Joy lands next to Madelyn, sitting on her Shroom, hands gripping the surface. Justin is right behind her. Master Mind takes me in one hand and leaps down to Madelyn’s Shroom. We land softly. Charlie lands right behind me. His landings are getting better.
“What is this, uh, this, uh, place?” Madelyn looks around in shock. She clearly finds it harder to speak English under the circumstances.
“Hold on to your butt,” Joy tells her. “You’re going to love this!”
“My butt?”
Justin waves at Madelyn dismissively. “It’s an expression. Ignore it. This,” he motions with his hand at the Shrooms, “is the place where everybody goes when they dream.”
“Dream?” Her forehead crinkles.
“I think it’s rêve,” I say. “Rêverie? When you go to sleep, you dream?”
Madelyn nods. “Yes. I am asleep right now.”
“Right, yes,” Justin says. “When you sleep, you go there,” he points back to the tunnel. “You dream here,” he pats the surface of the Shroom. “Everything you dream is in here.”
“In here? You are not serious!”
“Super serious, super serious!” Joy jumps up and down in excitement. “This is your dream! This is Dad’s dream!” she points up to the Shroom we came from. “This is Charlie’s dream!” she points sideways and slightly down to Charlie’s dream.
Madelyn looks from one to the other. “Where is your dream, Zhoy?”
Joy is suddenly uncomfortable. “I don’t dream,” she says quickly. “I’m here all the time. I live in Dad’s dream.”
Madelyn shakes her head. “You are not serious. This is a dream. You are all in my dream.”
“I live in Paterson, New Jersey,” Charlie says.
“I live in Toronto,” Justin says.
“And Walter?” Madelyn points.
“I also live in Toronto,” I say. “But me here, I’m his dream,” I point at Justin. “I also live in Justin’s dream. With my wife, Suzy.”
“Huh,” Madelyn looks at us in a face that can only be described as a face of belief and disbelief at the same time. “And the robot?”
“I was a villain created in Justin’s dream,” Master Mind says. “Now I am a hero.” He stops, then adds, “That would like to kill you all.”
Justin puts his hand on his face. Joy shakes her head, undeterred. “I can make dreams real, Madelyn,” she tells her excitedly. “Like Grampa Walt. Like Master Mind, uh, the robot. Like the elevator in your dream. Things I touch can live outside the dreams. And they can live when the dreamer is awake.”
Madelyn nods slowly, looking all around.
“These are all dreams of real people,” Joy continues. “Want to go in with us to a new dream?”
“Joy!” Justin tries to stop her. “This is not--”
“This is surely not true,” Madleyn says.
“Come on, she can come with us!” Joy says.
“Joy, she has her own life. She just found out she’s in this huge dream place!”
Joy turns to Madelyn, “We were just going to go into a new dream to have adventures!”
Madelyn raises an eyebrow. “Adventure? J’adore… I mean, I love adventure! Maybe this is why I am dreaming this.”
“Are you coming with us?”
“Yes!”
“Let’s go! Right, Dad?”
Justin raises his hands in surrender and sighs. “Right. I mean, what could go wrong, right?”
(To be continued…)
—Told by Grampa Walt