Sometimes he hated how pragmatic Skylar was but this was just quixotic.

Jumping into a waterfall had never seemed like a good idea to him, especially after Splash Mountain and Winnie the Pooh.

So currently, they were plummeting towards the water where they'd probably be smashed on impact if they didn't pass out from the high winds.

Andrew didn't understand how they were ever justified to make a decision to jump off a cliff, they were thrown off things frequently enough.

The water grew closer, the wind whistled in their ears but the roar of the water almost deafened out everything else.

Two seconds and they would make a splash. The noise enveloped them and before they could hit the surface the two squeezed their eyes shut.

Everything went quiet and there was no liquid surrounding them.

Instead they felt a hard surface under them like they were laying on a concrete slab and in fact they kind of were.

Andrew raised his head disoriented and opened his eyes to see that he had been prostrate in front of the Partners statue.

Skylar was already standing but seemed a little fazed as well.

"What were you thinking?!" The Walt statue snapped, dislodging his metal feet from the ground. "I think I can say you weren't!"

"You didn't exactly tell us how to get out of there." Skylar replied drily.

"Well, what you did wasn't a bright idea."

Andrew got off the floor by this point and sauntered over to them lethargically. "I suggested we ride the cat."

Walt studied them carefully. "Maybe I was incorrect in assuming that you two should be here."

Now they were wide awake.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Skykar said defensively.

The time spent in this place had been dangerous and all together perilous but it had grown on them. They felt it their responsible, their thing (to put it simply), to protect and save the park.

Now realizing that being here could be taken away so easily put them both on edge.

On the other hand, they wanted desperately to escape the place that was always risking their lives and very existence.

It was odd for them to be so strongly indecisive about this but apparently this place was changing them, bit by bit.

The statue straightened up and looked down on them like a school teacher. "You were chosen mostly for your knowledge of Disneyland but now I see that when it comes to serious matters, you think you can just jump off something!"

"We had no idea how to get out of there." Andrew restated boldly, after the the metal figure had practically screamed at them.

"Well next time, figure it out! As you know the trains are now down and it was very tricky to get it here in the first place."

His last sentence caught their attention, something about the way he worded it was just strange.

"And what are we supposed to do?" Skylar responded now that he had calmed down.

"There's two options. One that you should have figured out by now." The statue chastised them although they had no idea what he was talking about. Their blank expressions clued him in. "Each attraction has some kind of code, message if you will. Unlock this message and you can the attraction, among other things."

"What kind of message?" Andrew inquired.

"It could be anything from a lyric of a song to a hidden mickey on the wall." The statue said, narrowing his eyes at them. "You haven't found any have you?"

Both shook their heads but his tone gave them a eerie feeling.

"Never mind then, we have never found any but it's just a myth anyway." He continued to analyze them as if not sure whether they were keeping something from him.

We? They thought in unison but only gave each other a glance quickly.

"What's the second option?" Skylar returned, have a strong feeling to get to the next attraction, now.

"I suppose you'll have to take the monorail."

"We'll certainly get there faster." Andrew remarked.

"Maybe that's not the best thing considering you're track record of mistakes."  The statue admonished in a rather cruel way. "This next attraction you CAN NOT screw up."

"And remind me which one exactly have we messed up?" Skylar said testily.

"The Tiki room has a lot of history, be aware of that." He said ignoring her.

Andrew was also tired of this conversation and ends up mocking the ride. "Oh yes, we have a wunderbal magic trick for you. We're walking away.. Und the trick is, we gonna make you... disappear!"

Skylar couldn't keep a smile from her lips, they know the rides so well. "Nice Fritz impression." She complimented as they walked away from the impertinent statue.

"Tank you, Tank you." He said keeping the heavy accent.

A red monorail materialized in front of them and the door slid open.

"Let's all sing like the birdies sing." Skylar pronounced happily.

"Ja, the birds stand still, und di Tiki room flies away." Andrew  added.

"Mon ami, quit talking while I'm interrupting." She laughed at her Pierre accent.

"I love it when you do French."

"Eh bien, c'est le langage de l'amour."

"Oui, Oui." Andrew said having no idea what she said and Skylar just smirked.

•

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•

"Wake up José!" Andrew and Skylar yelled at the same time.

"Aaaaaaaah my siestas are getting shorter and shorter." The bird had come to life and puffed up his yellow feathered chest.

A light was only focused on him and the rest of the room was dark. José turned on his perch that was mounted to the ceiling and looked around the room. He mostly consisted of bright yellow flowers but his head was a vibrant orange and down his back were bright blue and green feathers as well.

"Looks like you are the only two, si?" The bird said, talking directly to them. "Welcome to Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room." José turns to the bird adjacent to him. "Hey Michael mi amigo, pay attention it's show time!"

Michael proceeded in waking up Pierre and Pierre calls out to Fritz.

Michael gave out a shrill whistle and woke up the rest of the glee club. The whole room lit up revealing birds everything sitting on the upper rafters and perches of the Tiki room.

The colorful birds continue their spiel and all sang in unison 'In the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room...'

"Should we look for the ... proof?" Skylar asked over the birds singing."

"Yeah, there's the door to back stage." Andrew said leading the way out of the room.

They walked into the break room for cast members and searched around for anything from the past that would be relevant.

Paroozing the documents splayed out on the table, Andrew finally found a paper that he thought might be important.

"Listen to this," He said reading off the page. "Walt Disney discovered an antique mechanical bird in an old New Orleans antique shop. The bird could turn it's head, flap it's wings and open it's beak when chirping. He wondered if he could make similar birds but instead make them sing so he instructed the Imagineers to try and create them. They made what now are called 'Audio Animatronics'. Also used in many other classic Disneyland rides."

"This place also celebrated it's 50th anniversary a few years ago." Skylar added from her memory.

"Walt really loved this place." Andrew commented, displaying a picture of Walt working on one of the mechanical birds.

"Tiki room also was almost a restaurant called 'The Tiki Hut.'" Skylar read off off another document.

"And we can't forget about the Barker Bird." Andrew said revealing photos of Josè 2.0.

The Barker bird was originally placed at the top of the Adventureland sign to entice people to enter the Tiki room and watch the show. He was an Auto-Animatronic (AA) that looks identically to Josè in the show with the exception of his hat and bow tie. The Barker bird would talk about the exciting wonders inside the Tiki room but the problem was people would stop to watch him, blocking the entrance to Adventureland. He eventually was retired when enough people knew about the Tiki room.

"Walt--- I mean the statue was right, there is a lot of history here." Skylar sighed reminiscently.

"There was something a little off about him this time." Andrew said quietly as if afraid someone would hear him.

"I know what you mean." She responded just as softly.

"He referred to himself as...."

"We." Skylar finished.

"So you caught that too." He replied.

She nodded in response.

Loud booming let out and the lights of the room flickered then went out completely.

"What just happened?" Skylar's voice said out of the darkness.

"It's the storm. Come on." Andrew said assuredly.

Somehow, he knew where Skylar was standing before the lights turned out and he guided her out the door and back to the room filled with colorful birds.

The room was dimly lit with birds squawking and chirping all around. Clouds had formed not outside but inside the Tiki room hiding the ceiling. It poured down rain and thunder clapped every minute.

Half a minute in the room, the two were soaked from head to toe.

"Ack! Somebody has stolen my thunder." Pierre exclaimed.

"I think someone has left the shower running." Josè remarked.

The rain downfall decreased to a light sprinkling and then stopped all together as the clouds began to disperse.

"Be careful my fine friends, the gods have been angered by all the celebrating. But me buckos, every cloud has a silver lining." Fritz said optimistically.

Andrew glanced up at the clouds as the last evaporated. He thought back to the statue's words of how there might be a code aka a puzzle they'd have to figure out in order to exit the attraction, among other things.

The partners statue had a strange syntax when he had talked to them last and it still was captivating their thoughts now.

The tiki room show came to an end with all the birds singing "Heigh ho, Heigh ho, it's out the door you go. We hope you've all enjoyed the show, heigh ho, heigh ho, heigh ho, heigh ho, heigh ho, keep marching in a row..."

The 'heigh ho' sounded very close to the song tune that the 7 dwarfs in SnowWhite sang as they went to work, Skylar noted in her head.

Besides the rain inside the Tiki room, the rest of the show was pretty much the same.The only other difference was that the doors to exit did not open and as the birds said their last line the room once again went dark.

"Do we board the monorail now?" Skylar said, breaking the silence.

"No, we see the show again."

"Why?"

"Clouds."

•

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•

"Let's all sing like the birdies sing, tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet."

Skylar and Andrew sing along jovially with the birds while enjoying the cool, sweet dole whips that the bag provided for them.

"You know what the directions advised us to do?" Skylar said having read them earlier.

"What? Something completely vague and unhelpful I bet." Andrew replied.

"Sing like the birdies sing and warble like nightingales."

"Like I said." Andrew commented.

The 'girls', white feathered cockatoos, spun slowly on the bird mobile in the center of the room, also crooning. There was Colette, Suzette, Mimi, Gigi, Fifi, and Josephine.

Everyone sang the 'National Anthem' and the cockatoo's mobile ascended back into the ceiling.

"A little applause for the girls!" José said enthusiastically.

All the flower beds lowered from the ceiling and flowers popped up and began to croon. The musical luau is peaceful and their soft voices were very calming. Long thin limbed flowers with bright orange leaves started to sing the base and they belted out a note every so often on a beat.

"I love the birds of paradise." Skylar said pensively.

"You know this is the first attraction that hasn't tried to kill us." Andrew voiced over the din.

"Small World Holiday wasn't bad, but don't jinx it!" She scolded back jokingly.

The wooden tiki statues above their heads began to drum and the totem poles chanted. The flowers crooned and the birds squawked. Everything went to mayhem and the whole tiki room made noise, except for the two humans.

"Watch the clouds!" Andrew yelled over the tumult.

The first roll of thunder let out and the lights turned off once again. They both observed as the clouds formed in an instant and began to pelt them with water.

As Josè hooted and a dim spotlight shined on him, the two studied the clouds.

Sure enough a silver line formed around each cloud. It was very subtle and almost impossible to see in the faint luminescence but they recognized it nevertheless. It was certainly out of place, but so were they.

"How do we get up there?" Andrew questioned exasperatedly.

Skylar didn't respond but had to act quickly before they dispersed again.

The tiki room has thick long wooden beams running up the sides of the building until they met at the top also known as the ceiling. Thinner ones also ran across the tall windows, leaving only small slates in between them.The beams didn't really provide any actual structural support but they kept the effect that you were an actual hut.

The window slates were too thin for Skylar to fit her foot in between them so she had to attempt climb the totem poles which was quite arduous considering they were chanting.

These poles had always creeped her out a little, the way their eyes moved slowly in a haze watching you as their eyes blink one at a time was very disturbing. On top of that, their mouths open and shut slowly, occasionally showing their sharp pointy teeth.

Skylar was reluctant to mount but had no other options. She swiftly grabbed a crevice in the engraving and began to ascend. They weren't terribly long but Skylar yelped as her foot slipped and ended up in it's mouth which almost closed on her. The 8 eyes followed her all the way up and she was glad to be rid of them when she grabbed the ledge above the pole. Skylar got her foot up on the ledge and eventually stood up on the narrow shelf. The birds of paradise sang below her.

Now the real work began. She glanced back up at the ceiling and realized in a panic that there were only a few clouds left. The show was about to end and she had to hurry if she was going to catch that cloud.

The few left were on the side across from Skylar. She'd have to navigate over or through the drummers to get there and that's exactly what she did.

As they drummed the finally goodbye, Skylar approached them cautiously but quickly. The first short figure had it's hunched back facing her and was pounding steadily on wooden drum. She is tall enough to step over it, widening her legs as far as possible and awkwardly bringing her other leg over him.

The second figure was taller than she is and it's head turned toward her dangling a feather attached to his hat in her face. She jerked her neck back to avoid eating the plume by can't step back without falling over the other drummer behind her. This figure faced the audience and was thudding even harder on the drum. It's head had a very long nose and two ears? coming out the side of it's head. Skylar had to duck not to be hit with this as well. It's red sequin eyes seemed to glint and sway with it's head making it all the more alive.

She considered a dangerous maneuver and decides this is the only way. Skylar clutched a stalactite in one hand just incase she slipped, she wanted something to stop her from falling although she cringed at the thought of having to drive the stake into these old walls. Skylar wondered if it would show up in Disneyland too but hopefully she won't have to test her theory.

Focused on the head movement of the tiki, she grabbed the tip of the nose as it swings her way and Skylar oscillated her feet onto the drum, praying it will hold her weight. Then as the head jerked to the left she moved  with it and landed on the other side of the drummer.

One more to go. She emboldened herself.

Seeing that the third tiki is identical to the first, Skylar used the same strategy to step over it.

Skylar found a similar shelf on this side and hugged the wall, beginning to climb it.

Up a few beams and Skylar finally reached the last dissipating cloud. It's shimmering outline was still visible, barely, and she reached out to touch it.

She had always wondered what a cloud felt like and now she knew. It was a weird sensation to swat at a puff of air, and it kind of tingled. Since it was a rain cloud it left a dampness to her hand but she couldn't care less.

Skylar drew her finger along the 'silver lining' of the cloud and it was shiny as ever, almost blinding and then so beyond blinding that she had to squint.

"We gonna make you all disappear!" Fritz exclaims and they did.

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Hey guys!!!! Hope everyone had a great Easter :D I've decided to update every other Wednesday because that's what's been happening lately. If I finish them sooner I'll be sure to update it!
Vote on this chapter for me will ya? Thanks <3