Chapter 3
The Walker family arrived at their hotel on Harbor Blvd. It was one of the many located across the street from Disneyland Resort and was a short walk from the park. Once they found an available parking spot, Dizzy, Ana, and Michelle climbed out of the van and began stretching their legs after the long drive.
The sound of wheels rolling and bouncing on concrete was approaching behind them and Dizzy turned to see a tall man in a dark blue polo shirt, khaki pants, dress shoes, and sunglasses pushing a bellman cart toward their van. That is great service, Dizzy thought to himself.
“Hey gorgeous!” the man said to Michelle.
Great service and creepy employees, Dizzy thought.
“Steve!” She dropped her purse and rushed to the man pushing the cart. She threw her arms around him and gave him a long hug.
“Steve works at this place?” Dizzy asked.
“Of course not,” Michelle corrected him. “Now get over here and let me introduce you.”
Dizzy dropped his backpack and walked over to his mom and Steve. Ana was walking closely behind him, acting shy for the first time in her life.
“Steve, this is my son Dizzy and my daughter Ana,” Michelle began. “Dizzy and Ana, this is Steve.” She had been looking forward to this moment the entire drive to Anaheim. She knew meeting her new boyfriend would be uncomfortable for her children, but she wanted them to at least give Steve a chance. She had told her kids countless times that Steve was a good man and made her happy. This trip was his gift to them and she hoped the vacation would bring them together.
Dizzy raised his hand to shake Steve’s and looked up into his face. He only saw his own reflection in Steve’s glasses.
“It is nice to meet you Dizzy,” Steve said. “Your mom has told me a lot about you.”
“That’s nice,” Dizzy replied quietly. She hasn’t told us anything about you, he wanted to say.
“And you must be Ana,” Steve said, bending at the knees so he was at Ana’s height. “Your mom told me you love Disneyland, so I bought you something.”
Ana’s shyness was fading away.
“You did?” she asked.
“I did.”
Steve reached into the backpack he was wearing and pulled out a small wrapped box. He handed the box to Ana and stood back up, wrapping his arm around Dizzy’s mom’s waist. Ana turned the box over in her hands. She looked up at Dizzy, as if to ask permission to accept the gift and open it. Dizzy smiled at her and she ripped open the wrapping.
She held in her hands a small pink book. The front cover had blue, bold lettering that read “Ana’s 1st Disneyland Trip.”
“Do you like it?” Steve asked.
“It’s a book,” Ana said, flipping through the pages. “But all the pages are blank.” Ana was confused, but quickly remembered her manners. “Umm, thank you.”
“It’s not just any book,” Steve said to her. “It is an autograph book. You take that with you to Disneyland and every time you meet a character, they will sign their name in your book for you to keep forever.”
“Their real autograph?” Ana asked excitedly. “Like the real Mickey, Minnie, and Cinderella’s autographs?”
“The autographs aren’t real,” a voice said from behind them. The group turned and saw a tall boy wearing an old baseball cap, a green t-shirt, and jeans.
“Hey there Travis,” Steve said to the boy. “Come on over here and meet everyone.” Travis reluctantly walked over to his dad and stood beside him, his eyes pointed at the ground. “Travis, this is Michelle, the woman I have been seeing. And these are her kids, Ana and Dizzy.”
Travis looked up after hearing Dizzy’s name.
“Dizzy. What kind of name is that?"
Dizzy was used to people making fun of his nickname, so Travis’s question didn’t bother him.
“Hi Travis. It’s nice to meet you.” Dizzy reached out to shake Travis’s hand, but Travis did not return the gesture. Dizzy stood there feeling like an idiot until Ana jumped up and gave him a high five.
“I love my brother’s name,” Ana said excitedly. “Dizzy, Dizzy, makes me dizzy.” She was spinning in circles with her arms stretched out wide. She stopped, wobbled a little bit from her spinning, and looked at Travis. “What did you mean the autographs aren’t real?”
“They are just…” Travis started to say, but was interrupted by his dad.
“Let’s get these bags up to the rooms,” Steve said, trying to change the subject. “I’m sure everyone is excited to get to Disneyland!”
Ana and Dizzy gave each other another high five, but Travis acted like his father just suggested they all go to the dentist.
“Yeah, sounds great,” Travis said. “Let’s go see some dumb mouse and ride a bunch of kiddy rides.”
Dizzy had seen that attitude before. It was the exact same response he got from his classmates when he wore his Disneyland shirt the first day of school. Another teenager that is too cool for Disneyland, Dizzy thought to himself. Dizzy didn’t care what Travis thought. As far as Dizzy was concerned, Travis was just a stranger that he had to spend a couple of days with. If Travis didn’t want to have fun at Disneyland, Dizzy assured himself he wouldn’t let Travis spoil his or Ana’s trip.
They loaded up the bellman’s cart with the luggage from the van and started for the elevators. When they reached their rooms, Steve inserted the key card, the little light turned from red to green, and the door unlocked.
“Cool,” said Ana. This was her first time staying in a hotel and hadn’t expected the door to unlock with a card.
“Easily impressed, huh?” Travis mumbled as he entered the room.
The room had two beds, a small couch, a flat screen TV hanging on the wall, a desk, a small refrigerator, and a door in the middle of the room. The back of the room held the bathroom and a closet, which already had several items falling out of it.
“Where does this go?” Ana asked, unlocking and opening the door. She swung it open and saw another door. “This door is broken. All it goes to is another door.”
“I thought you kids could stay in this room,” Steve said while unloading Ana and Dizzy’s bags. “That door connects to our room, so we are only a few steps away.”
The door in front of Ana opened and she saw her mom standing in a room that was almost the same as theirs.
“Hi sweetie,” said Ana’s mom. “Do you think you will be ok in the next room?”
“Of course mom,” Dizzy said. “We will be fine.”
Dizzy was not happy about having to share a room with Travis, who had made it very clear that he had no intentions of becoming friends.
“Who’s ready to head to the park?” Steve asked excitedly.
“Me!” Ana screamed. “I’m ready!”
“Good, because Mickey is waiting for you,” Steve said, tapping Ana on the nose. “And don’t forget your autograph book.”
“Got it!” Ana said.
As they began their walk toward Disneyland, Dizzy’s excitement grew. He held Ana’s hand while she skipped along side of him. Steve and his mom held hands a few steps behind them, and Travis was walking alone with his headphones on a few more steps back from them.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Steve said, pulling out his wallet and walking faster to catch up to Dizzy. “I gave your sister her present and in all the excitement I completely forgot about yours.”
“No thank you,” Dizzy said, before Steve was able to take anything out. He was sure Steve was going to give him money, but with Steve already paying for the hotel room and tickets to the park, he felt bad about accepting anything else.
“Don’t you at least want to see what it is?” Steve asked, smiling at Dizzy. “Here, open it.”
He handed Dizzy a small envelope with the Disneyland logo on it. Dizzy opened the envelope and found twelve tickets that said “All Access Fast Pass” on the top. Dizzy read the writing on the ticket out loud.
/> “The holder of this ticket may continue to the front of the line on any ride at any time. Show this ticket to a cast member at the chosen ride for instructions.”
“Wow!” said Dizzy’s mom. “Doesn’t that sound great? You can jump to the front of the line on any ride you want. What a nice gift.” She leaned over and gave Steve a kiss on the cheek.
“These are great,” Dizzy said to Steve. “Thank you so much.”
Dizzy was really starting to like Steve. He was a nice enough guy, made his mom happy, and Ana seemed to like him. Maybe this vacation would turn out ok after all.
“Don’t forget to share those passes Spinny,” Travis said, now catching up to the rest of the group. “And we aren’t spending them all on something stupid like the Tea Cups.”
“Why would we use them on the Tea Cups?” Dizzy asked, ignoring Travis’s attempt at making fun of his name.
“I figured since your name is Dizzy, you would love a ride like that,” Travis replied.
“Dizzy actually has really bad motion sickness,” Dizzy’s mom said. “I don’t think he’ll ride anything that spins like the Tea Cups.”
Dizzy’s motion sickness had been a problem for years. He would get nauseous if he rode anything with repetitive motion, which meant no swing sets, teeter totters, or merry-go-rounds. In short, if Dizzy got dizzy everyone around would see what he had for breakfast.
“So you won’t be able to go on anything?” Travis asked. “Dad, I told you we should have just kept those passes for ourselves.”
“I can go on rides,” Dizzy said, standing up for himself. “Don’t worry about me.”
“They are arguing just like brothers,” Dizzy’s mom said smiling. “I can already tell this is going to be a great vacation.”
Dizzy wasn’t going to let Travis spoil his great mood. In just a few minutes, he would hand his ticket to a cast member, walk through the turnstile, and be back in Disneyland.
At that moment he was the happiest boy on Earth entering the happiest place on Earth.