“Don’t forget I’ll be back to pick you up at 10:30” I told my daughter Ava as I was driving her to school.

“ I thought I just went to the doctors? She said with a very confused yet excited look on her face.

I had to act quickly on my feet. See I was not really going to take her to the doctors again but we were going to get in the car and go to Disney World. Courtney and I have been planning this trip to Disney World for a few months now, and we really wanted to surprise the kids with it. This is the first time both of our kids are going to Disney. Ava has been obsessed with all of the Disney princesses for years now, this past year she was Ariel for Halloween. Every Saturday she wakes up and watches The Little Mermaid. Our other daughter Emma is only 3-years-old but she loves Beauty and the Beast. She doesn’t know as much about the Disney princesses as Ava does but she’s starting to learn a lot. Ava is smart and I didn’t want to give the surprise away so I said “You did but we have to go again because they forgot to do something.”

“Oh okay.” Ava said as we pulled into the driveway of the Park Memorial Elementary School.

She got out of the car and an aid walked her safely into the building. As I drove home I began to think of all things we had to do in the short 2 hours before we picked Ava back up. When I pulled in the driveway I saw that the girl’s bags were sitting in the garage all ready to go. All that I needed to do was pack my bags and get the house ready so we can go. I went upstairs to our room and told Courtney about how Ava was asking about the doctors. But I managed to get the plan back on track.

“Really? I thought she would forget about that. She’s so intuitive for a 6-year-old. I should’ve said she was going to the dentist because she hasn’t been there in a while” Courtney said as she was racing around the room digging through the dresser drawers trying to pack.

“Is Emma up yet?” I asked as I pulled my suit case out of the closet.

“No, Brad I need to finish packing before we can get her ready. And you need to be packed too. I told you that you should’ve packed last night.” Courtney said.

I went into the closet because I just couldn’t deal with stressed out Courtney at this time. When Courtney gets stressed she start to get angry at me. You’d think I would get use to it after 8-years of marriage. I just tend to walk away and let her be alone. I was able to pack all my things in 15 minutes. I zipped my bag up and brought it downstairs. Courtney was in the kitchen getting breakfast ready for Emma so it would be ready before we woke her up. We wanted this day to be all about the girls so we went the extra mile for everything. I went into the garage and put all of out bags in the car. I went back inside as Courtney was finished cutting the strawberries.
“Alright everything is ready to go. Let’s go wake Emma up.” I said

We went upstairs to Emma’s room, which was Beauty and the Beast themed. As we opened the door Emma jumped up giggling. She always does this thing where she pretends she’s asleep just before we come into her room. Courtney and I sat on her bed and told her that we were going to take her and Ava to Disney to see all the princesses. She shot up out of bed and started jumping around her room. It was hilarious. I left Courtney to get her ready to go as I went to the basement to start unplugging the TV’s and make sure the lights were off.

It was almost 10 o’clock when I went upstairs to the kitchen. Emma was dressed and eating breakfast. I grabbed our plane tickets and put them on the front seat of the car. Courtney said that we were ready to go and we all go in the car and went to pick Ava up from school. When we got there I went into the office to get her. I had to act normal as we walked to the car because she thought she was going to the doctors. As soon as I opened the door to the van we all shouted surprise and told her we were going to Disney World. Ava started to cry because she was so elated. She got in the car and we went to the airport.

Not only was this going to be the girls first time at Disney World but it was also their first time flying as well. We haven’t been able to take family vacations for a few years because I lost my job and we needed to prioritize our expenses. Now that I’ve had a secure job at a firm for a year we decided to take this trip.

We parked the car, checked in, and went through security. But it was not until we sat down at our gate that they made the announcement the flight would be delayed. I went to the desk at the gate to see how long the delay would be. The workers informed me that it could possibly 2-4 hours. I was extremely angry. I did not want to start off the trip like this. I told Courtney about the expected delay and we decided to just deal with it because there is nothing we could about. We sat down and waited. Letting the girls play with our IPad to distract them. Two and a half hours later we were finally boarding the plane to Orlando.

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It was 9 o’clock at night when we finally got to our room at the Disney resort. Courtney and I were exhausted; we put the girls to bed and immediately did the same.
As I predicted, Ava and Emma were up at 7 waking us up to get ready. We ate breakfast downstairs where they served Mickey Mouse pancakes and all the Disney themed breakfast you could think of. We got dressed, put sunscreen on, and headed to the park. And spent the day at Universal Studio. This was the daily schedule that we did for a few days.

After our second day at Universal we were all so tired that we went to bed after dinner. But that night I woke up from the worst nightmare I’ve ever had. It’s the type of dream that no father ever wants to have. In my dream we were at our house and I was home alone with the girls while Courtney was out with her girlfriends for the night. I put on a movie for the girls and went downstairs to get them some ice cream. I finished scooping the vanilla ice cream into their dishes and went back upstairs. As I walked down the hall I saw the door to the room was closed, which was weird because I specifically remember not closing it. I opened it and Beauty and the Beast was still playing but the girls weren’t in sight. Loudly, I told the girls to come out of their hiding spots because the part where Belle sings is coming up, and I have their ice cream. Nothing happened. I checked the closet, and behind the couch but nothing. I checked the bathroom, and then I opened Emma’s door and saw that her window was open. I dropped the ice cream and sprinted to the open window, and as I looked outside I saw a black hooded man running down the street. I woke up in our bedroom in Disney dripping with sweat, and very freaked out because I haven’t had a nightmare since I was a teen. I got out of bed and went to the girls room to check on them. Sure enough the girls were sound asleep in their room. I went back to bed but couldn’t get the thought of the girls being taken out of my head.

The next morning we went got ready fast because this was the day we were taking the Emma and Ava to Magic Kingdom, where all the Princesses are. As we walked through the gates Courtney and I looked at the girls faces and laughed because they just stood there with their jaws dropped pointing at the Cinderella’s Castle in the distance, it was a priceless.

“This is what I’ve been looking forward to all week” Courtney happily said to me.

The girls stood there and Ava finally said “WAIT, IT’S REAL?!”

“Yes. And we are going to get to see Ariel and Belle too! And tomorrow we are going to eat brunch with them!” I told them. The girls both screamed with happiness. Usually when they scream in public I look around to see people’s reactions but I figured that in Magic Kingdom they’re used to little girls screaming. I looked around at all of the other families walking around and saw two parents similar in age to Courtney to I with two boys. I laughed because they had them on those animal backpack that have leashes attached to them. Can’t they keep track of their kids without treating them like dogs? I think that parents who put their kids on leashes are overprotective and crazy.

As we started to walk through the park I felt a drop of rain on my forehead. I looked up and saw black ominous clouds in the sky. I thought to myself, great just we need. The day that we take the girls to see the princesses it’s ruined. The drizzling of rain turned to actual rain. We sprinted into one of the stores closest to us. It was designed to resemble Gaston’s bar, so Emma thought it was cool. I went to the counter and asked them if they knew anything about this sudden change in weather. They assured me that it would pass over us in a matter of a half an hour. I told the girls we would be back walking around the park very soon. It was still very weird how the weather just suddenly changed and the sky turned black.

Soon enough the storm passed and we were back out in the park. We went to Cinderella’s castle to get a family picture. Courtney and I took the girls on one of those spinning teacup rides to smart small. Ava loved the ride but halfway through Emma started to cry. We got off the ride and Ava wanted to go on another one she saw in the distance. Emma however wanted didn’t want to, she was still crying.

“How about I take Emma on the ride and you stay with Ava till she calms down?” Courtney said.

“Sounds good” I said. Courtney and Ava went to the ride while Emma and I stayed behind. Emma saw one of those gigantic stuffed Minions hanging on the side of the street. And started to run over to it. She begged and pleaded for me to win it for her. She loved that movie. To cheer her up I told her I would try. It was one of those games where you have to shoot the Mickey’s with water, and whoever shoots the most wins. I told Emma to stand and watch while I tried to win. I sat down on the chair and felt Emma holding onto me. The buzzer went off and I started shooting. After the first few shots, I felt Emma take her hands off my waist. She probably just switched positions in order to watch me. The buzzer went off again to stop the game. Unfortunately I didn’t win. But I was able to get a slightly smaller stuffed character. I turned around to ask Emma what other one she would want. But she wasn’t behind me.

I screamed for her “Emma!” but she wasn’t there. I ran over to another game to see if she was there, but she wasn’t. I started to panic. I ran to the benches to see if she was sitting down, she wasn’t. I started to look everywhere. Looking at every kid who was her height. Running back to the teacup ride I thought I saw her but it was just a kid who looked like her. It seemed as if the entire world was spinning around me, as I was looking everywhere around me.

“EMMA, EMMA, WHERE ARE YOU?! EMMA!!!” I was screaming at the top of my lungs. Park police were always walking around the parks. I found one over by the benches.
“I can’t find my daughter. Please can you help me!?” I said.

“When did you last see her?” the officer said

“3 minutes… No maybe it was 5. I was playing one of those games over there and she was with me and then I turned around and she wasn’t there! Please help me! She’s only 3 years old” I told him. We went back to the game that I was playing and he asked the attendant if she saw anything suspicious. She said that she didn’t see Emma get taken but she said there was a creepy man hanging around the game 15 minutes before I came. The park officer took his walkie-talkie out and called over his system.

“We have a Code Adam, I repeat we have Code Adam” the officer said.

“What. What is a ‘Code Adam?’” I asked.

“It stands for possible abduction” he said. I fell to my knees out of shock and put my head on the ground. Courtney and Ava were walking back from their ride when they saw me with the officer.

“Brad. What’s wrong?” Courtney said
“It’s Emma. She’s missing. I was playing a game and turned around and she wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened?” I said as I buried my head into the pavement.
“What?!” Courtney said as she began to cry.

“Sir, I just got word that they have closed all of the exits to the park. No one is getting in or out” the officer informed us.

I got up and hugged Courtney as we were both crying. Ava quite didn’t understand what was happening at the moment. I told her that Emma is lost. She began to cry too. The park officer took us to their headquarters. Where I had to tell the officers what exactly happened word for word, they took everything down. They asked for the most recent picture of Emma. Courtney handed them a picture of her from my wallet, but I remembered the picture that we took today at Cinderella’s Castle. I asked them if I could leave so I could go look for Emma myself.

“Please sit down sir we have 50 of our men searching the grounds for her. It is better if you stay here” the officer assured me.

Courtney, Ava, and I were sitting in the lobby of the police headquarters. I couldn’t help but think of the what ifs. What if I sat her on my lap and played the game? What if I turned around when she took her hands off me? What if she’s already gone? What if this man took her out of the park? What if we never see her again? I
The officers have been searching for 2 hours and still they haven’t found Emma. Finally, one of the officers came out to us and said they are going to have to reopen the gates soon.

“What? No you can’t! She hasn’t been found yet!” Courtney and I screamed at him.

“It’s going to get dark soon. We have to. We are forcing everyone to go to one exit. You will stand there and be able to look at everyone who leaves.” the officer informed us.

As we were going to the front gate the officer told us to take a special look at the shoes on all the kids. They opened the gate but only let a few people out at a time. After 30 minutes of approving each family leaving the park, still we didn’t find Emma. The officers called us over to a couple with a child wrapped in a blanket. We told them it wasn’t Emma this kid was a boy and had different color hair. The child did have the same shoes as Emma but it didn’t look like her. But just as they were about to pass through the gate I wanted to take another look because I didn’t get a good luck at the boys face. They called them back and they were forced to put the child down, Courtney and I looked at the child again.

“It’s her. It’s Emma!” Courtney screamed. “I know it! Brad look at her arm. It’s her birthmark.”

Sure enough it was Emma! We both started crying. We didn’t notice at first it was her because she looked so different. The park police arrested the couple, and we sent us to the hospital with Emma to make sure she was alright. It seems that the couple took her within seconds while I was playing the game, took her to the bathroom, dyed her hair, cut it, and changed her into boy’s clothes. This happened all within a matter of minutes.

Courtney, Ava, and I were all in Emma’s hospital room waiting for her to wake up when an officer from the park came in. They told us that the couple confessed to everything and that the evidence was found in their backpacks. The doctors came in and told us that she was drugged with chloroform and that’s why they were able to alter her appearance without her fighting back, and that it would only be a matter of minutes before she would wake up.

We were all just so happy that Emma was okay and safe with us again. I still was crying though. It was only five minutes later when Emma finally woke up. She was still very tired and had no clue what happened. They say she blacked out. Which is probably best. Courtney, Ava, and I surrounded her with hugs. I still can’t believe that this happened to us. I would never wish this upon any parents. Disney World is supposed to be the happiest place on earth, I never thought that something like this could happen.

The first thing she said was “Are we still going to have brunch with Belle?”

I laughed and said “Yes. Yes we are”