“Watch, Charlie, Grandma, Grampa,” Joy holds the shackles of one of the six Martian Space Pirates, who are just standing there on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge, and points in the direction of the doorway next to her cabin. “All you have to do is point and they go.”
“That’s right,” Justin says. “At this point the villains never resist. And Joy just leads them.”
Joy leads the prisoners. Charlie walks next to her, his eyes sparkling with excitement. Justin, Suzy and I walk behind them. Master Mind stays on the deck.
“I think this covers all the villains that we haven’t imprisoned yet, right, Joy?”
Over the last week, Justin, Charlie, Joy and Master Mind have been catching the handful of villains that are not in prison and stay in the dream when Justin is awake. He’s been slowly ‘cleaning’ the dream from potential dangers to Joy.
“Only one more,” she says confidently as she disappears through the doorway. “Captain Badass!”
“Riiiight,” Justin says to himself.
I heard the story. Captain Badass was never much of a danger, nor were the Martian Space Pirates. But he was the only one who had been caught and had somehow escaped. He had done that many times.
“Maybe he’s still in the infinite corridor!” I hear Joy say cheerfully as we all duck in through the doorway and adjust to relative darkness.
The last time he’d been seen was when he tied Joy to the mast of Bonny’s Revenge and just walked into the endless corridor we’re walking into. He walked down the spiral steps we’re taking now, and just went further and further in until he couldn’t be heard anymore. Joy and Justin both say he hadn’t been seen since.
“Yeah, yeah,” Justin says as I see Joy take the master key hanging at the entrance. “He got out when we were looking for each other.”
The corridor is dank and small with cells on both sides, stretching endlessly.
“Brrr…” Suzy grabs my hand. She motions with her head to her right.
I see the prisoner in the first cell in the corridor. He had just stood up and is staring at all of us.
He has this mask on half his face - is it a metal? - that makes him seem like a scary Phantom of the Opera. He is examining each of the people going in and his breathing is clearly up. Who is he? What does he want?
I raise my hand to say ‘hello’ - you have to be courteous, right? - and, seeing no response, I pull lightly on Suzy’s hand as I take another step forward.
And now we see imprisoned fairies, floating creatures, evil magicians, robots, and, oh my, even a smiling gorilla!
“We are not in Toronto anymore,” Suzy whispers to me.
I can’t even respond. I’m shocked by the dozens of imprisoned villains I walk by, all of whom had fought Joy and Justin and lost.
“We can’t fool ourselves anymore,” Suzy whispers to me. “She does not have a normal childhood!”
(To be continued…)
—Told by Grampa Walt