All in Age: 8.5
“Dad! Dad!” Joy looks at Justin with desperation in her eyes. “What’s the matter with Charlie?”
Charlie’s hands are shaking.
Justin looks at him, and seems to freeze.
“Don’t wake up feeling bad!” Joy grabs Charlie. “Don’t wake up feeling bad! Stay with me and I’ll make you feel better!”
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Catori, Charlie’s mother, comes to hug him, her face so full of sadness for her crying child.
Joy is right next to her, “Charlie,” she says warmly. “That’s not true. You’re a great friend!”
“Go away!” he stands up suddenly. “Go away!”
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I reach out for Joy’s shoulder as she cries, while at the same time looking around for Justin to come and help.
“Joy…” I begin, but a girl from class interrupts me.
“Oh, look, someone made the pirate girl cry!” she says in a derogatory tone.
“Hey!” Charlie steps in front of Joy. “Everybody cries!”
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I think the birthday party is starting to get a bit old. The kids are now separated into small groups, small groups of boys and small groups of girls.
I see Charlie and Joy talk to another boy near the table. Trying to look like I’m not listening to them, I get closer to supposedly get a bit more juice.
“Yeah, but this is a costume,” the kid is saying. “That’s what you wear every day!”
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While the kids play, Joy hangs to the side. She stands next to Master Mind, half leaning on him, as she eats a slice of pizza. Suzy and I stand next to Master Mind, drinking grape juice out of paper cups.
Justin is in the kitchen, trying to help Catori.
A young girl, also eating a slice of pizza, comes up to Joy.
“Breonna,” she tells Joy.
“Joy.”
“I like what you did with the boys. That was funny.”
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“Joy,” Justin tells her as she looks up at him with pain-filled eyes. “It’s your friend’s birthday party. He would really like you here. I think we should stay.”
“I want to go,” she says softly and clings to him.
Justin closes his eyes warily, then opens them and answers with the same tone of voice, “I think Charlie would really like us to stay. And it’s a good experience for you to see other birthdays.”
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Joy is the life of the party after her display of her killer robot and her sword and laser pistol. But then Catori walks in, gets Joy to sheathe her sword, and the games begin.
She starts the kids off playing Treasure Hunt, where the kids hunt down clues she left in their apartment. The game is sadly short, since Joy solves each and every clue and finds the next one at breakneck speed, with the kids following her.
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The first batch of kids walk in with their parents and I notice that the kids are all wearing pirate costumes.
“Oh, right,” Charlie says, and suddenly he’s in pirate costume as well.
“Charlie,” Joy grabs his hand and whispers. “You know pirates?!”
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“Yeah, uh, I’m, uh, Justin,” Justin shakes Kate’s hand. “Do parents shake hands when they meet? I really don’t know.” Charlie’s mother looks at him strangely. “I’m, uh, Joy’s dad. We’re, uh…Wow, I just realized I never met any parents at all as part of, uh, being a father, uh, Kate.”
“She’s not Kate, don’t call her Kate,” Charlie says. “Her name’s Catori.”
“It’s Kate,” Kate corrects her son.
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Charlie agrees that Joy be in his birthday party, the one that already took place, but he refuses to have it in Justin’s dream.
Justin brings Bonny’s Revenge to one of the suns, and we all leave with new jetpacks that Joy has just now made permanent. Master Mind, ever the chaperone, Justin, Charlie, Joy, me, and, for a change, Suzy who does not like flying from dream to dream but wants to see some of Charlie’s waking world.
Charlie’s Shroom is now quite a distance below us, for some reason. Joy hasn’t been able to jump there for years. The physics of Dreams is weird. I am not even close to getting a handle on them yet.
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I can see Justin waiting for the exact right second.
It’s been a day for those in the waking world since the kids rode the flying elephants and since Justin decided it was time Joy somehow meet girls her age.
Madelyn appeared first. She rolled down the ramp to the shore of the small island of our small suburban home. After a few nice hellos, we helped her off the wheelchair. On her two arms she went into the sea and began swimming.
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Charlie has been on the flying elephant for a good fifteen minutes now. The elephant is flying right above the deck, just the way it was before Charlie fell and woke up.
Madelyn leaves for another corner of Justin’s dream to have her own dream. She takes Amahle with her, to leave at another corner of Justin’s universe and have her own dream.
“You can do it! You can do it!” Joy cheers him on from below.
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It turns out it’s not that easy to get off flying elephants.
Justin returns, all smiles, just as Joy and Charley want to get back to Bonny’s Revenge, but the elephants’ wings prevent them from getting too close to the deck of Bonny’s Revenge while we’re all flying among the clouds.
No one’s really worried. Justin or Charley could just summon something up. Amahle and Madelyn, who have joined our dream in the meantime, could do the same. And Joy has the jetpack in case all Dreamers disappear. But the kids want to find a way to jump off.
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“Charlie! Charlie!” Justin calls out.
“Just a second, Joy’s Dad!”
Joy and Charlie pull the flying elephants’ ears softly, then pull the left one only. The elephants slow in mid-air, then make a U-turn to the left. Justin, helming Bonny’s Revenge, stops the warship in mid-air.
“Dad, we’re busy!” Joy says.
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Charlie and Joy are still riding the flying elephants. Following from behind on Bonny’s Revenge, Justin is lost in thought, and Suzy’s and my attention turn to him completely. Master Mind, next to us, watches over the kids.
“Um…How do I do that exactly?” Justin says.
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Charlie and Joy are riding flying elephants today. Justin helms Bonny’s Revenge next to them, just in case. Master Mind, the dutiful chaperone, as always watches over Joy’s safety, also from Bonny’s Revenge. Suzy and I came to watch. It’s not every day you see your grandchild ride a flying elephant.
Suzy holds my hand tightly and enjoys the view. She loves it when dreams are beautiful.
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The screaming and shouting and pinballing continue as the Tooth Fairy adds magical lights to the sky, more rules to the game, and makes it more complicated and more fun every few minutes.
Joy and Charlie are having the time of their lives, flying, bumping, crashing in the sky.
And then, after a few hours, it’s over.
Joy drinks. The Tooth Fairy creates a bathroom for her to go to. And when she returns, the mood is much more somber.
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As Joy and Charlie are thrust by the power of cannons into the sky of the amphitheater, I can hear a series of BOOMs immediately follow them: BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
I look down and notice for the first time that there are dozens more cannons all around the arena.
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Two small fairies fly into the arena. I should say the fairies look like male body builders, only tiny and with wings. Justin, Suzy, and I, sitting in the first row, look at each other. Master Mind only looks forward.
One small fairy lands next to Joy, who is now engulfed in a protected padded globe, and the other fairy lands next to Charlie, also inside a padded globe. With a lot of show and hefting of muscles each fairy lifts a padded child above his head and rises into the air.
“PUT THE CHILDREN IN THE CANNONS!” The Tooth Fairy orders again. She is flying above the huge cannons, wand in hand.
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“Enough of this chit chat!” The Tooth Fairy says in her deafening voice. “Let us dress the children for BATTLE! Bring in THE PADDED SUITS!”
Joy and Charlie giggle.
Small fairies fly in from behind us bringing in clothes racks of… I really don’t know what those things are.
“DRESS THE CHILDREN!” The Tooth Fairy orders the smaller fairies. “Grownups and robot - find seats in THE ARENA!”
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