Joy pulls on the wheel and the ship begins to move.
I look around. We’re picking up speed. She pulls back more and the ship begins to rise into the air.
Suzy grabs my hand. “Should she be driving?” she whispers to me.
Good point. “Uh… Do you want to drive?”
She shakes her head.
“Me, neither. Looks like she’s been doing it a while.”
“Look here, look here,” Joy points at the moon. “Somewhere there is the base of Captain Badass’ pirates. You want to stay away from him. Last time he tied me up to the mast while Dad was gone.”
Suzy shoots me a look.
“Over there are the suns,” she points as we’re climbing up the atmosphere. “You know what that means.”
“Oh, yeah.” We both know what it means. And of the two of us, I was with Justin in other people’s dreams. Although I never got there by going through the suns.
“Look! Cloud City!” Joy points to an entire city built in the clouds. “It’s the funnest place ever! But there’s no one there when Dad isn’t here. We should go there later!”
We are now climbing past the atmosphere and into space.
My scientist’s mind wants to panic. My head tells me that air is going to run out, that we’re going to freeze to death. But as we reach outer space, I don’t panic. There is air here in space and there is no weightlessness. Not as I stand on the ship at least. Huh. I guess the dream works differently and I somehow know that.
Joy ‘parks’ the ship in outer space. If I can call a ship stopping in outer space ‘parking’.
Joy leans on the wooden railing and starts pointing at the sky. “Over there, that’s the goblin planet. I saved a lot of goblins there. And over there, that’s the robot planet. Dad and I saved the entire planet! Down there, by the way,” she leans over the railing and I reach out to grab her. She waves my hand away and points down, “In the ocean is where the snot monster kidnapped me.”
“Snot monster?” I say.
“Kidnapped you?” Suzy says.
“Yeah, it was fine,” her feet return to the deck and she looks up. “And over there we wanted to save dragons but Red wouldn’t let us. And over there in the asteroid belt is a weapons shop. So if you ever need weapons…”
Suzy looked at me, her eyes growing wider and wider.
I know what she means. She doesn’t need to say anything.
We are going to need to have a talk with Justin when he comes back.
“And over there… Uh-oh.” Joy says.
“What?”
“Martian Space Pirates,” she points at the nearby planet. “Just left Mars. Heading this way.”
“Are you serious?” Suzy says. “They’re coming at us!”
“Ha ha!” Joy yells out. “Adventure with my grandparents! Let’s go!”
—Told by Grampa Walt