the park guests, the blue sky, and sunshine, he appeared to have vanished. The man looked bewildered. When Philby reappeared a few strides later and called out again, the enchantment was complete.
    Unfortunately, Charlene’s would-be rescuer wasn’t the only one to have seen Philby’s magic “act.”
    “What in tarnation was that?” The voice sounded so familiar to Finn. He took it to be Walt Disney’s, but couldn’t confirm it. A passerby blocked Finn’s view; he heard the same voice again saying, “You see that? There!”
    Philby reappeared, disappeared, and was then apparently gone for good.
    “We gotta go!” Maybeck said.
    But Charlene’s would-be rescuer had almost reached them now. “Hey, boy!” he called out cruelly, aiming the words directly at Maybeck, who pointed his thumb at himself, shocked. “Yeah, you! What do you mean putting your hands on that girl?”
    “Oops,” Maybeck said under his breath to Finn and Charlene.
    “You say something to me, boy? City slicker, are we?”
    “He’s my friend, sir,” Charlene said, stepping forward. “We were just…horsing around.”
    “He tell you to say that? This boy threatening you, miss?” The man had a tattoo of an anchor on his forearm, with the letters USN beneath. United States Navy. A World War II veteran, Finn thought. Tough, and willing to show it.
    “No, sir, he really is my friend.”
    The man was still far enough away not to pick up on their low-resolution pixelation, but if he drew any closer…Charlene laced her very solid hand with Maybeck’s and squeezed. This man’s threats had pushed all three Keepers well out of their projections and into something more mortal.
    “I don’t mean no trouble, sir,” Maybeck said, sounding nothing like himself and more like the stereotypical black man from an old, old movie. Finn blinked at him in surprise. “We here to have a good time, me and my friends.”
    “Well, maybe you should have it without the lady for right now, boy. What do you say to that? What do you say you let her go and you just walk free and clear of here? Maybe out of this here park altogether.”
    “Now, now!” A lady’s voice. It belonged to Mrs. Disney, Finn realized. She was without her purse—there was Wayne behind her, wiggling it for the three of them to see. Walt had been engulfed by his