‘The Squashbuckler Diaries’ are the daily tales of Joy Shelley’s Life in the Dream. The ‘Lost in Dreams’ books will tell the story of what happens to her at ages 6, 9, 12, 15, and so on. The diaries tell us what happens before, after, and between the books.

#47: Come Again? - Part 2

“Joy, Joy… Pleeeeeze stop!”

Even when Dragon Little was 3 years old, Dragon Father was somehow reduced to begging her to do what he wanted.

In this case, as I told you yesterday, Dragon Father and Dragon Little were in orbit around the robot planet, answering a distress call. But Dragon Little began to repeat everything Dragon Father said, which, after ten minutes, reduced him almost to tears.

“Joy, Joy, Pleeeeeeeze stop!” Dragon Little said, smiling.

Dragon Father put his hands on his face, and sighed heavily. “You can drive a person crazy,” he said to himself.

You can drive a person crazy!”

Suddenly, he straightened with fresh vigor. “Yeah, yeah!”

“Yeah, yeah!” She jumped up and down.

“Joy, are you listening?”

“Joy, are you listening?”

“You can drive people crazy!”

You can drive people crazy!” She said and laughed.

“So we can drive the bad guys crazy, right?”

“What?”

“You can drive the bad guys crazy. Everything they say, you’ll say again! They’ll go crazy!”

“Huh?”

“That’s how we beat them, right? You say everything they say! Right?”

“Yeah!”

“That’s how we win!”

“Yeah!”

“Ready to go fight?”

“Yeah!”

Dragon Father ran to steer the ship down to the planet. When his back was turned to her, he looked down and sighed in relief.

It had worked. This time.

—Told by The Red Dragon


See how I came up with the idea for the ‘Come Again?’ posts:

#48: The Showdown (Come Again, Part 3)

#46: Come Again? - Part 1