Dedicated To Disney

11: Ro or No?

I let out a yawn, scrolling through my phone. This isn't getting us anywhere.

"Find anything starting with Ro?" Zeke asked, glancing up from his own device.

"Well, yeah," Ben said, looking equally bored like me. "Rose, rope, rock, roller, rooster, rod, roar, road, row, and so on and so forth. There is also Roz."

"Roz?" I repeated.

"Yeah, from Monsters Inc. I totally think she did it, the sneaky thing."

Zeke rolled his eyes, seemingly put out. She was questionable. Although, in the movie, she had done no harm besides damaging Mike Wazowski's fingers. If she did have something to do with it, how would she even get into Neverland? All Disney movies had little to no thing in common with one another.

"This is getting us nowhere," Sukie sighed, setting her phone down.

"Is Roz here in ComplexDisney?" I asked Zeke.

He met me eyes before ducking his head. I shifted uncomfortably. Did I do something wrong?

"Shouldn't you know?" he asked. "You work in CreationalCreatures."

Oh, right. She was a monster so she would be placed in CreationalCreatures. I had not seen her there yet so she must not have arrived. Great. "Nope. She isn't here. What if Ro is an actual person?"

Zeke shook his head. "I don't recall any disney characters being named Ro."

"Is it a nickname?" Sukie pitched in.

"Whose nickname would it be?" Ben asked sarcastically. "Tarzan's?"

Sukie gave him a glare. He mimicked zipping his mouth shut. Zeke squeezed his eyes shut, a flash of pain suddenly overtaking his face. I scooted across the couch to get closer to where he sat on the floor. "Are you okay?"

He nodded his head, his brown hair untamed from the moments he impatiently played with it while searching on his phone. It gave him a roguish, chiseled look that I liked way more than any neat style he may use. "Just a headache. Being on my phone for a long period of time hurts my head."

I rubbed his back encouragingly as he gripped his head in his hands, leaning forward a bit as he waited for it to pass. Ben lounged against the chair he was in, clearly not interested in what was going on. His attitude was completely different from the jerky attitude he had used previously. He must really be an excellent actor.

"Maybe," I said, continuing the conversation, "the person is named Ro and is just not a Disney character. It could be someone from our world, for all we know."

"Then how would Peter know her name?" Sukie asked.

"Maybe...she mentioned it?" I sighed and let out a frustrated groan. "I don't know! This is a dead end. We can't progress anywhere!"

What could Ro mean? Those objects Ben mentioned didn't seem right. Well...maybe rose did. But the only rose I knew of was in Beauty and the Beast and it didn't work like that. Other than that, those words were all useless. This was such a puzzle. A mystery that the four of us couldn't even seem to solve together.

Wait...that girl. The daughter in The Incredibles! Her name was a flower, isn't it? Was it Rose?

"What's that girl's name in The Incredibles?" I asked, perking up at the possibility that it could be Rose.

"Edna?"

"No, not her. The daughter. Dash and Jack-Jack's older sister."

"Oh!" Ben said. "Her. Uh, um...Violet."

I could feel myself deflate at his words. "Violet? Her name's Violet? Are you sure?"

"Yeah, her name is Violet," Sukie agreed.

"Oh, alright," I mumbled. Well...I had been hopeful for a moment. "This is it. We can't help these characters. We can't even figure out the meaning of Ro!"

I felt Zeke tense up under my hand, quickly bolting up into a sitting position. I hastily yanked my hand off of his back before he crushed it against the seat. He wincednat the pain it must have shot through his head as he spoke. "Did you notice those papers Stermin had been shuffling through, Gianna? When we were up there?"

I stared at him a moment. I barely recalled. "Uh...not really. I was a bit sidetracked with the anger I had toward them."

"Well, I caught a glimpse of one of the papers," he said, his blue eyes twinkling with a hint of excitement. It made my stomach flutter. "Since I really had no need to see them, I didn't pay attention. When I went back up the following day to talk them out of firing you, I saw the papers again. In bold, capital letters, I saw RO at the top of a page. Unfortunately, the rest of the word was covered with other papers."

I processed his words. The first thing I understood was that he went back to...keep them from firing me. "They were going to fire me?"

Zeke realized what he said and pursed his lips. Ben and Sukie watched him intently for an answer too. "Um...yes. They were going to."

My heart lurched at his words. I clamped my hands together, digging my nails into my skin to keep from freaking out. "Why?"

"Because you spoke out of turn," he mumbled.

"They asked for opinions!"

"Please, let's not do this again." Sukie looked concerned. Ben looked like he was uncovering a mighty secret.

Spots of blood seeped out of where I accidentally cut my skin. I wasn't one to cut my nails so they were quite long. Zeke noticed and gently pulled my hands apart as I stared at the wall. He squeezed them reassuringly in his. I took a deep breath. "Okay. So, they have papers with the word Peter was trying to tell me?"

"Well, it may be nothing," he said. "Or it may be something huge. At this point, we have to take guesses based on the smallest facts we gather."

"So how are we going to get into their office?" Ben asked.

Before anyone could answer, a voice piercee through Zeke's walkie-talkie. He released my hands and pulled it out.

"Zeke, we need you over here at Animal Island immediately," a male voice said.

Zeke glanced at me before pressing the button and bringing it closer to his lips. "Copy. What's happened?"

I glanced at Sukie who gave me a shrug.

"It isn't good," the man spoke again. My heart dropped at his next words. "A child has been kidnapped."

•~•~•~•

Uh...oh...