“If we don’t break anything,” said Wheeler, “then it isn’t breaking and entering.”

“Still trespassing,” said Hal. “And in your case, the added charge of ‘trespassing while stupid.’”

“I’m not stupid!” said Wheeler. “Danny refusing to get us inside is stupid!”

“You have to show your ticket everywhere,” said Laurette. “Being inside is useless if you don’t have a ticket.”

“And Danny told us,” said Xena, “anybody who can’t come up with the seventy-five bucks, tell him and he’ll help.”

“I thought I could,” said Wheeler.

“No, you mean you thought you could force him to gate you in,” said Hal, “and you were wrong.”

“The whole point of going to Busch Gardens instead of Disney or Harry Potter or anything else was that Williamsburg is in Virginia,” said Laurette. “So our parents would actually believe we could make a quick trip here and back. As I recall, we made that switch because your parents were the ones who wouldn’t let you go to Florida.”

“So my parents are worse than I thought,” said Wheeler. He turned to Danny. “I need help after all. Can’t you get the money now?”

“So I should go to Veevee,” said Danny, “and then we go to an ATM and she withdraws the money, and then I come back here, all because…” The truth was that Danny could do this all quite easily. It wouldn’t take five minutes, and Veevee would think it was hilarious. Why was he so annoyed?

“I think Danny’s getting pretty fed up with you, Wheeler,” said Laurette. “I know I am.”

“Fine, I’ll wait out here while you all go in and have fun,” said Wheeler. “But I’ll tell you, if I were a gatemage, there wouldn’t be an ATM in Williamsburg with any money left in it.”

“Such a genius,” said Hal. “So you stand in front of each ATM, on camera, make a little gate and reach inside the machinery, fumble around till you find all the twenties, and then wait for them to identify you and come to your house and find stacks of stolen twenties, and then you get to explain how you got the money out of the machines.”

“They couldn’t hold me in prison cause I’d be a gatemage,” said Wheeler.

“A one-man crime wave,” said Hal. “The anti-Batman.”

“I can’t even reach inside ATMs anymore, Wheeler,” said Danny. “That was something that was only possible when I had gates. I can go places, I can take people with me, but I can’t make little gates and reach into things, or listen to something without being there myself.” Well, that wasn’t strictly true, Danny thought. I can make a clant, which I never could before. But the clant would be there, so it’s pretty much the same thing.

“Why didn’t Pat come?” asked Xena.

“She doesn’t like rides,” said Laurette.