33I've gotten really behind in answering all the reviews I've gotten lately and I'm so sorry about that. Please know that I appreciate each and every comment you guys have left me on this fic and the last couple of oneshots I've posted. It means so much to me that you've taken the time to leave a review and let me know what your thoughts were after reading, and I wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you. So much. You guys are the greatest.
I think there will probably be one more part on this fic and it'll be finished. This chapter ended up really long, but I hope you enjoy it.
Part 4
There was only one attraction left in Fantasyland that they hadn't ridden, and that was where they'd headed after they left the movie. Passing by gift shops on one side and a Bavarian style restaurant on the other- the calliope from the carousel serenading them with the Mickey Mouse song along the way- they stopped outside the colorful turreted structure that housed the popular boat ride.
"Ah, no," Lucas gave a mild groan of protest when saw what it was. "Do we really have to go on this one again? I just got that song out of my head from the last time we rode it. And it's been an entire week!"
Riley laughed silently. "Maybe you and I could go do something else while they ride this," she suggested with a soothing stroke of his chest.
"No deal," Cory said stridently, nixing that plan. "If the rest of us have to suffer through it so do you," he declared. "We're a team."
"Well then, maybe none of the team should do it," Lucas proposed. "I'm telling you, that song is like voodoo or something. We should really protect the kids." He nodded his head, as if convinced he was right.
"Stop," Riley laughingly chided him with a swat.
At the same time, Ava proclaimed in argument, "I like the song!" As if to prove it, she started to sing. "IIIt's a small world aaaf-ter all, iiit's a small world..."
"Aaand there we go," Topanga said dryly as the little girl kept singing the repetetive song.
"Just suck it up, dude," Auggie told Lucas. "My woman wants to see the dolls. And if my woman ain't happy..."
"Ain't nobody happy," the rest of them chimed ironically.
Amidst several chuckles, Ava cut off her song mid-note to smile at her young companion sweetly. Batting her eyes, she crooned, "You know me so well, Auggie-dog."
There was currently a forty minute wait for the ride, so they set up Fast Passes for it and went to take a break at the nearby restaurant in the meantime. It wasn't quite late enough for dinner, but everyone was a little hungry, so they all got drinks and single slices of pizza. There were tables arranged outside the restaurant, so they took their snacks out there.
The square tables with striped umbrellas overhead were fairly small, so the kids sat together at one, while Cory and Topanga sat at another right next to it. While they ate, Auggie and Ava regaled Riley and Lucas with stories of the things they'd done that day before the two of them came to join them.
They were directly across from the carousel, which was now chirping the song 'Prince Ali" from the movie 'Aladdin' in accompaniment to their meal. Before they were done, they were also serenaded with the calliope versions of 'Hi-ho', 'Some Day My Prince Will Come', and 'Gaston' from 'Beauty and the Beast'.
Swallowing the last bite of her pizza, Riley asked somewhat wistfully, "So you guys have already ridden the carousel, huh?"
Picking up on the wishfulness in her tone, Lucas asked teasingly, "Do you wanna ride the carousel, little girl?"
She really did, but she'd feel silly if she didn't have the excuse of accompanying the younger members of their group. But if Lucas would be willing to go on the kiddie ride with her, that would work too.
At his question, her face lit up in a smile of confirmation even as she confessed with a quick little nod. "Would you want to go on it with me?"
He would've allowed her to drag him on it, but before he could agree, Ava piped up.
"I'll go on it again with you, Riley."
"Great! Thanks, A," she said brightly in acceptance. "Aug, you wanna come too?" she asked, gathering up the trash left from her meal.
"No, thanks," he demurred.
As she started to pick up the few items of trash to take with her when she stood, Lucas put out a hand to stop her. "I'll get that. Both of you go ahead," he prompted.
With a brilliant smile, she bent to drop a kiss on his lips, saying, "Thank you. I love you."
"Love you too," he replied with an indulgent smile, but she and Ava were already scampering off, Riley calling out their plans to her parents as they went.
The line waiting to get on the ride wasn't super long. They only had to wait through two turns on the merry-go-round before it was their turn. While they stood in line, the two girls chatted and Riley french-braided Ava's hair. She perched the other girl's Minnie Mouse ears on her own head while she intricately wove the blonde tresses, but sadly, Ava made her give them back when they were done.
Once aboard the ride, Riley chose one of the white horses on the second row with purple on its saddle and a garland of yellow roses around its neck. Ava took the one next to it, on the outside row, with a royal blue saddle blanket trimmed in gold.
The high-pitched organ started trilling out as the merry-go-round came to life, and the version of the song 'A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes' it piped out was both cheerful and dreamy.
Riley allowed the child in her to come out as their horses lazily lifted and lowered while they circled. Leaning back as she held onto the pole that tethered her horse, she let her head drop back to watch the canvas above them until she was dizzy, then later, she and Ava pretended that their horses were racing, and they looked for her family each time they came around so they could wave at them madly like little kids.
Cory and Topanga waved back indulgently, but Lucas and Auggie weren't at the table the first few times they looked for them. Riley assumed they'd gone to the restroom or something. They were back by the time the horses made their final revolutions though, and they laughed and shook their heads at them for waving, but they gamely waved back.
They'd sat down with her parents when they came back, so she and Ava headed for their table when they got off the ride. Lucas was sitting on the side closest to them and was sprawled low in the chair he'd turned perpendicular to the table. He was talking to Cory, sitting across from him, but turned his head to watch them approach even as his lips were still moving in conversation.
Apparently concluding what he was saying, he smiled as Riley walked up to stand by his chair. "Have fun?"
"Yeah," she replied, her smile so big it forced her eyes into little half moons.
"Where'd you two go?" Ava asked Auggie, who, like Riley, had gone to stand next to his seat. "You disappeared for awhile."
"I went to a couple of gift shops with Lucas," he answered.
"Yeah, I got you something," he told Riley enticingly, reaching down to pick up a bag on the ground by his chair.
"You did? What'd you get me, what'd you get me?" she asked excitedly, giving a little bounce like a kid at Christmas. She looked at her parents as if they would provide an answer, but they both just shrugged expansively like they had no clue. They weren't very good actors though. It was obvious from their secretive smiles that they did.
Setting the bag on his lap, Lucas reached in and pulled out what he'd gotten her. It was Minnie ears. Princess Minnie ears.
"Yaaaay," she wriggled all over in delight and gave a muffled clap.
"They aren't exactly like Ava's," he said a bit apologetically.
"They're perfect," she assured him. She actually liked them better than Ava's. The tiara on this pair sat on top of the cap between the two ears, and the cap was a light blush color instead of the darker pink of Ava's. And best of all, the scarves hanging from the back were in hues of purple, along with the pink.
Lucas stood and put them on her himself. As he settled them atop her head, he said with mock ceremony, "Your crown, Princess Riley."
"Thank you, my prince," she giggled. "Seriously, thank you, Lucas. I love them," she said sincerely, throwing her arms around him to give him a hug.
"You're welcome," he warmly chuckled as he returned her embrace, glad that he'd made her happy.
Take THAT Prince Charming!
"Okay, kids, we need to get going," Topanga urged, rising from the table. "We need to get to It's A Small World in the next five minutes."
Ava cheered and immediately started marching towards the ride singing the song again.
"Yay," Lucas sighed, in weak imitation of the expression Riley used so often. Except his was the exact opposite in tone from the way she always said it.
Pulling back from their hug, Riley gave him a sympathetic smile. "It won't be that bad," she cajoled. Spying the unused napkins left on their table, she grabbed them up before her mom could throw them away. "You can tear off parts of this and use it for earplugs," she suggested, only half-way joking.
Lucas ended up doing exactly that, and was much happier for it. Cory and Auggie mocked him when he first tore off little pieces and crushed them into wads to stuff into his ears, but before it was over, they were eating crow and asking him if they could use part of the napkins for themselves. He could've given them a hard time about it, but he was nice and shared.
He might have been a little bit smug about it though.
After the boat ride featuring singing dolls in representations of different countries, they moved on to Liberty Square and the Haunted Mansion, where they endured a 30 minute wait in line before boarding the cars that took them through the elaborate haunted house.
They opted to skip the Liberty Square Riverboat, due to time, and went to Frontierland next.
Entering that land was like crossing over into the Old West and a pioneer fort, both at once. Some of the buildings were made of logs, while others looked like they'd come from an old Western movie set. There was a saloon (which was actually a restaurant themed after an old dance hall, complete with can-can dancers), and gift shops in the guise of a Mercantile store and a trading post. And to add to the look of authenticity, there were hitching posts in front of some of the buildings, and food vending stands shaped like covered wagons. The music from banjos, fiddles, and harmonica being piped through the speakers furthered the impression of an old Western.
"So, did you want to go to Tom Sawyer Island, or skip it today since we're running low on time?" Cory put the question to their two youngest members, since it was their quest to 'do everything'. "We've got..." he glanced at his watch, "a little less than four hours left to finish everything up."
Auggie and Ava looked at each other in silent consultation. "Skip it," they said together, each of them punctuating the decision with a single nod.
"We already saw it Monday, and there wasn't that much to do there anyway," Auggie added.
"I should get our next passes set up then." Topanga expelled a little sigh of exhaustion as she pulled out her phone. Riley saw it more than heard it over the sound of the crowd around them. She also noted that her mom's steps were flagging just a bit. "I guess the two biggest ones over here are Big Thunder and Splash Mountain. Which one do you want to do first?" she asked the kids.
After a quick conferral with each other, they called out their answer. "Splash Mountain!"
Topanga nodded and started tapping the screen of her phone.
"If you want to sit this one out, Lucas and I can take them on that one," Riley offered, knowing her parents were tired. She looked at Lucas to make sure that was alright, and he readily agreed.
"Yeah, we don't mind," he said in assurance. "We can take them while you guys rest for awhile. And we could take them on Big Thunder too. They were right there together, weren't they?" he questioned, not sure his memory was correct.
Riley answered his query with a nod. "Yeah, they are actually. Lucas is right, we can just take them on both if you want."
"Really? That would be great, if you don't mind." Topanga was clearly relieved by the suggestion, and immediately headed for a bench.
Cory questioned their surety in only the vaguest of ways as he eagerly followed his wife to sit down. "You'll be okay?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't we be," Riley answered, waving it away.
"You're not wimping out on us, are you, Topi?" Ava asked with a slight edge of suspicion.
"I'm not wimping. I'm just resting," she replied dryly after she and Cory collapsed on the bench.
"Phil?"
"No wimps here. Just us resters," Cory cheerfully insisted.
Ava regarded them skeptically with a flat look of amusement.
"We just need a short break then we'll be ready to go again," Topanga assured them.
"Yeah," Cory agreed, his head tipping to rest on his wife's shoulder and his eyes closing as if he was planning to go to sleep right there. "Just five...ten...thirty minutes, and we'll be as good as new," he mumbled.
Topanga's head tilted to rest against Cory's, and Riley smiled as she shook her head at them. "So we'll meet you back here? Take up where we left off?"
"If we move anywhere else we'll text you," her mom promised.
"Okay... We're gonna leave our stuff here with you, alright?" Topanga waved in acknowledgement without otherwise moving, and Riley and Lucas put their souvenirs on the bench beside them.
"See you later, guys," Auggie told them with a little wave as they went to move past the bench.
"See ya, Bubba. Have fun," Cory opened his eyes long enough to reply.
"Keep an eye out for each other," Topanga lifted her head to caution them, then dropped it back in place.
As the four of them left them to it, Lucas asked humorously, "Think they're gonna take a nap right there on that bench?"
Riley grinned at him, but it was Auggie who answered, "Sure looks like it." Shaking his head, he lamented in all seriousness, "It's sad to get old."
Ava nodded her head in agreement with him, and Riley and Lucas looked at each other to share a silent laugh.
They maneuvered their way through the crowd, passing clapboard buildings with signs naming them as a seed and hardware store, a stage line, and a town hall. Riley was using her phone as they walked, Auggie and Ava walking in front of her and Lucas, and when they approached a wide bridge that led off to the right, the two youngsters shot off towards it.
Jerking her gaze from her phone, Riley called, "Come on, guys, stay close!" She and Lucas picked up their pace to hurry after them and caught up to them on the bridge.
Coming up behind their wayward charges, where they stood watching over the wooden pickets of the railing, Lucas admonished them lightly. "Hey, don't go running off like that, okay?"
"Yeah, if we lost you, Mom and Dad would kill us," Riley added.
"We weren't going far," Auggie grumbled back. "You act like we're babies or something."
Riley replied diplomatically, "We didn't say you were babies. We're just responsible for you right now."
"We don't want anything to happen to you on our watch," Lucas put in, nudging the little boy's shoulder.
Slightly appeased, Auggie let it go, and went back to watching the activity below the bridge with his girlfriend. The tall red cliffs of Splash Mountain were just across the way, and the waterway the boats traveled after making the steep plunge down the mountain looped around and passed underneath their feet. The log-shaped boats filled with wet, exhilarated riders came around a bend one after the other to disappear under the bridge before coming out the other side to return to the entry and exit point behind the cliffs.
On the other side of the bridge, the chute that sent each boat plunging down the 50 foot drop could be seen several hundred yards away. The collective screams of the riders drifted on the air with each boat that flew down, and they crashed at the bottom with a huge splash.
Riley finished up what she'd been doing on her phone when the kids had interrupted. "Okay, I've got our passes set up for this one. What do you want to do while we wait?"
They exchanged looks among themselves to see if anyone had any suggestions, then looked over to the main strip of buildings for inspiration.
Loud popping sounds could be heard above the drone of conversation from the people around them and Lucas lit up in recognition of the sound. "I don't suppose you girls would be up for a little shooting, would you? Aug-man? You're with me, right?"
Realizing what he'd heard to prompt the suggestion, Riley grinned at the same time that her brother nodded eagerly. "You sure you want to take me on again, cowboy?" she teased.
Lucas gave her a flat look, though his eyes were dancing, and he gestured towards her with his thumb as he said to the two kids, "She beats me by 400 points at Toy Story Mania, and now she's all cocky about it."
Ava lifted her brows, and with a lopsided smirk, she said in a light taunt, "Sounds to me like she's got reason to be. I thought cowboys were supposed to be so great at shooting."
"Oh-ho," Lucas responded with amused incredulity. "So that's how you wanna be? Alright." He nodded. "How about a little shooting competition then? Girls against the guys."
"Yeah!" Auggie was all for it, and gave Lucas a high-five.
"Okay, you're on," Riley agreed. "Let's go, Ava."
She reached out a hand for the younger girl, and Ava linked hers with it, exclaiming, "Girl Power!"
"Yeah," Riley echoed her brother with a sharp nod of agreement as they set off, the boys following right behind them.
Their destination was a wide log building that was completely open at the front, with a long sign sitting atop the shingled front porch that proclaimed it the Frontierland Shootin' Arcade. The popping sounds of the shooting rifles grew louder as they approached it.
After changing a few bills into quarters, they each took up a gun at the stone barrier that separated them from the targets. The shooting gallery was fairly dark inside, and contained a large desert scene that stretched from one side of the building to the other. There were rows of small buildings at the back, modeled after an old western town, and in front of them sat a desert landscape dotted with cacti, a large, barren tree filled with vultures, animal bones, and a cemetery with a plethora of headstones that had clever epitaphs engraved on them. There were small red sensors on everything in there, and those were the targets they were aiming for.
The four of them dropped their quarters into their respective slots at the same time and immediately started shooting. The sound effects of gunfire, ricocheting bullets, and the occasional clank of a bullet hitting metal created a small cacophony of sound that filled the open arcade.
It didn't take Riley long to figure out that she and Ava were in trouble. She hadn't joined them at this game their first day there, she and her mom had gone to a nearby gift shop instead, so she hadn't realized how hard it was going to be to hit the little red sensors. They were barely as big as the reflector on the back of a bicycle, a much smaller target than the ones on the Toy Story ride, and the nearest ones were at least six feet away from where they stood.
On top of that, the rifles they were shooting with seemed pretty much like the real thing, as far as Riley could tell with her limited knowledge of guns. They had to line up their target through the sight thingie on the top, and the gun itself was actually pretty heavy. Heavy enough that Ava had ended up just resting hers on top of the stone ledge in front of them, and Auggie seemed to be having a little trouble with his as well. But he was still doing better than Riley was.
When the targets were hit, the red light went dark for a few seconds, and some kind of animation was triggered. Lights flickered inside the buildings, the headstones emitted ghostly moans and cackles, the buzzards flapped their wings, and the prairie dogs retreated into their holes. Lucas, standing next to her, was hitting most of his with one or two shots- three at the most- before moving on to the next one.
And Auggie, on his other side, was only taking a couple more shots than that to make each of his targets react.
Riley was taking as many as six or seven shots at the same target before getting it, and sometimes she just had to give up and move on to another one. Even Ava was doing better than she was, and she was hunched over her gun on the stone ledge.
After only a short while, Riley became frustrated with the entire endeavor. Lowering her gun, she huffed out a sigh of discouragement.
Lucas noticed her frustration, and took his attention off his target to ask her kindly, "Having some trouble?"
"This isn't nearly as much fun as Toy Story," she pouted.
Grinning at the cute expression of disgruntlement on her face, he went back to shooting, saying at the same time, "Well, when Auggie and I win, I promise we won't do a victory dance and rub it in." He sent her a meaningful look.
"Speak for yourself," Auggie piped up, promising no such thing.
With a grimace of chagrin, Riley brought her rifle back up and tried to shoot a flowering cactus that wasn't too far away. At least, she hadn't thought it was that far away. But after trying six times, she still hadn't managed to hit the thing.
"I think my gun is broken." She nodded as if that must be it.
Smiling, Lucas shook his head at her. "I've seen you hit several targets. Your gun is not broken, Riles."
She pulled the trigger twice more and still couldn't make the stupid cactus react. "Well, something's wrong with it," she muttered. "There has to be."
"Alright, let me see it," Lucas indulged her, putting his own gun down and moving over to her.
"Dude, what are you doing? She's the competition," Auggie paused in his shooting to mildly protest.
"I know, but we have an unfair advantage. We were here nearly thirty minutes the other day and this is her first time. And some of the guns did seem like their sights were a little off." Taking her gun from her hands when she offered it up to him, he brought it up to his shoulder and shot it several times. The fourth shot hit the tin can he was aiming for and sent it spinning. "Yeah, see, it's off about a quarter of an inch."
"You mean I was right?" Riley said with some surprise. She'd honestly thought it was just her.
"Nooo," he contradicted lightly, "Because it's not broken, it's just not completely accurate. Here," he handed the rifle back to her. "Put it back up at your shoulder." She brought it up into position. "No, up here. See?" He adjusted where she'd rested the butt. "Like this." Trying to rearrange her so her hold didn't seem so awkward, he finally just moved behind her and brought his hands up to place hers where they should be, leaving his own on top of them, so that they were both holding the gun in position. "There. Is that comfortable?"
Leaning back into him, she made a tiny snuggling motion, and uttered a sigh of contentment at the feeling of being completely surrounded by him. "Mmhmm."
"I meantthe gun," he said in smiling admonishment, bumping her hipbone lightly with his.
"Oh. Yeah, that too," she replied impishly.
He gave a huff of laughter that tickled her neck. "Good. Then, let's aim at— the tree, beneath the owl."
They swiveled slightly to the left to point the gun at the large barren tree. In the middle of its trunk, there was a hollowed out space, and an owl was standing inside it. Its sensor was on the tree below the hollow.
"Okay now, line up the target in your sight..." They tilted their heads to look down the length of the gun barrel, Lucas's above, and slightly behind, hers. He pushed aside the gauzy veil on the back of her Minnie ears and did his best to look through the gun sight with her. "'kay, you got it centered?" he murmured.
"Uh-huh," she breathed in answer. He went on talking, saying something about how she couldn't trust the sight and needed to aim a little to the right of it, but she honestly wasn't hearing much beyond the soft cadence of his voice as he instructed her. His warm breath playing across her ear was wreaking havoc on her concentration, and between that, the lowered raspiness of his tone, and the heat of him surrounding her, she was thinking about things other than shooting a gun.
Lucas tried to explain to her about the faulty gun sights and how to compensate for it, but his mind wasn't exactly on what they were doing either. With the distraction of her lithe curves pressed tightly against him, the softness of her hair against his cheek, and the sweet, heady scent of her skin emanating from the curve of her neck, enticing his senses, was it any wonder his mind was straying to inappropriate places?
It was hardly the time or place for that though, so he forced himself not to breathe her in as deeply as he wanted to, and did his best to help her get her gun lined up.
But when it came time for her to shoot, she just continued to stand there, motionless in his arms.
"Riley?"
His questioning tone drew Riley from her meandering thoughts, but she was still partially focused on the barely-there stubble of his jaw lightly scratching at her cheek.
"Hmmm?" she hummed in response.
"You gonna pull the trigger?" The low query was laced with amusement, but the possibility that she was lost in the same kind of haze he was, due to their closeness, had a heady effect on him, and he tightened his arms around her reflexively.
His last question snapped Riley's senses back to the present, and without a second's thought, she pulled the trigger. She didn't take a moment to refocus and see where she'd aimed her gun, she didn't make the adjustment to the sight-line he'd been telling her about, when he asked, she just pulled the trigger in a knee-jerk reaction.
Of course she didn't hit her target.
"Were you even listening to anything I said?" He shook his head slightly with a smile.
"I was listening," she said in defense.
"You were? 'Cause I sort of get the feeling I don't have your full attention here, tiger," he delivered the charge right into her ear, while at the same time his hand left the bottom of the rifle to slide across her stomach and snug her in more tightly against him.
"Believe me, cowboy, you have 100% of my attention," she assured him, her head turning towards her shoulder to aid in the quest of his lips.
"Yeah?" he murmured sexily, nuzzling the hair at her ear, lips dragging towards her temple.
They were speaking to each other in undertones, and had pretty much become lost in their own little world, but they were jerked from it abruptly when Ava asked sardonically, "Are you still showing her how to shoot, or are you two gonna make out right here?"
"Ava!" Riley sputtered, half in protest and half-scolding. She'd jerked upright and dropped the butt of the rifle as she said it, and Lucas let go of her entirely as they both looked at the little girl, slack-jawed and flustered.
"What? I'm just sayin'. He showed me how to shoot these things the other day too, but it didn't look anything like that. That looked closer to making out to me," she levied the charge knowingly.
"Yeah, dude. I know we're buds and all, but there are limits. She is my sister, you know. Keep it PG," Auggie added in admonishment.
"Yes- sir." Lucas's reply was tongue-tied and meek, his cheeks ruddy with chagrin. Somehow it felt like the universe had tilted so that Auggie and Ava had become the adults, and he and Riley were the wayward kids who'd just gotten caught with their pants down. An unfortunate turn of phrase that made his thoughts even more uncomfortable.
Riley's cheeks were pink with embarrassment at being called out by the two ten-year-olds (and by the fact that she and Lucas had maybe gotten a little carried away), but she kind of wanted to laugh too. The incongruity of her tall, broad-shouldered boyfriend bowing deferentially to her little brother- a kid nearly half his age- was pretty amusing. If you could overlook what had led them there.
When Lucas caught the look on her face, he saw the humor in the situation himself, and his own expression changed to one of wry sheepishness.
"So, uh- you think you've got this?" He gestured awkwardly towards the rifle in her hands, then scratched the back of his neck.
"Yeah," Riley cleared her throat and glanced aside self-consciously. "Thanks- thank you, Lucas. I think I've got it from here."
He nodded and went back to his own gun, hefting it into position somewhat stiffly.
Before Riley did the same, she sent another self-conscious look in Ava's direction, and she found the younger girl looking up at her unabashedly. Tongue behind her teeth in a gleeful smile of mischief, her eyes were twinkling merrily. Keen interest, and maybe a slight taunt about what she and Lucas had been doing shone in the sparkling blue depths. Riley could practically hear her silently chanting 'Riley and Lucas sittin' in a tree...'
Lips twisting with disgruntled exasperation, she pushed Ava's Minnie ears down over her eyes. "Shoot your gun," she told her in playful rebuke.
Giggling, the little blond pushed her ears back in place and obeyed.
Shaking her head in amusement, Riley lifted her rifle into place and tried to put Lucas's half-heard instructions to use.
It definitely helped improve her success rate. She was able to hit most of the targets within four shots after making the adjustment to her aim. The boys still won, of course, since she'd done so lousy in the beginning. She and Ava got them to agree to go best two out of three, but they ended up winning the next round too. And they actually didn't have time for a third game because they had to get back to Splash Mountain for their ride. So she and Ava had to endure their crowing and bragging- and yes, Auggie even did a victory dance (but Lucas kept his promise and refrained)- all the way back to the ride.
Once there, their passes again allowed them to bypass the regular line. So they wound around the queue, first outside under some trees, then inside a two-story clapboard building, and finally into a wide tunnel that led through a stone cave-like structure.
At the head of the line, they exited the tunnel into a wide space that was open to the sky. In it, was a kind of loading dock with a narrow stream running along beside it. On the other side of the water there was a similar platform where riders exited the log-shaped boats to make them available for the new riders.
"How many in your party?" The ride attendant was dressed in long shorts and a light checkered button-down shirt, but he still looked hot and tired. The friendly expression was firmly affixed to his young face though.
"Four," Lucas said in reply.
"Rows 1 and 2." He waved them towards the front of the loading area where metal railings divided the space into side-by-side rows.
On their way to the spots they'd been directed to, Ava proclaimed, "I'm not sitting with Auggie."
"What? Why?" he questioned indignantly.
"Are you kidding me?" She gaped at him as if she couldn't believe he even had to ask, but he just looked at her in incomprehension. "We- beat- you, we be-be-beat you," she did a sarcastic imitation of the victory song and dance he'd been doing, complete with the punctuating finger pointing from each hand."You think I want to sit with you? I don't even want to look at you right now," she declared in irritation.
Auggie felt a bit guilty then, for the way he'd carried on, but her sarcasm put him on the defensive and her final declaration outright irked him. "Well, I guess you'll be sitting in the front then," he returned sorely.
"I guess I will!"
"Fine!"
She stomped to the first row and folded her arms crossly, and Auggie flung himself as far away from her as he could in the space marked Row 2.
Riley hesitated over which one of them to join. On the one hand, Ava did have a point; Auggie had been pretty insufferable over winning their shooting match. But on the other hand, she really didn't want to sit in the front of the boat. Really high drops weren't her favorite thing in the world, and being in the front would only make it that much more intense. And if she was going to be in the front, she'd feel safer if she had Lucas beside her to cling to.
"I can sit in the front," he offered now, understanding her dilemma.
"You don't want to sit with me, Riley?" Ava questioned. "He was bragging a lot too," she reminded her, directing a light scowl over at Lucas. "Aren't you mad at him?"
"Well..." Riley looked at her boyfriend rather sheepishly. "I sort of did the same thing to him earlier. I guess I had it coming." And apparently, this was to be further payback for her unbecoming behavior, forced to take a front row seat for their watery plunge of doom.
"I'll never do it again," she promised him in a quavering voice while shaking her head, her face twisted in comical sorrowfulness.
"It's okay. C'mere." Laughter threaded through his words as he drew her to him with one arm, sympathetic amusement coloring his features. "I'd say we're pretty even. You don't have to do this to punish yourself, you know. I really don't mind sitting in the front," he assured her softly.
Hands on his lower chest between them, Riley took a deep breath and refused with a shake of her head. She knew the other girl wasn't entirely happy with Lucas either, so it didn't seem fair to make her sit with him.
"I'll sit with Ava. It'll be fine." She looked over at the young blond from the shelter of Lucas's arm. "Girl Power, right?"
"Right!" she chirped in agreement.
Their log-shaped boat pulled up along the edge of the platform. It was long, accommodating four rows of seats with ample leg room in between. There was a small step down from the dock to the bottom of the boat. Auggie nimbly hopped down without any problems, but Lucas held onto the back of his shirt for safety's sake. Riley held Ava by the elbow as she climbed down, and when it was her turn, Lucas, who was already in the boat, reached across the seat that separated them to offer her a helping hand. She placed her hand in his, and he steadied her as she stepped down into the boat with them.
When everyone was aboard and seated, the safety bars locked into place over their laps, and the conveyor underneath the boat moved them forward to the entrance of a tunnel. The boat dipped and bobbed as the conveyor deposited them into what appeared to be a free-flowing stream.
The walls and ceiling of the narrow tunnel were made of red rock, and it wasn't very long. Before they'd reached its end, their boat started climbing up the first incline. It wasn't a tall hill, maybe ten feet at the most, and they crested the top and broke free from the tunnel at the same time.
It was something of a fake-out though, because on the other side there was only a gentle slide into another curving stream. The majority of the ride was simply a boat tour through different animiatronic scenes depicting the story of Brer Rabbit. None of the four of them were familiar with that story, but Cory and Topanga had given them the gist of it when some of them had expressed confusion after they'd ridden this the last time.
Apparently, Brer Rabbit was a happy-go-lucky sort of fellow, who had a streak of mischief in him. Brer Fox and Brer Bear were always trying to catch him, much the same way Wile E. Coyote was always after the Road Runner. But, just like the Road Runner, Brer Rabbit always managed to outsmart them.
The story apparently takes place in a hillbilly-type setting, because the scenes they passed through had that sort of vibe, and there was a cheerful banjo tune playing throughout. There were some things outside in the open air...a cartoonishly oversized vegetable patch, a clothesline with home-spun laundry hanging from it, a dilapidated tree house with a rope ladder... but most of the scenes took place inside a large cave.
A quick, unexpected drop sent them inside the mouth of the dark cave, where their watery trail took them on a winding course through the middle of it. There were animatronics on both banks. And each time they rounded a bend, there were new scenes to see.
The life-size dioramas were brightly lit, with a backdrop of cheery blue skies, and artificial trees along the banks, whose branches stretched out over the water to form a leafy canopy for their boat to pass under.
Further along, the skies on the backdrops became stormy and dark, and the banjo music changed to something more sinister sounding, with howling in the background, as the scenes became a little less cheerful.
The next scene had Brer Fox giving Brer Bear a boost so he could steal honey from a beehive, bees buzzing noisily around their heads. Then, moving past that, they traveled into complete and utter darkness.
Riley and the others knew what was coming, and she had a sudden thought for her princess ears. She quickly snatched them off her head, not wanting them to get blown away in the next moments. But even if she put them in her lap, she worried about them being at the front of the boat.
Twisting around in her seat, she held them out in Lucas's direction. She could barely see his outline in the dimness, but he was sitting directly behind her. "Can you hold these for me? I'm afraid they'll get wet up here."
"Yeah, of course," he replied, taking them from her to keep them safe.
Her actions made Ava realize she had the same problem. Jerking her own mouse ears off, she hesitated a moment before turning around and thrusting them at Auggie. But rather than asking him to hold them like Riley had, she said instead, "I can't believe you made me sit up front. I'm gonna get so wet!"
He could've argued that he hadn't forced her to sit there, but he didn't. He accepted both the ears and the blame she threw at him, saying, "I know. I was a total jerk. I'm sorry, baby. I'll make it up to you."
"You better," she replied, but she'd softened her stance considerably at his sincere apology.
That taken care of, Riley wrapped her hands around the safety bar only seconds before they found themselves whooshing downwards through the darkness in a sizeable plunge. Several people screamed, and Riley, herself emitted a squeak as she clutched the bar tightly.
Water flew up from the front of the boat when they hit the bottom, the nose slicing through the dark surface and creating a large splash that sent splatters onto Riley's and Ava's faces and shirts.
"Yeeeah!" Auggie crowed out in exhilaration.
Wiping the moisture off her cheek with her hand, Riley smilingly turned her head in time to see Lucas reaching over to ruffle her brother's hair as he laughed with him in appreciation.
Ava caught her eye as she was turning back. The other girl was shaking her head. "Boys," she muttered scoffingly. But the upturned corner of her lips showed her amusement, and Riley smirked back.
There wasn't a lot of light from there on out, and the animatronics became sparser. There was a small rush as they went down a short gradual decline, then they continued on their twisting path.
Suddenly, they came upon a cluster of wooden signs with hand-painted warnings on them. 'Danger!' they seemed to shout. 'Go Back!'
Across the water, Brer Rabbit had been caught, his arms trapped at his sides by the empty beehive wrapped around his torso. Brer Fox was dangling him by the ears, threatening to do him in.
This was where the ride took something of a dark turn. The overhead music was replaced by a feminine chorus, who was wailing out single notes of song and sounding like nothing so much as a portent of doom and death.
The rock walls of the cave seemed to close in on their boat, and the only bit of light was a muted blue that highlighted a trio of buzzards dressed in funeral attire, perched on a beam over their heads.
"You need to turn back!" one of them squawked.
"If only you could," another of them drawled in a taunt, and they cackled together evilly.
Once they'd passed them by, they came to Riley's least favorite part of the ride. The mountain of an incline they'd be going over rose up in front of them. It was enclosed in a long, dark tunnel of rock, with the opening at the other end shining as the single point of brightness where it let in the sunlight from outside. It gave off the effect that they were moving towards the metaphysical 'light'.
That outside opening seemed really far away. And really high.
They moved forward to the bottom of the incline, then their boat slowly began its climb.
Everyone had fallen silent in anxious anticipation, so the only sounds to be heard were those of rushing water and the methodical clicking of the pulley system as it moved them ever upward. That laborious, continuous sound of tt-tt-tt-tt only served to draw Riley's nerves tighter.
There was nothing to see now except the enclosing walls of rock, so her eyes were helplessly drawn to that faraway point of light. They were moving towards it so slowly, and the longer it took to get to the top, the further away it seemed. She wanted to just hurry up and get there, but that would only mean tipping over its edge and being dropped down the other side, and she really wasn't in that much of a hurry for that.
Ahead of them, nearly 20 feet away, the boat in front of them did just that. It dropped out of sight over the top in a receding chorus of screams that made Riley's stomach clench.
Just as it had when they'd ridden it before, the fleeting thought that this could be the one time in a million when things might not go as planned flitted through her head. It was possible, wasn't it, that everything might not happen the way it should? That some tiny mechanical something, or the calculations of balance and weight of their boat might be off in some small way that would throw it slightly off course, and it wouldn't react the same as all the boats before it and end up safely on the other side?
She knew the chances of something like that happening were so minuscule as to be nonexistent, but the seemingly unending climb gave her far too much time for those kinds of thoughts to play with her head, and her heart pounded rapidly as her anxiety grew. She wished again that Lucas was sitting next to her. She'd be clutching his arm and burying her face in his shoulder right about now if he was.
"Lucas?" She couldn't help but call out to him, needing to at least hear the comfort of his voice.
"Right here, Riles," he answered her reassuringly. "You gonna make it?" he added, his tone gently teasing.
He had no way of knowing that was the exact wrong thing to say. But she made it obvious when she replied in a high nervous tone, "Of course I'm gonna make it. Why would you say that? We're all gonna make it. It's not like we're all about to go plunging to our deaths when we get to the top of this thing. It's just a small drop. Well, no, it's not a small drop it's a really big drop but hundreds of other boats have done it and they all made it why wouldn't we-" she took in a much-needed breath as they continued to be pulled inexorably upward in the dark enclosure. "We're gonna make it, right?" The uncertain smile and desperate need for reassurance were clear in her voice.
"Yes." Lucas wanted to laugh at the non-stop spew of her words, but he felt remorseful for getting her more wound up too. "It was just an expression, babe. I shouldn't have said it. Just calm down, okay?"
"I am calm why would you think I'm not calm?"
"Maybe because you're talking about a hundred words a minute?" her brother wryly suggested.
The bright light at the end was getting closer, but the slow, steady pace was torture.
"That's because I'm trying to say what I need to say before we go plunging to our deaths and none of us makes it," she warbled out in a slight wail, her face screwed up in a crying expression.
"That's not gonna happen. Don't be scared."
"Come on, Ry, this is fun!" Ava and Auggie both took turns at reassuring her, and Riley would be embarrassed later that the kids hadn't even been as nervous as she was and had felt the need to comfort her.
"Girl Power, remember?" Ava added, and offered her hand, palm up.
Riley accepted, putting her hand in hers and nodding like a child. "Girl Power," she agreed in the same wobbly tone, her lips still twisted in a comical crying pout.
They were about five feet from the top now, and the sound of water rushing down the other side grew louder.
At one side of the tunnel, a hollowed out space opened up that held a boiling cauldron, a table set for a meal, and Brer Rabbit tied to a stake. "Whatever you do, just please don't throw me into the briar patch," he was begging Brer Fox.
Then, there were only inches to go.
"Get ready!" Auggie said excitedly.
"Hold tight, Riles," Lucas encouraged.
Riley obeyed, gripping Ava tightly with one hand, and wrapping the safety bar in a death grip with the other.
They finally- finally- crested the top of the hill and broke free from the enclosing rock. The moment they cleared the opening, the early evening sunlight seemed to burst in their faces, momentarily blinding them.
When Riley's vision cleared, she almost wished it hadn't. From that height, she could practically see the entire park. But that was something she only saw in a glimpse. The long watery chute in front of them and the briar patch sprawled at the bottom of it was where her attention became fixed. And being at the front of the boat gave her an unimpeded view of just how very far it was to the bottom.
But she wasn't given much time to focus on that either. Only as much time as it took for their boat to even out at the crest and reach its tipping point to go over.
Eyes locked on the steep slide before them as the nose of the boat began to tilt downward, a whimper of unease escaped Riley's throat. "I changed my mind! I really don't wanna be in the fro-aaaaaaaagh!"
Her babbling turned into a scream mid-word as they went flying down the chute with a whoosh. Beside her, Ava screamed too, along with a majority of the other riders in the boat. Even Auggie's shout spiraled up to near-girly proportions.
The wind whipped through Riley's hair as they rocketed downward, the water at the bottom rushing up to meet them at a dizzying speed. It seemed to explode all around them when the boat rammed the surface in a violent watery crash that sent them gliding into the briar patch at the same time. The painted plaster vines and leaves were actually the covering for another short, narrow tunnel, and the boat slid through it choppily as the water from the crash splashed up all around them.
Everyone started talking and laughing at once as they followed the winding channel that took them underneath the bridge they'd been standing on earlier to watch the boats go past.
"Now, what were you saying?" Lucas asked Riley as they meandered between the rocky banks and trees, banjos playing jauntily once again.
Busy wiping the water from her face, she didn't answer right away, so Auggie responded for her.
"I think it was something like, 'I don't wanna sit in frooooooonnnnt'." The last was said with a high warbling tone as he mimicked her scream on the way down.
He, Ava, and Lucas laughed, and Riley sheepishly joined them. Now that it was over and everything was fine, exhilaration from their short downward flight was pumping through her along with the residual pounding of her heart.
"Okay. So I was a little nervous. Next time we'll put you in the front, wise guy, and we'll see how girly your scream gets then."
"Hey!" Auggie pouted in protest, and the others laughed.
Riley looked back at him and smiled amiably to soften her teasing.
Making a face at her in response, her brother let it drop.
"You okay now?" Lucas questioned, reaching forward from his seat to tug gently on the end of her straggling ponytail.
Twisting to look at him over her shoulder, she turned her smile on him in wordless thanks. "Yeah, I'm fine."
They'd passed under the bridge and were entering one last cave filled with animatronics. There was a celebration going on, and all the woodland creatures were singing 'Zippity Doo Dah' and welcoming Brer Rabbit home. It seemed he'd outsmarted the bear and the fox once again by making them think throwing him in the briar patch would be a fate worse than death. But actually, he'd been born and raised in the briar patch, so he knew how to deal with its thorns, and it hadn't hurt him at all for them to toss him into it.
When they came out the other end of the cave, they were back where they'd begun, in the loading and unloading area of the ride. They all climbed from the boat when it pulled up to the platform, then made their way through the long, winding exit of the building. It ended in a small gift shop, as so many of the rides did, but they passed through it without stopping so they could get to the next ride.
When they were back out on the main pathway amongst all the foot traffic again, Riley went over to walk beside her brother.
"You still mad at me?" she asked, slinging an arm around his shoulders.
"Yes," he said emphatically, his tone still a bit sulky, though he didn't make her remove her arm. "What you said was very- not nice."
"What you said was very not nice," she countered.
"What you said was more very not nice than what I said," he said accusingly. "It's not cool to tell a guy he has a girly scream."
Smothering a laugh, she said sincerely, "Well, I'm sorry for that. I shouldn't have said it. And I forgive you for making fun of me and saying what you said too. Now thank me," she prompted impishly, a ritual they'd done since her dad had assigned her a forgiveness project back when she was in middle school.
The corners of Auggie's mouth quirked upward as he gave her a look of long-suffering, then he folded his hands together at his chest and intoned dramatically, "Oh, thank you, dear sister! You are so loving, kind, and forgiving. I truly don't deserve such a kind and benevolent sister."
"You said 'kind' twice," she pointed out.
"Take it or leave it," he offered flatly.
"Fine, I'll take it. But only because your sarcasm was so very heartwarming," she said dryly, and he grinned at her.
All forgiven now, Auggie returned her gesture and flung an arm around her waist as they continued to walk. "Were you really scared up there, or were you just being dramatic?" he had to ask.
"A little bit of both maybe?" she answered ruefully.
"Well, I'm sorry you were scared," he offered sincerely. "From now on Ava and I will just sit in the front."
"You have to make things up to her first," she reminded him humorously.
"Yeah." He sighed, but when he looked at Ava, who was walking in front of them talking animatedly to Lucas, there was fondness in his expression. "I guess I should probably go do that."
As he withdrew from her to go to his girlfriend, Riley told him, "Good luck. Try not to grovel too much."
A wry look of agreement over his shoulder was his only reply as he moved forward to walk with Ava.
While he started to plead his case with the young blonde, Lucas fell back to join his own girlfriend.
"How hard do you think she'll make him work for it?" he asked with amusement, his eyes on the young couple bickering like they'd been married for years.
Riley, busy flapping the front of her shirt where she'd plucked it from her skin, followed his gaze and shared his amusement. "Maybe not too hard since he already apologized."
With a silent laugh, Lucas nodded in agreement. Shifting his gaze to what she was doing with her shirt, the amused glint was still present in his eyes.
Noticing, Riley pointed out with humorous dismay, "I'm all wet again."
His face a sympathetic moue, he said jokingly, "I'd give you Zay's t-shirt to dry off with again, but we left it with your mom and dad."
Riley laughed. "That's okay. Thankfully I'm not that wet."
When they got to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, they had to wait in line for the popular roller coaster, but only for a short while. As they shuffled along through the station that appeared to be an abandoned mining company, and stood waiting at intermittent intervals, they talked about their week there at Disney and how much fun they'd had. All while bemoaning the fact that they had to go home the next day and that summer was nearly over.
Each time the line stopped, leaving them to wait in place for short periods , Lucas and Auggie played like the boys they were, throwing playful mock punches at each other and exaggeratedly protecting whatever part of their bodies the other acted as though they were aiming for. At one point, Lucas was just holding his hands out in front of him while the younger boy swung his fists lightly to connect with his palms. Until he caught one of Auggie's fists in his and used his forward momentum to pull him off balance, and strong-armed him around into a headlock.
Laughing and crying out mild protests at the same time, the youngest Matthews was bent over at the waist struggling to get free while Lucas held the curly-topped head against his side and playfully retorted, "What? Augs, I can't hear you, man, you're all muffled. What are you saying?"
Riley gave them an indulgent smile, watching their antics for a moment before she and Ava went back to her phone. They were on Riley's Snapchat and had been playing with the camera, taking selfies and giggling over them as they experimented with different filters and effects. When the boys stopped their rough housing, they had them pose for some that they could also play with, which resulted in some hilarious shots.
When they finally got tired of that, Riley started recording a video of their surroundings, where she ended up focusing on each of them and asked them to tell what their favorite part of the trip had been.
Ava said hers had either been the afternoon they'd spent at Typhoon Lagoon, or the first day there in the Magic Kingdom when they'd had lunch at the top of Cinderella's castle.
Auggie, most likely in an effort to ingratiate himself with his girlfriend, said his favorite part had been having Ava there with them that week.
"It wouldn't have been nearly as much fun if she hadn't been here to sit with me on all the rides, and laugh and make jokes with me about flying Rapunzel hair and stuff," he asserted, the declaration both funny and sweet. And then, as if it were an afterthought, "My light saber fight with Darth Vader was pretty cool too," he said offhandedly, referencing the small show they put on at Hollywood Studios where members of the audience were chosen to participate in some light saber fighting.
Head tipping slightly, Ava's amused expression showed that she knew what he was doing, but she was pleased by what he'd said anyway. "Good answer," she praised with a knowing smile.
Auggie grinned, but he insisted, "And I wasn't just saying it to get on your good side either. It's really the truth."
Giving in to the sweetness of the claim, she walked over to him and threw her arms around him. "You're a smooth talker, Auggie-dog Matthews," she said a bit dryly, but she pulled back to reward him with a smacking kiss on the cheek nevertheless.
"Awww," Riley and Lucas cooed together, looking at them as if they were precious.
"Yeah, yeah, we're adorable," Ava said in good-natured dismissal, waving away their attention with a shooing motion of her hand.
The two teens laughed and left them alone.
"So, Lucas, what's been your favorite part of the trip?" Riley prompted, turning her camera on him.
Lucas made a face, saying humorously, "Well that's gonna be a tough act to follow, but...today was my favorite part. Our day we spent together," he answered in all sincerity.
"Awww," Auggie and Ava simpered, mimicking them mischievously.
But Riley paid them no attention. Eyes on Lucas, their chocolate depths soft and luminous, she told him, "Today was my favorite part too."
They smiled into one another's eyes, warmed by the knowledge that their day together had been one that they both held dear and would be remembered as the best day of their trip. It was something they could remember and hold close in the coming months when they were apart.
And the memories of sunny warmth and ice-cream, and running in the rain, of shared laughter and lingering kisses, and weaving dreams of a beautiful future together would help them get through the days until they could come back together again.