“Welcome back, Pirate Extraordinaire!” Justin calls to Joy as she emerges from her cabin, looking groggy, having just woken up.
She looks around, seeing Justin, Charlie, Master Mind, Suzy, and me.
“What’s going on?” she says.
“Well, my little pirate,” Justin puts his arm on her shoulders and smiles. “I’ve got a special dream for you today.”
Charlie giggles.
Joy is immediately alert, the sleep gone. “What’s happening?”
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We return to Justin’s dream before Sandra wakes up. Justin is embarrassed by everything we’ve seen over in Sandra’s dream, but Justin’s behavior changes as soon as we get back to the deck of Bonny’s Revenge, their flying pirate warship that’s waiting for us at the edge of the tunnel in and out of the dream.
He is now a father and a hero. He docks the ship near our island, makes sure that I’ve got a good place to rest and heal, and then returns to the ship, asking Master Mind to join us so Justin can have some alone time with Joy.
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“I think this is a dream, Sandra. I think this never happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“Joy, don’t you dare touch Luis!” Justin suddenly yells. I still refrain from looking up.
“As if I would ever touch him!” Joy answers quickly.
“What do you mean?” Sandra asks again.
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The Justin in front of my eyes disappears, and Sandra runs to Justin and hugs him.
“Hey, honey, welcome back!”
She stands on her tiptoes and kisses him on the lips and he kisses her back.
Oh, my! I see Suzy look at the kiss with eyes wide open.
“Yuck!” Luis and Joy say together.
Justin straightens and looks around. “Joy, come here!”
Joy runs to him and leaps on him. He lifts her up and hugs her. She hugs him like she hasn’t seen him in years.
“Oh, my god,” Justin says. “You survived! Thank god! It must have been so awful for you! All alone!”
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“So what did the doctor do?” I ask. I know I’m in a dream, but being in a hospital, being treated by a doctor, makes me feel safer.
Suddenly, Justin just appears in front of my eyes. “Dad, Dad, are you okay?”
“Shooting fairies!” I hear Joy yell. And finally I see her. She’s sitting on one of the chairs, below my eyesight as I’m lying down, my face up. She is so worked up.
“Hey, buddy,” Justin takes Luis in his arms. “Sandra, who’s the girl?”
Joy jumps to her feet. “You! Say that to me again and I’ll make you permanent and then kill you!”
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I wake up on some kind… bed? I’m not sure. A young woman, around Justin’s age, is looking at me. Behind her, that ceiling! I’m in a hospital!
I try to get up quickly, “Where am I? Joy? Master Mind?”
I see Suzy’s face looking at me. “Shhh,” she says. “Lie down.”
“Oh, my, my,” the woman says. “You were very lucky, Walt. The bullet went right through and didn’t hit anything major.”
“What’s going on?”
“The doctor was just in,” Suzy says. “He took care of you. He dressed your wound. You should be fine.”
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“Where is he? Where is he?” I hear Suzy’s voice echo in the tunnel.
Suddenly she stands in front of me. “Oh, my god. Oh my god!” She leans closer to look at the makeshift tourniquet around my shoulder and screams right into my ears: “Oh my god! What did you do?!”
“He got shot, Grandma,” Joy says simply.
“Got shot, huh?!” She clearly knew I was shot before she came here. Master Mind must have told her. “You almost died! Is that what you’re doing hanging around with Justin, going from dream to dream, getting shot?”
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Joy lands on Sandra’s Shroom and calls us over.
There isn’t a time when Sandra’s name is uttered, that Joy doesn’t make a face or even a noise. But this girl does what’s necessary. She knows there are no doctors in our vicinity, and Sandra is the only medical person we know, even though she’s a Labor Delivery Nurse, and not an expert in bullet wounds.
But when we look down, the dream is empty of its dreamer. Sandra’s home is still there as well as Charlie’s elevator, both having been made permanent that time that Joy ran away from home. But Sandra isn’t here.
“She’s also in Toronto,” I say. I’ve heard she’s Justin’s neighbor, more or less. “It’s going to be a few hours until she or Justin get here.”
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Joy is crying into my chest and doesn’t stop. I hug her with one hand, but awkwardly. I don’t know how to comfort a child who feels responsible for two deaths. I don’t know how to comfort a child who survived a slave camp for a day while figuring out how to save the other children.
What did happen there? I wish she would stop. My shoulder still hurts.
“Little Pirate, if you keep crying, you will make me cry,” says Master Mind. “I do not wish to cry at this time.”
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“I’m sorry it’s not perfect,” she says. “It’s what we have.”
Master Mind eyes them warily. His weapon is still on his arm. He has not returned it to the inside of his exoskeleton.
“Yeah, you’re good,” Joy goes one by one. “You’re good. You’re okay. Okay!”
“Okay!” One of the boys says.
Joy suddenly grabs his arm. “I’m sorry!”
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The three children stand together, heads down, bowed as if ready for punishment. Two of them are crying. The dust of their friend is still between us. Their other friend fell off and died.
“Ah, Master Mind, Joy,” I use a gentle tone, sitting on the Shroom, leaning against its stem, feeling the bullet wound in my shoulder. “I don’t think they’re dangerous now.”
“They are armed, scared, and we cannot communicate with them,” says Master Mind.
“No, no,” I shake my head. “They were kidnapped like Joy and trained to be slaves. We killed one of their own. They see us as the enslavers now. They won’t do anything.”
“We are not your enslavers!” Joy says. “We set you free! You’re free!”
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“Master Mind!” Joy calls out, halfway through her ‘Noooo!’
Master Mind drops me quickly but softly to the Shroom and activates his jetpack. Looking around, I see he is the only one with the jetpack. Madelyn’s, Charlie’s, and Justin’s jetpacks are all in the tunnel. And mine, too.
Master Mind is in the air above us, about to zoom down, when he stops. “I fear it is too late!”
Joy stands on the edge and leans to look down. So do the other kids.
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There are now five armed children in the tunnel, looking around at this strange green gateway from the dream to the sea of Shrooms.
“Look, look,” Joy calls out to the kids happily. “You’re free! We freed you! You don’t ever have to go back!”
The kids look at her without understanding. I don’t expect it will work, but I try again, “Do you speak English? Parlez-vous français?”
The same kid that answered before answers now. “Français non.”
A girl asks something.
Joy says, “This is the Dream. You were in a dream. You don’t have to go back. Out there is freedom!”
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I crawl back to give Master Mind room to land.
In a few seconds, I see the bottom of his leg beyond the top of the tunnel, slowly descending. Sitting on it is Joy.
“Joy!” She’s alive! Thank goodness, she’s alive!
She leaps off Master Mind’s foot and looks at me. “Grampa! You’ve been shot! Are you okay?”
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After a couple of minutes just resting, lying on my side on the ground of the tunnel, I decide that I’m not going to die. It doesn’t look like I’m going to lose consciousness if I keep resting.
That’s good. I haven’t lost that much blood.
I wonder if I should take off my jetpack, which is making it hard to lie down.
No. I should wear it. Just in case.
I decide I’m good enough to crawl to the tunnel entrance and peek down.
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I’ve been shot. I’m in pain. I’m bleeding. I’m woozy from the loss of blood. And Charlie’s tourniquet disappeared with him.
I’m just a dream, I keep thinking. It’s okay if I die!
But it’s not. I don’t want to die here. I feel just like I did in the waking world. I am Walter Shelley! I don’t feel like a dream. I don’t feel like a made-up thing, like dragons, or space pirates. I feel like myself.
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I’m lying on the slimy tunnel ground of this strange dream, the jetpack still on my back. My shoulder is in unbelievable pain. I can see there’s blood coming out of it from the corner of my eye. And Joy’s been taken!
I’m just a dream, I tell myself. It’s okay if I die!
I look behind me. I see only Charlie and Master Mind. “Where are they?” I say.
“They were shot!” Charlie says. “They disappeared! You’re bleeding! I have to save Joy! You’re bleeding!”
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I find that I’m breathing hard. This was scary for me. I try to sort myself out. Everyone is.
We’re all here in this small tunnel, where Justin, Master Mind and I can’t even stand up straight. Madelyn keeps touching Joy’s shoulders to see that she is fine.
Charlie jumps up and down, and occasionally laughs to himself. I think he completely panicked.
Justin exhales. All he’s worried about is that Joy got out safely.
Joy recovers the fastest. She goes to the edge of the tunnel and looks down. “What was happening there? Why were there all those kids with--”
Then, out of nowhere, the adult dreamer appears from the outside, below the tunnel’s exit, his arms grab Joy inside the tunnel, and scoop her towards him.
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Justin raises his hands. “Hey there, hey there,” he says in a calm voice. “We come in peace.”
Three of the children are aiming their guns at us over their breakfast table, here in the desert. The other children look at us with fear in their eyes.
“Everybody, keep your guns down,” Justin instructs everyone in a calm tone. “Master Mind, step in front of her.”
The three kids all point their guns at Justin.
“You’re not going to shoot me, are you going to shoot me?” he says in a very calm voice, his arms still raised, as Master Mind places himself between Joy and the children. “Do you understand English? Parlez vous Francais? Dreamers, prepare something that will protect us from bullets,” he says that last sentence in the same tone as if speaking to the children.
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We take turns peeking out of the tunnel and looking down at this dream that Charlie had found.
When it’s my turn, I see that we are in the middle of the desert. The desert is rocky with sparse green bushes I’ve never seen before.
“I don’t recognize this place,” I tell them.
Fortunately, Madelyn is next. “This is Guban Desert,” she says. “I have been here once. We are in Somalia.”
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