“Grampa, what’s the matter with Dad!” Joy is frightened. “Grandma, why are you laughing?” 

“I’m going to die,” he looks at his wrinkled hands. “It’s the end.” 

Suzy can’t stop laughing. 

“It’s going to be all right, Joy,” I tell her. “It’s going to be all right. It’s just his–” 

But Joy doesn’t wait. She grabs both his hands again. “Dad! Dad! Are you doing this? Stop it! Stop it! Master Mind,” she raises her voice to call her watcher flying above us in Bonny’s Revenge. “Is there a villain around?” 

Suzy grabs Justin’s cheeks. “Oh, how old you are, Justin!” she says, smiling. “Wow, thirty! So old! It’s the end of life, isn’t it?” 

“Don’t make fun of me, Mom! Something’s happening to me!”

“Yes, you’re old now. Thirty. Wow. So old. When I reached thirty, I thought it was the beginning of the end, too. Forty’s right around the corner. And then fifty. And then you’ll be as old as your parents.”

“There are no villains within eyesight or earshot,” Master Mind informs from above. 

“But look how beautiful you look,” she looks into his eyes. “Such pretty pretty eyes. The same eyes you had when you were born. You’re going to be such a beautiful old man!” 

“Amending my previous comment,” Master Mind’s loud voice reaches our ears. “There is now another Dreamer in the dream!” 

We all look up. Madelyn appears in her super wheelchair, flying above the limo’s open roof and below Bonny’s Revenge. 

“What are you doing on the way to Paris?” she says, pronouncing it ‘Paree’. “And who is le bébé?” 

Baby?! I look down, and see Suzy hugging a newborn baby close to her chest. The baby is wearing a miniature version of Justin’s pirate clothes, and Justin is gone. 

Joy screams in horror. 

“Justin will be back in a second,” Suzy says calmly. “He just needs his mother.” 

(To be continued…)

—Told by Grampa Walt