Kay and the Magic Kingdom Keepers

Hi. I’m Kayanna, but just call me Kay. I’ve been planning my parents’ second honeymoon for months. They were going on a cruise to the Carribean on the Costa Medi-something. It was for 6 days and 5 nights. Cam, my big brother, would be in Panama, and I would have a baby sitter. Well, actually it was my Nanna, but whatever. All they really had to do was say “okay”, pack up, and leave! But instead, they dropped a bomb on me. “Kay-Bug,” my Mom said. “I know you’ve been planning the cruise for us, and it sounds really nice, but we have to cancel.”

“What? Why? You guys know I’ve worked on this for, like, forever!!!!!” Aw man! Now I’m starting to cry. I must look like a total idiot, a 13 year-old crying in front of her parents over something as silly as a vacation! “But Mom-” before I could finish I was interrupted. “No buts, Kay. Because when Cam gets back from Panama, we’re going to Disney Wor-OOPS!” Mom always was a blabbermouth.

“Seriously dude? That’s, like, totally sweet” Uh-oh. “I mean, uh, that would be a quite lovely and enjoyable vacation. Thank you, mother. Thank you, father.” Then I heard dad say, “Clearly, honey, I think we’ve made the right choice.” I’M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TWO WEEKS LATER

“This is so cool!” Okay. So here’s the dealio. Cam got back from his senior trip last weekend. Mom and dad told him, and he was screaming like a little girl. I could hear him in the game room in our basement, and he was on the third floor. So we packed up and told Nanna, “Thanks, but never mind. Oh, and by the way, we’re still paying you!” Then my Nanna was screaming like a little girl. Wow! Twice in one week. Impressive!

Next thing I knew a limo was waiting to take us to the Wilderness Lodge, which is officially the best resort there. After we checked in, we hopped a bus to the Magic Kingdom. I saw the castle from about half a mile away. It was absolutely wonderful! “Attention, people of Earth and beyond: Kay Richards has reached Cloud 9. I repeat: Kayanna Emilie Richards is on Cloud 9.”

“Cam! You are the most demonic brother ever!”

“Okay, you two. I don’t want any fighting at all this week or I’ll…. I’ll block both your MySpaces for a month.”

“NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!” Cam and I cried in unison.

“YESSSS!!!!!” Mom and Dad replied together.

“Mom, that’s not fair. I think tha-”

“I don’t care what you think,” Dad said as we were walking to security and bag check tables. “You two are going to behave no matter what. Oh, and by the way,” Dad said handing us our passes that had the all-too familiar Cinderella Castle in the background. “Here are your passes to get in. Both of you have your cell phones, right?”

“That’s a pository!” I said, waving around my new curvilinear ENV2.

“Uh….” Cam said searching his pockets until he found it. “Here it is. I found it.”

“Cameron Jacob Richards, I swear if you lose your phone on this vacation, I’ll have your head on a silver platter!” Mom said, serious as a heart attack. Not only is Mom a blabbermouth, she’s also a very persnickety spender. She made sure we got the best cell phones for our money, and Dad said that he was reading the paper the other day and all the members of the Republican Caucus of Illinois, which is where we live, have either an ENV2 or an iPhone. Anyway, back to Cam’s head.

“Really, ’cuz that would be so cool!! Ooh, pick me to help cut it off!” Apparently, even though I was trying not to, I sounded too enthused.

“Kay! That is not funny,” Cam said grabbing the top of his head, pushing it down way too hard.

“You two meet us back here at 2:00. We have to go to lunch at 2:30,” Dad told us. “Alright,” I said, setting my alarm for 1:45. I always set my alarm a little bit before the established time so I can have a few extra minutes to get there. “Okay, all set,” Cam said, speaking more to himself really than us. Since he likes to be “fashionably late”, he set his for 2:15. “Hasta la Vista. See y’all in a little while,” I told them, heading for Frontierland to ride Splash Mountain. Here’s a small tip: always dress for the occasion. What I was wearing- a new tankini, cut-offs, and a light t-shirt - was definitely suitable for the occasion.

2:00 THAT SAME AFTERNOON

“Hey, where are you guys?” I asked Mom and Dad. “We’ll be there in a few minutes. Don’t worry,” Mom said in her little I-said-don’t-worry-but-you-really-should-worry voice. “To tell you the truth honey bear, we’re lost.”

“No offense, and I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but ya think?”

“Kay, right now we aren’t worried about respect. We’re worried about finding Cam. We haven’t heard from him.”

“Mom, Dad, don’t worry about it. I’ll call him and politely tell him that if he doesn’t get his pretty little butt over here that I’m gonna have his head on a silver platter!” I told Mom. After I hung up with Mom and Dad, my fingers were working really hard overtime to dial Cam’s number. “Please enjoy this music while you wait for this person to answer their phone.” Then, this started playing: “Swimmin’ in the river. Fishin’ for his dinner. Livin’ with the sinners like me. Always makes me think: Jesus was a country boy.” Cam really misses home sometimes.

“Hello?” Cam said around a mouth full of food. “Cam, you are such a pig! We are fixing to go eat lunch. Now listen to me. Mom and Dad are lost in Tomorrowland. They are okay, but they’ve just lost sense of direction somehow. We have to go find them.”

“Okay,” I could tell that he had said that while he was wiping his mouth.

“Cam. Meet me in front of the Astro-Orbiter. Okay?”

“Oh, all right little miss bossy-pants.”

“Cam. I’m over here,” I said, waving my hands and jumping up and down. You would think that people would be staring, but they actually paid no attention to me at all. Except Cam. He was just staring at me like I was some kind of freak of nature or something. “Kay, what are you thinking? You looked like a total idiot,” Cam told me once he reached where I was. “Too bad you always look like an idiot! Zinger!” I was surprised that I could actually think of an insult that good. Then we started looking for Mom and Dad. “I think they’re on Space Mountain, Cam.” I told him urgently.

“Yeah. There they are!”

We veered over to them, hugged them, and then realized that those people weren’t our parents. Oops! “We are so sorry.”

“Oh, cest la vie, kids. Stuff like that always happens to us.” They seemed pretty nice, so we introduced ourselves to them and told them what happened. “Well, how about we pray with you. We would love to help you look for them, but we’re waiting for our children to meet us for lunch.”

“A quick prayer sounds good. Then maybe we could exchange phone numbers?” So we prayed together and got phone numbers and everything, then continued looking for Mom and Dad. “Oh, no. We’ve only got 15 minutes until lunch time. You go look on the right side of Tomorrowland and I’ll look on the left. Call me if you find them. Oh, yeah. Cam?”

“What, Kay?” He said growing a little impatient.

“Don’t just be over there riding rides. You have a job to do.”

“Whatever.”

“Cam! I found them! Where are you?”

“Nowhere important. Where are you?” he asked, once again around a mouthful of food.

“Cameron. Could you please not think about your precious food needs right now? I need to find out where you are.”

“Okay, okay. I’m right by the exit of the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. Come over here.”

“I’m on my way,” I said, trying to wrangle up Mom and Dad. Soon I found my way to Cam and we walked over to the Crystal Palace for lunch. I figured out where we were going once I looked at Dad’s PDA. We watched as the artisan grillers prepared our steaks. The only bad part about the lunch was that I had to endure Cam’s annoying personality. We are such a unique family. My favorite part of our lunch was when Dad said Cam needed to curtail his appetite. He was so histrionic about it, I thought he would explode. Oh well, at least a few of my dreams came true today. Hasta la vista for now. More great adventures later.

TO BE CONTINUED………