Gemma Halliday: Scandal Sheet aka Hollywood Scandals

We wound past the Jungle Cruise and Tarzan’s Treehouse, narrowly avoiding collisions with at least three strollers, and jumped into line for the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Two minutes into it, my phone buzzed from my pocket.

“Your pants are vibrating,” Aunt Millie pointed out.

“I know.”

“You gonna answer it?”

Considering I was pretty sure it was Felix calling? “Nope.”

She shrugged, as if to say the younger generation’s logic escaped her.

Aunt Sue opened up her tote bag. “This ride is going to be so fun! You’re going to love this,” she said to the contents.

“Please tell me you’re not talking to Mrs. C.,” I said.

She blinked at me. “Well, of course I am. This is her trip.”

I tried not to roll my eyes.

“Did you just roll your eyes at me, young lady?”

Okay, I didn’t try all that hard.

“Let’s just get this over with,” I mumbled as the line crept forward.

Fifteen minutes later we were being hustled into a soggy boat by a guy dressed like he’d just escaped from some 1980s version of Pirates of Penzance . The aunts took the front seat (‘cause Millie complained she couldn’t see a darn thing from the back) and Cal and I scrunched into the middle, while a family of four was seated in the seats behind us.

We floated past the bayou, the fake star-studded sky, crickets chirping, and the old guy playing his banjo on the porch of his swamp-side home. I fidgeted nervously in my seat, every diner at the Blue Bayou a potential threat ready to strike.

“I’m scared,” I heard the little girl behind me say, ducking under her dad’s arm.

Join the club, kid.

Only it wasn’t an animatronic version of Johnny Depp I was freaked about.

I tried to settle into the ride as we slid down under the ground, past shipwrecks and ominous skeleton heads talking about ancient sea curses. Down here, it was just my boat mates and me, so unless the little kid behind me was some mini stalker, I reasoned that I was pretty safe. I sat back and tried to enjoy the ride. Though I would never admit it to Aunt Sue, it was actually one of my favorites, too. It was cool down here, the scenes were flashy, and it even had kind of a catchy tune. I almost started singing along when we got to the piles of gold and pirates singing, “yo ho,” on top of their barrels of rum.

Almost.

That is until I heard a sound that made my heart stop. A Tupperware lid burping open.

I leaned forward in my seat. “What are you doing?” I whispered to Aunt Sue.

She turned around and gave me the big innocent cow eyes. “Nothing.”

“I heard you pop the top on Mrs. C.”

Again with the innocent act, complete with eyelash fluttering this time.

“I thought we had a plan,” I hissed. “Remember the soda cup? Small World?”

Millie leaned in, joining in our whispered conversation. “Hattie loved this ride. I think she’d like a little of her to be here, too.”

“Do not, I repeat, do not , dump Mrs. Carmichael into the Pirates of the Caribbean waters!”

“Relax,” Aunt Millie told me. Which was so impossible at this point that it was almost laughable. “It’s dark. Who’s gonna see us?”

Cal had been silently listening to the exchange until now, but he leaned forward, poking Millie in the shoulder. Then pointed up to a skeleton head mounted on the ceiling with red, glowing eyes.

“Security cameras,” he explained.

Aunt Sue guiltily clutched her tote bag closed.

“This whole place is wired. You’re being watched by at least two security guards at all times on this ride.”

I looked up at the glowing eyes. “How can you tell?”

“Trust me. I know security. You’re being watched.” He pointed to a particularly shiny jewel in a pile of pirate booty. “There’s another one.”

I squinted at it, half thinking he might be bluffing. Not that I was going to call him out. If it kept the aunts from tossing Mrs. C.’s remains overboard, I was all for it.

We made it through the rest of the ride without incident (unless you counted the kid in back of me whimpering as we passed through the burned-out pirate town-which, I didn’t) and exited back into the blinding sunshine of day.

“Not to put a damper on anyone’s plans,” I said, navigating the streets of New Orleans Square back to the main thoroughfare, “but if Pirates has security cameras, doesn’t it stand to reason that Small World will, too?”

“One step ahead of you, peanut,” Aunt Sue responded.

“We already checked.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “How did you check?”

“Hidden Mickeys dot org,” Millie piped up.

“Hidden what?”

“Hidden Mickeys. See, Walt Disney had a bunch of likenesses of Mickey Mouse hidden all over the park, and it’s a game people play to try to find them all.”

I gave her a blank stare.

“Anyway,” she said, waving me off, “this website is the foremost authority on all things Disneyland. We checked. There are no security cameras, lasers, or any other sort of devices inside the Small World ride.”

“Apparently singing dolls don’t make people frisky the way pirates do,” Aunt Sue said, elbowing me in the ribs and waggling her painted on eyebrows up and down.

“There is a rumor,” Aunt Millie went on, “that there’s some sort of guard tower hidden in the ride, and employees can watch you from up there, but it’s unsubstantiated. And besides, it’s gotta be a real pain to climb down from it. I’m thinking no one’s gonna bother for a couple of old broads dumping their Coke into the water, right?”

For all our sakes, I hoped so.

“Great. Fine. Dandy. Let’s go ride Small World then.”

“You think I could get a pair of those mouse ears while we’re here?” Aunt Sue asked, watching a little girl in pink ones walk past. “I want my name embroidered on the back in gold.”

“I’m hungry,” Aunt Millie said, eyeing the Bengal Barbecue down the walkway.

I looked from her three-inch bifocals to the restaurant. “How can you even see that? It’s like fifty yards away?”

She gave me a blank stare.

“No, no stops. We’re on a mission,” I said, shaking my head.

“But I’m hungry,” she moaned. “My doctor says I have to be very careful about keeping my blood sugar levels even.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “And Sue has to take her heart medication. She can’t do that on an empty stomach.” Millie’s magnified eyes blinked innocently up at me.

I threw my hands up. “Fine! We’ll go eat.”

“Oh,” Aunt Sue piped up, “and after we eat, can we get mouse ears? I’d love some with my name embroidered in gold.”

I thought I heard Cal snicker behind me, but he had the good sense to put a poker face in place by the time I turned around.

Reluctantly, I led the gruesome twosome to the barbecue and ordered them both chicken on a stick and pineapple coolers. By the time they’d finished the last of their meals, the crowds were beginning to pick up-families in every shape and size wearing sneakers, cargo shorts, and pasty white legs that had yet to see the California sunshine walked past. Mixed in with packs of teenagers, honeymooning couples, and groups of overseas tourists that snapped photos of anything that stood still.

I didn’t like it.

The more people who jammed the walkways, the smaller my chances of spotting my stalker before he spotted me. The crowd made me feel antsy, exposed. And I was more anxious than ever to get this done and get out of here. Preferably back to somewhere Cal could carry his gun again.

I could tell Cal felt the same way. During the meal he barely spoke a word, his body rigid as if ready to jump at the slightest provocation, his eyes relentlessly scanning the crowd. Which should have made me feel better, but the tenser he got, the tenser I got. And the more I just wanted to get the hell out of there.