Trapped!

Wrong! This is not Disneyland... unless they added "Death by Maniac Rat Adventure" to the Magic Kingdom's list of attractions.

My back's to the glass wall. No where to run. Blue Vinny, Cheshire, and Hudson look right out of "spin" cycle in the Maytag. They are miffed and dangerous.

Me... I'm about to become a chalk outline on the control console.

"You guys want to get back to the lab, right?" I squeak before they get busy.

They freeze in a tableau of raised claws and bared fangs. Their goggling eyes glom the tidy, well-ordered world beyond the toll booth.  Their flummoxed faces show they get the point: We're not in Professor Zacchaeus' laboratory any more!

Thawing, Blue Vinny growls, "What'd you do?"

Like it's my fault. Sheesh!

"Don't know. Let me find out!"

Before he grabs me,  I leg it to the big screen and keyboard.

I step on the space bar to wake the on-board computer. (How anything could sleep through all that, I don't know!) More scary numbers pop up on the screen, again counting down to something. Whatever it is, it's 30 seconds away. Another set of numbers shows what looks like a date 30 days from today and a time: 12:00.

The toll booth begins to shake and spark and smoke. The blinky lights start up again. A glass door slides open all by itself.

"That's it. I'm out of here!"

I run off the console, jump onto the chair in front of it, and shimmy down its dangling seatbelt to the floor below.

The door starts to close. I run for it. Almost there, I trip. The door passes in front of my nose.

Another second, and I'm trapped.