Welcome to Wonderland #4 Page 10

  At his go-kart track, all the cars are shaped like alligators.

  We went up to Snarlin’ Garland’s on Saturday morning so we could check out the road rally they’d be staging for the panel of judges.

  Mom drove us this time.

  Once again, slick professional greeters helped us park our car and find our seats.

  The Snarlin’ Garland’s experience, I have to admit, was pretty awesome. Roaring engines. Snazzy alligator cars. Cool helmets and jumpsuits with gas station and oil company patches plastered all over them.

  The racetrack had an awesome Everglades theme. You had to race around swamps and panthers and pythons and ten-foot-tall mutant mosquitoes.

  Video clips of Snarlin’ Garland shouting “Shoo-wee!” and “Dadgum, that’s good gas-pedalin’!” and “Go get ’er, gators!” played on a JumboTron scoreboard between races.

  We all took a spin around the track in our mini-gator go-karts. It was awesome.

  When we crossed the finish line and climbed out of our rides, one of the cool pit crew bosses—a college girl in make-believe mechanic overalls—ran over to us.

  “Hey there, gang!” she said. “We need one more racer for the Hot Gator Five Hundred!”

  “One of us?” said Dill.

  “Yep!”

  Dill started hopping up and down.

  He seemed excited. More excited than usual.

  “What’s the Hot Gator Five Hundred?” asked Dill eagerly.

  “It’s a five-lap race around the track and today’s main event,” said the pit crew boss. “The winner will be going home with five hundred Atomic Fireballs!”

  Dill’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull. “Those red-hot cinnamon jawbreakers?”

  “That’s right!”

  “I love Atomic Fireballs!”

  “Well, then, climb back into your gator kart. You have another race comin’ up!”

  Dill turned to Gloria and me. He had a sheepish look on his face.

  “Does either of you guys want to race in the Hot Gator Five Hundred instead?”

  “Nope,” I said. “The Atomic Fireballs are all yours.”

  “As much as I enjoyed our spin around the track,” said Gloria, “I’m not a major go-kart fan. Even ones molded to resemble crocodilian reptiles. I’m also not very keen on Atomic Fireballs. They turn my tongue red.”

  “Exactly!” said Dill.

  I clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Go win the big race, Dill. Just promise us one thing.”

  “Sure. Anything. What is it?”

  “That you’ll have fun.”

  “Definitely!”

  The pit crew boss showed Dill where the starting line for the big race would be. Gloria and I made our way up to the bleachers, where we’d watch the main event with Mom, who had already ordered us a big box of cheesy nachos.

  (You ever wonder how they get that pumpable nacho cheese to be so orange and gloppy? Me too. But I don’t think I want to know.)

  The Hot Gator 500 race was incredible.

  We could hear Dill’s giggles and shrieks all the way up in the fifteenth row. They were louder than the screaming engines and the screeching tires combined.

  When the checkered flag fell, Dill was in the lead. He crossed the finish line first and zoomed into the winner’s circle, where the pit crew boss presented him with a loving cup trophy overflowing with Atomic Fireballs.

  As happy as I was that Dill had won, I realized that the Wonderland had sort of lost.

  Because I could see the panel of judges giving Dill and Snarlin’ Garland’s Alligator Alley racetrack a standing ovation.

  Dill waved to us to come down and join him and Snarlin’ Garland in the winner’s circle.

  “You guys?” said Dill. “This is Snarlin’ Garland Dupree! The real deal!”

  The big man shot out his hand.

  “How y’all doin’?” he asked. “Dill here tells me you folks are related to the one and only Walt Wilkie!”

  “He’s my father,” said Mom.

  I smiled proudly. “And my grandpa.”

  “He’s sort of my grandpa, too,” said Gloria. “I guess. Kind of.”

  “Totally,” I said. “You guys are definitely like family.”

  “I just met him,” said Dill. “But he’s awesome.”

  “That he is, little man,” said Snarlin’ Garland, rubbing Dill’s bristly crew cut. “You folks enjoy the race?”

  “We certainly did,” said Mom.

  Garland laughed. “It were galdern fun, weren’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Mom, “it were.”

  “Well, ma’ams, sirs, that’s what Alligator Alley is all about. Sizzlin’, smokin’, tailpipe-chokin’, goin’-for-broke’in fun in the sun. You know where I got the idea to turn go-karts into alley-gators?”

  “The zoo?” suggested Dill.

  “Nope. From an old-school attraction I used to frequent when I was your all’s age.” He pointed at Dill, Gloria, and me. Not Mom. “Place called Walt Wilkie’s Wonder World.”

  Mom smiled. “Is that so?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I tell you what, your diddy and granddiddy? Back in the day, that man was a world-class entertainer and impresario. He used to have this merry-go-round with all sorts of silly saddled critters. Ducks, geese, turtles, bunny rabbits, and one big, honkin’ gator. That’s the one I always wanted. ‘Gotta git us the gator,’ I’d tell my diddy. We’d go runnin’, beat everybody else. They all wanted that gator. See, I remembertated that when I built this here go-kart track.

  “Good times,” he said. “Walt Wilkie knew how to make anything fun. Even a liddy-biddy railroad looping around his parking lot. I still have a ton of tin stars I earned being deputized on that particular ride for fightin’ off the train robbers. It was galdern fun ’cause that, ladies and gents, was always the Walt Wilkie way.”

  “Um, maybe you haven’t heard,” I said, “but he’s up against you in this competition.”

  “Is that so? I didn’t see Wonder World on the list.”

  “We’re called the Wonderland now,” said Mom. “We’re a motel.”

  “And semi–amusement park,” I added. “We have attractions. Shows.”

  “Well, dang,” said Garland, “I sure hope y’all win.”

  “Huh?” I said.

  “Shoot, son. Your granddiddy practically invented Florida-style fun in the sun. About time somebody gave him a galdern tin star or trophy for it.”

  Mom drove us home to the Wonderland around noon.

  We were all feeling pretty good after hearing Snarlin’ Garland rave about Grandpa. All of us also had scorched tongues, because Dill insisted on sharing his Atomic Fireballs.

  “I still have like four hundred and ninety left!” he said as we pulled into the parking lot.

  Through the lobby windows, we could see Mr. Ortega doing his end zone dance again. It reminded me of a flamingo walking across a waffle iron.

  “Wonder what he’s so happy about,” Mom said as we all climbed out of the car.

  “Maybe he heard about my go-kart race!” said Dill. “He probably wants to put me on the WTSP sports report! I better take these to my room before they melt.”

  Dill ran off with his jawbreakers. The rest of us trooped into the lobby and learned the real reason for Mr. Ortega’s happy dance.

  “ESPN loves my Johnny Zeng angle!” he said with a sideways arm pump. “They just texted me. Ladies and gentlemen, put thirty seconds on the shot clock. It’s do-or-die time. Johnny Z will land tomorrow at two p.m. After we chitchat, we’ll shoot some B-roll of his first foray into Frolf.”

  I didn’t think I’d ever seen Mr. O so pumped.

  “Congratulations, Dad,” said Gloria.

  “ESPN loved the child-prodigy-gets-to-be-a-normal-kid angle.
So kudos to you on that, P.T.”

  “Glad I could help.”

  Mr. Ortega struck a pose and checked his reflection in the mini mirror at the top of our sunglasses rack.

  “Yes, sports fans, the chair behind the ESPN desk is still wide open. It’s anybody’s game. Sure, Biff Billington has some quality wins on his demo reel, but I think I’m peaking at just the right time!”

  “That’s such great news, Manny,” said Mom.

  She was smiling, but I could tell it was the kind of smile that sort of hurts. She was happy for Mr. Ortega. But I think she was sad for herself.

  ESPN’s studios are in Bristol, Connecticut, not St. Petersburg, Florida. If Mr. Ortega became one of the big dogs at ESPN, he’d be moving out of the Wonderland. Heck, he’d be moving out of the state.

  Also, if Mr. Ortega moved to Connecticut, chances were he’d take his daughter.

  I wasn’t sure how I’d handle that.

  Gloria and I had become a pretty awesome team. She was the steak; I was the sizzle. I had the wacky ideas; she knew how to make them work. She was also an extremely excellent friend.

  I probably would’ve said something silly to cheer Mom up (it’s what I usually do), but I heard a scream and a kerthud out back.

  “Aw, nuts!”

  It was Grandpa.

  Grandpa had been very, very busy while we were in Sarasota checking out Snarlin’ Garland’s Alligator Alley.

  He’d sawed the tail off Dino, our giant fiberglass dinosaur statue, and tried to reattach it with the kind of knuckle hinges you’d use on a shed door.

  “I’m trying to get it to swish and sway,” he explained when we all ran out to see what had caused the crash. He was tightening up some screws on the wing plates connecting the sawed-off tail to the dinosaur’s (now) stubby butt. Dill was there, watching him.

  “If it works,” said Grandpa, “it’ll be just like that T. rex hazard at the Super Fun Castle.”

  He uncoiled a yellow nylon rope he’d looped around the tip of Dino’s tail, and raced to the far side of the parking lot.

  “The Super Fun Castle’s got nothing on us!” he hollered. “Watch this!”

  Grandpa gave the line a good, strong yank.

  The dinosaur tail popped off and crashed to the pavement. Again.

  “Aw, nuts! It was supposed to wag!”

  “Dad?” said Mom.

  “Yes, Wanda?”

  She sighed. A real shoulder-sagger. “Never mind.”

  She went back to the lobby. Mr. Ortega went with her. Because, like I said before, he’s a good guy.

  “Your thinking is sound, Mr. Wilkie,” Gloria said to Grandpa. “Animating the statue would definitely put us on a more equal footing with our primary competitor.”

  “Or,” said Dill, trying to be helpful, “you could load the tail with my Atomic Fireballs, and it could be like a prehistoric piñata. Every time you yanked off the tail, candy would pour out.”

  Grandpa dropped the rope.

  “Ah, who am I trying to kid?” said Grandpa. It sounded as if somebody had knocked all the air out of him. All the spirit and fight, too.

  “I’m no Walt Disney. Never have been. Never will be.”

  “You don’t have to be!” I told him. “You’re Walt Wilkie!”

  He nodded. “Right. The one that nobody’s ever heard of.”

  “Snarlin’ Garland has,” I told him.

  “Is that so?”

  “He thinks you’re awesome,” added Dill.

  “Nope. I’m just a nobody who’s never done much of anything.”

  “Don’t say that, Grandpa,” I begged. “Come on. It’s like I read in a book once. The game isn’t really over until it’s over.”

  “This game is done, P.T. Finished. Kaput. As Gloria’s father says all the time on TV, the fat lady has sung.”

  “That,” Gloria explained to Dill, “is an unfortunate and somewhat stereotypical sportscaster reference to opera, many of which end with a lady of some heft and girth singing—usually in a winged helmet.”

  “Oh,” said Dill. “I did not know that.”

  Grandpa wasn’t listening to any of us. He flapped his hand at the world.

  “We should’ve sold out to Mr. Conch and moved to Arizona like your mother wanted to,” he said. “I’m too old to be acting like a big kid.”

  “I find your antics to be quite amusing, sir,” said Dill.

  “Well, Dill, to tell you the truth, right now I just find them to be sad. And exhausting. Oy. I need a bologna sandwich. And a nap.”

  He hobbled off to his workshop. It was like he had aged fifteen years in fifteen seconds.

  We all probably should’ve been getting ready for our big Sunday with the judges. We barely had twenty-four hours to prepare for their arrival.

  But nobody was in the mood. Sure, we still had the Frolf tournament and Johnny Zeng, but compared to all the action at the Super Fun Castle and the Hot Gator 500, they seemed pretty puny.

  Gloria went up to her room to plot her stock portfolio picks for when the market reopened on Monday. “We still have a little money in our account. I might be able to orchestrate a rally.”

  Dill went back to his room, too.

  Me?

  I sank to the curb and started thinking about what a horrible mistake I’d made.

  I had wanted to make Grandpa’s lifelong dream come true.

  I had wanted him to see himself in the same league as Walt Disney, because that was where I’d seen him my whole life. To me, Grandpa was way bigger than Disney.

  He had given me everything.

  But I couldn’t give him the one thing he wanted more than anything in the world.

  I felt like a dinosaur with a tail that wouldn’t wag.

  Useless.

  While I was sitting there moping, feeling sorry for myself, Air Fur One trotted over.

  He was carrying a plastic disc in his mouth, but he dropped it at my feet so he could hop up, put his front paws on my knees, and lick my face.

  I don’t speak Dog. But I think his wet tongue was trying to tell me, Snap out of it, pal!

  “Okay,” I said, “you want to play?”

  I bent down and picked up the Frisbee.

  His tail wag told me, You bet!

  I flung the disc.

  It floated toward the pool.

  He leapt up, snared the wobbly plastic plate, and gently touched down. Then he trotted back with the Frisbee, which he once again dropped at my feet.

  I picked it up and gave it another fling.

  He chased it down and brought it back.

  I tossed, he retrieved.

  We kept at it for maybe half an hour.

  No matter where I hurled that disc, no matter what obstacles he had to overcome, the dog went after it. He just wouldn’t quit, maybe because he loved what he was doing so much.

  Maybe because he knew how good he was at it.

  Air Fur One definitely had a talent.

  And so did I.

  I had a wild imagination and a real knack for making up stories. So maybe that was all we really needed to win the Florida Fun in the Sun competition. Maybe Grandpa had forgotten what he’d taught me years ago, but I hadn’t: “Sell the sizzle, P.T., not the steak.”

  “Come here, boy!” I shouted.

  Air Fur One finally dropped the disc and leapt up into my arms.

  “I get it!” I told him. “I won’t give up, either. No matter what.”

  And while the dog licked my face like I was an all-day meat loaf sucker, Jimbo ambled over, wiping his hands on a dishrag he uses to mop up the counter at the Banana Shack.

  “Looks like Air Fur One did the job I sent him over here to do.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He sure did.” />
  “Well, guess what, man? It’s time for you to go do yours!”

  It was about two o’clock on Saturday.

  The judges would be dropping by the Wonderland at two o’clock on Sunday. That meant we had a whole day to clutch victory from the jaws of defeat, which is something Mr. Ortega said one time when he was reporting on a high school football game. It figures that defeat has jaws. Well, I wasn’t going to be gulped down without a fight.

  I called a quick meeting of the Wonderland Motel Brain Trust. That’s basically Gloria. I also invited Dill, because the kid seemed to get a kick out of hanging with us.

  “You guys,” I said when we were assembled around a table at the Banana Shack, “we can still win this thing. We have the golf wunderkind Johnny Zeng. We have Air Fur One. We have the banana cream pie, mermaid, bologna sandwich, and game rooms. So, what do those other guys have that we don’t?”

  “Exploding helicopters,” said Dill. “And kick-butt go-karts.”

  “I mean besides the physical stuff, the stuff we can’t build in less than a day.”

  “Well,” said Gloria, “if I may?”

  She opened up a small spiral notebook, where I guessed she’d been jotting down her competitive analysis homework.

  “The customer service personnel at both Snarlin’ Garland’s Alligator Alley and the Super Fun Castle have a much more polished and professional appearance than we maintain here.”

  She was looking at me when she said that. I probably hadn’t tucked my shirt into my pants since the last time Mom and I had gone to the Don CeSar Hotel for Mother’s Day brunch.

  “They wear a lot of polo shirts,” said Dill. “And the shirts are all the same color.”