The last couple of days have been terrible for me.  I suffer from what is called spinal stenosis. (Spinal stenosis is a narrowing of the lumbar (back) or cervical (neck) spinal canal, which causes compression of the nerve roots.) It causes this to happen:

Here's a short list of 25 random things you may or may not know about me.  I'm not sure who reads these things but I felt compelled to put it out there "just in case". 

1) Both my mother and I almost died during my child birth. They brought in a priest to say "Last Rites" for us both

2) I'm left handed, was born with flat feet and my left eye is two toned. (half blue/half brown. I was the youngest of 4 kids.  2 brothers and a sister.

3) I was a child prodigy. My I.Q. has been recorded between 177 to 183 (according to   which test you rely on).

4) I started drawing at the age of 3 by drawing a moose head and proclaimed I would be an artist by the age of 4. I started painting in oils by the age of 13

5) I use to sleep walk as a kid.
6) I saved my neighbor's life once from drowning when she fell into a ditch full of water when I was 8 years old.
7) I was "discovered" by a University professor of art in the 7th grade, where one of my drawings was used for his art classes. I would later be invited to attend art classes at the University of Texas in the 7th and 8th grades.

8) I was in a truck wreck where we hit a cow. Totaled the truck and killed the cow.
9) I once lived with a top less dancer named Miss Kitty when I was 20 and she was 28.
10) I hitch-hiked with a girl friend once from Austin Texas to Battle Creek Michigan. It took us 3 days to get there.

11) I play guitar and key board (both self taught) and also write music and lyrics.

12) I was in a motor cycle wreck once.
13) I was homeless once for 6 weeks and lived under a bridge.
14) I played with my brother's band when I lived out in California.

15) I road a train for 3 days once from Austin Texas to Seattle Washington and lived up there for a while.
16) My mother died in my arms after suffering a fatal heart attack and would die a second time 5 days later in the hospital on mother's day.  I would write my comic book "Sophe and Spuds" within 30 days to deal with the stress.

17) I've been married twice, divorced once. No kids.
18) I worked as a docent for the San Antonio Museum of Art where I wrote and illustrated a book on Ancient Egypt for the docent program there.

19) To support myself during the leans times of my artist career, I have been a bill board painter, a jeweler, a construction worker,a cook,a dish washer, a cab driver, a warehouse manager, and a pizza delivery driver.
20) My brother died on his 40th birthday.  My sister vanished and we don't know where she is or if she is still alive.
21) I would have neck surgery and my father would suffer a massive stroke the same day and end up in the same hospital on the same floor and I wouldn't find out until the next day. He would die 3 days later on Super Bowl Sunday of that year.
22) I use to be a cigarette smoker from high school until I had neck surgery. Now I don't smoke.  And only drink on rare occasions. My favorite beverage now is coffee, tea or Dr.Pepper.
23) I've taught people how to draw (both children and adults) through out my career.
24) I'm a big animal lover but I hate "crawly things".  I have 5 dogs.

25) My art has been seen world wide (literally) on my other website where it has been view by people in 75 countries across the globe.

I've written a book for children that is inspired by several stories including "Yellow Submarine", "The Point", "Lord of the Rings", "Alice in Wonderland" and others called "The Dream" about a magical land called 'Dreamsland' and the adventures of its strangest character called Trimese Twins and a little boy from the outside world name Alex and his dog Bikko (pronounced Bick O). 
I hope you like this. All characters, events, names, places, etc. are copyrighted by me: Jim Green...
Here is the link to the beginning:
http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vbG5rLm1zLzRSN0tN

The story continues: The Dream: Part 14/second half and end of story

*( All characters, events, places, etc are copyrighted by me)

                            The Dream... Chapter 14 (second half)

  “Call me Tim” Tim said. “Tim Edinburg”.

  “This is so amazing” Leah said as she smiled. “In any case you guys did it!” and they all looked up at the blue sky above them and felt the gentle breeze that once again caressed their cheeks.

  About that time other villagers were approaching and for a brief moment they weren’t sure what they would say or think.

  “You did this didn’t you?” one of the villagers asked.

  “Well I” Tim started to say, thinking it was going to be a lynch mob.

  “Yep” Leah piped in, “These guys fixed the Clock and saved the day.”

  Alex looked at the crowd who was still trying to wipe the sleep out of their eyes.

  The crowd suddenly rushed forward and for a brief moment Alex and Tim and Leah and the professor weren’t sure what was going on. They pushed pass Leah and the professor and grabbed at Tim and Alex. And just like that they lifted them above to their shoulders.

  “Hip hip hooray” the crowd chanted. “Hip hip hooray!” they chanted again.

  “Oh my” Tim said as he looked over at Alex who was also hoisted above the crowd on everyone’s shoulders.

  “I didn’t expect this” Tim said.

  “Neither did I” Alex said. “I guess we did alright.” They both smiled at one another and then to the crowd and raised their hands in triumph and yelled “Yeah!” “Yeah!” “Yippee!”

  Leah and her father hugged each other and they all laughed or cried in happiness.

  “This is so wonderful father”, Leah said. “They did it, they really did it.”

  “I know” the Professor said as he hugged her again and looked up at the two hero’s that were being hoisted over to the steps. They were both let down after a moment at the base of the steps. Alex and Tim walked up a couple of the steps to look over the crowd.

  “Speech” “Speech” several in the crowd cried out. “Tell us how you did it.”

  “Yes, yes” others cried out. “We must know how you did this.” “You guys are hero’s” and “We love you both”.  It was amazing an overwhelming at the same time. Tim had to fight back the tears of happiness and joy that had suddenly welled up in his heart. He had long to hear those words of love and acceptance forever, and now he was finally hearing them.

  Alex and Tim looked at each other and then motioned Leah and the Professor to come up and stand next to them. And then they each took turns telling what had happened and explained the whole story. Leah and the Professors’ eyes’ got big as the guys explain the various adventures that they had gone through.

  There were gasps from the crowd when they got to the part of how Trimese had been healed and that the guy they now knew as Tim use to be the brother’s Trimese, or Tic, Tac and Toe.

  “Oh my” some said in disbelief.  Some said,” He’s so handsome”.  Still others said, “I knew he was destined for greatness” “You could tell he was different for a reason and now we know”.  Somehow none of them found it unbelievable that Trimese was now one person, not three.

  Someone in the crowd suggested that they should have a banquet in their honor and decided to have it right there at the base of the Big Blue Hill that held the Great Wisdom Clock. One person said they had some tables and some others volunteered some chairs and still others wanted to offer food and drinks and before too long everyone in the Village were joining in to help contribute to the celebration in some way. Even the City Elders came out of their nice little cottages and paid tribute to Alex and Tim. The professor gave them all a very knowing look, which made them all feel uneasy. He, of course, would deal with them later in private about some matters of experimentation and so forth that cost people’s lives.

  Several people volunteered to clean up the walk way quickly and the nice breeze did a good job of somehow making things just go away that shouldn’t be there. All in all the whole area soon came to order in quick fashion and the feast was on.

  Many tables were laid out next to each other and the four main characters of Tim and Alex and the Professor and his daughter Leah sat in places of honor while many of the other villagers sat next to them or across from them. Everyone had more questions to ask and even those who had been cruel to Trimese in the past suddenly acted like they were best friends. There were all kinds of wonderful foods and drinks presented and the City Elders made Alex an honorary citizen of Dreamsland and decided to appoint Tim as the official Time Keeper.

  Leah kept looking over at Tim and didn’t say anything but smiled at him each time he looked over and noticed her. It sort of gave him a weird feeling like she was suddenly seeing him for the very first time and she seem to like what she saw. In her mind she realized that here was her best friend, and that he had been for most of her life and that she had serious feelings that probably went past just a like and yet because of his former physical “blessings” she never considered him anything more than just a ‘friend’. But now, presented with the new and improved Tim, the way that he was always meant to be, she realized that somehow that he wasn’t the only one that had changed that day. That her heart had changed too and somehow her eyes were open for the very first time to new possibilities and it made her smile when she did.

  At one point both Tim and Leah were reaching for some rolls on a plate that sat between them and their hands touch for a brief moment and there was an electricity that neither one of them had ever felt before. It made them both look at one another and smile. One thing was for certain, they both felt something and they both smiled at one another. Everyone’s life had changed that day and no one would be the same after this.

 ....

  “I think I know somewhere we might try” Sarah Rogers told John and Mary. “The woods down on Baker Street.” “We often go there to hang out and play and such.”

  John Taylor sort of frowned for a moment and then told his wife, “It can’t hurt.” “Let’s go check it out.”

  They all got into Mary’s car and drove the two blocks over to the woods that were at the end of the street two streets over and got out and started down the trail. It was indeed the same trail that Alex had gone the night before when he ran away. It was still relatively early in the morning and there was dew on the grass everywhere. It was actually sort of chilly here in the woods. 

  “Alex” they called for a moment and continued on. Eventually they got to the tree trunk fortress and saw a sleeping bag with a figure in it. They had found him.

 ....

  Alex was looking over at the Tim and Leah and the professor and out at the Central Garden and all its brilliant colors and the blue sky above. He looked at the birds that were flying here and there and the sweet scents of all the lovely flowers and the wonderful songs from the birds. He looked at all the happy people of the village and how each and every one of them seemed so full of joy and love and was celebrating the things that Tim and himself had just done. He looked over at Tim and Leah and how they two looked at one another now and there seem to be something special there. It made his heart happy to see them both looking lovingly at one another.  He looked up the hill behind him to the Clock above the hill, which seemed to be watching the festivities and seem to smile down to him and the rest. It all seemed so wonderful and perfect and peaceful and he realized that he would soon have to go home but that he would always take a part of Dreamsland with him and that his life would forever be changed by it all. He did indeed fix the clock just like he said he could or would and he felt so proud of himself. That was all he ever wanted was the approval of both his parents and for them to realize that he could do it.

  He was deep in thought for a brief moment when he looked again at the rest of them and they all sort of looked at him differently.

  “We’re going to miss you Alex” Tim said.

  “You did great kid, we’re all just so proud of you, “ Leah added.

  “Dreamsland owes you a great debt”, the professor said.

  “What’s going on guys?” Alex asked a little confused.

  He suddenly realized that another ‘veil’ had appeared all around him suddenly out of nowhere and it quickly went all white.

  He turned around and looked back at the Clock, which said, “It’s time Alex.”

  Alex just had enough time to look back at Tim and Leah and the Professor, as they all seem to say “Good bye Alex”

  “ We will miss you Alex.”

  “You did great Alex”…

  ~POOF~

  “Wake up Alex” he suddenly realized someone was saying that over him.

  “What?” Alex thought to himself and struggle to open his eyes. Strange, he didn’t remember closing them just then.

  “Wake up son” he heard a familiar voice. And soon he realized the voice was his dad’s.

  Alex sort of opened one eye and looked up blurrily at his father who was standing over him. His father smiled down at him, very lovingly like.

  Alex shook the sleep out of his eyes and sort of sat up in the sleeping bag. He was now back in the woods he had been when he first ran away. His dog Bikko crawled out of the sleeping bag next to him and sort of stretched and yawned.

  As his vision returned to his eyes he realized that his mother and Sarah were also standing over him.

  “Alex Taylor” his mother said, “You gave us such a freight”, she said as she leaned down to give him a hug and then kissed him very sweetly.

  “I’m sorry mom.” Alex said sort of embarrassed but still just a little confused.

  “It’s okay”, his mother said as she leaned back to look at him and sort of brushed the hair back out of his face.  “You’re not in trouble son.” “We just were so worried for you.”

  “We’ll talk about this later son” his father said, “But now, lets get you home.” “I’ve got quite a few calls to make to let people know we found you.”

  “Really dad, I’m sorry” Alex said as he got up to pull his sleeping bag together and put it in his backpack.

  “It’s okay son.” His dad said.

  As they got into the car Alex couldn’t contain himself any more and had to tell everyone about the adventure he had just been on. He went on about Wisdom Clocks and strange guys who were named Trimese and weird lizard creatures and all kinds of things that his parents sort of laughed at among them self.

  Every once in a while his parents would stop and ask him something concerning something he had said.

  “Wait” his mother said. “The girls wolf pack suddenly turned into people?”

  Sarah’s eyes got big as she listened to Alex’s story and then she gave Alex’s mother a knowing look from the back seat next to him. Her mother would give Sarah a knowing look back and then to John who was listening to the whole thing.

  “Look Alex” John finally said, “It just sounds like you had one amazing dream that’s all”.

  “But dad” Alex protested, “It couldn’t have been just a dream it seemed so real.”

  “I know son” Alex’s dad said. “A lot of times it does seem that way.” “I’ve had them myself and they seemed so real, but they were still just dreams.”

  Sarah agreed that she too had had some interesting dreams and that they also felt real and so did his mother.

  “Okay, okay” Alex finally said seeing how no one was going to listen to him. They finally got to Sarah’s house and dropped her off. She told Alex she was really glad that he was okay and that they had found him and said goodbye and went into her house.

  “In any case it sounds like you had a wonderful time” Alex’s father said.

  “It certainly does dear”, his mother added as she smiled back at him.

  ‘It certainly seemed like it was real’ Alex thought to himself.

  They finally got back to their house. Alex said he was sort of tired and wanted to go up to his room.

  “Oh by the way son” Alex’s mother said, “Sarah told us all about the DVD player in the living room.” He sort of stopped half way in his tracks as he was going up the steps.

  “Ah yeah” he sort of stammered, “I was going to tell you guys.”

  “Alex relax son” his mother said, “You’re not in trouble.”

  “Fact is son we didn’t know you could do that sort of thing”, his father piped in.

  “But now that we do know, we’ve talked about it, your mother and I” he looked over at Mary and she looked at him.

  “We’ve decided that you can put your clock back together again.” He finished.

  “Hey great” Alex said all excited. He finally got the approval he wanted.

  “Yeah, we’ll talk about it” his mother came over and put her hand on his hand on the banister as he stood on the stairs. She smiled up at him.  He smiled back at both his parents.

  “Just don’t go running away again, okay?” she said.

  “I promise mom, I won’t” Alex said.

  “You promise?” she said.

  “I promise” Alex said reassuringly.

  “Ah you knuckle head” his dad said “Now go get some rest and then we’ll talk okay?” “There’s a cool new fangled gadget that Mr. Robinson brought into the shop that I want to show you later” his father said.

  “Great dad” Alex said. “I can’t wait to see it”. He smiled at his parents as they smiled back and then ran up stairs with his dog closely by his legs and went to his bedroom and closed the door behind him.

  He flung his backpack off to one side of his bedroom and sort of flopped down in the middle of his bed and placed an arm behind his head and stared off to the ceiling. Bikko jumped up and climbed next to him and then put his head down on Alex’s chest. Alex reached down and started to pet his dog absentmindedly.  Alex looked down at his dog that looked up at him curiously and tilted his head like he often did.

  “I don’t know Bikko” Alex said to his dog “It certainly DID seem real” “Surely it wasn’t a dream” Bikko looked up at him again curiously and tilted his head.

 “Surely all that couldn’t have happened in a dream” Alex said. The dog just looked at him and said nothing.

  “Well…” Alex sort of trailed off. “Maybe it was just a dream” “I don’t know.”

  About that time Alex felt something poking him in his pocket and reached down. “What’s this?” he sort of said as he felt the thing that was budging in his pocket.

 He reached into it and pulled out a gold compact that had an interesting design of wines or twigs that wrapped around them selves.

  His eyes got really big when he looked down and realize that he was now holding something from the other side of the ‘veil’. About that time it suddenly popped open and revealed a mirror on the inside. Alex was now looking at him self in the reflection.

  Ariel from the museum suddenly popped back into his mind at that moment. What was it she said when she gave him this gift he pondered? He thought back to that moment.

 ....

  “It is a key for you alone.” She had said. “If you ever have any questions, if you are ever confused and don’t know the answer, look into it and you will see that which you seek.

  “It is the thing that you must learn to rely on the most in your future”

  The hair on the back of his head stood to attention “Oh wow!” “Now I understand what she meant by all that.” He continued to look into the mirror at his own reflection.

  He considered calling his parents up to his room at that very moment and show them his proof that what he had been telling them, about his great adventure, was more than just a dream but decided at the last moment to just keep it to himself.

  Bikko sort of whimpered at Alex with his head on Alex’s stomach in approval of his latest decision.

  “Yeah Bikko” Alex said. “I know boy, it will be our little secret.”

 The dog sort of looked up again at Alex and tilted his head. Alex looked again into the mirror of his little gift.

  “Yeah” Alex said as he smiled to himself. “Some dreams are meant to be kept a secret” he snapped the compact close and placed it back into his pocket.

  “And some are simple meant to be.”  He stared off again to his ceiling and smiled to himself.

                                                          THE END…

  

                                                                 Epilogue.

 

  It came to pass soon after Alex and Bikko had disappeared in Dreamsland through the ‘veil’ back to their own ‘reality’ that the professor confronted the City Elders about their part in the toxic fertilizer that had killed 10 people during that terrible season that included the death of the parents of Tim and others.  To save face and keep from an embarrassing situation many of the City Elders decided it was time for them to retire from public service to the village. It was determined that a new order was needed, some fresh blood so to speak to ensure that this sort of thing never ever take place again, and in the coming weeks the people of the village deemed that the one person who should take over the responsibilities of running the fair township of Dreamsland should be it’s brightest and the most well read person in all the parts, and that would be the Professor. He was soon elected the first Mayor of Dreamsland and implemented several innovations to the fair Village of Dreamsland which included music and art festivals (a suggestion of Tim’s from his experience with the guys from the Land of No) and other things that would break people out of the bonds of silly outdated dogma that no one cared to be a prisoner of anyways.

  Everyone soon realized that there was more to life than just daily tolling away on some silly garden and many of them decided to not worry with continuing on with the stupid competition of trying to better their neighbors. The almost total collapse of the entire Village due to neglect of the Great Wisdom Clock taught them that valuable lesson. Many found it actually liberating not to have to be bound to their gardens and people began to realize just what wonderful neighbors they had all along, when they actually stopped long enough to visit with one another and had other things to talk about other than stupid gardens or who was growing what plants and so forth. Very liberating indeed!

  A romance between Tim and Leah soon sprang up which didn’t surprise anyone and actually made the Professor happy. Of course beside the prestige of now having the most important job in all of Dreamsland now as the Official Time Keeper, it was determined by the City Elders that a huge settlement gift (never fully explained of course) should come Tim’s way that also made him one of the richest people in all of Dreamsland. In one season he went from being shunned and jeered at and a total outcast, to become a hero, a celebrity (They would write songs about his exploits in the younglings schools), one of the riches people in all of Dreamsland and also have the most important job (other than the Professor who was now Mayor of Dreamsland). Often he would be seen sitting on the top step of the Great Blue Mound talking away with the Wisdom Clock who loved and doted on him like a wonderful mentor that he turned out to be. Many people would stop on their walks around the track and pay homage to Tim and the Clock and now it too was getting the recognition and respect that it always deserved.

  Not only that, but Tim also had the heart of Leah and would soon have her hand in marriage as well. Eventually they would have 3 children altogether, all boys. And people soon started to call him by the nickname of Father Tim, which eventually somehow would include the first initial of his last name of ‘E’, making him “Father TimE” which would eventually become “Father Time”, Sort of appropriate actually, considering his position and stature in life.

  Alex would go on to work with his father in his father’s workshop for several years afterwards and both he and his parents grew a stronger bond that would last them a lifetime, but would eventually move into computers and computer software and he would end up inventing a revolutionary new type of software that helped people realize their potential. He made him self a small fortune, and he in turned gave a bunch of his money to help out his parents. His dad got a bigger shop and would eventually retired along with his mother.

  Alex never looked back and he never had any more self-doubts. In fact, he achieved every single one of his dreams in the future. Sarah Rogers became his girlfriend and they went steady for a couple of years and eventually they too got married and had 3 kids, all of them boys.

 ....

  And you…you’ve finally reached the end… Well, at least until you pick this up again and start all over. 

 ....

  In the meantime, may all of YOUR dreams come true….

 

The saga Continues:
All characters, events, places, etc are copyrighted by me.




                          The Dream... Chapter 14 (First half)

                              14: The Return

 

  Trimese and Alex (along with Bikko) made their way across the field to the bottom of the ‘soup bowl hill’ that surrounded Dreamsland. As they looked up the hill there were stronger flashes of lighting that struck here and there and made them winch.

  “I got to tell you I’m not looking forward to walking up this hill.” Toe said. “I’m really tired now.” “In fact, I feel so old.”

  “I know what you mean Toe” Tac agreed, “I’m feeling it too.”

  “Oh good” added Tic. “For a moment I thought it was just me.”

  “I’m not so sure that’s a good thing”, said Tac as he looked at both his brothers.

  They slowly made their way up the hill. It was a real struggle to get to the top. They were practically all on their hands and knees and crawling by the time they got to the summit.

  “I’m out of breath guys.” Toe said. “Let me rest for a moment.” He leaned over and put his weight on his knees as did Tic and Tac. Even Alex was tired from the climb and had to lean over to catch his breath. Bikko too panted as he rested to regroup along with the guys. They all breathed hard for a few moments.

  There was another flash of lighting that seemed to appear directly above them and it made them all jump.

  They all stood up and look down the other side. They had a great vantage point of everything below them. Before them lay the fields of chaff plants that grew wildly on the outside of the village and beyond that they could see Dreamsland and beyond that was the little lake that sat beside the village. Apparently, Trimese thought, he must of left going in the other direction. Weird, he thought to himself, but ever since his first run in with the ‘veil’ and the one after that he couldn’t remember anything of the journey to find Alex, which explained why he had no clue what lay ahead.

  Dreamsland looked completely dead and void of life. There wasn’t anyone walking or standing outside. The colors of the plants seemed drained and there were no flowers to be seen. It was as if someone had taken a colored towel and bleached all the color and life out of it.

  “Oh my!” Toe exclaimed. “I hope we aren’t too late.”

  “We shouldn’t be” Tac replied. “By my calculations and what the professor said we should still have another 11 days or so.” (In truth, it was more like one).

  “But in any case it certainly doesn’t look good, now does it?” Tic said.

  “No it doesn’t” Tac said. They all looked over dead looking village.

  “Come on let’s go.” Alex said.

  “Good idea” Tic said.

  They made their way down the other side of the hill, which was a little easier going than before, but still took a lot out of Trimese. He couldn’t understand why he was so tired now. And each step he took was like his feet were made of clay or that he was covered in cement or something. He had never ever been this tired and was getting more tired by the moment.

  “What’s going on guys?” Tac asked. “Why do I feel so tired now?”

  “I almost feel like crying.” Toe replied.

  “Toughen up guys” Tic said sort of agitated. “We’ve still got a job to do.”

  “Right, right” Tac agreed. He usually didn’t comment on his physical being because he was usually full of energy. It was certainly a new sensation to him, to all of them. “It must be the clock.”

  “I bet your right” Tic said.

  They looked over the distance to the clock, which seemed to be leaning over even more than they remembered.

  “Is that it over there?” Alex asked as he too looked off in the general direction.

  “Yep, that’s it Alex” Tac replied.

  “It certainly doesn’t look good from here does it?” Toe said.

  It was then that the realization set in about the task at hand in Alex’s mind.

  ‘Alex, you better do this.’ Alex thought to himself. ‘No, you CAN do this. You CAN do this’ he sort of told himself.

  They reached the field of chaff plants which stood just outside the village proper and walked through it. The stalks of plants were leaning and wilting and didn’t look healthy at all. (To those in ‘reality’ the chaff plant looked very similarly to a wheat plant.)

  “What is all this?” Alex asked.

  “We call it a chaff plant.” Tac replied, “We use it for all kinds of things here in Dreamsland”, “Everything from food, to a seasoning when it’s grounded up”.

  “Yep” added Tic. “You can even strip the fibers from the stalks and turn it into a material.” “It’s very useful actually.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it”, Alex said. “Is it supposed to look like this?” He looked over at the nearest plant, which was half dead.

  “No, it’s not Alex” Tac said. “I’m sure it has to do with the clock.” “Come on guys lets keep going.”

  They continued to make their way through the chaff plants that were leaning this way and that way and finally made it to the back of the outer roll of cottages. There was a walkway that led between the middle of them to the track around the Central Garden, so they made their way to it and followed it to the track.

  They glanced over at the little cottages on both sides of the walk way and even the animals that were usually milling around in the back yards seemed to have disappeared into the little cottage barns in the backyards and such.

  “Did you notice there are no birds?” Tac asked. They all looked up at that observation.

  “Yeah you’re right” Toe said. “I haven’t seen any since we got back”. “That’s truly weird.”

  “Look alive guys” Tic said as he began to really look about him.

  None of the cottages on either side show any signs of life. The shutters were pulled shut and the guys could start to see evidence of how the villagers just abandoned their garden tools everywhere. There were rakes and hoes and other things just thrown about. Not to mention the pieces of paper and leafs and parts of flowers that were everywhere.

  “It looks like a disaster hit this place guys”, Alex said, as he looked this way and that way. Even Bikko sort of kept his head down and whimpered under his breath like he too knew something terrible had been going on before they got there.

  About that time they reached the track and the Central Garden.

  “Oh my” Trimese sort of said under his breath. “This is not good.”

  It too looked like the world had been turned upside down. The Central Garden looked just as bad or worse than the individual gardens in the front yards of everyone’s lot. They had all taken the brunt of the gusts of storm winds that were the forerunner of the ones that were yet to come. Plants were broken or uprooted altogether and none of them were now showing any blooms or anything else that resembled the way they had before the guys had left to find someone.

  “I’m so sorry” Alex said as he could see the sadness and realization that had set in the eyes of the three brothers.

  “It’s not your fault” Tac said. “Let’s just hope that you can do something to fix the clock and restore things to the way they use to be.”

 ....

  It was then that the full weight of what Alex was about to do finally hit him.

 ....

  They continued up the track on their way to the professor’s house. There was debris thrown everywhere along the way. Trimese couldn’t remember this ever looking this bad ether. Surely the City Elders would never allow such a mess. ‘I wonder where they’re at’ they thought to them self. 

  “We’ve got to stop by the professor’s house first Alex.” Tic said.

  “I’m sure they’ll want to know we’re back.” Tac added. “Besides, the professor probably has some tools you’ll need to fix the clock.”

  They finally came to the professor’s cottage and noticed the devastation like everywhere else. There were things thrown all about his front yard and all his instruments were torn off the top of this house.

  “Wow, look at this place” Toe said as they made it to his gate. They all looked around at the disaster that use to be his nice neat little garden. Gone were all the interesting unique plants that once inhabited his garden. There were pieces of flowers, parts of plant stalks thrown about, papers and even stuff from other people’s gardens thrown about in the area of his front yard that use to hold his garden. They had to step over and around stuff as they made their way up the walkway.

   They had just gotten to the front door and were about to knock on it when it flung suddenly open. Leah was standing on the other side in the door way and she looked terrible. Her eyes were sunken in and swollen like she had been crying and looked as if she hadn’t slept in days.

  She flung herself into the arms of Trimese and gave them a big hug.

  “What took you guys so long?” She said as she wiped a tear out of her eyes. For a brief moment Trimese was reminded of the dream he had had on the ‘Enchanted Dome’. The thought of it sent shiver down his spine.

  “We’re so sorry Leah” Tac said. “It took a little longer than we thought.” “Where’s the professor’s?”

  “You’re too late” Leah said.

  “What?!” Trimese said. Again, he thought of the dream he had had.

  “He’s passed out and I can’t wake him”, she said.

  “Oh” Tac said. “Can we see him?”

  About that time a boom hit near them which made them all shake.

  “Quick guys get in”, Leah said as she pulled everyone inside the cabin and closed the door.

  “The booms are bad guys and they’re followed by wind gust.” Leah said, ”I’ve already been knocked down by one of those and I don’t want to go through THAT again, believe me.”

  “So that explains everything”, Tac said, realizing the full meaning of the nature of disaster outside and what was about to come again. About that time the gust blew through the front yard. They could hear stuff being blown about outside and against the door and even up against the side of the cottage.

  “It’s much closer this time”, Leah said. “I hate those”

  After a moment it got quiet again outside and everyone’s attention returned to the professor.

  “Where is he?” Tac asked.

  “He’s over here guys.” She led them over to the professor who was passed out in the chair in the corner.

  Trimese went over and examined the professor but couldn’t revive him either. “I don’t think it’s anything serious Leah” Tac finally said. “I think it’s just a side effect of the clock like everything else.”

  “I figured that too”, Leah said as she finally realized that someone else was standing in her house.

  “Who’s this?” Leah said as she looked at Alex who was standing over to the side watching everything.

  “This is Alex Leah”, said Tac as he sort of turned to introduce them.

  “HE’S the one you brought back?!” she asked incredulously.

  “Look I know I’m young” Alex started to protest.

  “Young?” Leah shot back “Kid, you’re even younger than me.” She darted a look over to Trimese.

  Trimese stood up and walked over to Leah. “Look, I know he’s young” They all looked at Alex.

  “But his dad fixes clocks” Tac continued.

  “Why didn’t you bring his dad then?” Leah darted back.

  “His dad fixes clocks” Tac again continued “and he taught his son everything he knows.” “He’ll do fine, trust me.” Trimese reached up and touched Leah on the arms and she some how knew by the way the three brothers all looked deep into her eyes that Trimese was telling the truth.

  “Well, if you say so.” Leah finally said as she once again looked over at Alex.

  “Honestly” Alex said when she looked at him. “I really can fix it.”

  In his mind he was telling himself ‘You better Alex’.

  “Now, we need some tools for the clock.” Tic said trying to refocus everyone.

  “Dad actually prepared some for you” Leah said as she went into another room and brought out a small knapsack with some screwdrivers, some pliers and other tools that might be needed to fix the clock.

  “He really wasn’t sure what you might need so he put a little of everything in it” Leah said. “I hope it helps”.

  “That’s great Leah” Tac said. “I’m sure it will do just fine”. “Here you go Alex” and he handed the knapsack over to the kid.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” Leah said as she looked at Alex once again.

  “Um, yeah, sure” Alex said as his voice sort of broke for a moment.

  She eyed him for a moment and then finally said, “I’m sure you’ll do fine kid.”

  “Now I got to warn you to watch out for the booms. They’re followed by the wind gusts and they seem to be getting closer.” Leah said. “They’re pretty nasty really”.

  At that very moment there was another boom outside and then a delay and then another burst of wind that seem to throw everything outside upside down.

  ‘Great’ Alex thought to himself. ‘As if we didn’t have enough to worry about.’

  “We’ll be careful Leah” Tic said as they all regrouped and waited for the wind to pass.

  “You ready Alex?” Tac asked.

  “About as ready as I’m ever going to be.” Alex replied.

  They cracked open the door and peaked out and saw that the yard and garden outside was even worse. Then Alex, Bikko and Trimese stepped outside.  Leah said goodbye to the guys at the doorway and wished them luck and closed the door behind them.

  “Well, this is it guys” Tic said as they looked at one another.

  “Yep” Toe said as he smiled over at Alex who suddenly looked just a little nervous.

  ‘You can do it Alex’ ‘You CAN do it!’ Alex said to himself.  He took a deep breath.

  “Are you okay?” Tac asked Alex.

  “Yeah, guys, I’m fine.” Alex replied. “Let’s go fix that clock.”

  They started down the track towards the clock and even from the gate of the professor they could see that the clock was leaning a lot more than they remembered. The Clock now looked terribly tired and worn out and such. Trimese was getting more and more tired himself with each step and it was as if a huge weight was being placed on ever inch of his body and more weight was being added with every step.

  After a moment Alex looked over at the brothers who seemed to be struggling to take each step. “Are you guys okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah Alex.” Tac replied. “It’s just the clock, I’m sure.” “We’re okay”. “Let’s keep going”.

  They took a few more steps and were about half away around the curve of the ‘track’ when they saw the flash of lighting and then heard the next boom. There wasn’t anywhere to take cover where they currently were. They all looked across the Central Garden as they could see a huge cloud of dust and debris that was making it’s way quickly towards them.

  It took a second or two for the fact to sit in that they were in the direct path of the wind burst.

  “Duck for cover” Tac and Tic both said about the same time and they all dived and hit the ground as the wind gust with all its debris finally rushed over them and around them. They all lay on the ground for a moment covering their faces and heads as stuff blew over them. Alex had grabbed Bikko and pulled him close to himself and try his best to cover both of them.

  “Wow!” that was close, Alex finally said as they all sort of looked up and around them. They finally all got up. They were covered in leafs and torn pieces of paper and other things that had blown over them and around them but none the worse for wear.

  “Are you okay guys?” Alex asked.

  “Yeah, I think so Alex” Tic said. “How about you?” Trimese looked over himself for a moment and then at Alex.

  “I think I’m okay”, Alex said as he brushed off the last of the broken twigs out of Bikko’s hair.  “You okay boy?” Alex said as he looked down at his dog that looked up and tilted his head approvingly at him.

  “Come on guys” Tic said but as they started to move forward Toe suddenly had a limp in his left leg.

  “Ouch” he exclaimed. He took one step and the limp became more pronounced. “Ouch, this really hurts”.

  “Toe, are you okay?” Alex asked looking over at him very concerned like.

  “It’s my knee” Toe replied as he grimaced in pain. “Sorry guys.”

  “It’s okay Toe” Tac said. “Look put your weight on us okay?” he said as he motioned towards Tic and himself.

  “Ouch” Toe said again as he tried to put more weight on his knee.

  “Sorry guys” Toe said again. They somehow managed to continue on up the track. It definitely slowed things down but they finally made it to the base of the ‘Great Wisdom Clock’.

  There was another boom and they all knew what was coming. Again, like before they got face down on the ground and covered their faces until it passed over them. Again, like before they shook off the debris and other things that had blown over them.

  “I don’t think we can make it up the steps Alex” Tac finally said as they looked up the hill at all the steps that led to the top to the clock.

  “I’m so sorry guys”, Toe said again.

  “Look Toe” Tic said. “You didn’t do it on purpose okay?” “ Let it go will you before I kick you in the other knee to make it match the one you hurt.”

  “Duly noted” Toe said.

  “I’ve got to hurry up if I’m going to make it to the top before the next boom hits. I’ll be toast if I don’t and get caught on the steps”; Alex said, as he looked up the hill at all the steps he was going to have to climb. Above the storm was beginning to pick up momentum. The flashes were beginning to become more frequent. And some of the lighting flashes danced around the sky from one part of the cloud cover to another and back. It was really something to see.

  “Wish me luck guys” Alex finally said as he looked over to the three brothers who had a mixed bag of emotions written across their faces. He then looked up the steps again and took a deep breath.

  “We’ll be right here when you get back okay?” Toe said. “You’ll do great Alex.”

  “We’re counting on your “ Tic added.

  Alex looked over to Tac who remained silent and just gave him a nod of approval sort of like a bigger brother and then he smiled. It somehow gave him the boost of confidence that he needed. Tac handed him the bag with the tools in it.

  ‘I can do this’ Alex said to him self. He looked down at his dog that was looking up at him and sort of tilted his head as he did.

  “You ready Bikko?” Alex finally said and the dog wagged its tail. “Okay then” he said, “here we go”.

  Alex began up the steps with Bikko bounded along beside him. At first he was practically running up the steps but as he continued up he started to get tired and his legs started to hurt. He stopped about half way up and turned and looked back down to where Trimese was. The brothers looked tired and were bent over trying to catch their breath. They all stood up when they realize that Alex as looking down at them and they waved back at him.

  Alex waved back to the brothers and then turned his attention to the top of the steps where the clock was looming and looking down at him. He continued to struggle up steps one at a time and was beginning to get out of breath himself.
   “Phew” he said as he went.

   He was about 3 or 4 steps from the top when he saw another flash of light that seemed to hit just above him and then there was another big boom. This time it seemed so close, almost right on top of him. Alex looked back across the Central Garden and could see another wind gust approaching with all its debris in its path and knew he had better get cover or else he was in trouble.

  He grabbed up Bikko quickly in his arms and struggled up the last few steps and just had enough time to ‘tuck and roll’ and then duck behind the clock and hold on as the wind gust finally hit. Up here there wasn’t much of debris but the wind was still strong and would of probably knocked him right off the top. And that would have been the end of that, he thought.

  “Another close one Bikko” Alex said as he put the dog down and turned his attention to the clock in front of him. He was now standing directly behind the clock where the back panel was the led to the insides with its internal mechanisms. He reached up and touched the clock for a moment and took his hand away. Even though it felt sort of cold to the touch he got the distinct impression that he was touching a live thing and not just a inanimate object like a normal clock. This thing seemed to really be alive. He reached up slowly and touched the surface again and sort of had the mental impression of a voice, very faintly saying ‘help me’.

  Again Alex pulled his hand back. “Wow!” “What was that?” Alex said startled like.

  He finally reached out and touched the back of the clock again and again he had the distinct impression of a very faint voice saying ‘help me’.

  Alex looked down at Bikko who looked up at him and tilted his head again.

  “This is so weird Bikko” Alex said, and again he mentally got the impression of a faint voice say ‘help me’ but this time it added ‘Alex’.

  Alex pulled his hand back again and put the bag of tools (that he had slung over his shoulder) in front of him and unzipped it to reveal the different tools inside. There were screwdrivers and a couple of hammers, and pliers and various other things. Some he recognized because his dad had used them himself and others he had to imagine what they did.

  ‘Hmmm’ Alex sort of riffle through them until he found a screwdriver the right size that would work on the screws that were holding the back panel in place and quickly worked on unscrewing each screw in all four corners. Eventually had had taken out all of them and pulled the back panel off and lay it down to the side.

  Alex was thinking that he had never actually worked on a grandfathers clock like this before but he had worked on smaller versions that had pendulums on them so most of the insides of the clock looked like the one’s he had worked on before.

  Above the sky got darker and the lighting flashes grew in strength and intervals. Another big flash came just above him and another boom so Alex braced himself for the wind gust, which came quicker than the ones before. He instinctly pulled Bikko up close to him as the gust blew past him on both sides. He sat the dog down after wards and went back to exploring the insides of the clock. Again, as he was leaning against the clock and was practically leaning inside the opening in the back when he again, felt the mental impression of the clock talking to him. He knew that there was no actual voice or sound but that the clock was indeed speaking to him nonetheless.

  ‘Help me Alex’ the clock seemed to say.

  ‘Yeah, but how?’ Alex thought to himself. He didn’t even realize he was no carrying on a mental conversation with the clock.

  ‘Look for the winding pin Alex’ the clock seem to say.

  Another flash of lighting hit directly around his head and made the insides of the clock light up.

  ‘Where?’ Alex sort of said to himself. ‘I don’t see anything’. ‘I don’t see a winding pin’.

  And still another flash above his head in the clouds above, which sort of made him jump just a bit.

  ‘Concentrate Alex’ the clock seem to say. ‘About half way up in the middle’

  Alex looked but it was too dark to see anything other than shadows in the back of the opening. He could hear the gears ticking very slowly and it almost seemed like a faint heartbeat.  ‘Where?’ he sort of said. ‘I don’t see it’. ‘It’s too dark.’

  About that time there was another flash of lighting and this time it lit up the insides of the clock and Alex looked up and saw the winding pin that the clock was telling him.

  ‘Is this it?’ Alex said under his breath as he heard the clock sort of sigh and say ‘yes Alex, that is it.’ ‘Now turn it’.

  Alex reached up and tried to turn it but it wouldn’t budge. ‘It’s too heavy’ he pleaded ‘I can’t do it.’ ‘I can’t turn it’.

  ‘Yes you can Alex’ the clock told him. ‘Use both hands.’

 Alex let go of the screwdriver he was still holding on to and reached up and tried to turn the winding pin with all his might. At first it wouldn’t budge.

  ‘Arrrrggg’ he seemed to say. He was now straining with all his strength. ‘This thing won’t budge.’

  ‘You can do it Alex’ the clock said. ‘Don’t give up’.

  Alex continued to struggle with the turning pin and it finally started to move slowly under his hands. It had been a long time since it had been wound and it was almost rusty from non-use. But it finally gave way and turning it was a little easier. And the more he turned it the easier it got to do so. The clock began to spring back to life just a bit with each revolution of the winding pin.

  Another big flash overhead and this one was followed by another boom. Alex knew that the wind gust would soon follow after that.

  ‘Quick Alex’ the clock told him. ‘Keep winding me’.

  Alex did and didn’t stop even though the wind blew past him on both sides. For some strange reason though, it wasn’t as bad as before.  Alex continued to wind the clock back up and the clock seem to stand taller and come back to life. Soon he could see the pendulum swinging back and forth at a regular healthy pace like the clocks he had seen before instead of the faint laborious way it had been when he first looked at it. All the gears inside were now moving like they should have been.

  Alex stopped for a moment where there was another flash of light overhead.

  ‘I don’t get it?’ he thought to himself. ‘I’ve wound you up, shouldn’t that take care of the storm’.

  In fact, it hadn’t. There didn’t seem to be any chance to the surroundings. Only the clock stood erect like it use to but the storm continued to pound all around it.

  ‘Trimese had told me that you control everything’ Alex said as he suddenly felt like a failure. He had come all this way and wound the clock up and he still didn’t prevent the destruction going on all around because of the storm.

  ‘I thought this would fix you?’ Alex sort of pleaded the clock.

  ‘But Alex’ the clock seem to say to him. ‘You have my boy.’

  ‘Then why is everything still the way it is?’ Alex pleaded back all confused. ‘I haven’t fixed anything’. ‘The storm is still going on’. ‘Dreamsland is still getting pounded’ ‘I failed everyone and everything’ and he leaned into the clock and almost began to cry.

  ‘But Alex’ the clock said again. ‘You have my son.’ ‘Let me ask you one simple question?’ ‘What time is it?’

  Right away Alex realized that although he had wound the clock up so that it was now working he still had reset it so that it was the proper time for Dreamsland.

  He walked around to the front of the clock and looked up at the clock and the face of the wise old man above it.

  “But I don’t know what time it should be” Alex said.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ The Clock answered back. ‘I will let you know when you’ve reached the right time.’ ‘Move my minute hand forward.’

  Alex looked up at the face of the wise old man who looked down at him so loving like and approving, like a grandfather might. The face of the old man never moved his mouth and yet Alex could hear every word he spoke to him.

  Alex pulled open the glass cover and looked at the actual clock part of it and its seemed to be behind but he really wasn’t sure exactly how much time. He then reached up touched the minute hand. He slowly moved it forward as he turned it around and hour’s worth. He looked up at the sky, as the lighting above seemed to grow less intense.

  ‘Is that enough?’ Alex asked.

  ‘I will tell you when it’s time’, the clock seemed to tell him.

  Alex reached up and moved the minute hand forward another hour and the clouds began to get lighter and started to break apart. Soon there were blue skies poking through again. Again, Alex continued to move the minute hand forward and as the time got closer to what it should really have been the weather continued to change for the better. Soon the plants below were standing up again and the flowers were once again opening their buds and blooming. Everything was beginning to return to normal. Finally the few remaining clouds just seem to disappear altogether and the sky was its former brilliant blue. The breeze reappeared and the birds suddenly started to fly again. Fact was everything looked brighter and better and more brilliant than it had in a long time. Everything looked brand new.

  ‘There’ the clock finally said. ‘Now it’s time.’  Alex immediately stopped moving the minute hand forward. He looked up and realized that the clock was a good 6 hours behind. He closed the glass door and stood back and looked up at the clock and then the wise face above it that now smiled down at Alex.

  “That feels so good Alex”, the clock said as it sort of stretched and looked up at the sun shining down on its face. “You did well today my boy.”

  “But how do you know I’m Alex” Alex asked sort of bewildered by it all.

  “Because I am the Great Wisdom Clock” the clock replied and “I have always known that you would be the one to come and save me”.  “Only you could do it because only you have the skills it took to do so.”

   “What, the tools?” Alex said, thinking about the bag he left sitting there. “Anyone could have those”.

  “No Alex, that’s not what I’m talking about” the Clock said. “The tool I’m referring to is your heart and your desire to come and fix me.” “No one else cared or would have done what you have done or gone through what you have gone through just to complete this task.” “Believe it or not you are a very special boy”. “Don’t ever doubt your own abilities even when those around you can’t always see it for them self.” “You must believe in yourself first and then others will too.”

  “Huh?” Alex sort of was confused. And yet it all sort of made sense.

  “Now my young friend, in gratitude I would love to honor you with a gift”, the clock continued. “Anything your heart desires”. “Just name it and it shall be yours, for I am a magical clock as you can tell and I can make just about anything happen.”

  Alex thought about it for a moment but all he could think about was his friends Tic, Tac and Toe and how they were really the one’s responsible for saving the clock. If it weren’t for Trimese then he would have never known about Dreamsland or the Clock or anything else.

  “If it please your ‘Wisdomness’, is there anything that you could do for my friend Trimese. He’s really the one you should thank. It’s because of him that I’m now standing before you.

  “I know all about your friend, young Alex and it’s already done. He is now rewarded with the one thing he has always sought after and that is acceptance and love”, the Clock told Alex as he smiled down at him.

  “That’s so great” Alex said. “They’re really great guys”.  “You’d like them a lot, I’m sure.”

  “I already do Alex”, the clock continued. “Out of all of Dreamsland he is the only one that thought of me all this time, and I knew that he would be the one to get you.” “He had always been special.” “Now everyone else will see him the way I have always seen him.”

  Again the clocked smiled down at Alex. It was then he felt the breeze gently caress his face and heard the birds singing in the air.

   “Speaking of which, I really need to go check on him.” Alex said. “Toe hurt his knee and I want to make sure he’s okay”. “Mind if I go check on him?”

  “It’s quite alright Alex” the clock said, “I’ll be fine now because of you and your friend.”  “Go ahead, and check on your friend.”

  Alex turned around and got to the edge of the first step and looked down at the view that was now presented to him. It was completely different than it had been just a few moments before. Dreamsland was now alive again with sights and sounds and colors and a nice little breeze and birds that flew in the air and songs that sprang up all around. The sky above was a beautiful blue and there were NO more clouds anywhere to be seen.

  Below, Alex could see a pile of rubble that had piled up at the base of the steps and he realized that it must have been covering up Trimese. Perhaps, he thought to himself, Trimese didn’t get out of the way soon enough, he thought, so he rushed down the steps to the pile.

  When he got there he started to pulled back pieces of tree branches and other debris. He could see one leg sticking out from underneath the pile and started to call out Trimese’s names. “Tac” “Tic” “Toe” “Come on guys, don’t do this to me”.

  He pulled off the last big branch and to his amazement he discovered one person lying there that sort of looked like all three brothers. After a moment he opened his eyes.

  “Oh my” Alex said as he looked at the one brother. “Where are the other two?” “What’s going on here?” “What happened?”

  The one brother sat up and looked startled for a moment and then looked down at himself. He reached down and touched his body and face to make sure that he was indeed alive.

  “You did it Alex”, he said as he stood up brushing off the last of the debris.

  “Do I know you?” Alex said as he sort of back up a moment and looked hard at who now appeared before him. He looked like Tic, Tac and Toe all rolled into one.

  “Is that you guys?” Alex said after a moment when he realized that somehow the magic of the clock gave him what he always wanted, and that was to be normal and whole and accepted by everyone.

  Somehow all three personalities were now rolled up into one person and those fractured personas that use to be known as Trimese, was now one complete person. Somehow the Clock had made it happen. Trimese had always been mistrusted and ignored and jeered at and all the other terrible things that he had always gone through simply because he was different, simply because he looked different, but deep down inside he had a much greater heart than all the others around him, simply because he cared and when it really counted he carried on. He loved his village enough to set out on a crazy mission that no one else would dare, because he knew no one else would. He loved his fellow citizens enough to risk his own life simple because that was just the way he was. He never considered himself a ‘hero’ or anything else. He was simply Trimese. He just wanted to be accepted and love like everyone else by everyone else.

  “I guess it is” the one brother said as he looked back at Alex. He somehow instinctly knew that this new ‘him’ was a gift of the clock. He thought about how he had looked when they were in the museum in the woods and how he appeared as one person and how he instinctly knew that that was the way HE was always meant to be. He had no idea about the toxic fertilizer that his parents had been handling for so long during the months preceding his birth, nor how that was going to affect his entire life.

  “Well, what should I call the one YOU then?” Alex said as he helped him get to his feet.

  He thought about it for a moment and then said, “Well, I’ve always liked the name

Tim.”  He thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, how about Tim or Timmy?”

  “Well then, Tim it is” Alex replied. Bikko barked an approval and they both laughed.

  “You did it Alex!” Tim said, “You fixed the Clock and saved the day.”

  “No, Tim” Alex said, “You saved the day.” “If it wasn’t for you coming and getting me none of this would have been possible.”

  They both hugged each other as they looked up at the blue sky above them and then to the Clock at the top of the hill. Bikko barked again in approval.

  “Come on, there’s someone I want you to meet” Alex said to Tim and led him up the steps. Gone was the limp that Toe had had or the weakness and tiredness that Trimese had been feeling before, and he had no problem making the way up the many steps that led to the top.

  At the top Alex presented Tim to the clock.

  “I’ve brought someone to meet you officially”, Alex said to the Clock, who looked down at both of them approvingly. It seemed kind of strange for Alex to be the one to introduce him to the Clock seeing that he was a citizen of the village, but he had never actually talked to him. Before, when Trimese was standing before it the Clock looked half dead and almost in a coma and didn’t seem to have a life to it. Now what was presented before him was a living being that had a face that actually showed expressions and such. The Clock looked at Tim and then at Alex and smile at both.

  “Um, I’m really glad you’re okay” Tim said as he looked up at the Clock’s face.

  “I know Tim” the clock said “And I want to thank you for your bravery and for your compassion.”

  “You know my name?” Tim said surprised.

  “Of course Tim, I am the Great Wisdom Clock” the clock said, “I know everything that goes on here.”

  “If it wasn’t for you and your concern and compassion and great heart then who knows what might have happened”, the clock continued.

  Tim sort of blushed.

  “Mine is a life of peace, and love and wisdom and that is why I am here, that is why I have always been here”, the clock said. “But it takes work and effort and such to keep these things going.”

  The guys look at one another and then back at the clock again.

  “Unfortunately too many have taken these things for granted and forgot the true purpose of their existence” the clock said. “Too often people are only concerned with keeping up with their neighbors and don’t take the time to look up from their daily drudgery and don’t take the time just to look around them and to really live and to really share with others.”

  “That’s sort of sad”, Alex said.

  “Yes it is” the clock continued, “But it doesn’t mean those people are bad” “They are not.” “It just means that they have forgotten the true meaning of their existence.”

  “That’s sort of sad too”, Tim said.

 “Fortunately, not everyone is that way now are they?” and he looked at the two of them.

  The guys looked at one another again and then back at the Clock who smiled down at them.

  “Is that why this happened to me?” Tim said looking down at his new single body.

  “Yes, this is why” the Clock replied. “To repay a debt you have been given this gift.” “You were never meant to be the way you were as your former self.”

  “I don’t know what to say”, Tim said. He looked over to Alex and they both smiled at one another.

  “How come no one ever said you could talk to people?” Tim asked. “I never heard any one ever say that you could talk to people.” “How come you’re talking to us now.”

  “My friend” the Clock said, “I have always had this ability to talk to people but no one ever bothered to come up here and talk to me.” “I have watched people for ever tolling around in their gardens with their heads bury in their work, and never once did any of them ever give me a moment of their time.”

  The guys sort of nodded to one another.

  “Only you Tim” the Clock continued. “Only did you give me a moment of your time and look upon me.” “I saw you each time you did”.

  “I thought so”, Tim said. “There were a couple of times that I felt you were looking at me” “I just didn’t know” “Other wise I would have come up here a long time ago and talk to you.”

  “It is alright Tim” the Clock replied. “All in good time as I always say.” “It didn’t matter that we never had a conversation before.” “The point is that we are having it now.”

  “I’m so happy we went and got Alex” Tim said. “I’m just so happy now.”

  “Me too” Alex said.

  “And so am I Tim and Alex” the Clock said, as it looked down at them both. “You have no idea what you have done today.”

  “So what now?” Tim said.

  “Now you two must fulfill both of your destinies”, the Clock said.

  He looked over at Alex. “Alex, you have proven that you can indeed fix things.”

  Alex sort of nodded and smiled to him self.

  “You now know that you CAN do that and just about anything, and you should never ever have another doubt about your ability”, said the Clock.

  Alex sort of thought about it and say, “Somehow I know.” “I know I can now.”

  “And you Tim” the Clock looked over to Tim. “Someone needs to stay behind and keep me wound up.” “An official Time keeper” “Would you be up for such a responsibility?”

  Tim sort of looked surprised and didn’t expect that at all.

  “Um, I don’t know anything about Clocks” Tim said. “That is why I went and got Alex in the first place”.

  “It is okay Tim” the Clock said, “I will teach you as we go.”

  “That’s true” Alex said, “he talked me through it.” Alex looked over at Tim who looked back at him and gave him a knowing look.

  “It is not the knowledge that matters Tim”, the Clock continued. “It is your time and effort that make the difference.”  “But I would prefer that you do it, that you spend the time to keep me running, so that we never go through this again.”

  “I’d be honored” Tim said and he blushed in excitement and felt a wave of self-pride rising up inside of him.

  “Wow” said Tim, looking over at Alex “I’m going to be an official Time Keeper.” “ That is so cool.”

  “That is cool” Alex said as he sort of patted Tim on one shoulder.

  “Let’s go tell Leah” Tim said. He had completely forgotten about the fact that he was now a single person, and not the three brothers. That was still beyond something his mind had had time to wrap around. So much had just happened, and was still happening.

  They said their goodbyes and turned to go down the steps and they could see the other citizens slowly coming out of their cottages all over the place. Each one of them looked like they had just come out of a deep sleep or coma. Several were stretching and yawning and all looked totally surprise at the scenes before them. As each came out of their cottages they were blinking their eyes in the bright sunlight and looked up at the beautiful blue sky.

  Alex and Tim made their way to the bottom of the steps to the Clock when they saw two familiar figures quickly approaching them. It was the professor and Leah. They both had a mixed look of shock, happiness, surprise, joy and confusion.

  Leah ran up to Alex and gave him a big hug, “You did it kid” she said.

  “We did it” Alex said.

  It was then that Leah looked over at the figure that was standing next to Alex and her eyes almost jumped out of her head. “Who this?” she started to say and then stopped in her tracks when she looked deep into his eyes.

  “Guys?” she sort of looked at Tim.

  “Yes, it’s ‘us’ “ Tim said. “I know it’s hard to understand but the Clock healed me when it got healed.”

  “Are you all in there?” Leah said as she reached up and touched him on the cheek.  Indeed, there was a strange mix of all three now in this one person who stood before them.  He had Tac’s eyes, Toe’s smile and Tic’s confidence.

  “I know” Tim said, “It’s still hard for me to believe it but its true.”

  “That makes sense”, the professor said as he approached Tim. “You’re parents weren’t expected to have triplets.” “It actually came as quite the shock when you came out the way you did.”

  Tim looked over at him for a moment and sort of knew already.

  “So what should we call you?” Leah finally asked as she kept looking at him. She eyed him up and down and liked the look of the new Trimese that stood before him.

  “Call me Tim” Tim said. “Tim Edinburg”.

  “This is so amazing

The saga continues.

*(All characters, events, places, etc are copyrighted by me)

                               The Dream...

                                 13: The Valley of Giants

  “I can’t take any more of this”, the Professor finally said. “I’m gonna get some answers once and for all!” He was tired and felt a million years old now, but he was also upset and his emotions were fueling him to take action despite his general fatigue.

  “Where are you going?” Leah asked, looking over at her father.

  “I’m going to the ‘Hall of City Records’ and find out a few things” he replied as he was getting his keys.

  “Well then I’m coming with you” Leah said.

  At first the professor was going to protest because he didn’t want to put his daughter at risk, but then reconsidered because she might actually be safer and possible be of assistance in his search. He was determined to find some answers.

  As soon as they got outside again they could see that the storm was now just past the hills that surround the little village of ‘Dreamsland’.  The clouds above were blocking out the sun and made everything seem foreboding to say the least. Off in the distance the storm front was dark, and the clouds were again swirling around and hints of light were flashing here and there like they did before all the booms and wind gust. The sky below the storm ceiling was a weird greenish tint. And there was a scent of electricity in the air that was there before like the smell of a burnt electrical wire that had caught fire. It made the professor and his daughter both sort of grab their noses for a moment.

  There was no one in sight anywhere in all of Dreamsland. The entire village looked like a ghost town with a tornado on its tail. Here and there along the way on the track to the Official offices that sat on top of the hill they saw how many of their fellow citizens had just abandoned their rakes, and hoes and other gardening tools in and around their front gardens in their front yards and just gone inside and closed the door behind them. In fact, most all of the little cottages along the route had their shutters closed tight.

  They finally made it to the City Offices and made their way slowly up the many steps and got to the top. As a part time employee of the City Elders the professor had keys to the front door and he let himself and his daughter inside and they closed the doors behind them.

  Inside the was the front entrance way that usually had a clerk behind a desk that would set up future appointments, direct traffic and so forth. But the desk was abandoned. There were papers and such scattered about and it looked like the clerk had suddenly gotten up in a hurry and just left. That, of course, was certainly not ‘busy as usual’ for the offices of the Elders. Everyone that worked in this building was very neat and orderly and followed a strict protocol and never would ever think of just leaving their post with a mess. This, the Professor noted was not normal. But then nothing was these days. Leah and the Professor soon found that the entire building was abandoned and completely empty.

  “Where is everyone?” Leah asked, as she looked around. She had been here before as a younger child but generally it was frowned upon to visit too much unless you had official business here. The City Elders (the guys and gals who ‘ran’ Dreamsland) were exactly that, a bunch of old people with long graying beards or gray hair, wearing glasses, who were seeped in dogma and old ways and had all been in office forever.

  “Apparently they all went home” the professor answered her. “Lets go down the hall to the “records room’.”

  Leah still wasn’t sure what her father was looking for but she always could trust that he had a reason for everything he did, so she held onto to her curiosity for a bit longer.

  They walked down a long hallways with doors on both side of it and finally came to one door that was locked that said, “City Records Room” etched on the frosted glass of the window in the door and the words “ Only authorized personnel allowed past this point” on a little sign attached to the wood below the window. The professor unlocked the door and let himself and his daughter into the room.

    Inside they found a clerks desk like the one in the main room and behind it were rows and rows of 4 drawer filing cabinets that were all lined up and each had a little title on the front of each door. The professor went about quickly walking up and down the rows of the filing cabinets and glancing at each title card on the front of the filing cabinets. 

  The professor had never been allowed in here before by any of the other officials because he wasn’t authorized to be there, but he often wondered about the contents of the room and what ‘official records’ that were kept in here. Surely if there were any answers to the clock it would be in here. He had no idea exactly what he was looking for he just knew that he had to do something other than just sit around and be half frozen with fear and sitting around his cottage any more waiting for the end to come.

  “Father what are we looking for?” Leah finally asked.

  “I’m not sure” he said “Something, anything that might give us a clue if there is anything we can do concerning the clock.”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “Any files on the clock” he kept looking at the tags on the filing cabinets. “I don’t’ know why I didn’t think about it sooner.”

  Leah began to look around at the different titles like her father.  She finally stopped and came across one file cabinet in particular. “What might it say on the tag?” she asked as she looked at the cabinet in front of her and then at her father.

  “Did you find something?” he looked up over towards her.

  “This one says ‘For City Elders Eyes only’ ” Leah said, “It’s locked.”

  “Of course” the professor said as he hurried over to it. He tried his many keys but none of them fit. “I’ve got to see those files” He looked around and went back to the clerk’s desk at the front of the room and dug through the drawers of the desk and found a metal envelope opener and came back to the file cabinet. After a few attempts he had jimmied it opened and begin riffling through the files.

  After a few moments he came across one of the files that was marked “Official files on The Great Wisdom Clock” In smaller print were the words “For authorized eyes only” printed on a label. It was a fat file with an elastic band wrapped around it.

  The professor pulled the file out of the file cabinet and pulled the elastic band off around it and laid it on top of the file cabinet and began to look through the file.

  Most of it was stuff he already knew. There was some old photographs of ‘The Clock’ from some earlier time in the history of the Village and a couple of interesting tidbits, but nothing of any use.

  The professor looked over at his daughter very disappointed.

  “Nothing?” she said as she could tell the meaning of his looked.

  “Nothing that will help us” he said “In fact I have more information back at the cottage than what’s in this file”.

  “That’s too bad” Leah said and she sort of looked sad for a moment and stared off towards the floor and then realized her father was watching her and looked over towards him and smiled again. “It’s okay dad”, she said. “We gave it a shot.”

  The professor was about to put the file back into the cabinet and close the door when he noticed another file further back that caught his attention.

  “What this?” he said as he pulled up the file that said, “Failed Experiments”.

  “Hmmm” he sort of mumbled to himself as he pulled it out and sat it on top of the file cabinet like had done the one before and opened it and began to look through the files.

  He read to himself silently for several moments and sort of said under his breath to himself, “I remember when that happened”. He read some more to himself and then his eyes got bigger. He finally looked over to Leah.

  “What is it dad?” Leah said.

  “I know now what killed Trimese’s parents.

  “You do?!” she exclaimed, as her eyes got bigger.

  “You never knew them because they died before you born, but they both once worked as gardeners in the Central Garden.

  “I never knew that” she said, as her eyes got bigger. “How come the guys never said anything about that?”

  “They didn’t know” the professor continued. “The City Elders kept it a secret all these years. Even I didn’t know about THIS!.”

  “What secret dad?” Leah said, leaning towards him. “What happened to his parents?”

  “They both worked as gardeners for the City Elders in the Central Garden, and apparently the Elders were trying out an experimental fertilizer on the plants to make them grow better, or bigger or faster.” “I’m not sure which”

  Leah’s eyes got bigger. “That’s terrible”, she said.

  “Yeah, and anyways both parents were exposed to this toxic fertilizer for some time” the professor said “and the bad part was that Trimese mother was pregnant with the boys at the time.”

  “Oh my!” Leah sort of whispered to her self as she stared down at the floor for a moment and then back at her father. “Meaning…” she trailed off.

  “Meaning, that not only did the prolonged exposure to this experimental fertilizer eventually kill both his parents but it must be the reason why Trimese was born the way he was.”

  “Poor Trimese” Leah said as she almost cried, “That is so unfair!”

  “The City Elders of course did a quick job of ‘hush hush’ of the events and never let on about these facts”, the professor said. “They discontinued using the fertilizer soon after that.

 

  Alex and Trimese were so happy to be approaching “The Valley of Giants” because that meant they would soon be in Dreamsland. They continued walking through the woods after they had left Summer and her wolf pack behind them. Up ahead they were coming to a clearing and they stopped and looked around them for a moment in awe.

  Up, directly ahead of them the trail continued across a huge flat field that held taller grass. Here, there weren’t any trees, only a short bush here or there. And on the other side of the field stood the mammoth tree grove that loomed before them like a city skyline of skyscrapers that towered up into the sky. There was always a constant fog at the very tops of the trees, which acted like a ceiling of sorts in these woods and made the very tops disappear beneath the cloud cover.

  “Wow!” Alex said in awe as he looked at the giants before him. “Now I know why it’s called the Valley of Giants.”

  “Yep” said Toe “That would be the place” and smiled.

  They walked on down the trail through the tall grass which swayed on both sides of them  as the giants got closer and it became apparent that not only were these trees extremely tall but also were also extremely wide in circumference. They walked over to the first tree at the edge of the clearing and even if Trimese and Alex held hands together they still couldn’t reach all the way around the base of it. It was huge! But then, all of them were! 

  “Wow” Alex said again, as he looked up the length of the tree as his eyes followed the trunk all the way up into the clouds above. Indeed, he couldn’t see the top of it.

  Trimese also looked up toward the tops and marveled at the mammoths.

  “What causes the clouds up above like that?” Alex asked as he looked up to the cloud ceiling above them that covered up the top of the trees.

  “According to the notes the professor gave us its due to the leafs of these trees themselves that cause it.” “ Something to do with the moisture in the tree tops or something” Tac replied. “The moisture builds up to create this cloud cover which acts like a ceiling of sorts”

  They all looked up again at the clouds above them. “It’s really amazing actually”.

  “That it is!” Alex agreed.

  Soon they were walking up the trail into the middle of the giants. They felt small and insignificant next to them but still kept an eye out for any unwanted intruders along the way that might show up between the massive trunks.

  “Um” Toe finally said,  “I sure hope we don’t run into any more squirrels in this place” imagining what size it might be if it was equal in size to the trees.

  “Yeah” agreed Tic “I’ve had enough of them to last me a lifetime”

  “We ALL have!” agreed Tac.

  They all continued on through the giants and would look around between the trees and occasionally up to the tops for any evidence of the furry little critters that tore Toe’s backpack apart and almost made all of them their lunch. But so far nothing appeared out of the woods to attack them or the dog that walked closely by Alex’s legs.

   After a while the cloud cover above began to slowly lower itself and before the guys knew it they were again walking through a fog.

  “Nut’s!” Alex said, “Not another one of these.”

  “I don’t think it’s a ‘veil’ Alex” Tac said, as he looked over at Alex and then closer at it. “I think this is just another regular fog” “Part of the cloud cover above.”

  “Well that good” Alex replied, “I’ve had enough of these though”. He looked around himself at the clouds, as they got thicker. .

   Trimese was now walking a few feet in front of Alex and Bikko, who were walking slower than usual, as they continued on through the giants in the thick fog and it was beginning to get harder to see anything.

  “Are we still going the right direction?” Toe asked after a few moments.

  “I think so“, Tac answered.

 

  The fog got even thicker and was beginning to get whiter.

  “I don’t like the look of this” Tic said looking at the fog in front of him. He could hardly see anything past a few feet.

  “Yeah it’s pretty thick”, agreed Toe.

  “What do you think Alex”, asked Toe. There was no answer.

  “Alex?” he repeated and looked back at where Alex had been walking a few seconds before, but all he could see was the whiteness of the fog.

  They all turned around now to look at where Alex had just been a few moments before.

  “Alex?!”  They all said, but Alex and Bikko were nowhere to be found. All they could see was fog and whiteness before them.

“Alex!!!” They called out in fright but he and the dog were gone.

   “Oh no!” Toe sort of said under his breath. “You don’t think?” his words trailing off.

  “Alex” Tac called again.

  Now all three brothers were looking around them for any evidence of Alex or his dog.

  “Alex, where are you?” Tic called out. There was still no answer. 

  They looked around them and stare out at the thick fog, which engulfed them all and stood silent for a second.

  There was a ‘crack’ sound of someone stepping on a fallen branch and they all jerked around to see the source of the noise.

  “What guys?” Alex suddenly said as he and Bikko appeared from behind a tree.

  “Where have you been?” Tic said, disapprovingly. “Didn’t you hear us calling you?” “You gave us a fright”.

  “Sorry guys, Bikko stopped for a moment and I didn’t want to get separated from him.” Alex replied. “Not in this fog.”

  “Phew” Toe sort of said under his breath.

  “Well, let’s try to stick close together shall we?” Tac said. “Just to be on the safe side in all of this.”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure!” Alex said. “Come along Bikko”. He motioned to his dog that came up close to his feet.  Bikko looked up at him curiously.

  The guys continued walking through the fog up the trail. Every once in a while another thicker cloud of fog would float by or near them. Like before it sent shivers through their bodies. Above it seemed that the general color of the sky above was getting darker, like there was a storm going on just outside the fog or above it. There was no evidence of animals or creatures as they went along.

  The giant trees still surrounded them on both sides and their trunks loomed all around them. But there was a thicker fog off to both sides that made it impossible to make out any details other than just directly around them by a few feet.  

  “Man, it’s impossible to make out anything in this” Toe said.

  “Let’s take another peek at the map again to make sure we’re still going in the right direction.” Tic said after a moment. With that Tac pulled out the map and unfolded it as they all crowded around it and looked down at it.

  “Yep” Tac said as he looked down at the map and then up again at the trail that lay before them. “It says were going the right direction.” “Dreamsland should be just up ahead.”

  Alex looked down at the map as his finger traced the path. “Yeah, it looks like if we continue on this way then we should reach the other end and then, what’s this?” he asked pointing to a spot on the map.

  “That’s the ‘soup bowl hills’ that surround Dreamsland”, Tac replied. They all looked up at the trail ahead of them and then back down to the map.

  “Any idea how long we’ve been in the Valley of Giants?” Toe said. “I mean, how much more of this before we get to the end.”

  “I’m not sure, it does seem we’ve been walking for a while”, answered Tac as he folded up the map and placed it back in his pocket.

  “I just wished this fog would give us a break and go away”, Alex said. As the words were coming out of his mouth the fog around them sort of got thinner until it completely disappeared. The air all around them now had a strange green tint to it. Even the cloud cover above in the treetops that was normally there suddenly went away. They all looked up and could see storm clouds above. Through the tops of the trees (which were taller than any of them imagined) they could see the dark clouds that had formed above. Every once in a while they would see a flash of light above here and there.

  “That can’t be good” Toe said as they all watched the storm clouds above. “We had better get a move on”.

  “I agree” Tic added. “Let’s go guys”

  “Do you smell that?” Toe asked as he sniffed the air.

  “Yeah, I have for a while now.” Tac replied.  “It smells like something that’s been burnt.” “Kind of nasty huh?”

  “I’ll say” Toe replied. “It almost hurts my teeth for some reason.”

  They picked up their pace as they continued on the trail.

  “At least now we can see where we’re going.” Toe added.

  They had been walking a ways up the curving trail that made its way through the giant trees when they got to a clearing and there the trail split off into three different directions in the shape of a cross or ‘t’.  There was a huge part of a tree trunk that lay on the ground between the trail on the right and the one in the middle.

  “Great!” said Toe, “now what?” “Which way guys?” They all looked at the three trails that appeared before them.

  “I think we should take the one in the middle.” Alex said.

  “I think it’s the one on the right”, said Tic. “It seems like Dreamsland is off that direction.”

  “I don’t know”, added Toe. “I get the feeling it’s over on the left”.

  “Let me pull out the map and see if it gives us a clue” Tac said as he pulled out the map again.

  They all looked down at the map and it but it gave them no clue as to which of the three trails to take. On it, it only showed one trail and gave no hint of it being split into three. They drew straws and the trail on the left won. So they headed down it. After a while they came across other places where the trail was crossed by another trail. But decided to stick to the one they were on. Every once in a while there would be a flash of light from the sky above which added an eerie feeling to everything and add to the strangeness of the green tinted air that they now found them self in.

  “That’s curious” Tac added. “Apparently there are all kinds of trails leading off in different directions in these woods. It would be so easy to get lost”.

  “Let’s just hope we don’t ”, Toe added. “I don’t want to come all this way just to end up a permanent addition to these woods.”

  “Me neither” Tic started to say and then looked ahead. “Oh great, where right back where we started.”

  “Are you sure?” Toe asked.

  “Yeah, look” Tic answered and pointed off to the huge log that was lying between the trail on the right and the one in the middle. Sure enough they were right back where they had started and apparently walked around in a big circle. They were now back to the original place where the trail broke off into three.

  “I guess Alex you might have been right.” Tac said. “I guess we should have taken the trail in the middle”.

  “Well, THAT was certainly a waste of time”, said Tic.

  “Hey guys, we didn’t know” Alex said trying to make them feel better. “I was just guessing anyways.”

  “That’s okay Alex, none of really knew for sure.” Toe told him. “That’s just the risk of walking blindly down a trail you’ve never been on before.” “You just never know where it will lead.”

  “Yep, even if it leads to no where.” Tic replied.

  “Let’s hope that the trail in the middle doesn’t end up back here.” Tac said.

  “I agree.” Tic said.

  The Professor and Leah decided to head back to their cottage to wait whatever fate awaited them.  They locked up the records room and then the front door of the City Building. The first thing that hit them when they stepped outside was the greenish tint of the atmosphere; the burnt smell that almost made them gag, and the electrically charged air all around them.  As they stood on the edge of the front porch, they looked out at the Central Garden and the rows of cottages that lay on each side of it and then across the way to the Great Blue Mound and the Great Wisdom Clock, which lay on top of it. The entire village looked dead and deserted. There wasn’t anyone stirring anywhere they could see.

  “I’ve never seen it like this” Leah said.

  “Me either Leah” the professor added.

  “What is that smell?” Leah said as she sort of grabbed her nose.

  “I’m not sure, but I don’t like it either” the professor replied. He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose as he looked around him.

  They both looked up at the clouds, which had gotten darker even during the time they went inside the City building. There were now flashes of light that jumped here and there and dotted the sky. The air was eerily still now despite the lightning show that was happening above them.

  “That doesn’t look good” Leah said, as she looked at the flashes of light above. “I hope we don’t have the gusts of wind like before.” “We had better get home dad, and pretty quick”.

  “I agree” the professor said. “Just bare with me, my legs are sore for some reason.”

  They walked down the steps of the City Building. As they did they looked at how the colors had seem to fade from all the plants and that the entire Garden looked like it was half dead. All the flowers had closed them self up. Everything had the looked like it was wilting or drooped over. It was truly the saddest that either of them could ever remember the Garden looking. Fact was, the entire village looked sad and drooping and half dead and that was something they had never seen either.

  “I wonder where the boys are?” Leah said.

  “I know” the professor replied. “I was just wondering that myself.”

  “Let’s hope that they get here pretty soon.” Leah said.

  “And with someone that knows something about clocks” added the professor. “Hopefully someone who’s been doing that sort of things for years with tons of experience under their belt.”

  At that moment the 12 year old Alex was making his way with Trimese and Bikko through the last of the ‘Valley of Giants’. Little did Leah or the Professor know just how close Trimese and Alex was at that moment, or how young their ‘hero’ really was.

   Leah and the professor finally made it back to their cottage and closed the door behind them. The professor was really tired now from his walk to the City Building and back, not to mention all the steps up and down the hill that it sat on.

  “Are you okay dad?” Leah asked as her father sort of slumped down in his chair in the corner. He again rested his head in his hand as his arm barely held up the weight of it.

  “I’m just so tired Leah” he said slowly as he looked up at her.

  “Can I get you anything?” she said. “Perhaps you should lay down.”

  “No, I’m alright” the professor replied. “I’m just tired from the walk”. “I’m sure it’s because of the Clock and what’s happening.”

  “If you’re sure” Leah said, and then turned away to look again out the window.  

  “We finally made it out of woods” Alex finally said, as they stood at the edge of giant trees. Before them was another field that stretched out a ways, and beyond that was a huge hill that seem to go straight up. Above everything was a cloud cover of darkness that had flashes of light here and there. The flashes were now picking up frequency and seemed more violent.  It was foreboding to say the least.

  “Dreamsland is just on the other side of that hill boys”, Tac said.

  “We finally made it” Toe said, “After all this time”.

  “And not a moment too soon” Tic added. “I’m really tired now for some reason”.

  “Me too!” Tac added, “And it’s getting worse the closer we get to Dreamsland.”

  Leah stared out the window for a moment. She looked up at the cloud cover and the flashes of lighting that appeared more frequently. It worried her a bit.

  “I don’t like the look of those light flashes” she finally said. There was no response from her father.

  “Dad?” she said as she looked back at him. He was now slumped down in his chair. He didn’t respond at all. His eyes were closed and he didn’t move at all.

  “Dad!” she said again as she walked over to him and touch his arm. His head fell back from the resting place on his hand. He was completely passed out.

  “Dad!!” she yelled at him as she shook his arm harder to try to get him to respond. But again he simply lay there slumped out in his chair.

  Leah fell to her knees next to her father and just broke into tears and couldn’t stop crying.  She never felt as lost or sad as she did at that very moment.

The Saga continues...
*( All characters, places, names, etc are copyrighted by me).

                                 The Dream...




 


            12:  Summer in the woods and the wolf pack

 

  Alex and Trimese (along with Bikko) eventually parted ways with the trio of musicians and continued on their journey.  They had had a nice little break in songs and stories with the strangers they found in the middle of a petrified forest and had learned a few things. Eventually they would tell them which way to go to proceed further and said their goodbyes and made their way through the forest. Again as they got further away from the music the trees and ground lost its color and life and returned to the grayness of the petrified woods like it was before they came upon the group. They were walking through a corner of the Kingdom of No and had come upon the oasis (of the musicians) in the middle of that corner of dead forest. Now they were again on the other side of that oasis back into the dreariness of all the gray and coldness of stone trees and landscape and trying to get out to the next land that lay next to it.

  “It’s amazing that those guys are having so much fun in the middle of that”, said Toe.

  “Yeah, I wished we could stay longer, they really were fun to be around” added Tic.

  “Yep” said Tac “Too bad they have to hide out like that, like common criminals just to sing a song”.

  “I know”, said Alex “but it sounds like they have a cool plan to take back the kingdom, and restore life to it like it was before”.

  “You mean how there are lots of little groups of people through out the woods, artist and musicians who are working underground to restore it to its former glory?” added Tac.

  “Yeah, from what Manray said it sounds like there’s a bunch of them out there somewhere just waiting to take back control” Tic added.

  “Let the revolution begin”, added Toe. “And bring back fun!”

  “Well, let’s hope they succeed” Tac finally said.

  They had been walking for a while through more dead trees, more petrified woods when they got to a creek. On the other side were more woods but they were normal and living and full of color and sounds and smells.

  “This must be the border of the Kingdom as far as it goes” Tic noted.

  Bikko looked down at the water that trickled past them in the creek that separated the Kingdom of No from the surrounding lands.

  “They said to continue this way”, Tac said pointing to the other side into the woods across the creek. They each made their way through the creek to the other side and looked back at the forest they had just come from.

  “Do you think the King and Queen will ever change their minds?” Toe asked. “Do you think they’ll ever go back to their old ways and let music and happiness back into the kingdom?”

  “I’m pretty sure of it” Tac replied. “Just because people get weird ideas in their heads from time to time, doesn’t mean they can’t change.” “Those guys certainly believe in a brighter future for themselves and I have to believe they will find it”. He looked off into the petrified woods and thought about his new musician friends he had just left behind.

 

  They continued through the new woods now and it was good to see the colors returning to the land and trees and such. Here and there they began to see animals again, and butterflies floating about and the sounds of birds singing in the trees. It was so good to see life and color again in the woods having just come from so much that was dead and gray and cold to the touch.

 

  And then they noticed the first wolf a ways off to one side.  At first, Trimese and Alex weren’t too alarmed because it was normal to see some wild animals like a wolf lurking around in the woods. Alex knew that most wolves are fearful of men and keep a safe distance so he wasn’t too concerned at sighting one walking parallel with the group off to their side about 30 yards or so.

  Still they all began to look over at it as it kept vigil on them as they made their way through the woods on their journey.

  “I wonder why he keeps following us like that?” Toe finally said.

  “Maybe he’s after your sweetbread Toe” joke Tic. “Better watch it or he’ll eat you and steal all of those tasty morsels”.

  “Cut it out” Toe retorted, “That’s NOT funny.” “Besides, no wolf is gonna get my sweetbread!” “Not if I have anything to say about it.

  Meanwhile Tac said nothing but kept an eye on it nonetheless.

  It did seem to be following the gang, or at least keeping up with them.

  “It really is strange though how he keeps an eye on us.” Alex finally said. “I wonder if there are more of them about?” and sure enough even as the words were coming out of his mouth another appeared about the same distance to their other side.

  “Um guys” Toe said as he looked at the second wolf that suddenly appeared about 25 yards to his left “There’s another one over there.” He said as he brought it to their attention.

  They all looked over to it and then back to the first one. Indeed, there were now two of them following them, one on each side of them.

  “Nuts” said Tic under his breath, which made Alex dart a look over at him.

  About that time another wolf ran up behind the first one so now there was 3 of them following them.

  “It figures” Toe said as his eyes got bigger. Alex and Trimese looked this way and that way now, first one side and then the other as they continued further up the trail on their journey.

  “How much further until we get out of these woods?” Tic asked Tac.

  “I’m not sure” Tac replied as he too kept an eye on the wolves that were walking on both sides of them.

  “They don’t seem too aggressive” Tic said “But still, we probably want to keep a safe distance between us and them just to be on the safe side” “Why take chances right?”

  “I totally agree!” Toe added. His eyes got bigger and he kept looking over at the one that kept an eye on him.  “Um, I don’t like the way THIS one keeps looking at me.”

  “What do you think they want, really?” asked Alex.

  “I’m not sure but let’s hope its not lunch.” Added Tic.

  They had been walking through the woods now for what seem like an hour and the wolves stayed a safe distance from them and never left their sides. They didn’t notice the group of squirrels that were also following them from the trees. They scurried from one tree top to the next and kept up with the group of people with Alex and Trimese walking in the middle along with the little dog that kept his head down the whole time and didn’t look directly in the eyes of the wolves. 

    They had to negotiate over some branches and logs that were in their way and when they looked up again they noticed that one of the wolves had disappeared somewhere.

Now they were back to one on each side of them.

  “Uh oh” said Toe “I wonder where the other one went?”

  “Hmmm” Tac sort of grunted to himself as he began to survey the rest of the woods around him just in case the one was trying to circle around them or something.

  “Got any knifes on you Alex?” Tac said.

  “Why no, I didn’t think to bring one” Alex replied as he patted his pockets for a brief moment.  His eyes got bigger when Tac asked.

  “Not to worry anyone, but maybe we should get some sharp sticks just in case” Tac replied and they slowed down and started to look around them for any sticks that might offer up some protection ‘just in case’.

  They spent the next couple of moments looking around for some sharp sticks or clubs, anything they could use as a weapon to protect them self in case the wolves suddenly decided to attack them or something. Alex realized that nothing was normal here or had been since he first got recruited on this mission and so the behavior of these wolves might just be the same. Who know what they were capable of and there was no reason to take chances. The giant lizard the size of an alligator that had a long snake like neck and had the jaws of a shark that almost ate them all in the cave convinced him of that fact.

  You just never know.

  They all found sticks that looked sturdy enough or had sharp ends where they had broken off or those that could be use as clubs and picked them up and carried them with them.

   However, when they all looked up to see what the wolves were doing they found to their surprise that they couldn’t see any of them.

   “Hmmm” Tac said, as they all looked around them for any evidence of them somewhere close by.

  “Where’d they go?” Alex asked looking around him and staring hard into the woods on each side.

  “I’m not sure”, replied Tac, as he continued to carefully scan the surrounding woods.

  “Probably got scared off by our weapons” piped in Tic. “I bet that’s what it is.”

  “Perhaps” said Tac.

  Meanwhile more of the squirrels had appeared above the group, and were watching them intently from the tree branches, undetected. They made no noise as they all sat in the branches and watched as Alex and Trimese looked all around them for any more signs of the wolves.

   “I’ve got a weird feeling guys like they’re still out there watching us” Toe said very uneasy like.

  “I know”, added Tic “I feel it too” as they all continued to look carefully around them.

 

 

  By now Sarah had told Mr. And Mrs. Taylor how Alex had taken so many items apart and put them back together again and about their DVD player.

  “We had no idea Alex could do that” Mary said surprised. “I mean I know Alex is a bright young boy but we just didn’t know.”

  “I was wondering why that thing suddenly started working better for no apparent reason” said John. “You know the door would sometimes stick and took forever to unload a DVD.” “I just had no idea that Alex fixed it”. His eyes got bigger as he thought about it. “I just wished he was right here in front of me right now.”  “ I’d tell him how proud I am, and that he can put that clock back together if he wants.”

  “Where could he be?” Mary said.

  “Wait” Sarah said, “I just thought of a couple of more places we could try”.

 

  They guys kept walking and looking around them for any signs of more wolves as they continued on their journey. Now they all had clubs or weapons in their hands and walked cautiously along. It had been some time since they had seen anything of the wolves and they began to think that maybe they had gotten bored with them and went back to where their home was or maybe they were out of their territory finally. They weren’t sure. But one thing was certain they no longer saw any evidence of them around them and began to relax again.

   They came to a clearing and Toe noticed another squirrel off to one side and thought he’d offer up a little sweat bread to it. Toe always had a soft spot for little animals and creatures and small things like Alex’s dog that he somehow felt a bond with for some reason. He just loved animals, well, at least the friendly kind.

  “Hey wait up a minute guys”, Toe said. “Let me give that cute little squirrel some sweat bread okay?”

  “Okay” agreed Tic” But its coming out of your portion of it.”

  Tic and Tac both had become use to Toe offering up little bites to eat to any animal they would come across or to him wanting to talk to it or pet it or whatever it was at that particular moment. They each had a different fondness for different things and little children and tiny animals were Toe’s.  So they relented and all walked over closer to the little thing. This squirrel looked different than the one they had seen in the middle of oasis that the musicians had sat in. Like that squirrel this one was also brown but this one had a skinnier tail to it and had two puffs of hair above each eye that almost looked like little horns on it.

  Toe pulled his backpack off and reached into it to get a piece of the sweat bread to offer to the little creature before him. The squirrel looked up at Toe as he approached and sort of sat up on his hind legs and rubbed his front paws together in an approving way. 

  As Toe reached closer down with the piece of sweat bread the squirrels appearance suddenly changed, he blinked his eye lids for a moment and when he opened them up again all the whites on the sides of both eyes were suddenly gone and their appeared nothing but pitch black soulless eyes looking back at Toe. It sort of ‘hissed’ a moment and then showed its teeth, which turned out to be razor sharp. The horns on his head above his eyes suddenly stood to attention and it was like looking at a little furry demon in front of him.

   Before Toe could react, the little squirrel lunged towards Toe’s outstretch hand, which caused him to drop the sweat bread and the backpack he had been carrying. The squirrel immediately tore into the sweat bread violently like as his razor sharp teeth was soon ripping it into pieces.  Trimese and Alex all stepped back for a second in bewilderment and confusion at what was now happening.  None of them had seen anything like this before. Even Bikko, who would normally love chasing squirrels in his back yard sort of retreated behind Alex’s legs and coward suddenly at the fearful sight of this little furry demon that was growling fiercely as he shook the sweat bread violent in his mouth.

  Suddenly more squirrels appeared out of nowhere from the trees above. About 10 of them pounced on the backpack and begin to tear it apart, violently ripping at the material with their teeth, growling and pawing at each other to get a bigger piece of the sweat breads and other fruits and vegetables that it had been carrying.

  “Hey my backpack!” Toe sort of protested when he regain his wits about him. He was taken off guard by the first little squirrels attack. But now he realized that his food was being ripped away, not to mention his backpack was being ripped to shreds.

  Now more squirrels came jumping down from the branches above and some others were appearing all around them running up from the shadow of the trees in the surrounding woods next to them. Before long the 10 or so squirrels turned into about 50 of them and it became a huge mess of them all fighting for the remains of the sweat bread, vegetables and fruits that were being violently thrown about. It sort of looked like the feeding frenzy of piranha when a piece of meat is introduced to them. There were pieces of backpack and pieces of food flying everywhere and the squirrels were also tearing into one another with such tenacity that it scared Alex and Trimese quite a bit. The squirrels were growling and showing teeth as they tore into everything and fought among themselves.

 Eventually there was nothing left of any of the food and they all stopped at once and turned their attention to Alex and Trimese who were standing a few feet away.

  All of the squirrels were now looking at the group as they began to growl again and started to snarl and show their teeth in a very menacing way.

  “Quick guys” Tac said “Let’s get the heck out of here right now”.

  “I think you’re right”, added Tic. As they all turned to quickly run away from the horde of squirrels that had just torn Toe’s backpack to shreds.

  They all made a dash for it back up the trail, and even Trimese with all six legs was making a good pace of it. Alex looked back and could see the squirrels that were just now starting to chase after them.

   “They’re gaining on us guys”, Toe said fearfully as he glanced back over his shoulders at the ones that had taken chase.

  Suddenly one had jumped down from the tree above as Alex was running under it and Alex began to scream as he tried to fight it off. And soon more jumped down around the others from above as the first group of squirrels which was quickly catching up from behind. It was a trap, and if they didn’t get out of it soon, they would become just like the poor backpack that was left in shreds back on the trail.

  “Arrrrrgggg” Alex screamed in fear trying to get the devil creature off of him.

  Toe reached up and swatted it off his shoulder as it flew off to the side. Alex fell face first to the ground and Trimese wasn’t sure if he had been bitten or not. Trimese stopped and bent down to help Alex up to his feet and they all looked around them.

  They were completely surrounded by the squirrels now (now about 70 of them) and each was growling and showing their razor sharp teeth in an attack mode.

  The guys all looked at each other for a moment and then at the little demonic creatures that were all around them. They crept closer and Toe closed his eyes because he couldn’t watch what was gonna happen next.

  “It can’t end this way”, Alex said as he rubbed his shoulder where the squirrel had grabbed at his shirt.

  Suddenly when they all thought they squirrels were gonna jump on top of them and tear them apart several wolves jumped down out of nowhere and landed between them and the circle of squirrels that had them surrounded.

  “Oh great” Tic said, “Now we got them too”.

  But the wolves paid Alex and Trimese no attention as they all turned towards the squirrels and growled themselves.  Alex and Trimese sort of squeezed together closer in the middle (with Bikko cowering in between Alex’s legs) while the wolves faced off with the multitude of furry demonic creatures that surrounded them.

  One of the squirrels tried to jumped up at Toe’s hand but the nearest wolf caught it in midair before it could reach him and shook it in its mouth and then threw it back at some others that were standing there. Another tried from another side and again the wolf standing close to it thwarted its attack. And yet another try and again, the closest wolf caught it and threw it back among the other squirrels that were all trying to figure out if they should continue to attack or give up and run away.

  Alex and Trimese watched in amazement as they soon figured out that the wolves were really there to help and protect them, not to harm them.

  Finally some of the wolves started in on an offensive move, and lunged forward at the squirrels closest to them and begin to growl harder and show teeth.  After a moment or two the squirrels gave up and ran off into different directions of the woods.

  The guys watched them all scamper away as each one disappeared from out of their sights and then they looked at the pack of wolves that were circling them. There were seven of them in all.

  “Um guys” Toe said as they wolves continued to walk around them from a few feet away. “You don’t suppose they were fighting off those pesky little things because THEY want us for lunch themselves do you?”

  “Uh” Tac said, still watching them as they continued to circle them.

  Suddenly they heard a voice from a near by tree. When they looked up they saw a young woman, leaning against it. She had long auburn hair, amazingly beautiful blue eyes and she was wearing black pants that sort of clung to her legs, and a sleeveless shirt of black and black hiking boots. She had a nose stud on the right side of her nose. And her hair, which was slight longer than her shoulders, was parted on the right side of her face and swooped across her forehead to the left side.

She was rather petite in stature, only standing just less than 5 feet (4’ 10” exactly),but she had an athletic built, and her arms (which were exposed through her sleeveless shirt) revealed she was stronger than she looked and had muscles that most girls her age did not. She smiled broadly at them. She was a couple of years older than Alex but they weren’t really sure. It was certain though she was still relatively young. Alex immediately thought how pretty she really was.

  “I see you have had ‘fun’ with the little ones eh?” she said.

  “You mean these?” Alex said, looking down at the wolves which where still circling the group.

  “No silly” said the young woman, “Not those guys” “I’m talking about the little furry demons” referring to the squirrels.

  “Um, yes,” Tac said.

  “Yeah, sorry I didn’t get here sooner” she continued “other wise me and the guys could’ve saved you some trouble”.

  She must be referring to the wolves they all thought. Funny, they thought, how she kept referring to them as her ‘guys’.

  “I’m sorry”, the young woman continued, “My name is Summer Ashberry” “And these” she held out her hand towards the wolves “are my guys”. “Come over here Jimmy” she said as the biggest one of the wolves came over and rubbed up against her leg and body. He was almost as tall as her and came close to knocking her over as he rubbed her with his head in a loving way.

  “Yeah, I know Jimmy” she said, as she rubbed behind one ear. “You guys have been toying with them again haven’t you?”

  Alex and Trimese just watched as Summer continued loving on the wolf that loved on her. It was wonderful to watch. None of them had ever seen anyone have that much control around a wild animal like that. Alex always thought wolves were really cool and even wanted to be one when the latest vampire movie came out and one of the main characters was a wolf. He thought about how cool they were and how mysterious they seemed before. Now he thought how wonderfully strange it was that here was this young woman who wasn’t much older than himself who had this little stature and yet she seemed in total control and not afraid or anything. She was just so cool. Who is this person he wondered to himself as she continued to play around with the wolf she called ‘Jimmy’.  They obviously had a strong bond and friendship going on, in fact, she seem to have one with all of them. She was soon wresting with it while she grabbed it by the neck and wrestled it to the ground. She flopped on top of it and it sort of let her as she grabbed it around the neck. It was a powerful wolf and he knew that it could of hurt her if it wanted to but at the same time seemed like a dear friend as it reached up and playfully swatted at her with one power paw.

   A couple of other wolves walked over to where they were, and they too began to play with Summer and Jimmy as Alex and Trimese just watched for a moment and looked at one another. Finally she got up and said “That’s enough for now boys” “Let me go see what’s up with these guys”. 

  The wolf called ‘Jimmy’ looked at her as she did and she looked back at him and said “It’s okay Jimmy” “I’ll be alright” and walked over to Alex and Trimese who were still standing there in silence.

  “So guys.” “What the heck are yall doing in my neck of the woods anyways?” she said, as she looked them all up and down a minute. “Sup?” she said as she nodded at them.

  “Um, let me introduce the gang” Tac finally said as he went through everyone and explained a little of their journey. The others would add their bits of details to it as they went.

  She looked hard at Alex as she eyeballed him up and down. Even though Alex was younger than her he was taller than her by a few inches but that didn’t help Alex feel any more confidence around her. In some ways Summer reminded him of Sarah back home and yet in some ways she was so much more in his eyes. Here’s this young woman totally alone in the woods with a pack of wolves that apparently were her dearest friends and family. She was shorter than most guys he knew, and yet she showed no fear whatsoever.

  Summer smiled when the guys were telling her about the musicians they had found in the corner of the Kingdom of No.

  “Man, I’d LOVE to party with those guys” she said as she smiled. “ I LOVE a good party.” “That would be a blast” and especially hearing some music.” “I love good music”

  “Yep, it was quite fun” added Toe.

  “I LOVE fun and laughing” she said. “Don’t let my looks fool you guys.” “I can be tough when I have to but I also have a good heart” “And I know how to party with the best of them” She smiled again, as she looked over at several of her other ‘friends’ (the wolves) who were watching her intently from a few feet away.

  Indeed Summer was a contradiction in terms. On the one hand here was this young woman who was shorter than 5 feet and who, at first appearances, might seem frail, and yet she had no problem holding her own with a pack of seemingly wild animals. Most people would be scared out of their wits, but she was calm, and confident. And then at the same time there was this very caring person with the huge heart that showed great love and compassion and loved to laugh as much as anyone and was so loyal with her friends (the wolves).

  After a moment she caught Alex looking at her, studying her and she asked him “Sup?” like she did. She sort of smiled at him with a confidence that made him feel uneasy.

  “Sorry if I’m staring at you Summer” he said, being a little embarrassed at getting caught looking at her so hard. “I just have never seen anyone like you.”

  “And you never will again, I’m sure Alex” she smiled as she said this. “I’m one of a kind”

  “It’s just I don’t get it” Alex continued “Here you are in the middle of nowhere with this pack” “I just don’t get it”.

  “What?” Summer looked over at him.

  “Just everything” Alex said, looking at her and then at her pack of wolf friends.

  “Hey kid, you can’t judge anyone by looks alone.” She said.

  “Do you think that just because I might happen to be this tiny little girl that I can’t have some kind of strength and power to myself?” she said as she put her hands on her hips.

  For a brief moment he could hear Yoda’s voice from Star Wars ringing in his ear as she said this.

  “I mean I could kick your scrawny little butt all over this woods if I wanted to but I prefer to have a good time” she said.

  “Look, I wasn’t trying to offend you or anything.” Alex said in defense.

  “It’s okay kid” she glanced back at him. “I know what you mean.”

  “Again, you can’t judge things or people by looks alone now can you?” she said, and they all considered that for a moment.

  “You’re certainly right Summer” agreed Tac. “Look at those little furry squirrels.” “They looked innocent enough but turned out to be a terror.”

  “And your friends” Tic added, looking over at the wolves, “they turned out to be the good guys” He smiled for a moment as one of them, the one Summer called ‘Chelsea’ sort of looked over at him and smiled.

  “And then here YOU are, this woman with a small stature, and you have a heart of a lion” Toe added, ”Of a giant!”

  “Again” Summer added, “You can’t judge people on their looks” She smiled broadly at them all at the compliment.

  “No I guess you can’t.” Alex finally said. And he wouldn’t for a long time after this.

  With that, Summer offered to help them get through the rest of these woods and offered up the assistance of her wolf pack to protect them across the land that was the habitat of those demonic little squirrels. The wolves were they only things that they feared.

 There apparently were a couple of male wolves and a couple of females in her pack and some walked closely by them and some in front ahead of them and a couple behind bringing up the rear. Summer said that besides Jimmy and Chelsea, there was Dylan and Edgar, Jessica, Brittany and finally Anthony.  Unusual names for wolves the guys thought to themselves, but then nothing was ever normal anywhere they went or anywhere they had been so it shouldn’t come as any surprise. They seem to be a big family and were close to one another and with Summer.

   After a while Alex couldn’t contain himself any more and had to ask “Exactly how did you come to be with your, um, ‘friends’?” he motioned towards the wolves.

    “Oh my guys?” She said, as she looked down at one of them close to her. “They’ve been with me forever.”

  “I always had a lot of friends, well the human kind anyways, but I got picked on a lot.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad”, said Toe, looking over at her sympathetic.

  “Nah, it was okay” she said “I mean it was always in good clean fun” “I have always had lots of friend because people just naturally like me” “ But despite that, I got picked on a lot because of my size and such” “But then I came across these guys” “I found Chelsea and she had her paw trapped in one of those hateful bear traps and I helped her get out of it, and even help the rest of them get away from some people who were trying to hunt them and we’ve been friends ever since.”

  “Oh that’s so cool”, added Alex.

  “Yeah, I helped them and so now they protect me” she added “It’s a great trade off”.

 “I don’t tell anyone their secrets so they watch over me like family”

  The guys were thinking that when she said ‘secrets’ that Summer must of meant where their hiding place was; where they lived or something.

   “And you know what?” She finally asked, looking over to the guys.

  “What’s that?” they all asked together.

  “Believe it or not, now because of these guys no one picks on me any more.” She finally said, “despite my size”.

  “Imagine that”, said Toe as he sort of laughed to himself.

  “I bet”, added Tic. They all looked at her ‘friends’.

They stopped at the next clearing and Tac pulled at the map and they all crowded around it again as they all looked down at it spread about before them.

 Tac studied it for a few moments and his eyes got big and he looked at them and seemed almost beside himself with happiness.

  “Guess what guys?” he asked as he looked over at all of them, one at a time.

  “What?”  They all kind of piped in at the same time.

  “Just up a head, through the “Forest of Giants” is Dreamsland.

  (The “Forest of Giants” was the forest of giant trees that lay next to the hills that surrounded Dreamsland, meaning they were almost home.)

  “You’re kidding? “ Toe almost burst into tears of happiness.

  “They all shook each others hands in joy and merriment.

  They still had a ways to go until they would get to the “Forest of Giants” but it was now so close.

  Summer smiled at the guys as they all clinched their fist in joy and knew it must have been a great discovery to find they were now that close. She knew that soon they would part company because her and her wolves were at the edge of their own hunting grounds and didn’t care to travel too much further out of ‘safe lands’ that they were use to.

  “Well, this is about as far as we can take you guys” Summer finally said as she looked at them. “You should be okay from here on out”

  “We’ve got to get back to our own neck of the woods”, she continued “before those little demons think they can run all over our territory unchecked.” (She was referring to the little demonic squirrels they were always running into).

  “They’re a pain for sure” Summer said, as looked down to at her pack. “But they keep my guys exercised “ she said. “Besides they need to keep up with their hunting skills.”

  They didn’t give that last statement too much thought but if they had it might have of turned their stomachs just a bit.

  “You guys be safe”, She finally said as she turned away from them and headed back down the trail they had just come from.

  “You too Summer” said Tac. Tic and Toe sort of agreed with that as they smiled at her.

  “And thanks “ added Alex. “Thanks for everything.”

  “Not a problem little guy.” She replied and smiled back at him and then turned and walked away.  The wolves were walking with her some on both sides. She had one hand down on the biggest one on her left, the one called ‘Jimmy’. The female on her right had a slight limp from the bear trap that had once caught her hind leg.

 

  Trimese and Alex and Bikko continued on a few yards and then Alex turned back around to look at Summer and was gonna yell something back to her but stopped in his tracks and said nothing.

 

  Looking back, Alex saw Summer was now walking away with 7 young people, 3 on one side and 4 on the other.  There was a tall fellow on her left closer to her that she was touching on his shoulder blade, and the girl on her right was walking with a slight limp. 

The saga continues...
*(All characters, places, events and so forth are copyrighted by me).

                                  The Dream...

                                    11: The Land of No

 

  With the discovery that Alex was missing (and so was his dog), John and Mary concluded that he must have run away from home. After searching the rest of the house, the garage, John’s workshop, the yard and so forth they quickly got on the phone with the police who said they would send out a squad car to patrol the neighborhood. Sarah suggested some friends who might know where Alex might possibly be, and soon the three of them were calling all of those friends as well. Before long everyone who knew Alex was in on the search.

  “It’s just not like Alex” Mary said, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.

  “I know dear”, John agreed, “But you know he’s just hiding somewhere because of what happened.” “I’m sure he’s alright” “We’ll find him hiding somewhere, trying to scare us or something”.

  “I’m gonna strangle that boy for putting us through this” Mary said, “And then I’m gonna give him a big hug and NEVER let go.”

  “I’m sure we’ll find him Mrs. Taylor” Sarah said reassuring. “Alex wouldn’t do anything crazy”. “He’s probably just sitting around somewhere or something, I’m sure of it.”

 

  Alex, Trimese and Bikko had come down from the top of the “Enchanted Dome” the same way they had gone up it, and were now making there was around the base to get to the other side. There were smaller trees here and there around the base but up ahead the woods picked up again. They followed the trail again through some thicker groves of trees.

  The terrain was hillier here as they soon found them self going over little hills and down again into what seem like gullies or small valleys in between the hills like the ground generally had a ripple effect to it. Eventually each hill began to get bigger than the one before until the latest hill was extremely big. It took a while to make it to the top and when they did they looked over it to view what lay ahead.

 

  Before them was an entire forest of petrified trees. Every single tree in sight was complete made of stone and it took them all by surprise. There wasn’t even grass here. Everything was a grayish color or gray brown. 

  “Wow” they all sort of said in agreement when they saw it.

  “What place is this?” Alex said as he looked over to Tac.

  Tac pulled out the map from his pocket and unfolded it, and everyone crowded around and looked down at it.

  “Hmmm” he sort of mumbled to himself “Let’s see. We were here at the Enchanted Dome” as he traced the path with his finger. “So that means we are now crossing over the edge of ‘the Kingdom of No’.

  “The Kingdom of No” asked Toe, “What’s that?”

  “I’m not sure”, replied Tac. “That’s just what it says on the map”.

  “Interesting” said Toe. “Let’s just hope we don’t run into any more creatures or anything” “I’ve had plenty of them to last a life time already on this trip”.

  “You can say that again brother” Tic added as he looked at all the gray stone trees that lay before them.

  Tac folded the map back up and placed it back into his pocket. “Let’s go this way” and they started down the other side of the hill to the little valley below that held the Petrified Forest before them.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this before” Alex said, as they made their way through the stone trees.

  “Neither have we Alex” Toe said as he looked over to him.

  They all looked around them as each tree looked like a giant stone pillar. There was no vegetation anywhere. No grass, no weeds, no flowers, no animals, no color, no sounds of any kind. There was nothing but gray, gray, and more gray. As far as the eye could see everything here was gray. The trees were gray and the ground was gray. The forest was so thick with petrified trees that they couldn’t see anything else around them at this point or beyond and it was is if standing in a maze where all you could see were sides to the maze.

  “What do you think caused this?” Tic said.

  “I’m not sure”, replied Tac “But it’s something isn’t?”

  They all reached over and touched the closest tree to them to see what it felt like.

  “They’re cold”, said Tic.

  “And they feel like stone” replied Alex. “Weird” he said, as he looked up the tree to the top of it and then back down the trunk again.

 

  They continued on their journey and for the longest time they nether heard sounds or saw anything alive in all the gray forest. It sort of gave them all an eerie feeling like they were walking through a graveyard, or at least a sea of cement and concrete.

  Occasionally they came across a tree that had fallen over and had to walk around these.

  By now the sun was about at mid-morning, and the sky up above them offered up the only color of blue that peaked in between the branches that intertwined overhead. 

  As they were walking Bikko’s ear pricked up and Alex noticed it and looked down at his dog.

  “What is it boy?” Alex asked.

  “Wait” said Tic “I think I can hear it too.” “Do you hear that?”

  They all stopped in their tracks and listened and sure enough very faintly they could hear something that sounded like music playing off in one direction.

  “Is that music?” Toe asked, looking perplexed.

  “Shhh” Tic said, as he strained his ears to hear the faint sound.

  They listened some more and indeed, it seemed like they were hearing the sounds of music faintly playing somewhere in the distance.

  “I think you’re right Toe” Tac finally added.  “Let’s follow the sounds and see what’s up.”

  They continued to head toward the sound of music that was coming from somewhere deep within and as they did it was getting louder. They could now hear laughter and hoots and hollers mixed in with the singing and music. About that time the group noticed the ground was turning brown instead of previous shade of gray it had been, and the trees were also changing back into their natural colors. As they continued on, and got even closer to the sound, they noticed the first blades of grass and then flowers and so forth. The closer they got to the source of the music, the more vegetation they saw around them.

Eventually everything around them was back to its normal color scheme, alive with plants that thrived with flowers and sweet scents. They started to see little animals scurrying between trees and behind them, like rabbits and squirrels and such. Suddenly birds appeared, singing also, sitting in the tree branches which were now alive and full of green leafs like many of the trees they had seen on the journey. And now they noticed the butterflies that fluttered here and there. They were of all colors and sizes and floated about. The closer they got to the source of music, the more butterflies they saw flying around them.

 

    It was then that they realized where the music was coming from. Up just past a couple of clusters of trees they saw several figures sitting around what appeared to be a campsite. Here there was a clearing in the trees, which offered up the comfortable feeling of being in some sort of outdoor room. In the middle of the clearing were some tree trunks that were lying around in a semi-circle, and sitting on them were the source of the music.

  There were three of them, all wearing colorful clothes, and all of them were playing musical instruments and singing a song and seemed to be having a great time of it. The three musicians noticed Trimese, Alex and Bikko coming and sort of nodded a ‘hello’ to them as they finally appeared from behind some trees. They were surrounded by (what seemed) to be hundreds of butterflies that fluttered everywhere in the middle of the clearing where they were all sitting. There were butterflies flying around them, next to them, up high and low as the three of them continued with their song. “Welcome friends” said one of them and continued to play a guitar. “Have a seat and join in the fun”.

  “Yes, yes, sit down and join us”, piped in another, as he nodded at the group, and continued to strum his mandolin.

  The third of the three was keeping a beat with his hands as he slapped his knees and was thumping the ground with one foot. Trimese and Alex both found the whole performance wonderful and before long they too were joining in by clapping along with the third of the trio.  He simply nodded an approving smile at them as he continued to sing and when he got to a certain point they all joined in:

 

   “So come and join the chorus boys,

    Come and join us now.

    Yeah, come and join the chorus boys

    And let’s all sing out loud.”

    You never be too sad my friends

    Or feel you’re not allowed,

    So come and sing the chorus boys,

    So come and join us…. now!!!”

 

  The musicians got to the end of the song and all stopped, laughed and chuckled and clapped in merriment at their own performance. They all then stood up and held out their hands to shake, a more proper welcome. Many of the butterflies fluttered away from the center of the campsite while some flew around here or there as soon as the music stopped.

  “Welcome, welcome my friends,” said the biggest one of the three “Sit down and join us”. He sort of motioned them to find seats here or there on the logs that were lying around their little campsite. He then sat down with a big grunt as he shifted his weight.

  “My name is Manray Flex, and these fine gentlemen you see before you are Gordon Pepper to my right (he motioned toward him) and the other is Brimbadore Bamble.

  Brimbadore immediately nodded to Trimese and Alex, who were sitting across from them in a semi circle.

  Manray was a huge giant of a man. He had a short beard and mustache, short brown colored hair and had pudgy cheeks, and his whole body would shake when he laughed. You could best describe him as a young looking Santa Claus type.  He wore a brilliantly colored short sleeve shirt and pants that were multi striped of different colors and sandals. To say he was understated or subdued would be a lie. Manray was anything but subdued or quiet. Everything he did was loud and proud and fun and one of his favorite things to do was to laugh and have a good time. He loved singing and songs and merriment and parties and anything and everything that would make him smile or laugh, which was most anything and everything.

  The next gentleman in the group was Gordon Pepper and he wore a mustache that was half way down his chin, he had shoulder length brownish colored hair. He too wore a colorful short sleeve shirt that was covered in flowers; he had baggy pants on and wore leather-looking sandals on his feet. He was the one playing the guitar. Like Manray, he too loved fun and singing, loved to laugh and carry out practical jokes and was known to have a wicked sense of humor. He was of regular height and weight and not nearly as big as Manray but might be considered rather handsome.

   And finally there was Brimbadore Bamble. He was playing the mandolin and the best description one could give to him was that he looked like the painter Salvador Dali but without the strange moustache or personality. Like the other two he wore colorful clothes, which, consisted of a bright colorful short sleeve shirt, and kaki pants with sandals. His hair was a darker brown that was shoulder length, and had a slight little goatee and he wore round glasses that he had pushed up on the top of his nose. Brimbadore was the most reserved of the three and would mostly smile at the jokes the other two said. Like his two companions he loved a good laugh and anything that had to do with fun or having a good time. He loved stories of any kind and knew how to bring up interesting little tidbits of trivial information at the drop of a hat.

  “So fellows, what brings you out here into our little neck of the woods?” Manray finally asked as they all settled down on the logs.

  “Any word concerning the Kingdom?” piped in Brimbadore, as he sort of lean forward and tilted his head down and looked at them closely over the top of his glasses and when he did they slide down his nose. He pushed his glasses back up on his nose. The move reminded Trimese of the professor and how he did the same thing. “Are you from the Kingdom?”

  “Kingdom?” Toe asked, looking at them.

  “Actually”, Tac piped in “we’re passing through on the way back to our little village”.

  “Oh really” asked Gordon, “Where at?”

  “A little place called ‘Dreamsland’” Tac answered back. “Ever hear of it?”

  The three musicians thought about it for a moment and couldn’t remember ever hearing about their homeland. They all gave each other a knowing look that none of them had and Manray finally said, “No, sorry, we haven’t”. “Is it nice?” “Do they sing there?” he said as he leaned forward and gave a big laugh, which made his belly shake just when he did.

  “Um” Alex finally interrupted “What about the Kingdom?”

  “Why the Kingdom of No” replied Manray and went “Bah” and sort of spit at the ground.

  “Oh?” Tic said, as his eyes got bigger. “What’s wrong with the Kingdom of No?”

  “Well for one” Brimbadore said as he looked at them all “they don’t allow music or singing there” He too went “Bah” and spit at the ground.

  “No, really?” Alex said, as his eyes got bigger.

  “That would be terrible” Toe added although he never thought much about music or singing.

  “Well, not only that but that crazy King has forbid any fun of any kind there.” Added Gordon. “We’re talking about NO music, NO dancing, NO joking, and NO fun!!” and he too went “Bah” and spit at the ground.  Bikko sort of backed up closer to Alex’s feet with the last little disgusted ‘bah’ as the spit landed close to his paws. He let out a little whimper and then tilted his head at the group.

  “The king?” Tac asked. “What’s wrong with the king?”

  “He’s crazy that’s what”, Brimbadore said, “Crazy with power and full of anger and resentment”.

  “Yep, and all because that spoiled little brat son of his couldn’t hold a tune and became a laughing stock at the royal recital”, Manray said.

  “Oh my, don’t remind me”, Gordon said with a shiver. “It was horrible”.

  “What happened at the recital?” Toe asked.

  “Every year the King and Queen hold an official dinner party, and as part of the ceremony decided that they would unveil their ‘son’ in a recital.” Brimbadore started to tell the tale.

  “Yep” added Manray “But the thing was the ‘boy’ couldn’t hold a note.” He looked disgusted. “Not a SINGLE ONE I tell you!” “It was terrible and embarrassing!”

  “Oh?” Tic leaned in a bit.

  “Yeah” continued Gordon, “the kid tried to sing and his voice was changing, so he sort of was all over the scale and it begin to crack and such”. He shivered again as he remembered it.

  Brimbadore picked up the story “Soon the guest at the reception couldn’t help themselves because he was just so terrible and began to snicker at the kings son.”

  “He got to one particular hard point in the song and tried to hit a very high note and when he did the big mirror that was hanging up behind him, on the wall in the dinner hall just cracked right in the middle.” All their eyes got bigger. “Crack!” he said to add emphasis to the story.

  “Everyone began to snicker even harder” which made the King and Queen mad”, added Gordon.

  “The King stood up at the table to protest”, continued Brimbadore. “But as he did he spilt a full glass of wine in the Queen’s lap.” He chuckled at the thought.

  “The son is sitting there embarrassed and he begins to cry”, continued Gordon.

  “Yeah, yeah, and as the King spills the wine into his wife’s lap she suddenly gets up and slips on some of the spilt wine that is on the floor and falls right on her butt pulling the table cloth full of dishes and food right on top of her and the King!” Manray begins to laugh. They other guys begin to snicker too at the memory of the fiasco.

  “Of course it was too much for the crowd to handle at that point,” said Brimbadore “They couldn’t help but snicker louder at the whole thing.

  “And the snicker soon turned into laughter” added Manray.

  “LOUD laughter!!!” added Gordon and looked over at the guys and gave them all a very knowing look. And they too laugh hard at the whole thing.

  “Yep, LOUD laughter” continued Brimbadore between chuckles. “Soon the whole place was shaking in its boots and people were laughing SO hard they were practically crying.”

  “It was just too much for the King and Queen.” Manray said.

  “So that very evening the King decreed that from that point on there would be no singing, no music, no dancing.” Added Gordon.

  All of the guy’s eyes got bigger and Toe sort of held his mouth open in disbelief.

  “That must have been terrible.” Alex said.

  “Oh it is!” said Manray, as he darted a look at Alex.

  “Can you image living in a land where there is NO music?” asked Brimbadore.

  “Or singing?” added Manray.

  “Or dancing?” added Gordon.

  “Wow!” they all sort of said in bewilderment as the though fully hit them.

  “Or anything that is fun?” Manray said.

  Trimese and Alex both shivered at the thought.

  “That is why we are out here in the middle of nowhere”, Manray said.

  “The king made it illegal for anyone to sing, dance, play music or anything resembling fun, laughter, and so forth” Brimbadore said, “and anyone caught doing so was to be thrown into the castle prison.” “Labeled a criminal against the official decree by the King.”

  “So you see we are all outlaws here.” Gordon said as he gave them a knowing laugh.

  “Some people tried to protest but they were quickly rounded up and locked away in the dungeon.” Manray said.

  “We decided we couldn’t live like that and decided to come out here in the middle of no where to sing and dance and play our songs.” Gordon continued.

  “I HAVE to have fun!” said Manray, as he laughed and his belly shook a bit.

  “Yes, yes, of course you do my friend”, said Brimbadore, “we ALL do!”

  “Fact is the King is so dead inside now because his anger that it poisons him and now his Kingdom is dead.” Gordon said.

  “Did you notice the petrified trees when you first arrived here?” asked Brimbadore.

  “Yeah, all the cold gray that was everywhere?” added Gordon.

  “Yeah” Alex and Trimese replied together.

  “Well that is deadness of the King” said Manray. “As long as his heart is dead and full of hate, then his kingdom is dead too.”

  “That’s terrible” Alex said.

  “Oh it wasn’t always like this” Brimbadore said. “Before the ‘incident’ this place was alive and full of colors and animals, and singing and music and fun…the whole bit” “Simply because the King and Queen were alive and happy and full of fun in their hearts”.

  “That’s so sad” Toe said looking at them.

  “Well that’s what happens when your heart turns cold and its full of hate.” Manray said. “It sort of dies and then everything around it dies too.”

  “But we couldn’t live like that, so now we come out here and hide from the royal guards to ‘live’ a little in all this deadness that surrounds us.” Gordon said. “As long as we don’t also give into the deadness then we can keep a little of the old kingdom with us and around us.”

  “That is why there is grass and flowers and butterflies here huh?” Alex asked, “Because you won’t give into the deadness of the kingdom?”

  “Yes”, replied Manray “We keep it alive with our songs and music and dancing and fun.”  When he said the word ‘fun’ he let out another chuckle. Just the word ‘fun’ brought joy to his heart.

  “Eventually things will change we’re sure” Brimbadore said.

  “We hope, at least” Manray said.

  “And as long as you have hope in your heart then you can get through anything, even living in a world that no longer wants to have fun” Manray added.

  “But until then, until the King and Queen change their minds and hearts, we will continue on as we have always.” Gordon said. “Even if that means we have to hide out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  “It’s better to have nothing out here in the middle of nowhere and be alive and be truly happy than to be part of a kingdom that has all the comforts of life but is dead from the inside.” Brimbadore said.

  The boys and Alex finally understood now what was going on.

  About that time a squirrel crept closer and Toe, having a fondness for animals (at least the friendly kind) reached into his back pack and pulled out a small piece of sweet bread and held out a hand to offer to it. The squirrel was cautious at first and sort of sniffed the air with its nose as it sat on its hind legs and sort of rubbed his front paws together and then crept closer. Eventually Toe tossed the piece of sweetbread outward a bit and the squirrel scurried over to it, picked up the piece and then quickly ran back to the nearest tree to eat it.

  “Speaking of songs” Manray said “How about another one.”

  “Sounds good Manray” Gordon said as he reached for his guitar.

  Soon they were deep into another song as they all carried on in laughter and singing and playing instruments and having a good time. They were having fun. Manray led the singing as the other two musicians added their parts and Alex and Trimese helped keep the beat by clapping along or ‘drumming ‘on the logs they were sitting on.  Soon the butterflies too returned along with the singing and music and the air was full of color, and the sweet scent of flowers. 

 

  The storm gusts had stopped by the next morning in Dreamsland and when the Professor and Leah felt it was safe enough to venture out they stepped outside the front door of their cottage. They had both had a terrible night of very little sleep the night before. The professor was even more tired than the day before and Leah was fighting off the sadness and the mood to want to cry. There was a cloud cover of ominous gray clouds that hung over the village and blotted out the sun. It was chilly now, but instead of the wind gusts of the previous day there was a foreboding stillness in the air. The flowers and plants, while weren’t wilted, were drawn in and many of the colors seemed subdued. The over all feel of everything was one of impending doom.

   They had brought the binoculars with them this time as they looked off to the storm front. It was closer than it had been but seemed to have stalled a ways off. That was something at least they thought. There weren’t any flashes of light or the booms any more. There was just the weird greenish color that still filled the air underneath the worst of the storm front.

  They turned their attention towards the clock. The professor held the glasses up close to his face and pointed it off towards the clock. He studied it for a bit and then gave the glasses over to his daughter. She held them up close to her eyes and looked at the clock and then put them down.

  What they both saw what that the clock was leaning even more now and the time was a good 6 hours behind. They could just barely make out the pendulum that barely swung back and forth now. There was a sad but knowing look that passed between the professor and daughter as they stood there and said nothing.

  The clock was definitely slowing down. It wouldn’t be long now before it stopped altogether.

The saga continues.
*(All characters, event, places, etc are copyrighted by me).
 
                                  The Dream...
 

                               10: The Enchanted Dome

                                (Dreams within a Dream)

 

  The Professor was awakened from his ‘day dream’ by the latest boom that passed in front of his cottage. He looked up and then around himself for his daughter and then realized she had said something about going outside. She’d been gone for a while so he got up to investigate. He found her lying in their front yard and ran to where she was. She was still, and not moving, and for a moment he wasn’t sure what was going on.

  “Leah, Leah” he cried out as he ran up to her.

  He leaned over her and gently tapped her cheek to try to wake her. She slowly opened her eyes and looked up at her father who was leaning above her on one knee.

  “My dear, are you okay?” the Professor said as he helped her sit up.

  “I think so”, she said, as she tried to shake the cobwebs out of her head.

  “What happened?” She asked as she looked around her.

  “I’m not sure Leah”, the Professor said as he checked her to see if she had any injuries. She appeared fine, a little shaken, but fine nonetheless. “I just found you out here like this?” “Can you remember anything?”

  Leah thought about the last thing she could remember and then her memory was suddenly jarred from the next ‘boom’ that came from the approaching storm. She looked up at the horizon suddenly.
  “We’ve got to get back inside, NOW!” she said as a sudden look of panic and concern crossed her face.

  The Professor looked up in the direction she was now looking at and could see the storm approaching and suddenly he understood the situation.

  “You’re right”, he said. “Let’s get out of here NOW!”

  They both had just enough time to duck inside and close the door behind them when the next burst of wind blew through the front yard.  They watched for a while from the windows the commotion that each gust of wind caused as things were blown about. The sky would light up, the booms would follow, and then there was a delay and the gust would follow that. Finally the Professor and Leah simply quit watching and closed the shutters and tried to bunker down. The only comfort was that the storm seemed to have slowed down a bit in its progress.

 

  It was approaching evening now, and the sun was beginning to set and darkness came quicker than usual because of the thick cloud cover. It would be a restless night for everyone. Another day was quickly at its end, which unfortunately meant that in the morning there would only be two days left before the clock would completely come to a stop if something wasn’t done and done soon.

 

  One thing was for sure; time was running out for everyone.

 

  Trimese, Alex and Bikko continued along the path that the map had told them to go. They had long left the Museum behind them as they discussed the many interesting things that they had seen while they were there. Up ahead the trail continued to cut through more woods. It turned this way and that way, and sort of zigzagged along in front of them.

  At one point, the path led across a shallow creek with several stepping-stones in the middle of it that helped connected one bank with the other. Alex started to step across the stones when suddenly the next one in front of him suddenly got up and moved out of his way just as he was beginning to step down, and it caused him to flopped down into the water with a splash.

  “Are you okay?” Toe asked after him as he helplessly watched Alex fall into the water.

   The water was only about ankle deep so Alex sat there in the water and just smiled to him self. “Great” he said, “Just great” as he tried to shake the water off his hands, his arms held up like out of the water. The boys sort of snickered to them self at that sight of Alex sitting there on his butt in the water.

  More of the stepping-stones suddenly got up and moved in the water away from where Alex was now sitting. Some of them crawled off to the closest bank of the creek and a few even crawled out and went on shore. It turned out that they were really turtles. They just looked like stones.

  Trimese just waded right in after Alex and offered up a hand to help him get to his feet. 

  “It’s really not that deep here you know” Toe offered, as he looked at Alex.

  “Yeah, I know” Alex said and had to laugh again about it he looked down at his wet body. “I sort of figured that out.”

 

  By now evening was approaching and they would soon have to find a spot to camp for the night. Tac pulled out the map again and surveyed it for a moment.

  “Guys, I think if we hurry we can just make it to ‘Enchanted Dome’ before it gets dark”. He looked up at the sky.

   “What’s that?” Alex asked.

   “It’s a giant rock formation of granite, that, as best as I can figure from looking at the map, it should just be up around the next bend ”. He nodded up the trail past a grove of tall trees.

  “Not only will it offer us a great viewpoint to the surrounding area in the morning, but it should also protect us from any…um, unwanted visitors during the night” he continued.

  “Unwanted visitors?” Alex inquired, as his eyes got bigger. “That doesn’t sound good”. “What kind of unwanted visitors?”

  “Yeah, what kind of unwanted visitors?” Toe asked, as his eyes got bigger.

  “Be quiet Toe” Tic blurted, as he looked over at him.

  “I’m not sure” Tac replied. “Just anything that isn’t friendly” and left it at that.

  They continued on a bit as the sky was starting to reveal the first colors of evening.

  Soon they were through the grove of really tall trees, which took a short while to get through and then they came to the other side. Sitting before them was ‘The Enchanted Dome’.

  The dome was impressive to say the least. It was basically a giant chunk of granite rock that poked its way out of the surrounding earth and had been here since who knew when. It was probably about the length of several football fields put together in circumference and almost half that in height. It loomed before them all and was daunting and impressive and seemed to have a life, mind and soul of it’s own.  Alex would of loved to stay and explore it at length if he had more time but he realize that time was of the essence and they all had a job to do.

  “We’re supposed to climb that?” Toe said, as they got closer.

  “Don’t worry Toe” Tac said. “Over there it looks like a good way to reach the top” and pointed up to the right. Sure enough that side was slightly more flatter, and so walking to the top from this way wasn’t really that bad. It took them a while to reach the summit though. By now the sky was already showing signs of stars hear and there, as it was now late evening. They all stopped a moment to catch their breath when they finally got to the top.

  Looking around, they noticed that in the very middle was an indentation in the surface of the rock (a low place) that would be a good spot to strike up a camp. After putting their backpacks down and arranging their stuff they decided to walk around in the remaining light, and look at the surrounding country that went off in each direction below them all the way to the horizon. They could see the sun setting off in one direction, as the sky everywhere was getting darker. They all stood there and watch the sun finally make its last slow descent over horizon and then it was gone.   Soon it was hard to see anything at all except for the million stars that dotted the sky above them. Alex looked up and realized that he had never ever seen this many together in his entire life. It was even more impressive than the display he had seen that first night in his local woods when he ran away from home.

  “We’ll have to wait until morning guys if we want to see anything.” Tic finally said.

  “Let’s get back to camp”, Tac said.

  “Yes, and let’s have some sweet bread, shall we?” Toe added.

  They all laughed at the statement and then headed back over to the place on the rock that held their camp.

  They all got comfortable in their little make shift campsite and had a meal of sweet bread, fruits and vegetables that the Professor and his daughter had put together in their care package, and some jugs of water. It was wonderful for all of them to sit down for a moment and just relax and especially to eat.  Alex didn’t recognize some of the fruits or vegetables and was afraid to eat them at first, but being extremely hungry and seeing how the brothers tore into them got the best of him and he too was devouring all the sweat and salty morsels in front of him.

  “Mmmm” he sort of grunted with pleasure, as he tasted something new. “This is really good” he would smile as he took another bite of the strange looking food.

  “Mmmm” one of the boys grunted back in agreement each time Alex did.

  As they talked about all that had happened to them up to that point, they all looked up at the sky above. It was like sitting under a blanket that had a million little holes poked into it and a great big light that shown through all the millions of little pinpoints above them.

Every once in a while a shooting star would appear over head or near the horizon. They watch in awe.

  They talked for quite a while and by now it was rather late, and they had another big day ahead of them. So one by one they all laid down and finally doze off to sleep. And each one had weird dreams…dreams within a dream.

 

  Trimese suddenly found himself walking down the track in Dreamsland. He looked around and couldn’t see anyone anywhere. No one was working in their gardens and the flowers and plants were all turning an ugly brown. There were nasty swarms of flies flying around and there was a putrid smell that permeated the air of death and decay.

 ‘What’s going on’ he thought to him self? ‘Where is everyone?’  ‘Where is the professor?’ ‘Where is Leah?’

  It was completely quiet and gave Trimese a weird feeling inside.

  He finally got to the professor’s cottage and walked up the walkway and started to knock on the door when it suddenly flung open. Leah appeared just inside the doorway and looked old and tired and worn out. Her eyes were sunken in and her hair was a mess like she hadn’t washed it in several days.

  ‘Leah, are you okay?’ Trimese found himself asking her. ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Where is everyone?’ ‘Where’s the Professor?’

  ‘What took you so long?’ she pleaded, looking at him as the tears begin to well in her eyes. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Leah, where IS your father?’ Trimese asked her again.

  ‘He’s dead alright, are you happy now?’  ‘He’s dead, you took to long to get back’

 

  Trimese jerked awake and the brothers suddenly sat up and looked around them. Alex was peacefully sleeping a few feet away in his sleeping bag and he could see Bikko’s head just poking out next to him. The dog looked up at Trimese for a moment and then lay his head down again and went back to sleep. Trimese realized that he was once again on the rock underneath a million stars and it was still nighttime.

  ‘It was just a dream’ they all thought to them self. ‘Just a horrible dream’ and they lay back down and tried to go to sleep, but instead, they just stared up the stars above.

 

   Alex found himself in his room sitting on his floor with the clock radio in a bunch of parts spread out on newspapers. He picked up a couple of the pieces and tried to put them together, and suddenly his hands began to shake and his forehead broke out in sweat. The beads of sweat dripped down into his face and began to burn his eyes. He stopped and wiped the sweat out of his eyes and tried again. Again his hands began to shake and this time even worse than before. About that time his parents walked in and they both began to laugh at him and jeer him.

  ‘We told you Alex’ his father sneered, ‘YOU cant fix it.

  ‘YOU can’t fix anything now can you Alex?’ his mother piped in. ‘What good are you son?’

  Suddenly Sarah walked into the room and joined in the taunt, “Alex you’re such a failure!’ she said and sort of laughed at him.  ‘You can’t even fix a simple thing like a little clock.’ She pointed a finger at him. ‘What makes you think you can fix a BIG one?’

 Suddenly Trimese walked into the room and looked accusingly at Alex.

  ‘Why did you LIE to us Alex’ Tic said. His brow was bent down now, and he now looked very angry.

  ‘You said you could fix it’ Tac added.  ‘You failed us all’.

  ‘I’m so disappointed in you’ Toe added and he had a terrible look of disappointment in his eyes.

  ‘Yes, I’m SO disappointed in you.’ His mother added.

  ‘We’re all so DISAPPOINTED in you son.’ his father added.

  ‘No wait, I can fix it’ ‘I CAN fix it’ Alex pleaded back at them all.

  All he could hear was all of them all saying how disappointed they were.

  ‘NO’ ‘NO’ ‘I CAN FIX IT I TELL YOU, I CAN’ he was now yelling back at them all at the top of his voice.

 

  Suddenly Alex woke up and sat immediately up in his sleeping bag. Bikko looked up at him from his side and sort of whimpered.

  He looked around him and he could see Trimese a few feet lying on his back and he was asleep. Every once in a while one of the brothers would sort of ‘twitch’ in his sleep like he too was having a bad dream.

  “It was just a bad dream Bikko” Alex said as he looked down at his dog, “Just a bad dream”. After a few moments he lay back down to go back to sleep again but all he could do was stare up at the stars.  Eventually though his eyes got too tired and his eyelids were too heavy and he closed them for a moment and before he knew it he was asleep again.

 

  They weren’t sure what time it was when they all finally woke up again, but it was still relatively early. The sun was just beginning to come up over on the horizon. It was rather chilly this early and made all of them shiver just a bit. They all got up and stretched and yawned and tried to shake the cobwebs out of their heads.  All of them hurt now, from sleeping on the rock (which they weren’t use to) and everyone was tired from the very restless night that they all had had. Alex and Trimese didn’t tell the other about the bad dreams they both had had during the night and decided to just keep it to themselves.

  It was still too early to see much of the surrounding lands so they decided to eat breakfast and regroup. Again the different foods were pulled out of backpacks and handed around their little makeshift camp sight. Strangely enough though it was rather quiet and no one had much to say. They were all deep in thought, thinking about the weird dreams each of them had had and about people they had left behind. Each was suddenly plagued with a sense of doom and personal failure now that they had never thought about before. They all tried to push those out of their heads as soon as they popped back in and tried to think of something else instead. They each were ‘lost’ in their own thoughts and day dreams and didn’t notice the sudden appearance of the fog that had appeared out of no where and was quickly engulfing them all.

  Alex looked up finally as he was meagerly nibbling his food. He strangely didn’t have much of an appetite.

  “Oh great” he said “Another one of these”.

  The brothers looked up too now and looked all around them. The fog was suddenly everywhere.

  What started out as a light grayish fog was soon turning a brighter shade of white. In fact everything was white around them.

  ‘This is thick’ Alex was thinking.

  He was looking around at the weird fog when he noticed that all three boys were suddenly staring at him! He looked down and Bikko was staring at him too and starting to bark suddenly all excited like.

  “What?” Alex said suddenly alarmed. “What is it?”

  “You’re disappearing right before us!” Tic suddenly said. “Look”

  Alex looked down at his arms and it was true he was beginning to become transparent so that you could see through his body.

  He looked back at the brothers and sort of had this sudden look of fear on his face.

  “What’s happening to me?!” he yelled at Trimese in fear.

  “It must be this fog,” Tac said looking around. “It’s not a regular fog but another ‘veil’”

  “You must be waking up in the outer world”, Tac continued as he was trying to figure out what to do next. “Our two existences have some how come together again.”

  “Well I’m not ready to go back!” Alex said looking confused and scared. “Quick, do something.”

  “We’ve got to pull you back into this realm”, Tac said, and then all three brothers reached over and started to pull Alex back to ‘this side’ of the veil. 

 

  Indeed, in the world that was Alex’s reality (or the ‘outer world as Trimese called it), his still sleeping body was trying to wake up in the early morning dew of the woods he had ran away into.  By now his parents had alerted the police and everyone was on cell phones calling all the friends of Alex that they could think of to see if maybe he was hiding out there.

 

  “Pull” Tac said, as he and Tic and Toe tried with all their might to pull Alex back over to their side.

  Alex had a scared looked in his eyes for a brief moment and then closed them again and just hoped that he could force his body on the ‘other side’ to go back to sleep.

 

  Alex’s body turned over and slipped back into a deeper sleep.

 

  Suddenly the brothers noticed that Alex was reappearing before them, and they continued to pull at him, trying to get him free from the ‘veils’ grip.

  “Pull” Tic said this time. Alex continued to become ‘whole’ again right in front of the very eyes. “Pull” he repeated and again they all leaned back into it and gave one final concerted effort.

  They all fell backward with Alex on top of them and just like that the ‘veil’ was gone.

  They all looked at one another and then stood up and looked over Alex who was again ‘with them’.

  “That was a close one” Tac finally said. He smiled over at Alex who meagerly smiled back just happy to be here with them.
  “We’ve got to get going boys”, Tic said. They quickly grabbed up their stuff and put there backpacks back on and walked over to the edge of the rock to look around. The sun was now a little higher on the horizon and made the viewing a little better. They all began to scan around them at the horizon for any signs or landmarks that might tell them which way to go.

  “Over there” Tac said as he pointed off to one direction.

  They all looked off in that direction and all of them could see it. Even though it was still a ways away and there was a lot of woods and forests and strange territory between them and it.

  “That doesn’t look good” Tic said.

  “Nope, not at all” agree Toe.

 “Yeah, but at least we know were getting closer.” Tac said.

  They all look off at the storm that was raging in the far distance.

 

The Saga continues...
*(All characters, events, people, places, etc are copyrighted by me).

                                      The Dream...

                                                  9: The Museum in the Woods.  

 

  Mary and John finally woke up again, and even though it was still early, decided it was time to get out of bed and go make breakfast.

  “I’ll start the coffee”, John said as he started down the steps for the kitchen. 

  “I’m going to go check on Alex”, Mary said as she slipped on a bathrobe and made her way down the hallway to his bedroom.

  She listened for a moment at his door and then gently tapped on it and slowly cracked it open just a bit.  His bedroom window was open and through it the tree outside was slowly rubbing back and forth against the house and sounded like snoring to Mary’s ears.

  Without even looking in she thought, “He’s okay” and closed his door again, and went downstairs to the kitchen.

  “How Alex’s?” John said as he looked up at his wife. He had his coffee cup in his hand was waiting patently next to the coffee maker.

  “He’s okay” she replied. “He’s snoring away in his bed”.  She then walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out eggs and so forth for the days breakfast.

  “That’s good” John said. “We’ll all have a good meal and then we’ll have that talk.” He looked over at the coffee maker again. “Come ON coffee” he said as Mary laughed at him.

 

  “What did the map say?” Alex finally asked as he looked over to Tac.

  “Just that we have to go this way” Tac added and nodded on down the trail. “It’s all as new to me as it is to you.”

  Apparently the time the Trimese had first spent in the ‘veil’ affected his memory, so none of this seemed familiar. He wasn’t really sure if he was taking the same path back that he had come on the way when he found Alex, or if it was a totally different path altogether. As far as any of the boys could now remember they were suddenly just sitting there then eating sweet breads and watching Alex sleep next to a log. Fact was, he couldn’t remember any thing before that, of how he got there or whom he met.

  The boys and Alex and Bikko were making their way down the trail from the cave to a thicker grove of trees. The forest was at an elevation that was slightly lower than the mountain so the walk now was slightly slanted downward. The blue sky up above seem to give everyone hope and comfort and for the first time, Trimese could remember, reminded him of his home in Dreamsland and the wonderful blue sky that was always just so beautiful.

 

  It was anything but beautiful now though in Dreamsland, as a weird gray blanket of clouds were starting to move in over the little village. The storm on the horizon had gained in size and strength and was slowly but steadily approaching. It looked like a dark ceiling that just hung there and every once and a while the greenish color that filled the sky from the cloud ceiling above to the ground would suddenly flash with light. And then there was a booming sound.

  Leah had gone back inside the cottage. She was now concerned with her father who had gotten even more tired since just earlier that day. It was the clock she figured. In fact, everything that was now going wrong in the village was because of the clock. Apparently the older citizens where affected the most by all of this. The tiredness was a result of the clock slowing down. That must explain the sadness she had been feeling and why her neighbor was crying.  Everyone was affected now by what was going on. Leah had no idea but the City Elders had even locked up the big building on the top of the hill and had all gone home. Everyone was locked up in their homes bracing for a storm that none of them had any idea was the cause. They all just knew that suddenly they were all in different stages of exhaustion or sadness or forgetfulness or any other number of weird sensations that none of them had felt before.  Strangely enough now, no one cared a thing about his or her little garden. It was the last thought in their minds. All they could think of was the strange storm and how they all felt out of place and not like them self before.

  “Is this the end?” some let the thought creep in.

  Leah checked on her father once again and he again shrugged off her attention and swore that ‘he was okay’.  It was more a ruse to divert her fears, as it was a by-product of his own stubborn nature. “I’m alright”, he would say.

  “I’m just so tired now”, he said as he rubbed his forehead again and was almost in a trance.

  Leah decided to go to the window again and look out and as she got over to it she looked down at the beautiful little flowers that were growing in a pot on the table. Just that morning it was in full bloom and the colors of the flowers were brilliant and the leaves were a wonderful green color.  Now, however the flowers and the leaves were all wilted and barely alive. She instinctively reach a hand down to touch one of the leafs, and it fell off the plant at her touch. 

  She looked out her window and noticed that the same thing was happening to the plants and flowers in their garden and the same thing was happening to those further across the track in the Central Garden.

  She stepped outside to take a closer look and to her shock and horror all the plants and flowers every where, in all the gardens within her sight and as far as she could see were wilting and dying and losing their colors and brilliance.

  About that time she heard another boom from off in the distance and turned around to see the approaching storm.  There was a flash of light that covered the entire space from the cloud ceiling to the ground and went from a weird green color to a bright yellow and then back to the green color again.

  She hardly had time to react as the after effect of the first boom finally reached her. A gust of wind hit her full force and knocked her off her feet. Everything was blowing around and over her. Parts of plants, and wilted leafs and parts of paper, etc. Anything that was in its path was carried along.

 

 

  The trail that Alex, Trimese and Bikko were on now cut through another beautiful glade that spread out on both sides. There were sweet smelling flowers everywhere and they could hear the sounds of birds singing here and there. Once again Trimese was reminded of home.

 “I wonder how things are back home?” Toe said.

 “I was wondering the same thing”, Alex said. It was first time he allowed  the thought of his own home to creep in. “I sure hope mom and dad won’t be too mad at me when I get back” “They’ve probably called the cops or something by now”.

  The others looked over at him and then up ahead on the trail. The trees were getting thicker now.

  They all kept walking for some time. Each of them kept looking off to the sides of the trail for any weird creatures. But this set of woods was much prettier. There weren’t gnarly looking branches that were half dead like in the first woods or even creepy dark places. In fact this part of their journey was quite pleasant. If it weren’t for the fact that their mission was of such dire consequences it would have been a nice little walk.  The sun continued to shine down on them, there was a nice breeze, and everyone felt suddenly happy and full of life. Even Bikko was wagging his tail now and didn’t seem the least concerned about some giant bird hiding in the dark or some huge lizard the size of an alligator or even weird cave bats. Instead, it was just a pleasant walk along a beautiful trail through some beautiful woods.

  Alex decided to ask Trimese something that he had been wondering about for some time, “Um…I’ve been wondering something” he started to say.

  “What is it Alex?” Toe looked over to him. So did his two brothers as they all continued walking.

  “Um, is everyone like you in Dreamsland?” Alex replied.

  “What, totally handsome?” Tic butted in.

  “Or totally fun to be around?” Toe added.

  “Or do you mean something else my young friend?” added Tac. He somehow understood the question and gave the boy a knowing look.

  Suddenly Alex felt embarrassed for having asked the question and sort of looked away suddenly and stared ahead.

  “Do you mean is everyone blessed like we are?” continued Tac as he sort of looked at his shoulder. Alex looked over at him again.

  “Um, yes, blessed? “ Alex replied and tried to look as sympathetic as he could without looking like he felt pity on the three.

  “No, my young friend” Tac replied. “We are the only one’s who are ‘blessed’ like this in all of Dreamsland.”

  “What about you?” Toe said as he looked over to Alex.  “Does everyone look like you?”

  “Um, no” replied Alex. Toe smiled over at him.

  It was a weird little moment for a brief second and then Tac had no problem telling his story to Alex. As far as the brothers could tell they had been this way since birth or as long as they could remember. His parents loved him anyways and tried to make him/them feel ‘normal’ but something happened to them a long time ago and now he/they were orphans and didn’t have any other brothers or sisters. He chose to not think about his past that much because there were just so many unanswered questions that he wasn’t sure he would like the answer to. Mostly his memory was just a fuzzy mess.

   They did wonder sometimes how they all sort of knew what the other was gonna say and how they could finish each others sentences and how when one needed to bend over for instance the rest knew too and just did it, like, besides being attached at the shoulders they some how all shared a common brain. It was just instinct and they never had to think about it, like how they could jump from stone to stone and yet at other times each seem to be independent of one another. They were never alone because of the fact that they were brothers and their ‘blessing’ simply meant they would spend the rest of their lives together forever. But sometimes they did wish they had friends and fit in. Since the very earliest they had been shun throughout Dreamsland and no one wanted to have anything to do with them like somehow their ‘blessing’ would rub off on people or something. No one ever cared to look past that fact with the lone exception of the Professor and his daughter. The professor had been ‘asked’ by the City Elders to teach Trimese separately away from the other children of Dreamsland because they scared the other kids with their appearance and that is how they had become such close friends with Leah who also got home schooled, simply so that Trimese wouldn’t have to sit in a classroom totally alone. She became their one lone friend, and became so use to their appearances and good nature and sweet hearts that she truly cherished them in return as the dear friends they had become.

 

  The trees were extremely tall and thin now and had no branches on them except for at the very top, and sort of created a lovely little canopy high up above the group as they walked. They got to a certain point where the trees reached over from both sides and sort of created an archway type of tunnel of leafs that they walked under. The sun filtered down through it from above here and there. It was really quite lovely.

  Off to one side they could see a big square building that sat away from the main trail and had its own pathway that lead to it. This was the first building that they had come across the entire trip up until then so it peaked their interest.

  “Let’s go check that out”, Tic said as they all turned up the pathway leading to it.

  As they got closer to it they realized that it was larger than they first thought from the main trail. It was a pretty nondescript square building of white stone that could have been either marble or sandstone and had plain smooth walls except for the title above the very tall doors that sat in the middle of the front. There were four extremely thin tall doors that sat next to one another, and had windows up the entire way, were apparently the main entrance. There was a big porch that stretched most of the way in front of the building and seven little steps that lead up to it. On each side of the porch were two huge rectangular bases that held two huge wing lion statues made of the same type of stone that covered the face of the building.  As the group got closer they realized that its size was deceptive from the main trail because it was pretty tall. Above the four doors was the name of the building that was carved in the very surface.

  . They all stopped at the base of the steps and looked up at the title on the front of it. It read: “The Museum for the Preservation and Presentation of Ideas, Inventions, Tools, Concepts, Dreams, and other Acquisitions.”

   “Well, I’ll be” Tic said looking up at it.

  “Phew” Alex said, “That’s some kind of title”.

  “Let’s go in”, Tac said. And they proceed to one of the tall doors and opened it. The doors were three times the height of everyone and were extremely heavy and impressive even if the main look of the building it self was not. It made a loud ‘squeaking’ sound as they did.

  They all piled in and found themselves in the huge front room that had a very high ceiling. It was sparsely decorated and had no furniture except for a couple of benches that sat in front of a couple of huge paintings on the two opposite walls. There were several doors that lead to other rooms through the building. They found themselves standing next to a marble desk with a clerk of some sort sitting behind it. He had his nose buried in some book but looked up when they approached. He was a middle age man about Alex’s father’s age and was balding and chubby and wore glasses.

  “Yes, can I help you?” he inquired after them.

  They were all glad to see an actual human being after all the weird animals and creatures and such and they hadn’t seen anyone since this adventure started. They all came closer to his desk.

  “What exactly is this place?” Tac started to ask. But as he did he was interrupted by a voice behind them.

  “I’ll take it from here, Maxwell” a lady’s voice said.

  They all turned around to see a very beautiful young woman standing there in front of them. She wore a long elegant sleeveless dress of a bluish silver color that hung down to her mid thigh. Her hair was a light dark brown color and was done up in a swirl on one side of her head and she had tendrils of hair that hung down both sides of her face. Her eyes were an amazing color of blue and were sort of unforgettable. She looked very smart and professional. Trimese had never seen anyone like her before or as beautiful. Alex was sort of reminded of the professional models he had seen in some of his mothers magazines back at home.

  “Hi” she said, “Welcome to the museum.” “My name is Ariel De’Morgan and I’m the curator of this place”.

  She sort of waved around her, “Care to take a tour?”

  “Sure” Toe said as he meekly smiled at her and then blushed when she smiled back.

  “Come this way then” and she led them out of the main room. She brought them to the first of many rooms, which were filled with all kinds of interesting things, objects and such. Trimese had never seen any of these things before but Alex recognized different things. He stared off for a bit and caught part of Ariel’s conversation to the rest of the guys.

  “These are some of the inventions that have come down to US through the ages.” “We’re very proud of our collection”.

  Alex looked over at her for a moment and was rather confused. “I don’t understand” he sorted started to say.

  “Any invention, any idea, any concept, anything you can image or have imagined is housed here.” She said as she looked at the group like they should all just know this.

  “Huh?” Toe said, as he looked more puzzled.

  They were all confused now but it sort of made sense in a weird sort of way and so no one said anything but looked around at things as they continued the tour.

About that time another ‘object’ suddenly appeared out of thin air and was now sitting on a small pedestal to one side. It sat among several other things and these were all behind little velvet ropes that lined each ‘exhibit’.

  “Ah, another acquisition for the collection.” Ariel said looking over at the new object without missing a beat. “Wonderful, we’ll have someone catalog that later.”

  “What’s that?” Toe asked as they were just passing the object.

  Ariel sort of leaned over the red rope that kept out the visitors from getting too close to the object and glanced at it for a moment.

  “Someone’s new concept I think” she finally said. “It was just created just now by someone somewhere.” “You are truly fortunate to witness one of those.”

  They all stared at the object, which didn’t seem to serve any purpose.

  “Some weeks we haven’t seen any new acquisitions, although sometimes you do see a cancellation.” Ariel continued.

  This brought out another ‘huh’ from the gang. This was all so confusing they all thought to them self individually. But interesting, nonetheless and Ariel was rather nice and it was nice to talk to another human being for a change.

  “Oh yeah, we aren’t happy with the ‘cancellations’ but you do get those from time to time” She said.

  “I have a question” Alex said as he raised his hand.

  “Yes dear, what is it?” She said as she turned her attention to Alex’s question.

  “What causes a cancellation?” he asked.

  “Oh, those happen when a person changes their mind totally about the concept or idea” and it’s simply forgotten or abandoned.” “It does happen though”

  “And truthfully” she said looking at them all earnestly “Some should be” “In fact, personally” she leaned forward for a moment and sort of whispered “ If it was up to me, I’d cancel some of this stuff right now”.

  ‘Hmmm’, Tac sort of thought to him self. He was now getting ‘the picture’.

  Tac concentrated for a moment and pictured a box that was spinning on one corner like a top. He closed his eyes and pictured the box spinning again in his mind’s eye. And ‘poof’ like magic, Tac’s spinning box suddenly appeared at one side on another pedestal.

  But as soon as Tac opened his eyes and looked the box suddenly disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

  “I’m sorry” Ariel said, looking at the box appear and disappear suddenly, “Only real concepts stay here.” “Not foolish mind meanderings or trivial day dreams”. And then she sort of looked back to Tac. How did she know he was the one he wondered to himself? Again she glanced over at him and gave him a knowing look. 

  “Hmmm”, Tac thought to himself, and sort of raised one eyebrow as the truth to this place hit him. “Interesting”.

  They continued their tour and came across one room that was locked with a very official sign on it that read “Only Museum Personnel Allow Past This Point”

  “What’s in here”, Tic asked as he pointed at the door.

  Ariel sort of shivered to her self as he did.

  “ That rooms locked for a reason.” She said as she looked at them all very seriously. “In there are all the dark concepts that are dangerous at best”.

  “Like what?” Toe asked.

 “Like weapons, bombs, murder plots” she sort of whispered and tried to change the conversation. “Things we don’t need to see or think about okay?”

  “Okay” they all agreed and continued with the tour.

  Toe looked back at the door as they passed and sort of felt sad all of a sudden that these sort of things had to be thought of at all or invented. “Tsk.tsk.” he said to himself.

  They got to a fun room that had whoopee cushions and musical instruments and other things that were generally fun. The guys really liked this room. As they were walking along looking at all the concepts, do dads, gadgets and so forth they came across one of those full-length optical illusion mirrors that you often see at carnivals that distort your shape when you stand in front of them. The effect of course is caused because the glass itself is not flat but curved so when you stand in front of it and move around your shape changes. 

  Alex looked at himself for a moment as he leaned to one side and then the other and made funny faces in it as he ‘mugged’ in it. He would have a huge forehead one minute and then a huge chin or his head would be super thin and he looked like he only had one eye, and then his upper chest made him look like Hercules and so forth.

  “I love these” Alex said as he looked down at Bikko who sort of looked up at him and turned his head slightly and sort of let out a curious whimpered like he often did when he couldn’t understand what Alex as doing.

  “Try it for a minute Trimese” Alex motioned to the brothers, “It’s fun.”

  Alex stepped out of the way and Trimese stepped in front and at first all his reflections were distorted and such.

  And then as they readjusted them selves, the brothers suddenly found that they were looking at one person in the reflection looking back at them. It sent chills down the back of all their necks.  It was as if you took all three of them and mixed them all together then the result would be the person who stared back at them. “Wow” the brothers looked in amazement. “Is that what we look like?” they each pondered. None of them had ever seen their reflections before.  Somehow though, each one of them had the strange feeling that he was looking at himself alone. That somehow they all knew, that secretly, that this was what ‘he’ was supposed to really be but none of them couldn’t explain that and they all sort of shook it off quickly. None of them spoke of it, although they all saw the same figure. It really played on their mind though.

  The tour continued on for a while and they were all transfixed and mesmerized by the strange gadgets, items, concepts, etc that filled the building.  Each room had a different theme to it; there were rooms for fun, some for adventure, some for utility items. Some of the rooms had more items in them than other rooms. But in any case it was all totally fascinating.

  As they got to the end, Ariel took Alex to one side and said she wanted to give him a present.

  “I have something just for you” She told Alex and reached into one of the pockets in the front of her dress and pulled out a little gold object. It was round in shape and had an interesting design and was shaped basically like a clamshell.

  Alex took the item and looked at the design on the surface and looked up at Ariel. “Thank you, but I can’t accept this” he started to say as he started to hand it back to her.

 “Keep it”, she said as she placed both hands on his hand that held the item and sort of pushed it back towards him. “I really want you to have it”.

  “What is it?” Alex said as he looked down at the item again.

  “It is a key for you alone.” She said. “If you ever have any questions, if you are ever confused and don’t know the answer, look into it and you will see that which you seek.

  “It is the thing that you must learn to rely on the most in your future”, she continued speaking in riddles that he had no idea what she was talking about.”

  Again Alex looked closely at the surface design of the little gold clamshell shaped object, and thought that maybe the very design on the surface was the answer, that ‘it’ would come to him at some point in the future and that he simply couldn’t ‘read’ it at this point. It had what appeared to be a vine that sort of twisted and turned around it self and was weaved into an interesting shape.  ‘Hmmm’ he thought to himself as he considered the item and sort of tilted his head as he looked at it.

  ‘Oh well’ he thought to himself ‘its’ pretty and if nothing else he could use it as an interesting paper weight and have a souvenir from his little adventure’.

  “Thank you Miss Ariel” Alex finally said and placed the item into his pocket. He reached up and shook her hand.

  “You are very welcome” Ariel said, as she walked him back to the others.  

  They walked over to the guys who were badgering Maxwell at the welcome desk where they had come in.

  “We’ll leave you to your book Maxwell” Tic said. “Try not to have too much excitement.”

  “You too” Maxwell said “ but I’m not sure that’s possible”.

  “What’s he mean by that?” Toe asked all confused as they were walking through the front doors again.

  They didn’t notice that the book Maxwell was reading was a recent acquisition, a manuscript that was simply titled “The Dream”.

 

  Sarah Rogers had shown up, like she often did on the weekends, at the Taylor’s house. She wanted to know if Alex could play video games with her because that was one of their favorite pass times. She had no idea that Alex was in trouble or that he was suppose to be ‘grounded’. Alex’s parents loved young Sarah like their own daughter and felt she was a good influence on him. They invited her for breakfast, which she gladly accepted like she always did, because they always had plenty of extra food, and maybe her presence would temper things between them and Alex.

  “Just go up to his room Sarah.” Mary said “He should be awake by now, and if not you have my permission to wake him”.

  Sarah said ‘okay’ and went upstairs to find Alex and to bring him down to breakfast.

 John and Mary were already considering rescinding the grounding anyways, because he was a good kid and this was the first time he had ever done this and besides, Alex actually could probably fix the darn thing.

  “Having Sarah here will be a nice surprise for Alex” Mary said. “She’s such a great kid”

  “Yeah, Alex is really lucky to have a friend like her” John said as he sipped his coffee and looked down at the morning newspaper that was spread out before him at the table.

  After a few moments Sarah reappeared at the kitchen door with a strange look on her face.

  “What’s the matter Sarah? Mary asked.

  John put his newspaper down and looked at her.

  “I’m confused Mr. And Mrs. Taylor” Sarah said. “Alex isn’t in his room”.

  “He’s what?!” they both sort of said at once, as John stood up suddenly and Mary almost dropped and egg.

  “He’s not in his room” Sarah repeated. “In fact neither is Bikko.” “And his window is open.”

  Alex’s house had central air and heating so he always kept his window closed.

  They all quickly walked up the stairs and burst into his bedroom and looked around.

Mary looked in his closet while John looked under the bed. He then ran to the bathroom down the hall and then quickly back into the room.

  “He’s not in there either.” He said. They all looked at one another.

  “He’s gone”, John said, as all their eyes got suddenly big. “Where could he be?”

The saga continues.
*( All characters, places, events, etc are copyrighted by me).

                                           The Dream...

                                                                   8: The Cave.

 

  Leah couldn’t take this any more and had to get up and do something, go for a walk or something to keep busy and to keep her mind off of what was happening to them, to their world.

  “I just know that they boys will make it back in time.” “I just know it” she seemed to say to herself.

  Her father was staring off into the corner now, lost in a deep thought. He reached up and took the glasses that had once again slid down the bridge of his nose and rubbed his forehead for a moment as he closed his eyes.

  “I’m gonna go for a walk father” Leah finally said, as she turned around and looked back at her dad. “Are you gonna be okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah” he sort of shrugged as he looked up and then at his daughter, and placed his glasses back on his head. “Be careful okay?”

  She walked back over to her father and leaned down and sweetly kissed him on the top of the head as she said “Always.” She then stepped outside again.

  The sadness hit her as soon as she got outside, just like it did the time before. Leah fought off the sensation, thinking that this was simply an effect of the clock or something. It wasn’t normal and so she would just block it out of her mind. That, of course, was easier said than done. She couldn’t see the neighbor girl any more who had been crying in her front yard a couple of doors down. In fact as Leah surveyed the area she couldn’t see anyone anywhere.   

  It was then that she noticed that the clock was obviously leaning more, even from this distance. She went back inside the cottage and got the binoculars and went outside again. The professor looked up at her briefly as she did but didn’t say anything and only half smiled at her. She half smile back at him and then went back outside.

  She went to the end of her walkway and placed the binoculars up close to her face, and looked off towards the clock. She adjusted the dials on it until she got it focused to her satisfaction and what she saw almost made her want to cry again.

  The clock was indeed leaning a bit forward more now than it had been earlier.  But what concerned her even more was that the time on it wasn’t correct. It had slowed down and now was about 2 hours behind what it should be. It had never been incorrect, ever.  A sudden fear began to creep into her mind as the hairs stood on the back of her neck and a chill went down her spine.

  “Come on boys” she sort of whispered to herself. “Where ARE you?”

  Trimese, Alex and Bikko all stood there in the cave entrance for a moment and stared off into the dark that lay before them further into the cave. No one said anything, as they all stood there and listened for any noises coming from the dark.  There was none, except for the sounds of the thuds and hissing sounds and so forth that were still coming from the storm outside the cave.

  After a while they all looked at each other. It took a few moments for their eyes to readjust the darkness but even then it seem rather dark and foreboding inside the cave. Still, according to the map this was the way they were suppose to go. It cut all the way through the mountain that lay on top of it instead of going around which would of taken a lot of precious time that they couldn’t afford to waste. It had seemed that they had already wasted plenty of that.

  As the group examined the insides around them they noticed what appeared to be lots of shimmering stones here and there. They looked like diamonds but upon closer examination it turned out that they were lots of tiny broken shards of crystal like stones that were everywhere. In the little bit of light that was in the entrance they reflected it back in multifaceted sprays of colors just like diamonds.

  Bikko went over to one spot near the group and started to paw at the ground and dig a bit. Suddenly there was a small spot underneath him that sort of glowed beneath his paws.

  “What’s that?” Alex said, as they all walked over to the spot where Bikko was. The dog continued to paw at the ground and as he did the glow got brighter underneath him.

  They all leaned down and looked at the stone beneath Bikko’s paw that he was trying to dig up with his paw, and it was indeed glowing. Alex reached down and picked up Bikko and they all looked at the glowing stone even closer. Finally Tic reached down near the stone to see if it was hot or something and could feel no heat coming from it but it continued to glow.

  “It’s not hot”, he said as he looked over to Alex.

  After a moment or too though the glow begin to fade.

  They all bent down and begin to dig out the stone and finally had it unearthed. It was the same type of stone as the shiny little shards of stones through out the entrance of the cave. But this one was bigger than those (which ranged in size from marble size to the size of a golf ball). This one was slightly smaller than a baseball but rather flat, and oval in shape. Alex and Trimese took turns holding it and looking at it, turning it this way and that and looking at its entire surface.

  “I just don’t get it?” Tic said after a moment, while he was looking at it in his hand.    “What made it glow like that?” he looked over at Tac.

 “Let me see it for a moment” as Tic handed it over to him. Tac began to rub the surface and it immediately radiated light again. “You’re right Tic” he looked over at his brother;     “It’s not warm at all” and he smiled as he flipped it back and forth in his hand.

  They soon learned that the longer you rubbed the stone the longer it would glow and radiate light. And to keep the light going you simply had to rub it again and so forth. The light it radiated went out a bit in all directions and lit up any darkness it was placed in.

  They were all looking around for shards of crystal now, about the same size and found some extra and placed those in their pockets. Besides the strange ability to glow and not become hot they were surprisingly light and didn’t weigh anything at all so carrying some in their pockets was nothing. 

  “We can use these as a light source boys”, Tic said, as he crammed some more stones in all his pockets.

  “Good boy Bikko” Alex said, as he rubbed his dogs head. “You did really good finding these for us”. Bikko wagged his tail back at Alex as he panted.

  The group got their back packs on and rubbed their stones until each had a glowing little lamp in their hands and slowly made there way deeper into the cave. The bigger room of the entrance of the cave started to get smaller the further in they went. Alex and Trimese both were holding their ‘lamp rocks’ out in front of them for light, pointing them in this direction and that direction all around them as they slowly made their way forward.

  Each time one of them would start to fade they would rub it some more. After a while they took turns making sure that at least one of them was brightly lit at all times.

  The walls of the cave began to get closer together and soon it was just a passageway just big enough for one of them to travel through at a time, about the width of Trimese. Alex moved ahead of Trimese as they slowly made careful little steps forward, and Bikko walked closely near Alex’s feet. Slowly they crept along, as their little ‘lamp rocks’ darted this way and that way from one cave wall to the other making sure they weren't gonna run into an outcropping of stone that would bang them in the heads or something.

  The ‘hallway’ like tunnel cave went on for some time. Eventually, they came to a place where the walls seem to widen a bit and up ahead they could see spots of light coming down from the ceiling way above them and hitting the floor. When they got to the first lighted spot, they looked up and realized that what they had been walking through must have been a big fissure in the rock, where it must of cracked at some point. The ceiling here seem to be extremely high above them and the light was simply coming in through the small crack up at the top of the fissure.

  They looked up further a ways and there were several spots where light was coming in from above and made a trail of light dots up along the way that broke up the darkness. The next lighted spot was up a ways so they continued on. Alex’s rock was about to go out so he started to rub it to reactivate the glow when it suddenly slipped out of his hand and fell, but instead of hitting the floor in front of him sort of bounced and then was off into the darkness. He could hear it bouncing off other rocks below him.

  “That’s weird” Alex said. “Everyone stop for a moment” as he reached into his pocket and pulled out another rock and rubbed it until it glowed. He slowly leaned over and placed the glowing rock close to the ground and to his horror there was a hole directly in front of his feet. He sort of pointed the rock forward a bit to see if he could see the other side of the hole but he couldn’t in this light.

  Alex reached into his pocket again and pulled out another smaller shard and rubbed it and threw it into the hole and he watched at the glowing light seem to drop forever just in front of him into the chasm. “That’s not good”, he said.

  Meanwhile the brothers had all reached into their own pockets and began rubbing extra little shards and handed a couple to Alex. He tossed one out in front of him and like the one just before it; it plummeted down into the dark. He tossed the next one a few feet further and it landed on the other side. The third he threw just in front of that one and it too landed on the other side. “Good” he said,” that’s only a few feet.” “Can you jump that? “ Alex asked as he looked back at Trimese who was standing right behind him.

  “Ah, no” Toe started to say as Tic blurted in “Yes!” They threw a couple of more lighted rocks across the way and some on their edge, to give a little better light to the matter.

  Alex picked up Bikko in his hands and took a deep breath and sort of did a little running jump over to the other side. He made it, he happily thought to himself and put Bikko down. “Stay right here”, he told his dog. “Don’t move.”

  “Okay boys, your turn” Alex said back to Trimese.

  The stones on Trimese side were starting to fade a bit so Trimese held his breath and took a running leap across the hole. Alex grabbed an arm as they landed on the other side just to make sure he didn’t fall backward into the hole.

  “Phew” they three brothers sort of all said at once.

  After they all rubbed their ‘rock lamps’ again to activate more light they began to toss smaller stones in front of them every couple of feet to make sure that didn’t happen again Alex would toss them in front and Trimese would reach down and pick it up and then hand Alex another lit rock and he would then toss that one. Of course as they reached another lighted spot they would stop and regroup and reactivate their main ‘rock lamps’.

  They came across a couple more holes in front of them on their path and like before managed to get around them or over them. Finally they came to a place in the cave where the hallway like tunnel they had been in before suddenly opened up into another larger room. It was much bigger, but the ceiling wasn’t as high up. The room was shaped more like a bowl that was upside down here instead of a narrow hallway with an extremely high up ceiling. Here and there were huge rocks, almost the size of small boulders that the boys decided to take a rest on. There was one larger hole in cave ceiling, in the middle of the room which let in a little more light so they all put their little ‘rock lamps’ down for a moment and spied the area around them. There were several other smaller exits that lead away from this bigger room and they weren’t sure which they should take.

  How much further they wondered? And which exit? They all sat quietly for a few moments as each looked around at the room they were now sitting in. Toe decided this was as good a time as any to reach into his backpack and pull out some sweat bread and offered it to the rest of the gang. They all ate quietly as they looked around at the darkened shadows and shapes of the rocks that now surrounded them. As their eyes got use to the change in the lighting again they noticed that the entire ceiling had the little stalactites here and there and sometimes, in clusters, across the entire expanse of the cave ceiling. They hadn’t seen any of these before.

   As they were eating Tic picked up a smaller rock near his foot and tossed it in front of him and it made a cracking sound that echoed throughout the cave. Suddenly there was movement above them as they soon realized that not all those hanging shapes above them were stalactites but were actually cave bats.

  “Cave bats!” Tac exclaimed, as they all suddenly look up at the quickly moving commotion above them.

  Suddenly they were dropping from the ceiling and flying around and around and darting here and there and making weird little screeching sounds that echoed in the cave. Alex and Trimese both tried to ducked, as the bats seem to dive-bomb them, and they swatted at them to shush them away. Bikko barked, as they flew near him and he tried to bite them. And his bark echoed and added to the sounds of the bats as it too bounced off the walls of the room.

  Like a tornado swirling around the room, all the bats suddenly were all flying in formation around and around in a counter clock motion and then just like that, they all flew out one of the exits across the way.

 “Everyone alright?” Tac asked as they all stood back up. “Yep” his brothers said, and so did Alex.

  “That must be the way out.” Alex said pointing to the exit that the bats flew out of  “Lets hope we don’t run into any more of those”. 

  “Yep” Toe said. “They almost made me drop my sweat bread.”

  “That would have been terrible Toe. What WOULD you have done?” asked Tic.

  “Hey they can’t eat it, it’s mine!” Toe protest. “Let them get their own”.

  With that they all sort of laughed. They needed that actually and it felt good to laugh for a moment.

  Soon they all had their ‘lamp rocks’ relit and were heading through the exit that the bats had flown into. They found them self in some more smaller, little rooms and some area’s that were more like thin hallway tunnels. Every once in a while they would come to another spot where there was a hole in the ceiling and a little light would peak down on them.  This went on for a while. All the time they continued to throw a little shard of lighted rock in front of them, and then pick it up again, like they had before.

  At one point they came to an especially thin place, where the walls were extremely close to one another so that they all had to turn sideways to get through. They had to take off their backpacks and it was especially difficult for Trimese to squeeze through. He had to suck in his gut and hold his breath as he inched his way through a particular tight spot.

  On and on they went further through the cave in small rooms, and larger rooms and hallway tunnels. Sometimes with a little light from above and sometimes in complete darkness that was only saved by the little ‘lamp rocks’ they each held in their hands.

  Finally they came to another larger room and stopped and looked around. Again, there was a little hole in the ceiling and it sort of let a little bit of light in. They all looked hard at the ceiling for more bats. Nothing!  There was, a sort of pond in the middle of this one though that almost completely filled up the entire space that should be the floor except for the outer edges close to the walls which had a series of rocks here an there. There was water dripping from the ceiling here and there instead of bats and this must explain the little underground lake they now were faced with.

  “There must be a stream or some other body of water above and its trickling down into here” Tac said as they looked around the room, at the ceiling and then to the water. Ever time water dripped into the pond it would make a little echo of the ‘dripping’ sound.

  Drip…drip…drip…

  “How deep do you think it is?” Alex said looking over to Tac.

  “I don’t know but I don’t want to find out.” Tac replied.

  “Let’s see if we can walk around it” Tic added.

  “Yeah, but which way?” Toe asked, as they looked at the rocks on one side and then other.

  “That’s a good question” Tac said, “Which side?” as he too looked at both possibilities.

  After a moment they all agreed that it looked a little safer to take the rocks on the right side.

  Alex reached down and picked up Bikko and held him in his hands again, and then took the first step. Alex sort of leap-frogged from one stone that was sticking out of the water to the next, and then to the next after that. After he had hopped across enough he stopped and then it was Trimese turn to follow and they too somehow managed to step from one stone to the next without missing a beat. Bikko looked down from Alex’s arms and sort of let out a whimper.

  “It’s okay boy” Alex reassured his dog “I got you.”

 They continued to jump from one rock to another to another with success and were getting close to the other side of the room where the exit was.

 

  They didn’t notice that on the other side of the room one of the rocks that was half emerged in the murky muddy water, suddenly moved. And the two little bumps that appeared to be smaller rocks on top suddenly opened to reveal sinister eyes that looked over at Alex and Trimese.  It slowly made its way closer to the boys, undetected.

 

  “Were almost there” Alex called back as he tried to regain his balance while still holding Bikko in his arms. He finally reached the other side and stood there waiting for Trimese to catch up to him. The brothers hopped from one stone to the next or simply step depending on how close together. They too were almost at the other side and it was just a final little hop to be standing next to Alex.

  The last stone Tic stepped on though was slippery and they all started to fall back into the water so Alex reached forward to grab Toes arm but when he did Bikko fell from Alex’s grip right into the water with a big splash. Alex pulled Trimese forward to the safety of the bigger rock he was standing on, and then immediately started to call for his dog as he bent down.

  The rock in the water with the eyes got closer.

 

  Bikko was splashing around now; sort of doing the dog paddle and at first was simply swimming around in a circle in all its confusion. By now both Alex and Trimese were bent over trying to coax the little dog out of the water.

 

  The rock was now even closer, and suddenly, it disappeared beneath the surface as it continued to approach.

 

  Alex and Trimese were now close to the water’s edge and Bikko finally started to swim close enough so that they could reach down to pull the little dog to safety. He was all dripping wet and shivering. As Alex stood up with Bikko in his arms, something huge suddenly lunged out of the water at them all. All Alex could see were some huge jaws of what first appeared to be a giant snake. Alex, with Bikko still in his hands and Trimese all sort of fell backwards trying to get clear out of the snakes reach. Bikko let out a yelp as it did.

  The top of its head was camouflaged to look just like one of the rocks. And it had a huge powerful jaw that was now open wide and revealed several rows of teeth like a shark. Suddenly Tic picked up a nice size rock and gammed it into the snake’s mouth and they all back away as the snake turned its head this way and that way violently, to try to free the rock that was wedge in between its razor sharp teeth.

  “Good thinking Tic” said Tac as even he was visible shaken and half out of breathe.

  “Take that you stupid snake” Tic snarled at it, “Try to eat my friends why don’t you?”

  “Come on lets go”, said Alex. “That won’t hold him for long” As he looked back in horror at the huge creature that almost ate his dog.

  They all sort of fumbled backwards not wanting to turn their back on the thing as it continued to struggle with the rock that it was now grinding in it’s teeth.

  They found the exit directly behind them so they made a quick dash for it. Soon they found they were in another tunnel like hallway where the walls were closer together. Up ahead they could see the end of the tunnel as light began to appear in the distance.
  “Thank goodness, we’re almost out of this thing” Toe said as he looked up ahead.

  “Yep and it’s a good thing too.” Alex started to say as they heard a snapping sound of rocks breaking behind them. “Crunch” came the sound that echoed in the room they had just left and then some splashing sounds.

  They stopped for a second and listened and then looked at one another.

  Suddenly a hissing sound came from directly behind them as they all turned around back down the way they had just come. Behind them, about a dozen yards, the creature stood near the entrance of the tunnel they were now in. It wasn’t a snake after all; it was some sort of giant lizard. 

  “Go, go” Tic said as they all turned in horror and tried to quickly run up the ever narrowing passageway that lay before them. Alex still had Bikko in his arms and came to a place in the cave where there was a hole in the floor and leap across it without thinking twice about it. On the other side the walls seem to fall in on both sides and he had to turn sideways once again to squeeze through it. Trimese was quickly behind him and he too made the leap across the hole in the floor with no problem and came to the spot where the walls were closer and turned to squeeze in sideways through it and then he suddenly got stuck. He couldn’t budge himself. Toe looked over at Alex and sort of had this terrible look of horror. Alex reached back and tried to pull him through but it was no luck.

  The lizard was much slower on the rocks than it was in the water. It slowly made its way down the path towards Tic who by now was starting to freak out just a bit.

   “Come on guys” he pleaded. “ A little help here” He looked over at Tac who was budged in the middle just like Toe and couldn’t move his arms, and then back at the lizard as it hissed again and it darted its tongue back and forth smelling the air. And still, it slowly made it’s way closer and closer.

  Meanwhile Alex wall pulling Toe’s arm with all his might from his end. “Suck it in guys” Alex said. “Arggg…” he sort of grunted as he pulled and pulled trying to free Trimese. Toe was looking more and more frantic as he looked, first over at Alex and then back over towards Tac.

   “I’m not kidding guys,” Tic said almost yelling now. He was extremely agitated. “Get me the heck out of here NOW!!!” he looked back at the lizard as it continued to get closer and closer.

  “Pull” Alex said and he pulled with all his might on Toe’s arm.

  “Awww.” Toe yelled “You’re pulling my arm out of its socket.”

  “I’ll do more than that if you don’t get me out of here” Tic yelled back at them.

  “Suck it in” Tac yelled as he sucked in a deep breath and try to make him self thin. All he could do was just stare helplessly at the rock that was right in front of his nose.

  About that time the lizard was almost on top of Tic and he too suddenly held his breath. Toe too held his breath and Alex gave one last ditch effort to pull them all through. It was just enough to loosen the backpack that had snarled itself to a slight bumpy spot on the cave wall directly in front of them.

  The lizard lunge forward at Tic’s arm just as the three of them somehow squeezed through the area to the other side and fell to the floor along with Alex. They all looked up suddenly and saw the lizard as it had hit the edge of the hole in the floor and was scrambling to get a grip on the edge of the rocks with its front claws. Its tail and back legs had already fallen into the hole now and it was struggling to climb back up onto the side they were on.

  Alex looked down and saw some stones at their feet and picked up one and began to throw it at the lizards nose, hitting it hard. The others grabbed stones too, and began to pelt it also. The lizard’s head sort of jumped back each time they hit it with rocks, and finally it lost its grip and fell back over the edge into the chasm below.  Tic of course threw his rocks the hardest. “Try to eat me will you?” he sort of yelled after it even after it had fallen into the darkness of the hole.

   After the lizard disappeared they all stood around and tried to regain composure and catch their breath.

   “Was that for real?” Alex said, sort of half bent over and leaning his hands against his knees and breathing very hard now. There was sweat beading up on his forehead.

   “I think I’m gonna be sick” Toe said, “and my arms killing me.”

   “You guys are going to HAVE to go on a diet” Tic said half panting out of breath himself.

   “Maybe so” Tac agreed, panting as well.

  Alex looked over to the exit. He could see sky and the top of trees just outside.

  “We finally made it I guess”, he said.

  It took them a few moments to finally calm down and now they tried to regroup.

 There was more than enough light in this end of the cave, which was only about 10 yards or so from the exit.

  “Man I’m glad to be out of that place.” Said Toe as he rubbed his arm. “I thought we’d never get out.”

 “Yeah, I’ve had enough of caves to last me a while.” Alex agreed as he wiped the sweat from his brow. He could feel a cool breeze coming from the exit and it felt good. “Aww, fresh air.”  He sort of took in a breath through his nose.

  “Yep and if I never see another lizard for the rest of my life it will be too soon.” Tic said.

  “I definitely agree with you there brother” Tac said, and nodded with Tic.

  “And I thought the cave bats were bad enough.” Toe said.

  “Bah, cave bats” Tic said in disgust and sort of spit at the ground.

  “Speaking of which, I wonder where they went?” Alex said puzzled. “They never came back.”

  They got to the edge of the cave and looked out as they suddenly got their answer.

  “Duck everybody, duck” Tac yelled as a black cloud of flying cave bats suddenly reappeared in front of them and flew past them, around them, and over them into the cave behind them. After a moment or two they had all flown back into the cave and were gone out of sight.

  “Does that answer your question?” Tic looked over to Alex. “Bah, cave bats” and he spit at the floor again.

  “Nasty little buggers” Toe said as they all stood up again.

  They all stood at the edge of the cave exit and squinted in the bright sun light of the day. It seemed like forever since they had seen daylight and it looked wonderful to them all.

  “Which way now?” Alex finally asked.

  Tac pulled out the map again and studied it and then put it back in his pocket.

  “That way.” And pointed over towards what appeared to be a forest ahead of them.

  “I wonder what we’ll find in this one?” Toe asked as he looked at the others.

  “We’ll soon find out wont we” Tac said and sort of smiled to himself mysteriously.