Wayne would have been proud.

“We’ll meet after school. We’ve got to find Wayne.”

He raised his right hand. In it was the black remote with the small button at its center.

“Ready?” he said.

The others nodded.

He pushed the button.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Kingdom Keepers novels depend on a team, in part because the research conducted inside the Parks, and also about the Parks, is both complex and time-consuming, and ultimately essential to the story.

First, I want to thank my co-writer (from other novels), Dave Barry, who, during a car ride to Orlando’s airport made suggestions to the outline that formed and framed the book, forever changing it. He jokes how I’m the “plot guy” in our partnership, but for once he is “making this up.” He set the clock in the book ticking and gave me one of the most important twists. Thanks.

The real dedication of the book should probably be to Alex Wright, a Disney Imagineer, a man with tireless patience, who has endured (and I am not making this up!) hundreds of e-mails where I picked his brain for details. Alex also hosted several behind-the-scene tours for me in Animal Kingdom and introduced me to:

Dr. Joseph Soltis—Wildlife Tracking Center

Dr. Don Neiffer—Veterinary Hospital

Debbie Weber—Animal Nutrition Center

Matt Hohne—Animal Barns

Jason Surrell—Disney Imagineer (and AK tour host/insider)

I’d also like to thank my niece, Blair M. Daverman, for filling in some blanks about the sport of lacrosse.

My wife, Marcelle, along with Laurel and David Walters, as always, copyedited the various drafts. And Tanner Walters, who in sixth grade reads more than I do, gave me an early read and caught a bunch of problems. So did my daughter Paige. And thanks to daughter Storey for reading KK1 and telling me what she liked!

Special gratitude to Nandy Litzinger, my office manager; Wendy Lefkon, Disney editor; Amy Berkower, agent; Matthew Snyder, film agent; and Jennifer Levine, Disney publicist.

It obviously takes a village.

—Ridley Pearson

January 2008

St. Louis, Missouri

RIDLEY PEARSON

is the award-winning coauthor, along with Dave Barry, of Peter and the Starcatchers, Peter and the Shadow Thieves, Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, and Science Fair. He has also written more than twenty best-selling crime novels, including Killer Weekend, and the young adult novels Kingdom Keepers—Disney After Dark and Steel Trapp—The Challenge. He was the first American to be awarded the Raymond Chandler/Fulbright Fellowship in Detective Fiction at Oxford University.