All tagged birthday
“Madelyn, please get rid of the babies,” Justin implores her. I’ve counted fifteen babies on the limo seats and floor. Suzy is holding two of them, Madelyn another one, I took another one, but it’s not helping. And the babies are beginning to cry.
“Get rid of the traffic jam, Justin,” she tells him. “We have to get to Bordeaux, not Paris!”
“The babies, Madelyn!”
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As Madelyn descends with her super wheelchair towards the convertible limo, Justin suddenly returns to normal size.
He cups his face in his hands. “This is so embarrassing,” he says.
“Dad, why’d you turn into a baby?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says quickly.
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“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–”
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“Three!” Master Mind ends his count.
Justin’s face is all clenched in anger at the traffic jam in front of him, the one he had created.
It doesn’t seem that Master Mind is having any influence on him.
Master Mind lowers the rope ladder. “Grab the rope, Little Pirate,” Master Mind says loudly enough for us to hear. “I will take you to safety before this gets out of hand.”
Joy looks at the rope hanging just to the side. She takes Justin’s hand in both of hers. “Calm down, Dad. Calm down. Let’s have a birthday party.”
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We can see Paris through the driver’s window, not more than a few kilometers away.
“This is nice,” Joy lies down on some of the chairs next to Suzy and me. “What kind of a car did you say this is?”
“It’s a limousine,” Justin says impatiently as the driver begins to decelerate approaching the highway.
“Why’d you say ‘limo’ before?”
“Oh, no!” Justin says, looking forward through the window. “God damn traffic jam!”
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Justin is in a bad mood. He turns down Suzy’s idea to eat in Scaramouche, saying he just did that with the two of us. He turns down the idea of any restaurant, since it’s the Dream, and he doesn’t really need to eat.
“Look,” Suzy tells him, exasperated. “I understand you just went through this with the two of us. But we weren’t there. And, you know what, she wasn’t there,” she points to Joy. “How many times is her father going to turn thirty?”
Justin’s annoyance turns milder. “Just this once, Mom.”
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Justin appears on the ship, exactly in the same position as always, right down to the angle of the face and the position of the eyes.
We’re all there, waiting right where we knew would be the first place he looked at, all there, on a deck filled with colorful balloons.
As soon as he appears, Master Mind, Joy, Suzy, and I yell: “Surprise!”
Justin jumps back as a sword appears in one hand and a laser pistol in the other.
He looks around in panic.
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Suzy and I count the hours after Justin disappears.
We’ve talked to Joy ahead of time about what’s going to happen next.
After the initial shock of living in Justin’s dream, of having a granddaughter we never heard of, of going with her and Justin to visit other people’s dreams, of experiencing life-threatening adventures almost at every turn, Suzy started getting used to life here.
One day, a couple of months ago, she started inquiring about the dates. Justin created a calendar for her to hang on the wall in the living room, and she’s been silently marking the days.
Now it was time.
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“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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Dragon Little’s fourth birthday was over, and when it ended, thoughts entered my mind.
These were thoughts I did not care about, but they came.
I thought of my own birthdays… of my fourth birthday, so many centuries ago. I thought of how I had been a slave, how, at this stage, while I was still… pliable… the evil ones had me do their bidding by hurting me and hurting me and hurting me.
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