Chris Mitchell Read Online Free Page B

and follow me.” He opened the door and bowed grandly. “It’s showtime!”
    I stepped through the door of the drab photo lab and into another world. Everywhere I looked, there were brilliant colors and flashing lights. Huge dinosaur skeletons and roller coasters filled with rapturous, screaming children, grinning like newlyweds on Día de Los Muertos. Vendors were in mouse ears selling mouse-shaped toys and mouse-shaped ice creams. There was music everywhere, indistinct theme songs that quickly faded into the auditory topography, and the stench of sodium and high-fructose corn syrup.
    It was like crossing the border from some undeveloped country of impoverished manufacturers into an empire of sensational hedonism. Despair didn’t exist here. Neither did gloom or desperation or sad endings. Inside the impenetrable fortress of Disney World, fairies, genies, and mermaids were real; parking tickets, dead batteries, and blurry photographs were make believe.
    It was my first time “onstage” as a Disney Cast Member, and it was thrilling. In my mind, I had just snuck into Disney World through an open back door, and now I was free to do whatever I wanted—so many gleaming handrails, so many clean surfaces. The smooth pathways banked through the vegetation, disappearing seductively beyond my reach every time I rounded a fresh corner. My shadow tugged at my heels, yearning to be set free with a pair of skates and a spray can. Orville was quick to remind me that I wasn’t there to indulge my fantasies.
    “There are thousands of details that set the Disney parks apart from other theme parks.” His deep baritone suggested he was presenting a well-rehearsed speech in front of an amphitheater of new Cast Members. “Naturally, Disney properties are well tended, their communities virtually crime free, and their roads unblemished by potholes, but these details would be wasted effort without the cheerful smiles of the Disney staff.” To demonstrate what he meant, he twisted his face into a stupendous jack-o’-lantern grin. “Now you.”
    I jerked the corners of my mouth upward the way I do when somebody points a camera my way. Orville’s face dropped.
    “Let’s try something else,” he said. “Pretend you’re standing in front of a jury, trying to convince them you’re not a sociopath….”
    Nothing was ever so bad in my life that Disney couldn’t make it better: a skinned knee, a Little League losing streak. For small things, a simple Disney movie might have been enough. For bigger problems, it took a trip to Disneyland.
    This was LA in the 1970s. The new Mickey Mouse Club dominated the after-school airwaves. Bedknobs and Broomsticks picked up an Academy Award for best special effects. Herbie the Love Bug was on a roll, and The Apple Dumpling Gang and The Witch Mountain series were the talk of the blacktop. All across America, every Sunday night, entire families fell silent as “When You Wish Upon a Star” signaled the opening credits of The Wonderful World of Disney .
    For a six-year-old kid, Disneyland was the greatest place on Earth, a destination that was reserved for the most extraordinary of special occasions. Birthday parties qualified. So did Christmas and graduation ceremonies. Of course, I wanted to go to the park every day. I wanted to live at Disneyland. Every moment away from my parents was spent conspiring to escape bedtime and vegetables and all the other shackles of childhood regulation so that I could live out my days in wonderland.
    I fantasized about inhabiting the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, that had those raucous bazaar scenes with the bawdy wenches and filthy, leering drunkards and the menacing skeletons draped over piles of glittering treasure. I would have given anything to step off the boat and disappear on one of those white-sand islands. To live among the fire-ravaged villages of the Caribbean of my dreams.
    But that wasn’t all. I wanted to be a part of the Small World ride too. And Mr.