“Are we ever going to get to the front of this line?” I cried in desperation.
“Just be patient, honey,” my mom replied calmly. “We’ll get there soon enough.”
Soon enough? What does that mean? I surveyed the line quickly by glancing up and down its twists and turns and counting the people ahead of us. What are there? Nine... ten lanes? There’s gotta be at least three hundred people in front of us! How is that “soon?”
I sighed and resigned myself to waiting. I had been looking forward to this return trip to Disney World for quite some time, and when we had arrived at the park earlier that morning, it had seemed like the day was going to be as magical as it had been during our last trip. The Mad Hatter’s Teacup Ride, which had been closed for repairs during our visit four years before, was the first item on my agenda, and I dragged my family there immediately upon entering the theme park.
But once we got there, my expectations were quickly dashed to pieces. I can’t believe how lame it was! I’ve ridden faster rides at the Fourth of July Carnival. Dad kept saying I better be careful not to lose my lunch, but it went so slow I just lost my interest. I chuckled to myself about my pun, and then glanced around nervously hoping none of my family members saw me breaking character.
It’s bad enough that the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse—the coolest thing in the park—is getting renovated this time, I thought to myself, again adopting my persona of disinterest and dissatisfaction by slouching as I stood in the endless line. Then that new part was totally stupid. Whoever thought Birthday Land would be a good idea oughta be shot. Just because it’s Mickey’s sixtieth birthday doesn’t mean they should make that an attraction. There weren’t even any rides.
The outlook for the rest of the day seemed equally dire. I had been thwarting my little brother’s efforts all day to go to rides I thought would be even more disappointing. All he likes is little kid stuff like Dumbo and Mister Toad’s Wild Ride. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and continued to stand there as patiently as I could. Wild, my butt! That thing makes the teacups look good!
But now we had finally given in to my brother’s endless pestering and were waiting in line for the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride. Nate had been dying all day to show my dad what he called “the submarine ride,” and since I had actually quite enjoyed it the last time we rode it, I had reluctantly given in.
If I’d known the line was going to be this long, though, I’d have never agreed. Look at this crap! The line began to move and I shuffled forward a few steps before stopping again. At this pace we’ll be stuck here forever!
I measured the line ahead of me again quickly in my mind and came up disappointed. GOD! We’ve barely moved! I can’t believe this! I looked at those immediately in front of me out of frustration, and my eyes fixed upon my brother Nate. His clothes were mismatched; he wore a t-shirt as dark blue as the deep sea while his shorts were white with red and yellow sharks peppered all over them like polka dots. It reminded me of my own attire the last time we had been there. Before we left on the trip, Mom had pulled all the old photos out of the closet to show Dad. In one picture I stood hugging Mickey Mouse, wearing a camouflage cap and a white tank top with the Superman symbol on it, and Dad had made fun of me. Nate’s the one he should make fun of. Look at those shorts! Quickly I looked down at the matching black tank top and shorts I was wearing that day to reassure myself that I did not look similarly foolish.
Nate was oblivious to his lack of fashion sense and to the length of the line we were in. He was looking up at my mom, laughing with her and pointing at pages in the official Disney World Autograph book we had each been given during our last trip. I’m glad I left mine at home, I thought to myself with a feeling of superiority. He’s acting like such a little dork with his running up to all these people in costumes and asking for their autographs like they were the real Mickey or Goofy.
I threw my head back as far as I could and let my tongue fall out of my mouth lazily. BORING! I’d almost rather be in school! I sighed and thought of all my friends back in Illinois sitting in class. What time is it? One o’clock, maybe? I’d be in spelling now. I sighed again. Maybe this line isn’t so bad after all.
I pulled my tongue back into my mouth but let my head hang where it was. At least we did get to do one cool thing today. During our previous trip to Disney World we had been rushed; there was simply too much to see in one day. As night came and the sun set, we headed for the exits with one area of the park left unexplored: Tomorrow Land. As a big fan of science fiction, I was severely disappointed. My excitement to see that section of the park almost rivaled my desire to ride the Teacups, and unlike that ride, it had not disappointed. Space Mountain was the coolest! It’s better than any of the rollercoasters at Six Flags!
But this ride too had almost been a huge letdown to me, since we almost didn’t get to go onboard. The operators of the ride had to measure my uncle’s roommate Dan to make sure he wasn’t too tall to get on. The whole time they were measuring him I had worried that we wouldn’t get to go, but luckily he was just under the limit. Still they made him sit in the back of the car, and when we were zipping along in the darkness, a few of the beams came within inches of his face. From my seat in the front I could hear Dan screaming and cursing each time the metal bars of the coaster’s track came near him, and it put a damper on my enjoyment of the ride.
I started to turn my sulking anger at him then, thinking, Stupid tall freak almost ruined my fun. But I stopped. I could feel Dan behind me in the line, his presence towering over me, making me feel small. I tried to turn around to look at him but found myself unable to force my stiff body to move. Desperately afraid that he might somehow know that I had been thinking ill of him, I searched the line in front of me for something to take my mind off my irrational fears.
I suddenly spied a girl my age standing a few rows in front of me, and my attention quickly turned to her. Man, she’s cute, I thought as I shifted left to right to try to see her better between the rows of people that separated us. She looks like that girl from The Wonder Years. Where she stood the line was starting to move, and as she walked forward she turned, looked right at me, and grinned.
Wow, she smiled at me, I thought as I raised my hand to wave at her and took a step to move with the line as she had.
Where I stood, however, the line was not moving, and I ran right into my dad’s back. I heard Dan cackle lightly behind me and I swiftly spun around to look at him, forgetting the fear I had felt only moments before. My flushed face turned to meet his gaze and I felt like he was staring through me. Don’t you laugh at me, you mutant. I wish you had gotten your head knocked off in Space Mountain. You deserve it for what you’ve done. I glanced down from him at Uncle Wes standing beside him before I faced the front again. He was holding his head with one hand and massaging his temples with his thumb and index finger. His face looked strained, like he was chasing a thought that was quickly slipping further and further away from him.
Mom and Dad were both looking down at me when I turned around again, only serving to embarrass me more. “Are you OK, honey?” my mom asked. “You look flushed. Are you hot?”
“I told him not to wear black today,” my dad said unsympathetically.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You’re sweating like a pig.”
“I’m fine, Mom!” I repeated, this time a tone of annoyance in my voice. As I looked back in the line, searching for the girl again, I heard my grandmother telling me not to talk to my mother that way, but I ignored her. I don’t care if I wasn’t being respectful. She’s humiliating me in front of all these people.
I finally found the girl up front again just as she was climbing onto the submarine and then going down into the ride. Great. I slouched and leaned heavily onto the metal bar that separated my line from the one in front of me. Every time I find a cute girl, it gets ruined. People are going to start thinking I’m some sort of… I stopped myself and nervously glanced over my shoulder. They’ll think I’m weird.
Now that the girl of my dreams had gone, I had nothing to occupy my attention and I quickly slipped back into boredom. I’m tired of all this waiting! All day all I’ve been doing is waiting to get somewhere else. We had set out from Port St. Lucie, where Uncle Wes lived with Dan, a little later than we had hoped, and the traffic had been horrendous. What should have been an hour-long drive took over two.
At least then I had some comics to read, even if they were the same old ones I read over and over on the long trip here. Thinking about the hours I had spent in my grandparents’ van on the drive down to Florida did nothing to brighten my mood. My dad had seemed to sleep for at least half of the nineteen-hour drive, and he kept yelling at my brother and me to be quiet. We were just playing, trying to keep ourselves from getting bored. We couldn’t help being loud. If he’s going to do that the whole trip home, I have to get Mom and Dad to take me to that comic shop with the snakes to buy some new stuff to read on the way home. If I’d known the drive today was going to be so long, I’d have had them take me last night.
I heard Dan behind me clearing his throat and realized that the line in front of me had moved when I wasn’t paying attention. I walked forward, grumbling to myself as I did. It’s not like people can cut in front of us when there’s a gap. I stopped again behind my dad and stared at his back intently. At least he didn’t push me with those big sweaty hands of his.
I pulled my tank top away from my chest and let go so it would spring back to place, repeating the action in a vain attempt to fan myself. I know I shouldn’t have worn black, but they’re the only clothes I have left that I look good in. I couldn’t have worn them before now, ‘cause it’s been so hot everyday. The previous day had been the worst; luckily our outing that day, to Disney MGM Studios, afforded us more opportunities to be indoors. Now that was fun, even if Star Tours wasn’t open yet. I hope those pictures Mom took of me getting stepped on by the AT-AT turn out.
We moved forward again and were close enough that I could see the water our submarine would soon be submerging into. Ewww, it’s not blue at all! It looks like lake water, all green and with stuff floating in it. I subconsciously started fanning myself with my shirt again. Still, I wouldn’t mind jumping in if it would cool me off for a while. I wish we were going to have time to go back to Sea World, so we could go to that water park they have with the pirate ship. I tried to remind myself of how uninterested I had been in what the tour guides had to say the last time we went, but it was to no avail.
After we had passed a few more minutes shuffling ever so slowly forward, we reached the front of the line. For a moment I was afraid that, as had happened twice already that day, we would have to wait for the next trip due to the size of our family, but the ride’s operator let us on. “Finally,” I sighed in exasperation as we climbed into the submarine through the hatch in its top. Inside, however, I was bubbling over with excitement about the voyage we were about to embark upon.
When we got below, I quickly surveyed the layout of the sub’s interior, trying to remember everything that we had seen before. A hint of a smile came across my face in anticipation of the undersea adventure we would soon be having. But my thoughts of enthusiasm quickly died away when Nate climbed down the steps to enter the submarine and cried out, “All the seats are taken! We won’t be able to see anything!”
He’s right, I thought, looking to my left at the benches where we had sat four years before. Dejectedly I took a seat on the right side of the submarine, thinking, Now we’re not going to get to see anything cool. Nate sat beside me with the same sadness I was feeling evident in his drooping posture. But Dad came to his side and looked out the porthole with him, trying to reassure him that everything would be OK.
As soon as Uncle Wes and Dan had come aboard and found a seat, the hatch closed. A voice came over the loudspeaker, assuring us that we were in for a truly exciting journey far beneath the ocean’s surface. But we’re on the wrong side, I thought to myself sadly. This side is next to the platform. We’re not going to get to see anything cool. It’s the other side that looks out into the ocean.
I was rapidly drawn out of my feelings of hopelessness when I heard Nate shout, “Look! Look! There they are!” He was excitedly staring out his porthole while tugging on my dad’s sleeve. “Look at the mermaids, Dad!”
Mermaids? I peered through the pea soup outside my porthole to see what he was yelling about. There are mermaids! But a closer look made me a little more suspicious. They look just like the ones we saw last time. How can that be? We sat on a different side! I pulled my head back from the window to look at the passengers who sat behind me on the other side of the submarine. They too seemed to be enthralled by what they saw outside, with several other young passengers behaving in much the same manner as my little brother was.
I tried to see out their portholes, to look at exactly what the people on the other side could be seeing that was as enthralling as the mermaids we were seeing on our side. My eyes focused in on the water on the other side of the small round windows in front of them, as I peered hard through my thick glasses to see through the grimy water and discover what they were seeing.
But my eyesight was too bad and I couldn’t see that far. Instead I noticed something about the portholes themselves, something that made me pause. I turned back around to look at my own porthole to see if this phenomenon was the same on my side of the sub.
It was. I looked up to the top of my porthole and I could see the level of the water hitting the glass. About an inch of open space was visible between the top of the glass and the water, and the sun’s rays fell down through that gap, making the rim of the water sparkle gold where it touched the glass.
It’s fake, I thought. All that garbage on the speakers about us going down to the bottom of the ocean, that was just crap. It’s not real. None of it’s real. The ride suddenly lost its thrill for me and I slid down in my seat on the bench, only halfheartedly gazing out the porthole before me.
When the ride was over, I stomped up the steps without a thought while my brother bounded around me full of energy. “That was great! Now can we go on Mister Toad’s Wild Ride?” he cried excitedly.
“Well, we have to see what your brother thinks,” my mom said.
“Whatever. I don’t care.”
I walked to the next ride slowly, dragging my feet as my brother flitted about like an insect. I wasn’t really paying attention to where we were going or what we were doing, and it surprised me when Nate suddenly said something to me.
“Didn’t you hear what Uncle Wes said, Steve?” he asked me, jumping up and down like his body was a teapot boiling over. “He said he’d take you to the comic shop tomorrow morning if you’d like. Aren’t you glad?”
“Oh?” I said without any effort. I managed to mumble a word of thanks halfheartedly without missing a step as we reached the end of the line for Mister Toad’s Wild Ride.
