Felix Discovers the DreamWorld and Other Stories



  Felix Discovers the DreamWorld, and Other Stories

  Copyright 2014 Alyce Wilson

  Cover Image: A composite image by the author, using the work of two artists and one photographer, all of whom made their work available on Flickr for commercial use and allowed changes under the Creative Commons license. The works and the changes made are: "Space" by Sweetie187 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/58782395@N03), unaltered; "Reptilez" by Quinn Dombrowski (https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya), recolored; "Buddy Robot" by Seth Wekheiser (https://www.flickr.com/photos/sethw), recolored.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One - Felix Discovers the DreamWorld

  Chapter Two - Felix Learns to Fly

  Chapter Three - Felix Visits the DreamWorld Zoo

  About Alyce Wilson

  Other books by Alyce Wilson

  Connect with Alyce Wilson

  Acknowledgements

  Every morning at breakfast, my mother would ask me, "What did you dream last night?" She taught me to believe in dreams, ghosts and faeries, and I owe her thanks for more reasons than can be listed here.

  My son, whose online nickname is Kung Fu Panda, or KFP for short, inspired these stories with his never-ending imagination and love of books. I also owe a debt to such children's authors as A.A. Milne, Judy Schachner and Ian Falconer, all favorites of my son.

  And of course, I must thank my ever-supportive husband, who urged me to believe.

  Chapter One - Felix Discovers the Dreamworld

  "Why is it bedtime?" Felix asked his Mommy for the second time, because he hadn't liked her first answer.

  "Because it's night," she said.

  He made a face so she would know how grumpy the answer made him feel. "Why do I have to sleep just because it's night?"

  His Mommy sighed a little and said, "Because you need to rest. Your body needs to shut down for a while so that you can wake up refreshed and healthy."

  "Like Hobart?" Felix asked, gesturing to his silver and purple plastic robot, standing on his nightstand. "He powers down when his batteries are getting low."

  His Mommy brightened. "Yes, exactly like that! You need to power down and recharge. Just like Hobart."

  Felix considered this for a little while, and the thought struck him as a silly. "But I don't have batteries," he told his silly Mommy.

  Grinning, she replied. "It's a figure of speech, Felix."

  He knew what figures were. They were drawings you made in art classes. Or illustrations in science books, like Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. He nodded wisely. "Like Drawings," he said.

  "Sort of," she answered, and pulled his sheets up to his chin. "A figure of speech is like drawing with words." She kissed him on the forehead. "Now, it's time to go to sleep."

  Felix made his grumpy face again. "I don't want to go to sleep."

  She kissed him and said, "But if you don't sleep, how can you have adventures in the DreamWorld?"

  "The what?" he said. "The who? The where?" Maybe if he asked enough questions all at once, she would give him at least one answer he liked.

  "The DreamWorld. It's a place you go every night when you fall asleep. You can go anywhere there, and meet anybody. You can do anything: dance with dragons or ride rabbits. It's entirely up to you."

  Felix had to admit, it sounded like fun, but he wasn't ready to give in just yet. He hugged his big plush green dinosaur, Drusus, closer for comfort. "If I go there every night, why don't I remember it?" he asked, doing his best to sound curious, but not whiney. His mother had told him often that she couldn't hear whiney words.

  With a voice hushed with wonder, she said, "The DreamWorld is easy to forget when you wake up. You just have to practice remembering. When you wake up in the morning, spend a minute or two thinking, 'Where did I go last night? What did I see?' It should come back to you."

  He nodded as if he understood, but he wasn't sure he did. "Are you sure I can go anywhere and see anybody?" he asked. She nodded. "Does that mean I can take Drusus? And Hobart?"

  "You can take anybody you want," his Mommy said. "People, animals, anything. Now are you finally ready to go to sleep?"

  Felix thought about it. "How will I get there? Can I fly in my rocket?" he asked, pointing across the room at the orange and green plastic tricycle he liked to pretend was a rocketship.

  His Mommy smiled. "That's a great way to go to the DreamWorld. Why don't you imagine you're on it right now?" Felix closed his eyes and pictured himself wearing a space helmet and riding on his tricycle. Drusus and Hobart were in the basket.

  "Now what?" he asked.

  In a hushed voice, she told him, "Now picture yourself sailing up, up, up into the sky. It's filled with stars, and you can see comets. You're drifting through the atmosphere, climbing higher and higher. As you go, our house gets smaller and smaller, and soon it is a dot in a vast landscape."

  "What does 'vast' mean?"

  "Shhh. Vast means big. It is a big, big landscape, a nighttime world of darkened trees and quiet, lit houses. As you fly higher, you can feel the air get a little cooler. Now you're flying above the clouds, and when you look down, you see grayish white swirls, lit by moonlight."

  In his mind's eye, Felix saw everything his Mommy described, plus a few details of his own. The tricycle had now expanded into a comfy capsule, just big enough to contain him and his two friends. Drusus and Hobart had both gotten bigger, too: Hobart was now Felix's size, and Drusus was almost as tall as Felix's Mommy.

  "Who's talking?" Drusus asked.

  Felix told him, "That's my Mommy. She's telling us a story about how to fly to DreamWorld."

  Drusus looked around to try to figure out where the voice was coming from. "Is she invisible?" he asked.

  Shaking his head, Felix said, "No, but she's not coming with us, because she's going to go downstairs and have a party. At least, that's what I think she does when I go to sleep."

  "Are we asleep?" Drusus asked, and bumped his head on the top of the capsule. It was comfy for boys, but a little cramped for dinosaurs.

  "I am a robot," Hobart said. He rotated his head all the way around to make his point. "Robots do not sleep."

  Felix wisely told him that he knew all about what robots did, and explained to him about batteries and power outlets. Hobart listened, humming quietly. "Do you understand?" Felix asked.

  "I understand," Hobart said, and then added, "I am a robot." He said that a lot.

  They had entered deep space, so Felix unbuckled himself from his seat and stretched his legs. That is to say, he shook his legs to get the cramps out, and he marched around the small cabin. Felix thought he probably could stretch his legs, if he wanted to, because he was pretty certain that he was asleep now. But if he stretched his legs, he wasn't sure if they would bounce back, and that could make walking difficult.

  He squeezed next to Drusus, who was blocking most of the tiny oval window, and he pressed his face against the space-safe glass. Outside, he saw a wonderful sight: the deep purple sky was illuminated by thousands of glittery stars. Tiny comets shot across the sky, and large balls, which Felix knew were planets, glowed in different colors. In front of that backdrop, dozens of spaceships flew. They were all shapes, sizes and colors. Some of them looked familiar: like he'd seen them in a movie. Others looked like toys he'd seen: like the fat, red and white flying saucer he'd played with at Child Watch. Still other ships looked like his own crayon drawings, which his Mommy liked to hang on the refrigerator. And some looked entirely new, like nothing he'd ever seen before.

  "What are you looking at?" Drusus asked him.

  "Spaceships
," Felix said. "See?" He pointed out the window. Drusus swiveled his long neck but could not find a way to push his face near the window from his position.

  Drusus asked, "If we're dreaming, do you think that maybe you could change the size of this ship?"

  Felix thought about it. His Mommy had told him he could do and see anything in the DreamWorld. That probably included changing the size of their space capsule. As soon as he thought this, the walls of the capsule began to expand. Soon the little ship had grown from boy size to small dinosaur size.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Drusus said, "Thank you! Much better. So, what do we do now?"

  "I want to race the other ships," Felix said, excited. He had always loved racing his toys around the room, holding one ship in each hand and pretending they were zooming through space. He sat down at the control panel.

  "Do you know how to fly it?" Drusus asked.

  "Sure, it's easy!" Felix replied, and he glanced at the console. It was full of buttons in all