All tagged Charlie's dream
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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“Joy,” Charlie says. “Are you sure you don’t dream?”
She shakes her head. “I go to sleep. I wake up. I don’t go anywhere like you do.”
“Must be strange not to dream.”
“I think it’s strange to dream,” Joy says. “You’re in two places at once. What’s that like?”
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With Justin and Charlie both awake and gone from the dream, it’s time for Master Mind and Joy to do their special delivery to Charlie’s dream. As always, I join them. Just in case something happens. Just in case something should be reported back to Justin.
Joy has gathered on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge ten permanent jetpacks that Charlie has left in Justin’s dream, having used them to come over. Once he’s here, he wakes up from here and the jetpack gets left behind.
So, once a week, Joy and Master Mind bring them back.
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Joy doesn’t wait for us.
She didn’t want to hear Charlie tell me who Luis is. She didn’t want to experience again, I assume, the feeling of seeing Justin have another child but her. Not that it was an actual child. As Charlie explained to me, Sandra dreamed that she and Justin were married and that they had a child called Luis. He wasn’t a real child, but a child in the dream. And yet, Joy is a child in the Dream, and whether she came from a dream or not, she is real and human and Luis is not.
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Joy separates from Charlie and turns to me. “We have to tell Dad!” she says.
I run scenarios in my head. She’s right. We should tell Justin that Charlie can remember her outside the dream. But he’s on his private and secret romantic time with some dreamer. Do we wait? Do we tell him now? What should we do? No. She’s right. We shouldn’t wait with this news. “Let’s go now. Kids, get into your regular clothes.”
Charlie looks down at himself and he’s back to wearing jeans and his favorite T-shirt with the condor on it.
“No fair!” Joy says.
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Joy and Charlie keep playing in the beach sand with their toys for another minute, when Charlie says, “You know, it’s hard to convince people with words, Joy.”
He had just been talking about how, when he grows up, he wants to use words to explain to people how bad the Hopi have been treated.
“Yeah?” She’s immersed in the game, holding a rake in her right hand, and paving a way towards their sand castle.
“Yeah. I keep telling people you’re real and no one believes me.”
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Today Joy decides to play in Charlie’s dream. Justin is off to his secret dream that we’re not supposed to visit but that everyone has figured out he has his dream girlfriend in.
So he left Joy in Master Mind’s care. Master Mind is always ready to leap into action and save Joy from the unexpected dangers of a dream. I join because I want to see as much as possible of my granddaughter for the two of me.
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“Stay away from her, Mom!”
Joy explodes in anger, “I won’t stay away! Not from you and not from her!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Justin grabs hold of Joy as she tries to run towards Charlie. He holds her in his arms. “Whoa, Joy, hold on.”
A tank appears behind Charlie. Justin turns his attention, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! You too! There’s no need for that! Make the tank go away!”
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One of Charlie’s glass elevators waits for us at the end of the tunnel into his dream. Joy has made this one permanent way back a couple of days after their big adventure.
As we descend down to the park that was always there, we see a new beach nearby.
“The Child is there,” Master MInd points at a small dot on the beach.
At the park we activate our jetpacks and fly towards the beach.
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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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Charlie had just tried to summon his father, and even with Joy’s help - I don’t know if that actually helps or not - but in any case, he failed. And then Joy said it was her fault.
“When I met Eddie,” Joy begins to explain, clearly feeling horrible, “we played, and I… I touched him. I wanted to play with him so much! So he became real! And then he died…”
Charlie shakes his head. He doesn’t understand.
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“I can see him,” Charlie says. “I can see him in my mind. I’m trying to bring him back.”
“Go ahead,” Joy says. “You can do it!”
Charlie seems to be straining. “Just the dad who plays with me, just the dad who plays with me, just the…” he sighs and opens his eyes. “I can’t do it!”
Joy puts her hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Try,” she says. “I’ll help you!”
Charlie closes his eyes and now so does Joy.
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