Moving from one Shroom to another above the abyss has become very strange today. 

Joy, Charlie, and Justin all use their respective jetpacks. Master Mind jumps up to the Shroom Madelyn chose and he’s holding me in his arm as usual, even though I have a jetpack on my back. And, as usual, we have the softest landing. But then there’s Madelyn. Her super wheelchair - I’ve decided to call it that - simply jets up, floats, and rises to the Shroom above us and to the side. 

Things have become very strange. 

“This is a tunnel, just like in your Shroom,” Justin explains to Madelyn. “But it leads to someone else’s dream.” 

She nods. 

“Me first,” she says.

She does not wait for a response and her wheelchair rolls into the tunnel first. 

Joy comes in right after her. “I’m first! I’m first! You’re last, slowpokes!” Charlie runs after them both and Master Mind is quick to follow as well.  

Justin puts his hands to his cheeks in mock-horror and laughs. 

I give him a second. “Oh, nooooo,” he says. “Oh nooooooo!” 

He then moves aside and bangs his head on the Shroom’s stem. He bangs it again and again. I’m pretty sure the stem is soft. 

“Son, son,” I touch his shoulder. “What’s the matter?” 

He looks at me with eyes wide. “There’s two of them, Dad! There’s two of them!”

I understand what he means. Madelyn is so much like Joy in the way she pushes herself, in the way she wants to be first, and in the way she never gives up. 

“How can there be two of them, Dad? The world isn’t big enough for one of them, how can there be two?” 

He leans his forehead on the stem and sighs. 

“Isn’t it possible,” I say, “that it’s good that she has a grownup that’s like her?” 

His eyes give me a look while his head remains leaning on the stem. With a resigned voice, he says. “That’s a good point, Dad.” 

He straightens, clearly disheartened. “We’ll just wait for the nuclear explosion, yeah?” 

He sighs and straightens up, hiding his mood. 

He goes in and I follow. 

(To be continued…)

—Told by Grampa Walt