All in Told by The Red Dragon
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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Justin sighs. “Okay. Okay. Let’s all calm down, okay? This is a tough day. Amahle, you’ve yelled at Joy enough, we’re done with that. We’ll talk about it another day, when everyone’s not so excited.”
“You mean when I’m not so excited,” Amahle says.
“You have had a great tragedy. I don’t know what I would do if that ever…when that ever…” his eyes sneak a look at Suzy.
“I want to talk about it now!” Joy stomps her foot.
Justin stands between Joy and Amahle, his back to Amahle. “No! You can’t talk to her now.”
“Why not!” Joy demands.
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Once Charlie had taken Justin out of his dream and into the tunnel, there was no longer any danger.
Joy dusted herself off, and went off to helm Bonny’s Revenge up to the sun that Charlie had gone through.
Suzy and I get up slowly from the deck. I can’t help but notice that Joy doesn’t try and help us and doesn’t check up on us. Maybe she assumes we’re okay?
“Suzy?” I ask, looking at her all disheveled and half panicked.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she straightens her clothes. “How are you?”
I feel a strange need to touch my chest and actually feel that I wasn’t hurt. “I think I’m okay. That was… That was really scary.”
“Is this how your adventures are?”
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“Dad, Dad, Dad, the children!” Joy runs up to him.
“The children, the children!” Charlie also runs up to him.
“We have to find the children!”
“We have to find the children!”
Justin looks at the two children jumping up and down and chanting in front of him. He tries to get a word in edgewise, but they keep chanting “We have to find the children! Can we find the children? We have to find the children!”
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“Dad, Red had a German accent.”
“What?”
“She means the Red Dragon,” Charlie says.
“What?”
“I asked Lukas to say ‘Dragon Father’.”
“What? Lukas?”
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It’s a slow morning. Joy calms down. We all walk somberly to the deck.
Justin suggests that maybe instead of a healthy breakfast, she’ll eat pizza just this once.
Suzy makes a face. “He can’t teach her to eat her emotions,” she whispers to me, but keeps mum. She’s no doubt going to talk to him about it later.
Joy’s mood is dark and gloomy as she eats in silence.
“You know it means nothing’s changed, right?” Justin tells her as she eats her second slice.
Joy looks down. “You still can’t remember me.”
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Joy helms Bonny’s Revenge.
We sail past the moon, which Joy and Charlie visited only a couple of months ago. We sail past Mars, zoom past the asteroid belt and the solar system.
Joy doesn’t even look aside, checking for a facility that can hold a dragon.
“Joy, you just skipped over a lot of planets,” Suzy tells her.
“She’s not there,” Joy says confidently without looking at Suzy.
Bonny’s Revenge flies faster, until we reach a planet made of metal.
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Justin guides Bonny’s Revenge into complete darkness.
One huge planet hides the suns and in its shadow, somewhere, is the Night Planet, a planet of perpetual night.
Joy holds Charlie’s hand.
Suzy stands next to me. But when darkness comes, I can’t see her or anything else.
There is silence, now. Not a yelp. Not a scream. Not a whisper.
“Joy?” Justin says after a few seconds. “Are you all right?”
“Mmmm-hmmmm,” she says. But her tone is forced. She is not all right.
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“I want my dad!” Charlie cries and begins to breathe hysterically.
I put both hands on Charlie’s shoulders as he cries. “Charlie. Charlie. Listen to me.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Joy is standing there, full of shame, her shoulders and arms raised, as if she’s trying to be inside a turtle’s shell. She’s ashamed. She’s taking personally the fact that Charlie apparently can’t ever dream of his father again, as if it was her fault.
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Suddenly, Joy emerges from the door, looking like she’s mostly asleep.
I stand up immediately, as Suzy asks, “Dearie, is everything okay?”
Joy doesn’t stop. She walks forward, and begins to climb the ramp.
“Joy, is everything okay?” I ask as we both scramble behind her up the ramp.
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“You look tired,” I tell her.
She nods. “I’m not ready to go to sleep yet.”
“Dearie,” Suzy tells her. “You know, we have a room in our house. It was your father’s room when he was a kid like you. It has a bed. You know, you don’t have to sleep on the ship. Do you want to sleep in his old bed?”
Joy jumps up in excitement. “Can you show it to me?”
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“General Hawk,” Justin turns to the grave. “You protected my daughter when she was all alone.” Joy clings to his pants as he speaks. “You saved her life at the cost of yours. You became a dear friend to her.”
Joy buries her head in Justin’s pants. He puts his hand on her head and continues. “You were a hero and a great man and a great friend. I will always thank you for everything you did.”
Everyone nods. The dozens of bird people filling the backyard of our apartment on this tiny island is nodding as well.
Justin takes Joy in his hands. “You want to say a few words to General Hawk?”
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On the small island that now holds Suzy’s and mine’s suburban apartment, there isn’t a lot of room. Bonny’s Revenge, my son’s flying warship, is docked in the front. There’s a heap of dust which apparently has now remained behind and forever, right next to Bonny’s Revenge. Its purpose, apparently, is to get dirty post showers. And now, in the back, is a grave.
Joy, Justin, and Charlie dug a small hole, enough to put in a tombstone.
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Suzy puts her arm around Joy. “Dearie, I just realized you woke up only a couple of hours ago. You must be famished.”
Joy looks at Justin. “Famished?” she says.
“It means hungry,” Charlie says.
Justin’s eyes light up. “Oooh, Joy! You have grandparents now! You haven’t had a breakfast until you’ve had your grandmother’s cooking!”
“She has special pizza and carrot juice?”
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“First thing,” Suzy says sternly to Justin, who is leaning back on the railing, ready to be read the riot act.
“Yes, Mom.”
“We’re going to need toilet paper. We should never run out of toilet paper.”
“Good point,” he nods. He closes his eyes. “There’s a lot of toilet paper in their bathroom. Joy, when you get there, touch it.”
“Good!” Suzy says. “Now, does the girl ever wash her hands?”
“Of course!” Justin says.
“Where?” Suzy looks around the deck.
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“That’s the asteroid belt!” Joy points out to Charlie. “There’s a super cool weapons shop that has all the weapons you’d ever want.”
“Ah,” Charlie nods, but with hesitation. It doesn’t look to me like he wanted weapons in the first place.
“He’s a cool kid,” I lean against the railing next to Justin. Suzy’s on his right, I’m on his left. I think it’s time to make Justin think about something else.
Justin straightens and looks at him. “He does look nice. They’re great friends.”
“I saved that world,” Joy points out to Charlie, oblivious to the grownups. “And that world. And that world. And that world.”
“Whoooah!” Charlie says wide-eyed.
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“Dad, how can I raise Joy in my dream? That’s crazy!”
“You’ve done it so far. Why is it crazy?”
“I didn’t know she was real! I didn’t know this was a dream! She could have died five thousand times in our adventures! She could have died five different times in whatever happened yesterday. Am I supposed to have adventures with her again? It’s dangerous! Am I supposed to make the dream boring? It would bore her to death! Am I supposed to let her out of the dream? Not that I can stop her! Just jumping from dream to dream is dangerous! She can be lost! She can go into another dangerous dream! She can go into the dark dream! And there could be people looking for her!”
“People looking for her?” Where did that come from?
“What?” he looks at me like I was the one who said it first. “Who would be looking for her? Don’t talk crazy. Dad, how can we live like this?”
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“Joy, I have something special planned for today!”
Dragon Father was quite excited as he told this to Dragon Little while she was eating her breakfast of pizza and carrot juice.
I have noticed the number of days that have passed and I knew the date. I knew that tomorrow would be Dragon Little’s sixth birthday. I became excited myself, since I believed that Dragon Father for once would not forget Dragon Little’s birthday.
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“Come here,” she said. “Give me your ear.”
I turned my ear to Dragon Little. Dragon Father, who was atop my head, took the opportunity to jump aboard.
Dragon Little began to scratch my ear and suddenly I felt something I have never felt before. This brought so much pleasure to my entire body, it felt so nice, like true love. I immediately purred. I have never purred in my life.
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“The dragons have been taken away,” the robot dragon rasped.
His voice sounded broken because his body had been broken by the fight. One of his wings an done of his legs were disjointed and broken. His neck was in my mouth, under my sharp teeth, which had already cut into his neck a bit.
He would not live long, and Dragon Father, standing atop my head, knew it.
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