“Mango voles!” exclaimed Jason Whelper. “Dad, did you hear? Maybe that’s what landed in our car. Maybe those guys in the pickup truck were the crooks!”
Terry Whelper took his son by the arm and led him back toward the tram, away from the tourist crowd. Gerri and Jennifer followed steadfastly.
Gerri whispered to her husband: “What do you think? Maybe Jason is right.”
“I don’t know what to think. You were the one who wanted to come to Florida.”
Jason cut in: “Dad, there was only two of those mangos left in the whole-wide world. And we shot one!”
“No, we didn’t. The policeman did.”
“But we told him to!”
Terry Whelper said, “Be quiet, son. We didn’t know.”
“Your father’s right,” added Gerri. “How were we to know?”
Jennifer hugged her mother fiercely around the waist. “I’m so scared—can we drive to Epcot instead?”
“Excellent idea,” said Terry Whelper. Like a cavalry commander, he raised his right arm and cocked two fingers toward the parking lot. “Everybody back to the car.”
TWO
As soon as Charles Chelsea got back to the Publicity Department, he took a poll of the secretaries. “How was I?” he asked. “How’d I do? What about the necktie?”
The secretaries told Chelsea that he looked terrific on television, that loosening the necktie was a nifty touch, that overall it was quite a solid performance. Chelsea asked if Mr. Kingsbury had called, but the secretaries said he hadn’t.
“Wonder why not,” said Chelsea.
“He’s playing golf up at Ocean Reef.”
“Yeah, but he’s got a cellular. He could’ve called.” Chelsea told one of the secretaries to get Joe Winder, and then went into his private office and closed the door.
Ten minutes later, when Joe Winder got there, Charles Chelsea was watching himself on the VCR, reliving the press conference.
“Whadja think?” he asked, motioning at the television screen in the cabinet.
“I missed it,” said Joe Winder.
“You missed it? It was your bloody speech—how’d you miss it?”
“I heard you were dynamite.”
Charles Chelsea broke into a grin. “Yeah? Who said?”
“Everybody,” lied Joe Winder. “They said you’re another Mario Cuomo.”
“Well, your speech had something to do with it.”
It wasn’t a speech, Winder thought; it was a statement. Forty lines, big deal.
“It was a great speech, Joe,” Chelsea went on, “except for one part. Specially climatized habitat. That’s a mouthful. Maybe we should’ve tried something else.” With pursed lips he repeated the culprit phrase: “Climatized habitat—when I was trying to say it, I accidentally spit on that girl from Channel 10. The cute one. Next time be more careful, okay? Don’t sneak in any zingers without me knowing.”
Joe Winder said, “I was in a hurry.” The backs of his eyeballs were starting to throb. Sinus headache: Chelsea always gave him one. But Winder had to admit, the guy looked like a million bucks in an oxford shirt. He looked like a vice president in charge of public relations, which he was.
Chelsea was saying, “I don’t even know what it means, climatized habitat.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Winder said.
“Now, now.” Chelsea wagged a well-tanned finger. “None of that, Joey. There’s no place for cynics here at the Amazing Kingdom. You know what Kingsbury says.”
“Yeah. We’re all little kids.” Winder kneaded his skull with both hands, trying to squeeze out the pain.
“Children,” Charles Chelsea said. He turned off the VCR and spun his chair to face Joe Winder. “The moment we walk through that gate, we’re all children. We see the world through children’s eyes; we cry children’s tears, we laugh children’s laughter. We’re all innocent again, Joe, and where there’s innocence there can’t be cynicism. Not here in the Amazing Kingdom.”
Joe Winder said, “You’re giving me a fucking headache. I hope you’re happy.”
Charles Chelsea’s blue eyes narrowed and darkened. “Look, we hired you because you’re good and you’re fast. But this isn’t a big-city newsroom, you can’t use that type of coarse language. Children don’t talk like that, Joe. That’s gutter language.”
“Sorry,” said Winder, concealing his amusement. Gutter language, that was a good one.
“When’s the last time you heard a child say that word?”
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