The Land of Dreams

Chapter 1

“Alright, you two! Time to settle down!” Mr. Brown interrupted his children’s pillow

fight with his demand.

“Ah, Daddy, we were just playing!” John whined as he dropped the pillow. “Besides,

Mary’s the one who started it!”

Mary looked annoyed. “That’s not so! You started it when you were trying to take away

a book I was reading!”

“Oh, well, that was one of my books anyway!” said her younger brother. “You should

just be reading your sissy girl stuff instead.” He stuck out his tongue at her, and made a silly face. “Bleech!” He blurted out at her.

Mary gave him no immediate response. However, she did appear pleased that he seemed to admit that he was at fault.
“I don’t care who started it. I just want it to stop!” Their father exclaimed. His tone softened. “Children, violence never solves anything. Everyone must get along in order for our world to survive. That includes us.”
He smiled, as the kids appeared to be paying attention to him.
“We were just having fun.” John said softly.
“There are many ways to have fun without getting hurt,” Mr. Brown replied.
“You can share things, like your books. You can take turns. You can cooperate with each other and with others. You can work things out without fighting. You can work out a compromise so everyone can get something they want.”
John listened to his father, but appeared to be bored. He didn’t like lectures.
“Ok, kids, it’s time for bed! Time to go beddy bye, time for the sandman to strike, nighty night, everyone.” Their father said as he directed them to their room.
Mary and John dutifully climbed up onto their beds. They didn’t feel like sleeping. How could they go to bed when they still had so much energy?
“Daddy, maybe you could read us a story.” Mary said hopefully.
“Yeah, Daddy, could you read us a story?” John asked.
Mr. Brown seemed open to the idea. “So, what kind of story would you like to hear?”
“All right!” yelled John enthusiastically. “I want to hear one about magicians!”
“Wait now, I should also get to choose,” replied Mary. “I would like to hear one about the world of animals.”
“Do you have any stories which are really weird or strange?” asked John.
“My second choice would be any tale about sailing on the sea and visiting different lands,” Mary stated thoughtfully.
“Anything about scary, creepy things is alright with me.” John added.
Their father cleared his throat. “Well, children, you both have certainly given me plenty of suggestions of what you might like. I think maybe I might possibly have a book that you both might like.”
He went over to the bookshelf and pulled out a large volume.
“How would you like to visit the “Land of Dreams?” he asked.
For a few seconds, the children thought that he was just telling them to go to sleep again.
“Don’t we do that every night anyway?” inquired Mary.
“Oh, I meant that the “Land of Dreams” is the title of this book I have here. My father read it to me when I was just a child and his father read it to him when he was just a child, as his father read it to him when he was just a child and so on back further in time than anyone alive can remember.”
“It is a wonderful story about two children just like yourselves and the unusual adventures they have in a faraway land.”
“Does it take place in a different country?” asked John.
“Well, you could say that it happens in another nation.” Mr. Brown answered. “It happens in your ImagiNation!” He gently tubbed the boy’s head and chuckled to himself.
Mary stretched her arms impatiently.
“Well, let’s hear it! Will you read it to us, please?” John begged.
His father smiled and then he spoke in a more serious tone.
“Okay, I will read to you this story. However, you two must promise me that you will listen carefully until I complete it. Once I have started it, there’s no going back until we get to the end. Right?”
John looked bemused. “Okay, Dad, I promise to listen to the whole thing.”
Mary said nothing until her father glanced at her.
“Oh, whatever, I promise, too.”
“There now, that wasn’t so hard, now.”
Their father opened the book and began reading.
Nothing is what it seems.
Anyway, faraway in the Land of Dreams,
Purple oceans kiss green sands.
Magic carpets fly to distant lands.
Animals dress in clothes and talk.
Horses fly and whales walk.
Strange creatures dwell under the ground.
Monsters and apes roam around.
Slippery eels sail through the air.
Giant birds are covered with hair.
Dogs and cats make silly faces.
Bugs compete in distance races.
Trees converse and mountains roar.
Rivers yawn and small rocks snore.
You can sail on a paper stream or shoot the rapids on whipping cream.
As her father continued to read the story, Mary struggled to stay awake and listen. Her eyes began to feel heavier and she blinked more often.
As she blinked, Mary noticed curious things happening. The room began to grow darker and objects began to appear fuzzier and less clear. Her father’s voice became slower and deeper until she could hardly understand what he was saying anymore.
The more she blinked, the more everything looked dimmer. She felt as thought she was slowly going blind. However, she felt so numb that she couldn’t say anything about it.
She soon found herself engulfed in total blackness. She could see nothing, not even her hand in front of her face. She became edgy and started to get out of bed when she found that her bed had completely disappeared! She had hardly gotten over her shock about the situation when she discovered that there appeared to be nothing near her. She reached down to touch the floor and found to her horror that it was gone too! Mary found that she appeared to be floating in space.
Her first immediate reaction was to call for help. She tried to shout, but no words came out.
As she squinted her eyes, she found that she could see objects in the dark. Although she found herself frozen where she was floating, she could make out strange sights surrounding her.
She saw,
Bright lights blinking, ships sinking.
Stars shining, a dog whining.
Clocks ticking, motors clicking.
Lights flashing, autos crashing.
Hands clapping, tigers snapping.
People shouting, children pouting.
Babies crying, birds flying.
Fires burning, wheels turning.
Angels singing, bells ringing.
Gradually, all of the sights and sounds grew so loud that Mary could hardly think. She couldn’t even close her eyes or cover her ears to make them go away. She felt as if everything was going to drive her to the brink of insanity.
Then, suddenly, all of the images and sounds came to an end. Mary saw the sun rising far away in the sky as if a normal new day was beginning. However, she found out that she was no longer in her bedroom. She found herself on a small field of grass in what seemed to be a forest.
John was sleeping nearby. He stirred uncomfortably, woke up and asked, “Where are we? What happened?”
“I can’t say exactly.” Replied Mary. “Maybe you are in my dream or I’m in your dream or somehow we have been transported into the story Daddy was reading.”
Mary got up and walked around. Everything felt so real to her. She couldn’t believe that anything wrong had happened. There were tall trees, small trees, bushes, weeds, and many other plants anyone could expect to find in a woods.


Chapter 2


“I’m scared.” Said John.
“Now there’s no reason to be scared about anything which might not even be out there.” Mary replied sharply. “For all we know, we might be totally alone.”
The sun was rising slowly and cast long shadows from the trees all around them.
The walked along a pathway. The leaves rustled in the wind under their feet.
“I’m hungry,” said John.
Mary then realized that she hadn’t eaten anything since the day before. Still, she felt that she and her brother had enough strength to keep going until they found something.
Ahead, they saw a smaller road lead away from the main pathway. A sign on the side said, “The Road to Perfection.”
“Well,” said Mary. “Why don’t we try this way?”
They had only proceeded a few dozen yards when John exclaimed, “I see it! I see Perfection!”
It looked like a small group of buildings deep in the woods. Mary thought that she really couldn’t describe the city until she got closer. Although they seemed to make progress through the woods, Perfection still seemed so far away.
“Gee, when are we going to get there?” asked John, “the place just seems to keep moving away.”
He was right! They were definitely going fast enough. They should have made it by now. However, Perfection seemed to be eluding them. The city kept fading in the distance like a mirage.
Within a few minutes, the children realized that they would never reach Perfection this way and Mary made the decision to turn around.
“We’re getting nowhere this way,” she muttered. “I think that we were being fooled into trying to reach Perfection when it just wasn’t possible. Perhaps we shall find Perfection some other time, but we cannot get there right now.”
As they turned onto the main road, they looked over their shoulders to get a last glimpse of the city. Perfection was still there as if it hadn’t moved at all. However, Mary suspected that it would move out of reach again if the pair made another attempt to get there.
“Perhaps Perfection is something you can continue trying to achiever. Even if you can’t find Perfection, you can always keep looking,” she said.
John looked disappointed. “I really wanted to see Perfection. It looked so interesting, so promising.”
“Perhaps we can get there by another way.” Mary sounded hopeful. “Sometimes what looks like the quickest way to reach somewhere actually takes the longest time. We might not be able to reach Perfection that way. Maybe there are other ways to get there.”
The children continued to walk down the path. The sun was rising in the sky and her spirits seemed to rise as the day grew warmer.
“Aaaargh!”
Suddenly, a loud scream broke through the silence of the forest.
Mary and John both stopped immediately. They were almost too scared to move. They stood as if frozen in their tracks. Then the sound bellowed again.
“Aaaargh!”
“What’s that?” whispered John.
“I don’t know, but it sounded as though it came from over that hill,” Mary replied.
The two crept cautiously toward the direction of the noise. They carefully peered over the hill and saw a most extraordinary sight.
There was a large lumberjack with a big black mustache there. He was dressed in red and black-checkered coat and he had a huge two-bladed ax in his hand. Although he appeared to be a normal fellow, he looked like he was talking to a gigantic bush!
“Now you stop that!” “Can't you just be quiet? You’re distracting me!” The lumberjack growled.
The big man swung his ax again and took a small chunk out of the bush’s back. “Aaaargh!” the bush groaned in agony.
The lumberjack seemed to be getting impatient. “Now don’t you try to make me feel guilty. You’ve lived a long life and now it's your turn to go. I have to chop a lot of wood to make my quota and all of your yelling isn’t helping me one bit at all.”
“I can't help it,” cried the bush. “Your ax is so sharp and it hurts so much. I don suppose you would be happy if I gave up a few of my limbs for you in exchange for leaving me alone?”
“Now why would I want just a few limbs when I can have all of you?” The lumberjack spoke angrily. “What are you trying to do? Make me feel guilty?”
The bush seemed to sense that it's survival depended upon keeping the conversation going. “I can't say that I’m not afraid to die. My only regret would be that I would be separated from my roots. I have deep roots in this land I love and it would break my wooden heart to be separated from them.”
The lumberjack sighed. “Now you’ve done it! You’ve ruined my concentration. Why did you have to do that?”
The bush continued. “Because I love life! And my life is worth living as long as I can feel the soft ground between my roots, breathe the clean air of the forest, and let the wind shake me with it's gentle breezes.”
“Okay, that’s enough!” snapped the lumberjack. “If stopping me from earning a living means so much to you, I think I can find some other bush to chop down. I can’t believe I would have any problem like this.” The lumberjack muttered as he tramped away.
“Maybe I will just get into some easier line of work, like selling flood insurance in the Himalayas.” The lumberjack soon walked out of sight.
“Well, you sure talked your way out of getting cut down,” said Mary as she and her little brother approached the bush.
“Why thank you, my little one.” The bush greeted his two visitors. “And welcome to my place in the forest.
“I bet you’re glad that the lumberjack is gone,” said John.
The bush chuckled. “I must admit he gave me a scare for a while. But I have found that if I just keep talking to a person, they will understand my situation and be reluctant to hurt me.”
Mary was skeptical. “But surely there are some people that you can not negotiate with.”
The bush continued to move as he spoke. “Where I stand, I have to rely on reason in order to survive. I cannot run away from my enemies. But if I am unable to talk them out of destroying me, I still have the option of retaliation against them if they give me no other option. If the lumberjack had persisted in cutting me down, I would have threatened to fall on him when he was done.”
“Would that tactic have worked?” asked John.
“I’ve saved myself before by saying that” remarked the bush.
The children were fascinated by their newfound friend and continued to ask him questions for several minutes. They liked to watch his face move within the leaves even more than hearing him speak.
“So what’s it like being a bush?” John inquired.
“Sometimes I get very lonely,” said the bush. “As you can understand, I don’t get around much. In fact, I've spent my whole life here at this very spot. My view of the world is quite limited.”
The bush appeared to be getting depressed, so Mary tried to sheer him up. “Aren’t there some things you can think of to be happy about?”
The bush grimaced thoughtfully. “I suppose I can be happy that the ground beneath me has always provided me with plenty of nourishment. I've never had to worry much about getting too cold or too hot. And I am thankful that I have lived a long life. I am over 350 years old!”
John was amazed. “Why, that’s incredible!”
The bush continued. “Still, sometimes I get bored with nothing to do except let the birds and the squirrels live on me and wait for the passing of each season. You children may not live as long as I do, but you have so many opportunities available to you if you wish to explore them.”
After saying goodbye to the bush, the children continued going along the trail.
Mary and John kept walking upon the road. The forest gradually thinned out to just a few trees and they found themselves traveling through a large meadow.
The two passed some plowed fields when John exclaimed, “I think I see an apple orchard! Let’s get some!”
Mary was reluctant. “Now wait a minute, John, these apples might belong to somebody. We wouldn’t be doing the right thing if we just took them without asking.”
By that time, they had approached the fence, which surrounded the apple trees. A large sign leaned upon it. In large, crude letters, a message was scrawled, “FREE APPLES.”
John was delighted as he pointed to the board. “There, you see, it's alright after all!”
He then proceeded to climb over the fence and reach for some of the pieces of fruit hanging from the lower branches.
He had just picked an apple when he heard a small voice go, “Tee-hee that tickles!”
John was so startled he dropped the apple and then heard something say, “Ouch.”
He thought to himself out loud, “Now what can that be?” he wondered. But the sound of giggling quickly exposed the source of the noise. The children looked up into the tree and found that all of the apples were alive!
They were almost in shock to see all of the little faces which were staring at them. Some were smiling, some were laughing. Each apple was looking down on them like a lot of little heads hanging from the tree.
“Oh, my!” exclaimed Mary. “We hope we haven’t disturbed you.” She wasn’t sure which piece of fruit she was supposed to talk to and she couldn’t stop glancing at each one of them.
“No, we are glad to see you! Welcome!” Their little voices came from all parts of the tree.
“Don’t be afraid.” A large, close one said to them. “We are glad to see you. Have you come to free us?”
“Free you?” inquired Mary. “Is that what that sign meant? Actually, we had been planning to eat you.”
“That’s alright!” Spoke another apple near John. “Help yourselves. We’re delicious!”
John looked reluctant to take a bite as he glanced down at the smiling head in his hand. “Won’t I hurt you though? I just feel guilty eating something which is talking to me.”
“Go ahead, eat me!” said the apple. “I would be happy to satisfy your hunger.”
The children were so very hungry, so they bit into the apples. They tasted so good that they kept eating them until they were full.


Chapter 3
John and Mary continued to walk along the road. By this time, the path had became a major highway. They had not seen any cars by this time so they were not worried about getting hit.
They saw what appeared to be a billboard in the distance. When the children approached the object, they found that the sign was actually a large video screen. Various images appeared on the TV and for several minutes the two were fascinated by what they saw.
They watched as wild horses ran free over an open prairie, thousands of birds filled an evening sky, huge whales glided through the sea, and an astronaut traveled deep into space.
“I could watch this forever” remarked John.
“I wouldn’t want to do that,” said his sister. “It is interesting, but I think I would get tired of watching it after a while.”
They continued to stare at the screen even longer than they expected. The children saw nature shows, cartoons, gorillas, jet planes, submarines, soccer games, a thousand names, the color blue, paper glue, UFO’s, peoples toes, castle walls, white seagulls, speeding boats, a herd of goats, the tallest tower, the strength of power, the good, the bad, the happy, the sad, screeching cats, squeaking bats, rolling dice, squeaking mice, a rocket ship, a microchip, and thousands of other images appeared on the screen.
Mary felt as though she was getting numb. Her legs were becoming so stiff she felt that she might have trouble walking when she got up.
“John,” she said. “Let’s go.”
There was no answer from her little brother. He continued to stare at the screen as though he was thoroughly hypnotized.
“John, we really ought to leave now.” She gave him a gentle shove; but he refused to pay attention to her.
“Now, John, you’re starting to make me mad!” Mary had grabbed him by the arms and started to shake the small boy. However, John remained in a dreamlike trance.
She was starting to become worried. “What’s the matter, John? Are you alright?” She started slapping him. “Speak to me, John! Can't you say anything!”
Mary began to get so frustrated she felt like crying. However, she knew that this was no time to lose control. She felt that there must be some way to get his attention.
She knew she must not give up and keep trying. Mary thought that she would do just about anything to bring her brother back.
Suddenly, she discovered the most obvious solution. Why hadn’t it occurred to her before?
She looked at the bottom of the screen and found what she was searching for. Mary found the power button and turned the huge tube off.
“Huh? What happened?” asked John, who was totally confused.
“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Let’s go!”
They walked along what appeared to be a large purple wheat field blowing in the wind.
“You were hypnotized by that large TV screen, she told him. “So I stopped it!”
“I don’t know what came over me,” John tried to explain. “It was as if my mind were in another world. I was numbed by the experience. I couldn’t get away from it by myself. But why didn’t it affect you that way?”
“I guess I had had enough of it” Mary replied. “I knew that they were just images, not like the real things. Perhaps I could break free from them because I was older. Maybe I was not fascinated with it as much as you. I got tired of sitting there and doing nothing. I discovered that I wanted to do my own thinking and not let machines think for me. That’s why I made us leave.”
John stared at the ground. His mind was deep in thought. “I was really in its power. That machine was much more dazzling than an ordinary television. It wasn’t a bad thing. I actually found some comfort in letting it entertain me for a while.”
Mary agreed. “No, it wasn’t a bad thing. Its power can be used for good purposes. It is only bad when it is misused. If a person spent too much time in front of it, they would be wasting their life. No one can accomplish anything of importance if they only passively watch things and do not actively participate in anything. A box like that could turn your whole mind and then your whole body into jelly. I had to get us away from it before we became just two lifeless lumps sitting in front of it.”
They were continuing to walk along the road when they heard a quiet rumbling in the distance.
“Oh, No!” exclaimed Mary. “We’ll be in trouble if it starts raining.”
Although the sky above them had a few clouds, Mary could not discount the possibility of rain. And here they were in the middle of nowhere with no shelter anywhere and not even a coat to protect them from a possible down pour.
Soon they felt a gentle breeze blowing upon their backs. This wind gradually grew until they started getting uncomfortably cold.
“I’m freezing!” said John. “What can we do to keep warm?”
“All I can think of doing is just to keep on walking!” Mary yelled. The wind was getting so loud she wasn’t sure that her brother could hear her over all of the howling it was making.
Suddenly, Mary felt the slight thud of something small hitting her back. At first, she had thought that John had thrown a rock at her from behind. When she suddenly realized that he was in front of her and couldn’t have possibly struck her from that direction. She looked around nervously and feared that maybe something was following them.
“Ow! Something just hit me!” shouted John. He glared suspiciously at his sister. “Did you do that?”
“No, I just felt something also,” Mary replied. “Did you see what it was?”
“I believe that it was sharp, like some kind of metal” he said. “Bu I’m also not hurt.
The two looked on the ground to see what had fallen.
And then, just like before, Mary was struck again!
“Hey! I felt it again!” She blurted out. But Mary could not see anyone or anything, which might have hit her.
“I see it!” yelled John and he picked up an object off the ground. “It looks like some kind of coin.”
The siblings looked at the flat, round piece of metal and they agreed that the token was some sort of coin. It wasn’t anything they recognized but perhaps it might be worth keeping.
“Why, there’s another one!” Mary remarked as she found a similar item on a flat stone nearby.
“Look, they are falling from the sky!” exclaimed John.
He was right! Coins of all shapes and sizes were hitting the ground. The children scurried to gather them, but so many had fallen by this time that they could not carry them all.
“Where did they all come from?” inquired John. By this time, his pockets were bulging with the tiny souvenirs.
“I can't imagine.” Mary was stunned by her apparent good fortune.
At this time, the winds died down and the sky became clear once more. The shower of coins from the sky also had stopped.
“They came from the wind,” said John. “It must have been the winds of change,” he laughed.
The sun was shining again and the threat of rain had disappeared. They continued walking and their spirits were greatly improved by the turn of events.
Shortly thereafter, they entered another forest. John observed some smoke coming from a chimney and the two found a large cabin in the woods. A man dressed like the lumberjack was chopping wood outside.
As the children approached him, he looked up from his work and spoke to them.
“Hello, kids!” he said. “Welcome! My name is Ed.”
Mary sighed and then replied, “What a lovely house. Could we see it inside?”
“Certainly!” said the man named Ed. “Come right on in and have some fresh baked bread.”
He opened up the door and they stepped onto the floor.
“Wait here” said Ed “I shall bring you bread.”
He left them standing there and John sat in a chair. When Mary looked, she found many pictures all around. She saw a sailor, farmer, a knight, a priest all dressed in gold and white, a hunter and a businessman. And every picture was the same man!
A man arrived who looked like Ed, but he was wearing a suit instead! “Good day, children! My name is Ted! Are you friends of my brother Fred?” “Why no sir, not really” Mary said. “We just met your brother, Ed. He went out to get some bread.” The new man smiled and said, “If your hungry, you shall be fed!” And then a loud voice said, “Hey! I just got out of bed!”
They saw a man upstairs who looked like Ed. “Greetings people, my name is Ned. I was going to sleep but I got up instead. Now I’m awake!” Ned shook his head. A new man appeared and loudly said, “Say there, Ned, I thought you were dead.” This fellow was dressed all in red. “I’m glad to see you’re out of bed,” said the man who looked a lot like Ed. And another voice said, “Children help yourself to bread.” And they saw their friend Ed. They took the cakes and were soon fed. They would not forget this homestead, and the brothers, Ed, Ted, Ned and Fred.
“We were quintuplets,” replied Fred. “Before we lost our brother, Red. We were five friends,” Ed calmly said. “But we are just four now that he is dead.”
“I think I’ll go on back to bed” a tired Ned softly said. “I shall go to town instead!” replied the one who was called Ted. “I have a book which bust be read. So I shall see you later,” said Fred.
“Thank you kindly for the bread!” John licked his lips and quickly said. “We must go now,” Mary said to Ed. “Come back, anytime” said Ned. “See you soon” said Ted. “I miss you already” admitted Fred. “I’m glad you came,” said Ed.
The children raced out of the cabin and onto the road as fast as they could. Their experience with Ed, Ted, Ned and Fred was interesting, but almost frightening. They thought that if they stayed in that house any longer they might be cloned, copied, duplicated or something worse could happen.
Chapter 4
The day was sunny and bright. It was warm, but not too warm to be comfortable. There was a gentle breeze, but it was pleasant not cold.
Overhead, a large flock of birds flew in a gigantic V. The leaves continued to fall from the nearby trees.
“What do you suppose it would be like to have a twin?” John asked.
Mary thought for a few seconds and then responded. “Well, I suppose it would be like having a brother or sister who looked just like you. You might have a lot in common with them. You might like to do similar activities and have similar likes and dislikes. You might also have differences with your twin. In the end, your life might not be too different than it is now.”
As they proceeded further up the road. John replied, “I believe I hear some barking. Maybe there is a city ahead.”
Mary heard the barking also. The noise sounded like several dogs barking at once and she wondered if they might be approaching a large kennel.
They continued down the road and they were surprised to see some small cars traveling back and forth at an intersection up ahead. Two of the small vehicles, which were only about three feet tall, whizzed past them as they jumped to the side of the road. They didn’t get a good look at the drivers.
By this time, the barking sounds had grown considerably louder. They were still walking through the woods and felt a little apprehensive with all of the new noises they were hearing. They could not see what was growling, howling, scratching, sniffing, whining and yapping at them. Mary was starting to become worried that they might be surrounded by a pack of wolves.
“Stay close to me,” she told her brother as she held his hand tightly. “I think I see a way out of the woods ahead.”
The children stepped out into a clearing and saw an amazing sight.
A great city lay before them with buildings and highways. It appeared to spread out for miles. Small cars, busses, trucks and trains were going in all different directions.
However, the most fantastic feature they noticed was that there were no people to be seen anywhere. The entire metropolis appeared to be inhabited solely by animals!
They strolled along a sidewalk and saw large birds dressed like mailmen. Flying off with bags of letters. A huge rat was sweeping up garbage nearby.
The traffic along the road beside them continued to move slowly in a stop and go formation. An angry tiger driving a truck growled impatiently at the tiny compact driven by a meek looking rabbit.
Five hyenas dressed like children, laughed and ran past them. A large duck dressed like a woman was watching the clouds nervously as she grasped an umbrella.
They passed a dentist’s office and a crocodile in a suit grinned at them as he entered the building. A grocer who looked like a hippo tended several crates of vegetables.
A skunk with shopping bags stepped out of a perfume shop. A family of badgers snapped at each other as they walked by. Three moles dressed like workmen carried some tools with them as they descended a ladder down into a manhole.
John was briefly startled as three antelope ran out in front of him and quickly scampered away. An anteater looked happy as he stuck his snout in a large box marked chocolate covered ants.
“If only I had brought my camera,” mused John.
An elegantly dressed peacock admired her reflection in the mirror. A woodpecker operated a tiny jackhammer on the sidewalk. A monkey swung from a rope on the side of the building and washed windows.
Everywhere they looked, there was something new to see.
A parrot was lying on a park bench, throwing crackers into its mouth. They looked into a restaurant window and saw a lion cutting up his steak. He glanced back at them and roared loudly.
“I wonder how safe this place is for us,” said Mary. “We do not really fit in here.”
“Well, no one seems to mind us, yet” John responded. Indeed, the animals appeared to go about their daily business without giving the children so much as a second glance.
They saw a large building called the AniMall, so they decided to do some window-shopping.
An over sized squirrel nervously scampered around in the Nut Shop. A cow mooed loudly as it tended an ice cream parlor. A penguin proudly strutted out of a tuxedo place with a fine set of clothes. Several kittens cooed and purred at a Cat Toys store.
“I’m tired,” groaned John. “Can't we stop and rest a while?”
“I suppose we could go outside if we can find a bench,” answered Mary.
They went through some doors marked EXIT and found a large bench nearby. A tired looking old dog in a wrinkled coat sat on one side. He voiced no objections to allowing them to sit down.
“It must be exciting to live in a world where animals can live like humans,” John said to the dog.
“Oh, I don’t know about that” the dog replied. “I still have to work like a dog to survive in this dog eat dog world. At least when I get dog tired, I can sleep like a dog.”
“Don’t you have more freedom to do what you want to do and be what you want to be?” asked Mary.
“I do have more freedom than I would have if I were just a house pet. However, with more freedom, I have more responsibilities. I cannot make a living here by barking or serving a master. In this world, I have to be the master of my own destiny. I have to go out and earn a living for my wife and our 10 puppies.”
“Sometimes the animals who live here are unfriendly. The laws favor survival of the fittest. This town is called Animal City, but some residents say that we live in animosity. Still, I keep going with dogged determination. Maybe if I try, I can make it in this doggone world!”
After talking with the dog for a while longer the children bid him goodbye and went their own way.
John and Mary continued to see the sights of Animal City, even if the inhabitants weren’t so nice. They saw a charging rhino in a store. She was putting some clothes on her credit card. A sloth was trying out mattresses at a bed place next door. Down the street, traffic was being held up by a family of tortoises who were trying to get to the other side.
They passed the Stork Club, which was crowded with tall, skinny birds. The children also saw several fraternal organizations, including the Moose Lodge, the Order of the Eagles, The Lions Club, the Kiwanis International, the Ducks, the Bucks, and the Elks.
The pair thought that some of the billboards in Animal City were just as interesting as it's citizens. They learned that the stunt cyclist Beaver Knievel was in town. The bears and the Panthers were scheduled to play a game of Pawball tomorrow. Some of the musical acts planned for the month included The Free Dog Night, The Tyrtles, The Birds, The Beagles, The Flamyngos, The Crickets, and The Monkies.





















Chapter 5
The next morning, after staying at the Bird House Inn, they decided to leave Animal City. The children didn’t really like the all-you-can-eat Worm, Bug, and birdseed buffet near the motel. Like many places they had visited before, the town was nice for a while. However, they really didn’t want to stay there.
As the two went upon their way, John remarked, “Well, I'm glad I’m not an animal. Some of those creatures really look like they lead rough lives.”
“But you and I are also animal” said Mary. “And we are similar to them in many ways. But at least we can have more control over our lives than many of them ever will.”
“Hmmm, I never really thought of myself as an animal, but I guess it's true” John replied. “And I’ve always thought of you as a little bullish!” He nudged his sister gently.
“Is that so!” snapped Mary. “I always knew that you were just a little boar!” She returned his nudge with a slight push.
“Honestly,” he chuckled. “Aren’t you being some kind of road hog?” He then gave her a more aggressive shove and started running away down the road.
“Well, I never!” Mary was getting so frustrated she had half a mind just to let him get lost. But she really didn’t want to lose track of him at this time so she picked her pace to keep him in her sight.
“I hadn’t expected this kind of behavior from someone who is so usually sheepish!” she yelled at him.
The morning was warm and sunny as one chased the other down the road.
By this time, John was quickly disappearing into the distance. Mary decided to start running just to keep him from getting too far ahead. The little boy was fairly speedy and she thought she might not be able to keep up with him.
“Hey there! Wait for me!” she shouted. There was no indication her brother had heard her or that he was even listening. Mary couldn’t see where John had gone.
“John! John! Where are you?” There was no answer.
She thought that he might be hiding behind one of the trees she had just passed. If that were true, though, he would have come out by now.
What if he was too far ahead to catch? She wondered. Mary knew she could make her way by herself, but she felt that it was her duty to take responsibility for him even if he wouldn’t take it for himself.
“Now don’t get lost!” she yelled.
Mary was getting tired of running and chose to stop. She turned right and sat down under the shade of a large oak tree. The bark seemed so normal to her. She guessed that this one didn’t talk.
“BOO!” A loud voice startled her and John jumped out of a nearby tree and landed a few feet away.
“Why, you…” she shook her fist angrily at him as though she was about to punch him. However, she was somewhat relieved that he had not run too far away so she restrained herself from using any unnecessary violence against him.
“Oh, I bet I scared you!” he grinned coyly.
“I wasn’t scared” she pretended to be angry. “And you shouldn’t go around playing tricks on people.”
“Why, I do that all the time!” A voice suddenly broke in.
At first, Mary thought John had said something. However, his mouth was closed. She quickly noticed that he was looking over her shoulder at something, so she turned around and saw the stranger.
“How do you do?” the stranger replied. “I am a magician.”
The children stared at him and believed that he certainly looked the part. The man was dressed in a tuxedo with a top hat and cape. He was a fairly young man with slick black hair, a pencil thin mustache, a black suitcase, and a large wand. The fellow had a friendly smile, but there seemed to be an aura of mystery surrounding him.
“Well, hello, I’m John and this is my sister, Mary” the boy blurted out.
“So, what brings you to this place?” asked the magician.
“We’re just passing through,” said Mary. “We’ve just gone from one place to another.” She wasn’t so sure she wanted to trust someone who made a living out of deceiving people.
“Say can you show us some magic tricks?” John could hardly hold back his eagerness as he smiled.
“Why, certainly! My boy!” the magician exclaimed. He seemed to be delighted that someone had even asked. The man put down his wand and suitcase and cracked his knuckles.
“There’s nothing up my sleeves,” he replied as he rolled up his cuffs.
“There’s nothing in my coat,” he stated while showing off the insides of his jacket.
“But there is something in my head” he replied as he appeared to pull out a small rose from his ear.
“For you, my dear!” The magician said as he handed the flower to Mary.
“Uh, no thank you,” Mary uttered. She was wary of accepting something from someone she didn’t know well. She found herself wishing his next trick would be his disappearance.
“Very well, then.” He didn’t seem the least it upset by her refusal. “I will just make this one into a dozen more.” The guy crumpled up the rose in his fingers and then threw the pieces into the air like confetti.
“Could you please show us another one?” By this time, John looked like he was totally in awe of the fellow.
“Okay.” The fellow rested his chink on his fist briefly as if he was thinking. “For my next trick, would you like an umbrella?”
“Sure!”
“But wait” said the stranger. “I see you already have one!” And he reached into the youth’s ear and pulled out a tiny cocktail parasol.
“Why, thanks” mumbled John. Although he was impressed with the trick, he had hoped for a full sized one instead.
“I guess we should be going.” Mary started to walk away. “Thank you for the show.”
“So, are you going this way?” the magician inquired as he walked along with them. “I’m going this way too.”
“So why don’t we all go together?” John smiled as the three traveled over the hill.
For some reason, Mary could not shake her suspicions about the magician. Although he seemed like a nice enough fellow, he never quite shook off his image as being kind of a slick, unpredictable character. Still, he was quite a conversationalist.
Mr. Cadabra, as he called himself, told the children of the many strange places he had visited. He told them about different lands where dinosaurs still lived, where people lived today as they did in past times, where wizards performed magic every day, where all objects moved and talked, where nothing ever changed and where things were changing all of the time.
Occasionally, he would spontaneously produce some small object in his hand to illustrate the point he was trying to make. Little cards, balls or even animals would suddenly appear and then vanish before their eyes.
John was becoming more and more impressed by Mr. Cadabra and was determined to figure out how the tricks were performed.
“Oh, couldn’t you show me how you did that?” he begged after the magician effortlessly pulled a handkerchief out of thin air.
“If I told you the secret,” the man replied slyly, “then it just wouldn’t be magic anymore.”
The illusionist realized that he did have the children’s attention, so he continued to talk about the relationship between magic and the world.
“First, let me tell you that anything you have seen me do you could do yourself. I don’t have any supernatural powers.”
“Second, the hand is quicker than the eye.” With that remark, the magician waved his hands a few times and produced a glass eye.
Mary noticed that one of the magician’s eyes became shut during the trick as if he had pulled it out of his head.
“I do this if I need to keep an eye out for something” Mr. Cadabra chuckled.
With a flip of his wrist, he hid his eye in his fist and shoved it back into his head.
The magician seemed happy that he had someone to watch him as he showed off his abilities. As the three walked along, he started singing.
Sometimes I just want to sing,
Magic is such a wonderful thing.
How else can a person dare?
To pull out a flower from thin air?
How do you change things with my stick?
I can't tell you, it would spoil the trick.
I just touch my hanky with this wand,
Wave my hands and now it’s gone!
Watch as I take this little rat
And make it vanish inside my hat.
If you memorize this a card,
I can find it, it’s not hard.
I have powers like a king.
Magic is such a wonderful thing.
They learned from Mr. Cadabra that he was on his way to a nearby village to do some show there. The group was close to their destination already.
A sign ahead said, “Welcome to Thrillsville.”
The place looked a lot like an amusement park. There were roller coasters, ferris wheels, bumper cars, fun houses, carousels and games of chance.
The children had plenty of money to spend from their encounter with the winds of change so John knew that they could easily afford to have a good time. What could be wrong with relaxing and enjoying themselves?
However, Mary suspected that this was no ordinary carnival. There seemed to be few people attending. Everyone looked depressed and no one seemed to be smiling. The town was not very colorful and most of the inhabitants were dressed in gray.
The magician said that he had to get ready to do his show so the children thanked him for spending some time with them. John really liked Mr. Cadabra and he was sorry that they had to go their own separate ways.
“Well, we will try to see you perform,” John said. “I know you can do a great job by all of the things you showed us.”
“Thank you, John” replied the illusionist. “And thank you Mary, for being my practice audience.” He continued. “Although, I might appear to be an expert in my field, I actually get nervous just before I do my act. Sometimes I think I might mess up a trick and sometimes I actually make major mistakes. I figure that the best that I can do is just keep on trying and improving. Maybe someday, with enough practice and experience, I will finally become as great in my job as possible.”
“Maybe we’ll see each other again,” Mary replied hopefully. She was beginning to almost think of him as a friend.
“Perhaps, it's a small world,” the man smiled and left.






Chapter 6
There were so many attractions in Thrillsville, the children had some difficulty deciding what to see first. Mary thought that first of all, they should just walk around and see a bit if everything before they made up their minds. John, however, wanted to do everything right away. He soon discovered a ride he just had to go on immediately.
“This one! Let’s try this one!” the boy exclaimed eagerly.
The name of the building was called “The Tunnel of Horrors.” Unlike similar rides Mary had been on before, there were no pictures or descriptions of what the ride was about on the outside. Except for the sign, the attraction was just a plain large structure all painted black.
“We don’t know what's inside, but that’s alright. I don’t mind surprises,” John remarked as they got into the line.
For several minutes, her brother kept talking about what he wanted to see on the ride.
“I hope that it's really scary” he grinned. “I’d like to see monsters, witches, vampires, werewolves, mummies, aliens, creatures, and anything that’s really gross.”
Mary couldn’t believe that the boy had goaded her into going on a fright fest for little creeps. This place certainly would not have been her first choice or even her last choice. For the most part, she saw herself as a reluctant participant in any activity chosen by him. All she cared about was that this experience would end as soon as possible.
The ride began like the children expected. Their car cranked up a steep incline. One thing that the children noticed was different was that the tour came with a narrator whose booming creepy voice came from a speaker within their cab.
“Today you shall see unspeakable scenes of terror which shall haunt your memories for the rest of your lives,” the voice bellowed ominously. “Remember that anything you see could happen to you someday.”
Two large doors opened at the top to the track and the children found themselves in a passageway marked “Greed”. Two decrepit looking misers were laughing and counting some gold.
Mary yawned. She knew that these geezers were just a couple of robotic pretenders dressed in thrift store rags and doomed to repeat the same motions every twenty seconds.
Anyway, they weren’t very scary she thought. And what did these chiselers have to do with the horrors they were expecting to see?
The cab came to an abrupt halt and jerked the two around in their seats. For what seemed like a whole minute, the children were stuck in what seemed to be pitch-black darkness with the voice on the speaker laughing in mad echoes.
“I’ve got you now!” it sneered. “You’ll never get out of here alive without seeing the horrors which await you in life.”
Their car started up again and charged through a couple of doors into another room called “Ignorance”. On their left, they saw a gang of unruly brats fighting each other. The juvenile delinquents were also involved in a number of unsafe activities. They were playing with fire, tearing up books, spraying paint upon the walls, beating animals, gambling, destroying property, drinking, smoking, throwing temper tantrums, and misbehaving in various ways.
Although this scene wasn’t what they were expecting at all, the special effects used to create the fantasy impressed even John.
“Wow, those guys sure look real!” her brother remarked. “I wonder how they make the robots do all those things!”
Indeed, Mary couldn’t have a clue as why the characters seemed so lifelike.
Suddenly, one of the little terrors pointed his finger at the children and yelled, “There they are! Get them!”
About five of the punks started making a mad dash toward the cab. Mary was really beginning to get worried because the ride didn’t seem to be going fast enough for them to get away.
Mary gritted her teeth as the goons approached them. Without any other warning the thugs pounced at the car. For a brief flashing moment, John was really scared.
However, the bullies couldn’t seem to get them. They appeared held back by a thin black net, which separated them from the cab. They snarled and drooled and shouted and cursed and clawed at the pair who were just a few inches away. The car abruptly started again and they were thrust into an unlighted tunnel.
“Those guys were real!” screamed John, who was quickly regretting his decision. “How can we get out of here?”
But Mary had nothing to say. She was too stunned to utter anything. She was speechless.
“Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-“ roared the voice again. Mary wasn’t sure if she was actually hearing it or was it haunting her mind?
Then they entered a hallway of flashing lights. At the end of the hall the lights and the darkness swirled rapidly as if whoever was controlling this machine was also trying to hypnotize them.
John’s eyes were crying. He didn’t know if the light in his eyes was blinding him or maybe they were tears of fear. Even thought he had never been so shocked in his entire life, he was still strangely fascinated with this entire experience.
The car took them to a section called “Poverty”. They were greeted by what appeared to be several dozen people dressed in ragged clothes.
The crowd looked terrible. Many of the characters appeared to be malnourished. One man looked so thin John thought he resembled a skeleton covered with skin. A large group of children approached the car with beggar bowls.
“Please help us!” one cried. “We need food!”
Another clutched his stomach in agony. “I’m so hungry,” he moaned.
John and Mary found themselves surrounded on the left and then on the right by more hordes of starved humanity. Everywhere they looked, there was one more face of desperation lost in a sea of misery.
The crowd moved in so close, Mary thought she felt everyone breathing on her. Just when she thought that they were hopelessly surrounded, their car took off with a jump and entered a dark corridor.
The cab drove through a hallway with several doors on either side. The doors all had warning signs on them like Do Not enter, Beware!, Danger, Take a Chance, and a lot of question marks. The kids were still securely fastened in my their safety belts so they didn’t really have the opportunity to open any of the doors. Instead, the ride took them to a large opening at the end of the corridor marked “Disease”.
Inside that room, the two were again quickly surrounded by frightening creatures. This time, however, the tortured should were all victims of various illnesses. Some had leprosy. Others had large growths of skin cancer on their bodies. There were also patients who looked like they were dying. They pleaded for help. They reached out their hands to the children as if they were expecting some cure for their ailments or an end to their misery.
Just when it seemed as though this experience would never end, the car bumped through a door marked “EXIT” and the two children were relieved to find daylight.
“That was about the worst time I ever had!” snapped Mary as she scrambled out of her seat and followed the yellow arrows to the main boardwalk. “I hope you’re happy!”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly what I expected,” John replied meekly. “I thought we would see a lot of imaginary monsters. But those horrors were real! They were real weren’t they?”
“I don’t know,” Mary stated glumly. She just wanted to forget the whole incident as soon as possible. “I don’t believe they could be real, but they sure looked convincing. I’m just glad it’s over.”
The children were walking on the paved walkway. There were rides everywhere, but now they were hesitant to try any. The park seemed to be a little more crowded than before and the lines to the attractions were starting to grow longer.
“Okay, you can choose the next ride,” John spoke with a tone of resignation in his voice. “After that last one, I’m not sure I trust my judgment.”
Mary was also doubtful that she wanted to put herself through another ordeal. But nothing could be like the ride they just went on, she thought.
“How about some ice cream?” she asked. They walked over to a small parlor on the left. Rather than go inside, Mary decided to take a look at the menu, which was posted outside, upon a window.
“Let’s see,” mused John. “The flavors are: Cabbage Surprise, Cream of Grasshopper, Fishbone Chuck, Rocky Road, Mashed Bug Delight, Sludge Ripple, Chalkolate, Barnstrawberry, Lemon Merangutang, Hot Peppermint, Pea Nut Butter Cup…”
“Pass!” Mary snapped. “Maybe we should just get out of here before we end up on the menu ourselves!”
They headed down the main thoroughfare.
“I know you don’t like this place,” said John. “But it is amazing to look at.”
She knew he was right there. There was no end of things to see in Thrillsville. They passed a sideshow advertising all types of unusual characters. “See Greta, the woman with six eyes,” the poster read.
“Do you suppose she really has six eyes?” asked John incredulously.
“I suppose so,” explained his sister. “As long as her name is Greta Biminibimini!”
“Maybe she just has three pairs of glasses,” John said skeptically.
“Now that’s something I might like to try!” Mary pointed and John saw it too.
The sign said, “Welcome to the Ride of Life”. The children stood outside a huge building. John thought that it could have been the largest structure in the area. His first impression of it was that it was a covered roller coaster. However, he knew that this town was full of surprises and things were not always what they appeared to be.
The line for this ride was very long, so they had some time to discuss the many things they had seen.
“I can't stop thinking about those poor people at the other ride,” said John. “Isn’t there anything we can do for them?”
“I don’t think that they were really poor,” Mary replied. “Maybe they were just there as actors to entertain people. I can think of many other things I would rather see.”
Mary thought to herself about all of the things they had seen so far. What weird or wonderful sights would they encounter next, she wondered.
The line they were in continued to move at a steady pace. She noticed that although there were a lot of people going into the building, she did not see any leaving. Was she making a mistake by going? Or would she really enjoy the experience? It wasn’t too late for her to back out, but she decided to take a chance and see it anyway.
The line descended into a dimly lit passageway. The crowd was surrounded by dark, black, brick walls covered in graffiti.
Soon, they saw a sign up ahead. “Welcome to the Ride of Life”.
Mary stood on the tips of her toes to try to get a better look at what the ride was all about.
“What do you see?” asked John.
“It’s so dark, I can hardly see anything,” she stated impatiently. “I do hope that it's worth the wait.”
The line divided into several aisles so she and her brother stuck close to each other. The people around them seemed to mumble indescribable nonsense.
Their line led into another hallway and started moving a little faster. They then went through a maze of passageways, which made all of the people travel in circles.
Just when it seemed as thought the tunnels would never end, they got on the ride. It was a roller coaster, just like they expected. It was very sleek and shiny, as if constructed out of some kind of mirrored stainless steel. They could see their reflections on its surface.
They got in the train and the safety harnesses locked over their shoulders.
A speaker in their compartment greeted them with some soothing electronic music. Then a voice announced, “Welcome to the Ride of Life. Please remain seated and keep your hands and all personal possessions in your section at all times. Enjoy the ride of your life.”
Everyone was on the coaster by this time. Suddenly, the ride started slowly. The train turned into a long tunnel and the children found themselves in complete darkness.
Mary couldn’t see anything, but she did notice that this coaster was somehow different from others she had been on. For one thing, instead of going up at the beginning, the ride started to go down.
“I’ve got a sinking feeling” she heard John say. “Is this the train to hell?” he joked.
The train started going downhill even faster. Mary was a little more nervous now. She didn’t feel like crashing at the bottom of some hole in the dark. Yet that’s what she felt would happen. The way they were going.
People started screaming. John himself was screaming inside.
Without any warning, the coaster suddenly changed direction. It shot back up as abruptly as it had descended. The children began to see images flashing by them on the walls.
As the train rose in height, Mary began to feel happy. She did not know if she really had a reason for her change in attitude or if her emotions were being manipulated by the videos on the walls.
She saw laughing children playing joyfully, people in love, peaceful sunsets, quiet views of an ocean, sunbathers relaxing in comfortable surroundings, a mother gently rocking her child, and several other tranquil scenes.
John felt himself so overwhelmed by what he saw that he could not help but be influenced. He wasn’t sure, but he felt as though he was being hypnotized by all of the sights and sounds he was encountering.
They felt the coaster slow, as it appeared to reach an apex. As their car sailed over the peak, the images changed.
The train started to descend rapidly and the pictures on the surrounding tunnel walls immediately reflected an emotional change. Now the children saw people growing old, soldiers marching into war, bombs exploding, victims of various diseases, crying, suffering, misery, despair, and various other horrors.
“I’m not sure I can take too much of this!” exclaimed John as the ride continued to plunge. “maybe they should call this place the land of screams.”
Mary knew that there was no getting out of it now. She had made the decision herself to take this ride and now they had to stick with it until the end.
Finally, the coaster didn’t take too long to reach the bottom and started going right back up again.
John was relieved when the images of flying birds, pristine lakes, family life, delicious foods, victory, achievement, success, relaxation, and serenity returned.
And so the ride continued this way. The children were in a constant motion of emotions. They experienced the ups and downs of existence so quickly and intensely that they didn’t know what to expect next.
When the coaster started going in circles, then they really got confused. They felt like they were caught in some kind of tornado.
Good and bad scenes soon became combined together. Mary thought that she was trapped in a whirlpool of conflict as the train spun round and round.
Then, as quickly as the ride had begun, it was over. John and his sister headed for the exit, no worse for wear, but filled with memories they would not soon forget.
When they got out into the open air again, they found that they were in a different part of Thrillsville from where they had left. John did not recognize where they were exactly.
The two were still a little dazed and disoriented from the ride. Mary felt that her vision was still a little blurry and she still had some trouble walking straight. Fortunately, she found a nearby park bench and they sat down to sort out what to do next.
The shade of a large oak tree sheltered them and a warm breeze blew gently. Birds of every color and shape took off and landed on nearby branches.
“I just need a little time to recover from the coaster,” Mary managed to blurt out.
“I know what you mean,” John remarked. “That was quite a trip. Want to go again?” His face displayed his eagerness.
“Are you crazy?” Mary could hardly control her self-control, but deep down inside she knew he must be joking.
“That was really something,” he exclaimed. “Why not?”
Mary began to feel that the only thrill she would get in Thrillsville would be in leaving town. She understood the appeal of the attractions. However, maybe she was just getting too much of life too soon. She preferred to take life at her own pace and not at 1000 images a minute.
“I really liked the ride!” John smiled. “But if you want to do something else, that’s alright too.”
Mary smiled back. She looked around and felt better already.
“Why don’t we just look around for a while?” He agreed.


Chapter 7
As they walked down the street, John thought the area looked like the midway section of the amusement park. There were various games of luck and games of chance lined up against each other for as far as the eye could see.
The themes for these games struck them as unusual. These were not the familiar ring-toss on the bottle, duck target hunting, or throw the ball into the basket kind of pastimes.
Some of the attractions were called, Choose your Destiny, Fortunes told; Take a Chance, The Game of Luck, and other unusual booths.
Mary stopped briefly to get a closer look at one of the games, but kept her distance as if not to appear too interested.
“Hey, Young Lady! Would you like to try?”
The barker had spotted her as a potential mark and was trying to get her attention. She tried to ignore him, but she couldn’t quite overcome her curiosity.
“Go ahead, I’ll even give you a free turn!” he grinned.
She was inclined not to trust this character. He was a short, fat, balding man in a multicolored checkered suit. If his nose were a little redder, she would have thought that he looked like a clown.
She felt that she couldn’t resist the temptation any longer so she approached the stand.
“So what is this game about?” Mary asked, while still pretending not to be too interested.
“This game is called Choose your Destiny,” the man explained proudly. “You just take this ball and if you throw it in one of those holes up there, you win a prize!”
Mary read the instructions on the board carefully and looked at the prizes.
There were several holes at the top of the canvas where she could get a prize if she made it.
She took careful aim and hurled the ball toward her intended target. The ball struck close, but hit the edge of the hole and fell downward into a slot near the bottom.
“Sorry, no prize” the carny replied glumly.
Mary then noticed that all of the holes at the top and slots at the bottom were marked with labels of various professions.
The smallest and most difficult holes to make were marked with job descriptions like doctor, lawyer, millionaire, and celebrity. Some of the holes in the middle were larger and appeared to be easier to throw the ball at. These were marked middle class, teacher, accountant, salesman and others.
The slots at the bottom where her ball had landed were quite large and could be reached without any difficulty. Some of these areas were labeled unemployed, and menial jobs.
“So would you like to take another shot at your destiny?” the man grinned.
“Well, maybe some other time” Mary stated hesitantly. “Right now, we should be going somewhere else.” She grabbed her brother’s hand and proceeded down the main avenue.
“O.K.! I’m going with you! You can let go of me now!” John retorted. “We didn’t have to leave that game so soon! Why didn’t you let me take my turn at it?”
“I thought that we could be doing more important things than wasting our time there.” She explained. “You see, I’m not sure I like this midway. It’s not all just fun and games.”
“Well, even so, you don’t have to treat me like a child,” the boy remarked defiantly. “I can take care of myself. I can make my own decisions, you know.”
Mary looked at him in amazement. She felt so stunned that she stopped speaking for a while. Perhaps she had become used to her little brother meekly obeying everything she told him to do. Or maybe she believed that she was sincerely looking out for his interests by making all of his decisions for him. This change in attitude bothered her somewhat, but she knew that she would still love him whatever their differences might be.
As John and Mary walked on the road which led out of Thrillsville, they left with both some relief and some regret. On the one hand, they felt some comfort in getting out of a place, which was hectic and unpredictable. On the other hand, the town had still been a fun, exciting place. In some ways, they missed it already. On the third hand, however, they knew that it was time to move on.
They passed some houses on the right side of the road. Soon afterward, they stopped to view a tall bluish mountain in the distance. The sun was shining brightly in the sky again and John felt like just lying on the grass, enjoying the warm breeze and doing nothing.
“I’m tired of walking,” he complained. “Can’t we stop somewhere and relax?”
“Sure,” Mary replied. “As soon as we find a good spot to sit in the shade.”
“That’s the problem,” remarked John. “You want a shady place and I want a sunny place,” he laughed briefly. “Maybe that’s why we don’t get along sometimes.”
“We disagree because sometimes I believe you are wrong and I am right,” Mary stated.
“Or I like the day but you like the night!” returned John.
“Because I like the dark but you like the light,” countered Mary.
“Maybe I’m too loose and you’re too tight,” replied John.
“Or I want black when you want white!” continued Mary.
“Or I notice width while you see height,” John returned.
“Or I use my ears while you prefer your sight,” Mary managed to blurt out.
“Or maybe you want peace while I prefer to fight!” yelled John as he pushed her firmly and quickly ran away.
“Hey, you!” his sister shouted. She knew that she could beat him in any struggle, but she could not outrun him.
John laughed as he soon outpaced her. He started running down a hill and Mary became concerned that he was going too far ahead.
“Now don’t get away from me!” she called, but she doubted that he would pay much attention to her.
She could still see him in the distance, but she knew that he would again try to fool her if he got too far ahead. She thought that he might try to hide in some bushes and wait until she passed him. Then he would get her worried about thinking that he was lost when what he was really planning to do was to suddenly jump out and scare her. Mary felt confident that she could avoid being victimized by his little tricks.
The road where they were running had descended into a narrow valley. John was still in her sight and she believed that he would have nowhere to hide as long as she kept her eye on him.
Suddenly, she heard a strange rumbling sound. She felt that the ground beneath her feet was shaking. Could it be an earthquake? She thought. But still, she continued running. Mary couldn’t think of anything else to do in this situation.
“John! Did you hear that?” she yelled.
She noticed that he had stopped. By this time she really felt that she should get to him as the rumbling sound was getting louder.
The trees around them started swaying violently. A strong wind began to blow so hard she thought that she was trapped in a tornado.
John appeared to be yelling something, but she couldn’t hear him. He was still too far away.
She was running as fast as she could toward him when she finally understood his words.
“Look Out! Look out behind you!” he shouted.
Mary turned her head and was to stunned to speak.
A huge wall appeared to be rapidly approaching her. It was cutting around the trees and over the hills like some kind of tidal wave. She knew that at the speed it was going, it would soon overtake them. All she could think about was getting away from it as quickly as possible.
“Run! Run!” she yelled to John.
Mary looked desperately for some way to avoid the barrage. Could she find some tree for them to climb? No, the nearby ones all of the lower limbs were still too high to reach. Was there some higher ground to run to safety?
Before she could find a way to escape, the wall was right behind her and it then was too late!
Mary found herself in total darkness. She felt her body turned around and around dozens of times as the wave swept her along in its unstoppable advance.
She gasped for air and found that at least she could still breathe. She felt that there must still be pockets of air interspersed within the wave and that she had to catch them quickly in order to survive.
As she was being tossed continuously, Mary believed that the wall she had become part of was not made of water at all. Her surroundings felt rough and she began to try to struggle her way out of the heap.
At last, the wave seemed to temporarily subside and she was relieved to find a ray of light just above her. Using all of her energy, Mary fought her way to the top of whatever she was in.
Mary stuck her head out through the surface to find herself completely surrounded by paper!
The pile she was engulfed in was completely composed of pieces of paper. There were pages of books, forms, newspapers, magazines, advertisements, applications, handbills, posters, photographs, pamphlets, pictures, instructions, brochures, menus, confetti, junk mail, bills, reports, bulletins, notices, coupons, and thousands of other miscellaneous pieces of information.
She noticed that this huge pile of paper was not remaining still. Various groups of items shifted from one way to another like waves or ripples on an ocean. Mary found that she had to struggle to keep her head above the surface. This lake of paper had the consistency of quicksand, although nothing was sucking her down at that moment.
“John! John! Are you out there?” Mary yelled desperately. She hoped that her brother was not buried too deeply in the wasteland. She thought that he might be hurt, trapped or possibly suffocating under the tons of printed materials swirling around.
“Ahoy, there!” she heard a voice bellow.
John was coasting across the waves in a small rowboat. He spotted her, waved, and then started paddling in her direction.
“I was certainly lucky,” he exclaimed as he approached her. “I was swept to the top of the pile by accident where I found this boat. What is this stuff?”
“It looks like some kind of sea of information,” said Mary. She was still struggling to stay on top of the papers. “Could you help me out of this mess?”
“Sure!” laughed John as he paddled over to her side. “Looks like you need a hand.”
He reached over to her and helped pull her into the boat. Mary found herself totally exhausted by her experience and lay down by the bow to gasp for air.
John looked concerned. “I suppose it was almost like drowning,” he commented.
Mary had caught her breath by this time. “I felt totally overwhelmed by everything. I was literally buried in information. The only thing for me to do was to just get away from it all.”
The waves of paper continued to gently rack the craft. By some strange force, the various sheets kept moving along.
How were all of these papers being produced and where were they coming from? Mary wondered as their boat wandered. She couldn’t see land from where she was. Would the whole world be covered by this seemingly endless sea of information?
She thought that she could just step out of the boat and walk out of there. The various pages drifting past looked like they could support her weight. However, she knew that if she tried to test their strength, she would fall through again as if they were just like the surface of a lake.
As the two drifted through the sea of information, Mary continued to remain calm about the situation. She felt that she had to appear strong and confident in the eyes of John so he wouldn’t get worried.
“I find it too difficult to steer through all of this!” he muttered as he struggled with the oars. “Maybe we’re better off if we just drift.”
And so they put the oars in the boat and allowed the boat to go its own way through the paperwork.
John looked over the edge and read items as they passed by, while Mary scanned the horizon for a good place to land. She saw trees buried along the shore, a sheer rock cliff, and what appeared to be a lake in the distance. However she could not find a spot to moor the craft.
“A-ha!” shouted John excitedly. “Not all of this paperwork is a nuisance.” He had just picked up a scrap of something from the surface of the pile and handed it to Mary. The small sheet appeared to be some kind of money, but nothing she could recognize.
“It might be worth something” she exclaimed. “Let’s look for others.”
Mary leaned over the starboard side and John looked on the port. Watching the sheets drift by was starting to make him sleepy, so he began to read what they said aloud to keep him awake.
“Our biggest sale ever!” he announced, while pretending to be a radio commercial. “Buy now, don’t delay! Step right in! Come this way! All things must go! Everything marked down! Make a deal here! We’re the best in town! Buy nine, get one free! Save 9% with this coupon and the additional purchase of four other items. See our fifth annual going-out-of-business sale! Spend, spend, spend as if the world is going to end!”
Although they searched for what seemed to be several minutes, they read and read until their minds could absorb no more knowledge.
The sky was cloudy, but the day was still warm. Mary heard john breathing loudly and realized that he had fallen asleep. She found that she could barely keep her own eyes open. Mary felt her body go limp as she fell into unconsciousness.
When she awoke, Mary found that a thick fog had surrounded them. She could barely see anything more than six feet from the boat. She wondered if they ever had any chance of finding their way out of this situation. She shook her brother vigorously to make him aware of what had happened.
“Huh? What? Where are we now?” he mumbled, still groggy from the effects of his nap.
“We seem to have stopped,” she stated. “At least I don’t see the papers moving beneath us any more.”
John looked out of the boat and found that she was right. He guessed that whatever force which kept all of the information moving had stopped. Or perhaps the boat had run aground upon some land which was littered as the sea had been. Either way they weren’t going anywhere for the moment.
“This is solid ground now!” he exclaimed as he touched the papers by the boat. He felt confident enough to jump out and test the surface with his entire weight as he walked around.
“I guess the information stopped flowing,” he reasoned.
“Or now we’re stuck in the land of landfills,” Mary replied. “What ever the reason for stopping, now we have the chance to walk on out of here.”
She led the way away from the boat onto what she assumed to be dry land. The fog was still quite dense and she felt as though she was stumbling in the dark when she walked. John followed her from a few steps behind as though he was just waiting to see if she could actually go where she intended.
Mary still felt that she was making some progress even though she had stumbled frequently on the uneven ground. She had even tripped a few times, but had managed to maintain her balance.
When she felt her way through some low reaching tree branches, she was certain that she was on dry land. Mary soon found what appeared to be a trail going through the woods. Soon she and her brother were running along it.
Her spirits felt a little lifted when she noticed that the mist was starting to get thinner. She continued to lead her brother through the woods as they searched for some place to find their bearings. She noticed a clearing up ahead and headed toward it. When the two found their way out of the woods, they saw an amazing sight.
On a large hill not too far away was a huge mansion. Mary had seen large buildings before but this one was rather distinctive. It was completely constructed out of paper.
The house had tall paper columns, long paper stairways, a paper wall surrounding it, and even a paper fountain spraying out confetti.
As they approached the mansion, Mary noticed a woman sitting at a desk in the front yard. She seemed to be reading various papers. She filed some of them and made little marks on others.
The two children cautiously approached the woman, who appeared to be so absorbed in her work that she did not notice them.
When they were only a few dozen feet away from her, she snapped at them.
“Halt! Who goes there?” the lady barked suspiciously.
“I am Mary and this is my brother, John” Mary replied, while doing her best to conceal her nervousness. “We just sailed in on the Sea of Information.”
“Oh, visitors, eh?” The tone of the woman’s voice seemed to soften. “Welcome to the Land of Knowledge. Here you can find any information you might be looking for as well as more information than you would possibly want to know. If you have any questions, just ask me. I am the director here. My name is Miss Information.”
John spoke up. “You see, ma’am, it’s like this. We have been wandering around this land for some time now. We have seen a number of interesting things. We have learned a great deal about this world and the way things are. However, we don’t seem to know how to find our place in it. We know where we’ve been, we just don’t seem to know where we’re supposed to go.”
Miss Information gave him a funny look and then sighed. “You do have an interesting problem, don’t you? All I can say that if there is an answer to your situation, you’ll find it here.”
With that statement, she stood up and pointed to her left. The children looked and saw an amazing sight. As far as they could see, thousands upon thousands of file cabinets of files stretched out into the horizon. It appeared to them that there was so much to know. But how could they find what they needed to know?
“I’m a little busy now, so I must be going.” The woman had gathered her work and started heading into the mansion. “If you need any more help, just ask one of my assistants, and they’ll be glad to assist you. Their names are Miss Understand, Miss Lead, Miss Inform, and Miss Take.” The woman quickly slammed the door behind herself.






Chapter 9
The children walked up to a window of the building and peered inside. They saw an amazing sight. There appeared to be thousands and thousands of monkeys all typing at computers. Two men in white lab coats were observing the seemingly endless rows of monkey writers.
One of the men remarked, “They haven’t written any great novels yet, but they have written a few promising television screenplays.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked John as the two walked away.
“I don’t know,” replied his sister. “Maybe it means that it takes less intelligence to create information than to process it.”
John and Mary walked around some of the thousands of file cabinets scattered along the landscape. Millions of pieces of paper completely covered the land. Even the hills and mountains in the distance looked like they were also buried in information.
“There’s so much to learn,” mused Mary. “And so little time in which to learn it all.”
“So where do we go from here?” inquired John. “How can we find out what we need to know? What are we looking for anyway?”
Mary thought for a moment before responding. “Maybe we won’t know until we find it.”
“All of this paper can’t be a good thing,” said John. “This land is a mess! Surely, there’s something we could do about it.”
“I agree,” Mary nodded her head as she observed the endless tons of trash, which covered the land. “Maybe there is just too much information being produced in this world. People don’t have the time or the energy to deal with it all.”
She continued talking as the two waded through the endless mounds of paper.
“Maybe it’s a problem with organization,” observed John. “Perhaps all of this stuff would not be a problem if it were put in filing cabinets or something. Or maybe someone should put an end to it all.” He paused to think about it for a while. “Why don’t we do it?”
“Well, that’s not a bad idea,” exclaimed Mary. “But first, we’d have to find where it is all coming from.”
The two looked around in all directions. Then John spied what appeared to be a column of smoke rising in the distance. They were curious about it, so they decided to walk toward it.
As they walked, the children heard a low rumbling noise. Before they had any time to react, several tons of confetti and other paper items fell on them from the sky. However the two managed to find shelter in a nearby cave before they could get buried in the latest fallout. After a few minutes the storm ceased and they found themselves free to wallow through more piles of paper.
“I see where all of the information is coming from!” John exclaimed happily. And so did Mary.
At the bottom of a huge valley, not too far away, they saw the thing that was making all of the new information. It looked like a huge machine over one hundred feet tall and even twice as wide. It had wheels spinning, motors running, lights flashing, conveyor belts moving and smokestacks smoking in dozens of different areas.
“Hey, have you noticed?” remarked John. “The smokestacks are not producing smoke, they are producing masses of information!”
Mary noticed it and she stared in awe. The smoke coming out of the pipes was actually thousands of cards, notes, notices, advertisements, flyers, wrappings, and other assorted paper flying up into the air. She observed that “clouds” of these papers floated in the sky and “rained” their contents down upon the ground. She figured that was the reason that the entire area was flooded with so much information.
“Maybe it’s not such a bad thing,” said John. “If people read the news and it is useful to them, then maybe this machine serves a purpose. Maybe it can even answer all the questions for which we need answers. If it can tell us what to do or where to go, maybe we can find out.”
“There’s no harm in asking it,” Mary agreed. “If it can help us, I’m willing to try.”
“How do we find out?” asked John. “Part of the reason I don’t know thins is that I don’t know how to find what I need to know.”
“What I think we should do is see the head of the company,” Mary reasoned. “And that appears to be up there.”
She pointed to the roof of the building. Sure enough, there was a gigantic robot head on top of the huge machine. A short line of people waited near it, submitting it their questions.
Mary and John climbed several flights of stairs on the side of the building in order to reach the roof. Then they got into the line of people.
“Be sure to have your questions ready,” advised Mary. “We don’t want to waste the time of the company head.”
John began writing a number of questions on computer cards nearby. Some of the information he sought was expressed as the following:
1. What should I do in my life?
2. What is the best way to be happy?
3. What are the most important things to know?
4. How can I be more successful?
5. What is the easiest way to make friends?
6. How can I overcome my weaknesses and improve my strengths?
7. What are the best things I can do for others?
8. How do we leave the Land of Dreams and return to our bedroom?
Mary looked over his questions carefully. “You put a lot of thought into writing these,” she exclaimed. “I am impressed.”
“Thanks,” he replied. “But what about you? Don’t you have anything to ask it?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think the head would give me the right answers anyway. It doesn’t know me. I don’t trust its judgment. I prefer to make decisions based upon my own experience and not do anything just because some machine tells me to do it.”
At that moment, the two walked up to the slot where the questions were to be submitted. John quickly looked over his cards and inserted them inside the machine.
At the front of the line, a man in a white lab coat received a printout from the computer. After he read the contents, he angrily cursed the machine and slunk away.
This trend continued. Everyone who expected answers to their questions seemed to be disappointed with the results.
“I wouldn’t expect too much from this machine if I were you,” Mary advised her brother. “Anyone can ask any question they want, but getting the correct answers may not be all that easy.”
“Well, I wouldn’t get anything unless I at least tried to find out what I was looking for,” John replied. “There’s no harm in giving it a shot.”
The two continued to wait patiently for the answers. When John’s printout came up, he grabbed it and read it eagerly.
A look of frustration appeared on his face. “Why, they didn’t even answer any of my questions,” he complained. “This is just a lot of nonsense!”
Mary glanced at the paper. Sure enough, there seemed to be no useful information on the printout. All it contained were advertisements, irrelevant facts, and meaningless squibbles.
John turned to his sister and exclaimed, “You’re right! This is totally useless!”
The children said nothing for a while. For several minutes, they watched as people continued to get the wrong answers from the head on top of the building. Meanwhile, more pieces of paper continued to fly into the air from various smokestacks on the roof.
“This cant be a good thing!” Mary remarked. “This machine is producing a lot of information that nobody wants or nobody can use! It’s just making a lot of trash. Somebody should try to fix it… Or just stop it!”
“If you talk like that, we could get into trouble,” said her brother. “Besides, how could we stop it anyway? It’s much too big to be controlled by just an on off switch.”
“Maybe what it needs is a taste of its own medicine,” Mary replied. At that moment, she started climbing on the large head.
“Wait! What are you doing?” John yelled. “You had better watch out! You might get hurt!”
Mary ignored him and continued to scale the huge, robotic structure. Two large glowing eyes stared at her as she balanced herself on its cheek.
“I’m not afraid of you!” she declared as she glared at the metal monster. “Let’s see how you like your own information!”
She then bent one of the flexible smokestacks and stuck it into the mouth of the head.
“So, how do you like that?” she smiled at the metal face.
“Hey, you! What are you doing up there?” Someone yelled at her.
“Get down from there!” another person shouted.
John noticed some bystanders eyeing him suspiciously.
He shrugged his shoulders and remarked, “Don’t look at me! I don’t have anything to do with her!”
They decided he was right and turned their attention to the girl.
“Somebody stop her! She’s ruining everything!” a voice shouted.
People were trying to climb up on the head to get Mary off, but they just couldn’t get to her.
By this time, the mouth of the robot was filled with paper. The gigantic head coughed, sputtered and appeared to be choking on an overdose of its own information.
Red warning lights started flashing. A loud fire alarm suddenly went off. Smoke started pouring out from the inside of the building. The other people on the roof ran for the fire escapes.
The head of the company began to shake violently. Mary felt as though she could not hang on to her position much longer. She decided to climb down. However, she was in danger of falling off the building, so all she could do for the moment was to maintain her position.
John tried to think of some way that he could help his sister. As quickly as he could manage, they boy gathered several pounds of scrap paper and made a large mound near the bottom of the head.
Mary!” he shouted. “Jump into this pile. It will break your fall!”
As the head continued to shake, Mary felt as though she was losing her grip. The head was now breaking apart. Metallic pieces were falling off. One of its eyes shattered. The mouth continued to choke on all of the information being fed into it.
Suddenly, she lost her balance and fell off. She felt like she was going to die in those few seconds of time. Mary closed her eyes and tried to make herself believe that what was happening was really just in her imagination.




















Chapter 10

“Mary! Mary! Are you alright?” She opened her eyes to find her brother shaking her.
“Oh, I’m fine,” she murmured. She was relieved to see that she had landed on the big pile of waste paper. She was also happy that nothing in her body seemed to be broken.
“Well, get up then! We’ve still got to get out of here!” John exclaimed with excitement.
He used all of his strength to pull her out of the pile. The two started running across the roof looking for the fire escape. The smoke continued to pour out of the machine as they tumbled down the steps.
They were running from the building when they heard a loud, rumbling sound. To their amazement, the head of the company suddenly exploded. Pieces of the robot came falling down to the ground. The last pieces of paper fell from the sky and settled around them.
The people of the land were so stunned by this event they lost interest in pursuing the children. At this time, there were also incredible changes in appearance of the land. All of the paper which had littered the ground started to disappear. The clouds of paper in the sky began to dissolve under the heat of the sun. All of the note cards, memos, advertisements, confetti, flyers, junk mail, streamers, tissues, newspapers, notices, and other assorted pieces of paper began to disintegrate into the land. The green grass of the fields was visible once more. The leaves of the trees could be seen once again. The rivers and lakes, which had been clogged with paper, now flowed again with fresh, pure water.
All of the people noticed the changes, which were taking place. They quickly lost interest in chasing or capturing Mary and John. They were too busy admiring how beautiful their world had become now that the land was no longer cluttered with a glut of information.
As they watched the land grow greener, Mary believed that she had really done the right thing.
“So, where do we go now?” her brother asked.
At that moment, Mary spied a doorway with the word “EXIT” marked above it.
“Why don’t we give that a try?” she asked.
They entered the doorway and found a spiral staircase, which went deep into the ground. Their curiosity led them to walk down about four flights.
John and Mary had reached the bottom of the stairs and found another unusual place there.
They found themselves in a round room. Various hallways extended from all sides of the room like spokes attached to a wheel.
However, the truly amazing thing about the room and the halls was that there were doors everywhere. There were doors on all of the walls of the halls. There were doors on the floor and there were even doors on the ceiling.
“So, how do we find the door which is right for us?” John asked.
“Well, we might have to try them all,” replied Mary. “If you can not find what you want after your first attempt, then you’ll just have to keep looking. Sometimes, getting what you want takes a lot of time and effort. Sometimes even if you find what you were looking for, it might not be exactly what you expected. Our journey has been a learning experience and even when it ends, we will still be learning things. There is so much to know and so little time to learn it all. You might just have to search for those things which mean something to you.”
John looked a little bored with her speech. “Yeah, that’s great, but which door?”
She reached out for the nearest doorknob, but couldn’t get it to turn.
“Well, I guess some doors may always be closed to us. You don’t really need to worry about what you can’t do when there are so many things you can do. We’ll just choose another.”
Her little brother tried a nearby knob, but he was not ready for the surprise he got when the door opened. A cold wind blew snow in his face and the two nearly froze in their attempt to get the door closed again.
“It’s a cold world out there!” John remarked.
“Yes, but we could handle it if we were prepared,” his sister replied. “However, I do not think that way is right for us. We will continue to look.”
She opened another door, but she was unable to enter that room. All she saw were distant stars and the unending darkness of outer space in there. It was pretty to look at, she thought, but she remembered that there was no air out in space so that place wasn’t really for her.
“How about this one?” her brother asked.
Mary looked at the door where he had pointed. Steam appeared to be coming out of the keyhole and she could hear a lot of heavy breathing and growling coming from the other side. Suddenly, some kind of tentacles came out from the space between the bottom of the door and the threshold. The scaly thing reached out to grab one of her legs, but she backed up far enough so it just couldn’t get her.
“I don’t think so!” she yelled while trying to remain calm. “Some doors are definitely not worth trying to open!”
She opened a nearby door and viewed what appeared to be a peaceful setting inside. She saw a lush green valley, clear blue skies, snow topped mountains, and sunlight glittering on a lake. Mary was tempted to enter the room, but for some reason she was hesitant.
“Well!” John exclaimed impatiently. “Why don’t we go on in?”
“It just looks too good to be true!” Mary snapped at him. “I don’t have a good feeling about it.”
No sooner did she express her doubts than she spied something moving in a nearby bush. She saw two fiery eyes staring at her. It now appeared to her as though several creatures were hiding in there, waiting to ambush whoever might enter.
Mary slammed the door before anything could get out. “Some days it just doesn’t pay to take a risk,” she told her brother. “The consequences might be too awful to even imagine!”
John looked confused. “What are con…con…sea…quinces?”
“Those are bad things which might happen to us if we don’t get out of here.”
The children continued to try to open doors or avoid those which seemed suspicious.
Suddenly, the entire gallery started rumbling as though there was some kind of earthquake.
At that moment, John opened a door and the whole world seemed to come to a halt. Mary felt as though she was stuck in suspended animation. Her movements were slow and restricted. She could still breathe, but she felt like she was moving under water. She looked at the door John had opened and saw something come out of it which resembled black ink. The darkness quickly surrounded the children and filled the room. John struggled to say something to his sister, but he couldn’t. He felt like his mouth was full, so no words came out.
Mary thought that her eyes were itchy, so she rubbed them and closed them briefly.
When she opened them, Mary found herself in her own bed. Her room was virtually the same as when she had left it. In all of the time she had been away, only the night had passed. Now the warm morning rays of the sun filled the room with light.
“John! Are you awake?” she yelled as she rushed over to his bedside and shook him.
Her brother appeared to be a bit groggy from the experience.
“Oh, we’re back again,” he replied. The boy rubbed his eyes and looked around the room.
He scratched his head and pondered the moment.
“While we were away, I had difficulty believing that we had left. Now that we’re back, I find it hard to believe that our adventure is over. Everything seemed so real back there. Now I wonder was it real or was it all a dream?”
Mary thought for a moment before trying to answer him.
“I suppose you say that it was as real as your imagination. Anything can be real to you if you put enough effort into making it happen.”
He smiled. “After all that we’ve been through, this world is not going to seem nearly as interesting as the one we left.”
Mary smiled. “I guess we will just have to make a land of reality out of our land of dreams,” she said.