A story by David Foxfire, based on a fictional version of the Walt Disney World resort, and is used for a parodial purpose.  The Walt Disney Company did not authorize or endorsed this story. Artwork by David Foxfire, colored by Rich Koster

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Chapter 1

It was evening time over at the Polynesian Resort, and most of the crowd there were adult humans looking for a break from their children to wind down from their exciting day on property, usually with the local drink, the pineapple contained Lapu Lapu.

One of the hula-skirted waitresses handed one to a tall table with something that looked like a stuffed rodent sitting in a tall chair and almost did a double take. Not because she thought she just served a stuffed animal. But rather finding out that the stuffed animal moved. The rodent looked up to her with bright green eyes and wiggled his nose. His ears unfurled into large pink dishes, one gray furred, the other black.

“You must be Johnny,” the waitress said. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“I’m with a friend,” Johnny said, his voice a more mellowed falsetto than Mickey’s. “So that’s a Lapu Lapu?” He leaned over to sniff at it.

“You want one?” the waitress asked. When she saw the nod, she lowered one of the marked pineapple jugs in front of him. “This one doesn’t have that much a kick, on me, little guy.”

The waitress scratched Johnny’s forehead, producing a soft churr, before she walked away.

The manager saw all that. “Janet, did you just give Johnny Briz a Lapu Lapu, he’s a little small for…”

“It’s one of the low alcohol ones, Phil,” Janet said as she passed by. “He won’t be flying about.”

And it was, according to Johnny’s nose. The combined aroma of Rum, Orange Juice, Sour Mix, and the actual pineapple shell was intoxicating to the mouse. (Someone commented how he got so big, he just looked toward the voice and go, “I got tiger blood in my veins,” and chuckled.) And he could smell the sting of the alcohol in the first drink, which wasn’t so pronounced in the second. This lack of sting, a burning sensation from the alcohol, caused Johnny to start sipping at the Lapu Lapu he was given. It proved as heavenly as it smelled.

Also by the small sips Johnny took through the straw, as he usually does, the managers knew they wouldn’t have a drunk off his tail mousie on their hands. Johnny Briz proved to be enough of a handful sober. But the question need be asked: Why is Johnny here, and what’s that regular Lapu Lapu for?

The answer arrived with a series of shocked gasps from the human guests. They had to qualify the populace with the word ‘human’ because the arrival didn’t look human at all. Careful eyed guests identified the white-furred creature passing them by as the Yeti from Animal Kingdom’s Everest coaster. But wasn’t that yeti a Code 101 for months now? (Code 101 being Castmember Speak for ‘out of order,’ a phrase some of the more regular guests sometimes use.)

The Yeti made his way to the tall table with Johnny. He looked at the mouse sipping at a pineapple of his own. “Johnny, is that Lapu Lapu the unleaded version?”

Johnny nodded. “Yeah. I don’t think I could take the one you’re drinking. It’ll burn my insides.”

The Yeti just stood up and took his pineapple in his large hand. “And here I thought you don’t want to get drunk.”

“Are you kidding?” Johnny said as he pointed at his drink. “With my size, I’ve only sipped a tenth of this one, and already I’m feeling a bit of a buzz.”

The Yeti snorted. “A little booze does do ya, don’t it, little fella?” He rubbed Johnny’s hair.

“Eh, comes with the territory.” Johnny said as he looked out.

He was always fascinated with the lights and the sights of the amusement parks around his quiet humble village in the protected glens on property. On a clear night, he can climb up to the tops of the trees and see three light shows surround him up there in the canopy. The Magic Kingdom to the North, Epcot to the East, and Hollywood Studios to the. All going out with fireworks, lazers, lights, and sounds. If a guest thought that the night shows Disney World makes is incredible, he or she should try seeing all three of them at once.

Johnny Briz experienced just that on a regular basis before he stumbled into that lab.

“I thought people will notice ya if you left your mountain by now,” Johnny said to the Yeti.

The Yeti just shook his head and sighed. “Wish that were the case. The animatronics has been 101ed since forever. I’ve contacted every manager I knew. I’ve even contacted Imagineering over at Callie, and no response. I’m at the point so that, next time Bob Iger is here, I’m stopping his car and speaking with him personally, even if I have to be in the middle of traffic.”

“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Johnny said. “You ask me, it’s this economy, or whatever they call it.” He sipped at his Lapu Lapu. He turned to one side and saw the captivating flames from the torches. “I have to admit that I don’t know everything about global finance and all. But from what I hear from Amber and her parents, everybody’s having tough times. If things weren’t so dire, as some called it, your animatronics would have been fixed by now.”

“You’d think so?”

Johnny just shrugs. “I’m just guessing. It also explains some of the disrepair in some of the parks here. Some areas are getting rather drab and when I tell a CM about it backstage, they say it’s because money’s tight here as well.”

“Ah.”

“They just didn’t have the budget to get new stuff to renovate the parks.” Johnny concluded.

The Yeti looked over at the torches. He tilted his head wondering what makes them so entrancing to Johnny. It seems that he couldn’t pull himself away from the flickering lights.

“Say Johnny,” The Yeti said, getting Johnny’s attention. “There’s a lot of those torches in storage. About three thousands of them. I’m thinking three, six hundreds of them can really light up Adventureland. And the Polynesian won’t use them all before some idiot decides to just pitch them. Maybe you should play around with planting a couple of them in the park.”

Either it was the flames dancing in Johnny’s eyes, or the even minute amount of booze in his Lapu Lapu, but what The Yeti suggested sounded like a good idea. Even as a kit, Johnny knew how wasteful humans could be. The colony became one of the more technological advanced colonies in the animal kingdom because 99% of the items they picked up for the buildings, were perfectly good items that humans just up and discarded. A computer tower here, a repairable PSP there, several video screens rigged to become their version of Times Square. Even as current as last afternoon, Johnny was rummaging around the bins in Hollywood Studios, picking up still-working toys and props that Disney didn’t want anymore. It would be a shame to just let stuff be dumped to the trash before it was even used. And Polynesiann torches qualify as such.

“You know where this storage place is?” Johnny asked.

“I’ll take you there on my way back to my pad,” The Yeti said.

Johnny smiled, and then picked up his pineapple. “After we finish this off, that is.”

“Of course,” The Yeti said. “Let me get you a spoon to scrape out the insides, those are the best part.”