All tagged Charlie's birthday
“Dad! Dad!” Joy looks at Justin with desperation in her eyes. “What’s the matter with Charlie?”
Charlie’s hands are shaking.
Justin looks at him, and seems to freeze.
“Don’t wake up feeling bad!” Joy grabs Charlie. “Don’t wake up feeling bad! Stay with me and I’ll make you feel better!”
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Catori, Charlie’s mother, comes to hug him, her face so full of sadness for her crying child.
Joy is right next to her, “Charlie,” she says warmly. “That’s not true. You’re a great friend!”
“Go away!” he stands up suddenly. “Go away!”
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I reach out for Joy’s shoulder as she cries, while at the same time looking around for Justin to come and help.
“Joy…” I begin, but a girl from class interrupts me.
“Oh, look, someone made the pirate girl cry!” she says in a derogatory tone.
“Hey!” Charlie steps in front of Joy. “Everybody cries!”
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I think the birthday party is starting to get a bit old. The kids are now separated into small groups, small groups of boys and small groups of girls.
I see Charlie and Joy talk to another boy near the table. Trying to look like I’m not listening to them, I get closer to supposedly get a bit more juice.
“Yeah, but this is a costume,” the kid is saying. “That’s what you wear every day!”
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While the kids play, Joy hangs to the side. She stands next to Master Mind, half leaning on him, as she eats a slice of pizza. Suzy and I stand next to Master Mind, drinking grape juice out of paper cups.
Justin is in the kitchen, trying to help Catori.
A young girl, also eating a slice of pizza, comes up to Joy.
“Breonna,” she tells Joy.
“Joy.”
“I like what you did with the boys. That was funny.”
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“Joy,” Justin tells her as she looks up at him with pain-filled eyes. “It’s your friend’s birthday party. He would really like you here. I think we should stay.”
“I want to go,” she says softly and clings to him.
Justin closes his eyes warily, then opens them and answers with the same tone of voice, “I think Charlie would really like us to stay. And it’s a good experience for you to see other birthdays.”
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Joy is the life of the party after her display of her killer robot and her sword and laser pistol. But then Catori walks in, gets Joy to sheathe her sword, and the games begin.
She starts the kids off playing Treasure Hunt, where the kids hunt down clues she left in their apartment. The game is sadly short, since Joy solves each and every clue and finds the next one at breakneck speed, with the kids following her.
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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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“Yeah, uh, I’m, uh, Justin,” Justin shakes Kate’s hand. “Do parents shake hands when they meet? I really don’t know.” Charlie’s mother looks at him strangely. “I’m, uh, Joy’s dad. We’re, uh…Wow, I just realized I never met any parents at all as part of, uh, being a father, uh, Kate.”
“She’s not Kate, don’t call her Kate,” Charlie says. “Her name’s Catori.”
“It’s Kate,” Kate corrects her son.
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Charlie agrees that Joy be in his birthday party, the one that already took place, but he refuses to have it in Justin’s dream.
Justin brings Bonny’s Revenge to one of the suns, and we all leave with new jetpacks that Joy has just now made permanent. Master Mind, ever the chaperone, Justin, Charlie, Joy, me, and, for a change, Suzy who does not like flying from dream to dream but wants to see some of Charlie’s waking world.
Charlie’s Shroom is now quite a distance below us, for some reason. Joy hasn’t been able to jump there for years. The physics of Dreams is weird. I am not even close to getting a handle on them yet.
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I can see Justin waiting for the exact right second.
It’s been a day for those in the waking world since the kids rode the flying elephants and since Justin decided it was time Joy somehow meet girls her age.
Madelyn appeared first. She rolled down the ramp to the shore of the small island of our small suburban home. After a few nice hellos, we helped her off the wheelchair. On her two arms she went into the sea and began swimming.
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