I had a dream the other night. Like all my dreams it seemed real as can be. And this one changed things a lot. Luke and I were at Grandma Lois’ house and playing with her pirate ships. When I’m awake the ships are little and made of plastic. They’re toys, so if you want them to seem like actual pirate ships you have to do a lot of pretending. But in my dream they were big, not as big as Captain Hook’s ship in Peter Pan but big enough climb inside. Luke was aboard a black one with ‘nalla-ekul ‘written upfront along the side. Mine was a brown-gold and said ‘einnol-wehttam.’ Don’t ask me why, it just did.
Anyhow, Gramps was upstairs in bed with a head cold. Since Gramps didn’t have a head I had to ask Grandma Lois how she could tell that’s what he was sick with.
“Every once in a while Gramps catches a bug and his nose gets stuffed up something awful. Even though he’s headless, and brainless most of the time, when that first sneeze comes, I know exactly what’s going on.”
Down in the backyard Luke and I were battling it out with our cannons. Like the little ones, ours fired long, red plastic cannon balls. Only difference was when these missiles exploded they shot out flames made of red, orange, and yellow peppers with a few raisins mixed in. The only things our cannons could actually damage were the ships we were aboard. And they did a good job. At the time when Gramps sneezed, Luke’s ship was sinking in one of the flower gardens, mine had all of its masts blown away and we were afloat in a sea of sliced vegetables.
It was Gramps’ sneeze that turned out to be dangerous. When you’re nothing but a six-foot-long nose, sneezes can be pretty big and his was the loudest noise I’d ever heard. So loud it blew all of the windows and doors out of the house. Grandma just laughed, “As far as sneezes go, that was a small one. Last winter down in Alabama Gramps let one go while he was swimming in the ocean. Oh my, that was really something. He blew every drop of water out of the Gulf of Mexico for thirty-seven miles in every direction. Of course all that water had to go somewhere and for the next two days it rained buckets over in Florida. Rained water, fish, sand, boats, lawn chairs with people still in them, two small hotels and one pink and blue umbrella with a little old lady still holding on. The blast was so big it made the evening news on CBS even though no one knew the cause. Most of the scientists they interviewed thought it might have been a meteor or a comet. For once Gramps was smart enough to not let on it was him and you know how he likes to talk.”
Grandma looked at the house and yelled, “Hang on boys, here he goes again. Let’s skedaddle quick.”
This sneeze sounded like it’d be a whopper. First came the ‘Ah! Ah! Ah!’ of Gramps sucking in air. He sucked so hard all the windows and doors were pulled back into place, squirrels were torn out of the trees along with the branches they were clutching and birds trying their hardest to fly away were smashed against the house walls. Luke and I hid in the garage under one of the cars along with Grandma. Then came the blast, only this time it went straight up. Blew the roof off the house and into the clouds where it spun around three times, did a flip, then landed back on the house as though nothing had happened.
But it turned out something had happened. Gramps had sneezed so hard he wasn’t a big nose anymore but looked just like the Gramps we knew when I was awake. Like I’ve said again and again, dreams are strange and go where they want. From that day on my dream Gramps was just Gramps with a normal nose. The other result was that last sneeze blew away Gramps’ cold. Also made his left eye swell shut so when he walked outside he was wearing a black eye patch. As for his powers of flight and time travel, they were still there. Yup, that was the best part. When we were with my dream Gramps you never knew where or when you’d end up.
Once he was in the back yard Gramps called out, “Luke and Matt you can come out now. Bring grandma with you. Everything is okay. Well, most everything.”
By the time Luke and I were in the back yard Gramps was busy uprooting and fixing our two pirate ships. Crammed them together, did a lot of lashing with duct tape and made them into one big galleon.
“That should do ‘er. The three of us are going to take a trip. This time we’re not going to fly anywhere. Nope. We’re off on a river voyage. First off we need to get this tub down to the creek. It’ll be touch and go seeing as how the boat’s so big and creek’s so little but we’ll figure us a way won’t we mateys? Once over the falls, we’re down to the Mississippi, next stop St. Louis where we’ll cruise up the Missouri to the Big Sioux River and our final port of call at Sioux Falls. There we’ll pick up your cousins, Jakob and Mollie. Where we’ll go from there is anyone’s guess but we’ll head somewhere, you can bet on that.”
“That should do ‘er. The three of us are going to take a trip. This time we’re not going to fly anywhere. Nope. We’re off on a river voyage. First off we need to get this tub down to the creek. It’ll be touch and go seeing as how the boat’s so big and creek’s so little but we’ll figure us a way won’t we mateys? Once over the falls, we’re down to the Mississippi, next stop St. Louis where we’ll cruise up the Missouri to the Big Sioux River and our final port of call at Sioux Falls. There we’ll pick up your cousins, Jakob and Mollie. Where we’ll go from there is anyone’s guess but we’ll head somewhere, you can bet on that.”
Lucky for us Gramps knew where the lever was to lower the wheels on the pirate ship. He said, “That’s one of the beauties of traveling in a toy. Toys don’t care if they’re the same as the real thing. They don’t need to. Part of what makes them what they are lies in the imagination of the person playing with it. Real ships don’t roll on wheels. Everyone knows that. But the picture in my head doesn’t care about that at all. Sometimes you need wheels, sometimes you don’t. And, as I see it, the best way to get the ship down to the creek is to roll it.’
Yeah, I suppose we could’ve taken it apart, piece by piece and carried it but Gramps said that’d be way too hard. Instead, the three of us got behind and pushed. Through the gate, into the street, around the corner, up the hill, then jumped aboard and rode ‘er down the hill like a big, old skateboard. Yahoo! Faster and faster till we hit the curb, knocked the wheels off the bottom, flew through the air, grabbed a branch on the big cottonwood tree by the foot bridge, spun around so we were facing the right direction, splashed into the water on top of four very unhappy ducks and we were off to the falls. Sounded like fun till I remembered what the falls was like; a fifty foot drop of roaring white water and into the tiny little pool at the bottom. Looked like our voyage was short-lived unless we figured something out quick.
Luke whispered to ask me if I thought Gramps knew what he was doing. I said, “I doubt it. He always says he has no idea what’s coming around the bend but for sure something is and there’ll be plenty of time to worry about it once we get there. Then he gets a big grin on his face and reminds us this is only a dream and strange things happens in dreams. Sometimes, scary things, sometimes funny things. But no matter what happens, come morning we’ll be home, in our beds, and have a whole day to look forward to.”
I turned toward Gramps but he was nowhere to be seen till I looked up. There he was atop the highest mast and yelling, “Look out boys, here they come! “
“Here what comes Gramps?”
“The river birches dead ahead, that’s what. Those birches are near the nastiest trees in the whole world outside of maybe a pair of teaks over in the Far East. Now those were some seriously ornery cusses. They’d have liked nothing better than to turn a man’s feet backwards. Put the right one on the left side and the left one on the right. If they’d have done that to me I’d have never gotten anywhere. Would’ve spent the whole day trying to get my shoes on so they looked right. The river birches up ahead aren’t quite that evil but you don’t ever want to let one touch you. They know how to tickle like nothin’ else in the whole world. And once you start laughing that’s all she wrote. Next thing you’d know the whole boat of us would be tumbling over the falls and laughin’ so hard we couldn’t see a thing. Nope, you don’t want that at all as you shall see.”
Gramps’ plan was simple. We’d turn the ship around so we’d be floating backwards and all three of us’d be looking upstream and carrying on about how much fun we’d have once we got to Lake Hiawatha. The idea was making the birches think we’d already passed by.
“Doubt that’d fool anything but a river birch. Yup, they’re dumb as stumps. Could even be where the saying came from.”
Luke said Gramps must be even dumber than the trees for that to work. Have to admit I felt the same way. But it worked alright. I guess when it comes to doing dumb things to fool even dumber things Gramps finds himself right at home.
A ways down stream we came on small forest. Mostly oaks and a few cottonwoods. Again it was the trees that held the problem but this problem sang. Up above in the upper branches I could see a flock of blue. Looked like birds but Gramps said they were alligators, little blue ones that could sing as sweet as could be,
“Don’t listen to their songs for more than a moment or two or the music’ll pull you in and not let go. Even though they’re little, those gators are terrors. It’s the size of their itty-bitty jaws that gave them the reason to sing. You see they live in trees ‘cause they’re afraid of running around on the ground. When you’re as little as they are most anything can eat you up or store you in a nest till the winter comes. In the case of these mini-gators it’s squirrels. Seems the gators taste like cashews with a dash of sea salt and you know how much squirrels like cashews. So they learned to sing the nicest songs in the world. Gets people to stop and pay attention. Next thing you know, those little gators swoop out of the trees like leaves in the fall. Come down in a cloud of blue and grab on where they will. Nose, ears, clothes, anywhere. It’s then that they get nasty. Not so much that they hurt you but they do get demanding. Say things like, ‘Take me to the store. Take me to the movies. Take me to the mall ‘cause I need a new pair or shoes and an ice cream cone.’ Yes, they get downright annoying and we don’t need that now. We’ve got us a waterfall up ahead to plummet down and I have no desire to listen to a flock of blue mini-gators yammering away. You boys okay with that?”
I looked at Luke and Luke looked back at me. Yes, there was no doubt both of us wanted a few of the gators to play with. Who wouldn’t? But Gramps said no and no it was. Looked like we were off to the falls though I had my doubts about how smart that was. Oh well, what could you say to a pretend pirate while floating along in a pretend pirate ship?
Once past the pond on the other side of the parkway we were grabbed hold of by the rapids and all but lost control of the boat. For a moment we were going sideways, then backwards, and for a flash it felt like we were turned inside-out. Finally, Gramps got ‘er under control and we shot straight toward the drop. We smashed through the last chance, protecting chain then Gramps yelled, “Hang on boys, here she goes!”
Straight down we shot, like a speeding arrow toward the pool below. This was crazy! Completely nuts! I glanced at Gramps. He had a big, yellow-toothed grin on his face and I could almost see what looked to be a parrot on his shoulder. Then the vision was gone and we exploded into the pool. Hit so hard our splash made huge bubbles. Gramps grabbed three of them, put one on my head, one on Luke’s and the last for himself so we could breathe should we be trapped under water.
The other times Luke and I had gone to the falls with Grandma Lois and Gramps, the pool below the falls looked small and for sure had to be shallow. But now it looked like I was wrong. Once in the water we kept going down and down and down. Then leveled out on an underwater stream of air. I thought for a second and figured it made sense. Up above, in the air, we’d been on a stream of water. So, down below in the water, why not a stream of air? Next thing I knew we passed a sign with strange words on it and an arrow pointing back to where we’d come from. Later Gramps said the sign read MISSISSIPPI RIVER but was written backwards (and looked more like this: REVIR IPPISSISSIM) ‘cause we passing through a corner of Backward Land and that’s why the arrow pointed the wrong way. Then added he would have let us know when we were on the river of air but the words he spoke would’ve come out backwards and we wouldn’t have understood.
A few seconds later we popped out of Backward Land no more than a hundred feet from the big river and boy were we wet. Soaked to the bone. In fact, even our bones were wet. But the sun was out and the breeze up. Wouldn’t take long at all before we were dry.
Wasn’t long before Gramps beached the boat on a sandbar in mid-river. We climbed over the rail and dropped to the sand below. We’d no sooner hit ground then Gramps was off and talking,
“We’ve got us a job to do boys and it’s not an easy one. However, if you’ll allow me, I’ve got a way around most of the work and it involves using the magic finger. Two of them actually, ‘cause no matter how magic a finger might be, one is never finger enough to do the job. Luke I want you to head around to the rear of the ship, Matt to the front. Once there, each of you take off your right shoe and sock. Just the right one and no more. Last time I tried this with both shoes and socks off the result wasn’t pretty. Won’t say more.
“You two ready?”
We both called out, “Yes Gramps,” but the way we said the words sure sounded like we both thought we were doing something dumb, maybe even stupid. Could be Gramps was getting a little too old and his brain a little soft in places. What he said next seemed even dumber.
“Next, each of you touch the boat right right smack in the middle with the little finger of your left hand. Got that?”
We did.
“Now, this is the important part and you have to get it right. Say these four words. Say them slowly and say them like you mean it. Sunset, banana, lawn chair. Got it?”
Whoa. No doubt about it now, we were in the hands of a doddering, old fruitcake. But we did as told, slowly and like we meant it.
“Now jump back and get out of the way!”
At first nothing happened. Then the ship began to creak, groan and vibrate. Slowly at first then it began to come apart piece by piece. Faster and faster. Finally it began to change shape. Click! Bang! Snap! Pah-twang! Boom, boom, boom! And flatten out till it turned into a raft. Not just any raft either. There was a little cabin in the middle, a mast with a sail, two huge oars, one to each side, and a long, fish-shaped tiller to help us steer.
“I figure since we were heading down the Mississippi we should do it Huck Finn style. In fact, in a few days we’ll be passing Hannibal, Missouri where Mark Twain had Huck set out on his expedition. First off we’ll have to get us some groceries. Matt, Luke, you two boys up for some adventure?”
We both yelled out we were then set to launching our craft, paddled out in the main current and we were off. Ten minutes passed.
“Now for some groceries.” Gramps snapped his fingers three times and stood, arms folded and looking down river like he was expecting something.
“Here we go. Luke and Matt, you see that bulge in the river up ahead.”
We both stared then Luke yelled out, “Yes. There it is!”
At first it was only a rise in the water. Next there was a spout of river shooting straight up. Finally we saw it. A whale. A whale? What in the world was a whale doing in the river. They were supposed to be out in the ocean. But sure enough it was a whale and it swam up to us and stopped. No sooner did the huge white animal arrive then it’s mouth opened wide and a man stepped out.
Gramps laughed like he was meeting an old friend, “How’ve you been Jonah? Quite a while since we last hooked up.”
“Yah sure, you old geezer. Too long. S’pose you’re here to stock up?”
“That’s oh so true. Me and the boys have a meeting with their cousins or we’d stop and chat for a while. So shopping is what we’re here for.”
Shopping? With an old guy dressed like he lived in the desert? Who just stepped out of a whale like it was the most normal thing in the world? Well, what the heck, why not?
We tied up to the whale, hopped into the mouth to alongside Jonah and walked inside the whale. Wow! Gramps was right, this was just like a grocery store with lights above and even carpeting on the floor. We grabbed a cart and toured the aisles. Since there was no refrigerator aboard our raft we only grabbed things that were dried and a lot of fruit. Gramps said for meat, we’d catch what we needed from the river. Before we left Gramps pointed a finger at Jonah and Jonah did the same towards Gramps. Next they wiggled their fingers slowly and chanted, “One, two, three, when you shop in a whale, all the groceries are free,” then laughed and laughed. Strange old men.
We slept on the raft that night somewhere along the Minnesota/Wisconsin border. The wind was up so Gramps tucked us beneath a tall bluff along a sand beach and tied us off to a pair of box elder trees. Nice place to be. Across the big river the green, rolling Wisconsin hills glowed from the setting sun. Gramps said we were having manna for supper. Looked more like hamburger, green beans and sweet potatoes to me.
“Well, manna is what it is. That’s what God fed the Israelites when they fled from Egypt. Anyhow, that’s what they called it in the Bible. No one really knows what it was that God passed on to them. Me, I think it was more on the order of pizza and apple juice. So to my way of thinking, what we’re eating tonight is as much manna as what they ate on the desert. Besides we did our shopping in the belly of a whale with a man from the Old Testament. So, manna it is.”
Morning came way too early and popped up over the hills long before I wanted to get up. But Gramps was already up and at it. The smell of frying bacon drew both Luke and I from the little cabin. We were about halfway done with the meal when it happened. Let me tell you it scared the pants off of all three of us. The first one thundered into the water no more than ten feet away and shot up a plume of water so high it got all of us wet. And the water sure didn’t smell good. Reeked to high heaven. Gramps gave his shirt a sniff and yelled, “Diaper bombs! Head for the trees boys we’re in serious danger!”
Diaper bombs? I had no idea what in the world diaper bombs were but the very thought of what might be in them got my feet moving in a blur. I dove to cover just before the next missile crashed down smack dab in the middle of the raft. There was no serious damage beyond us having to eventually clean the boat.
Next thing I knew there was a tiny dot soaring down out of the clouds growing bigger and bigger with each passing second. I stared above and squinched my eyes till… there was Snoopy’s dog house with both Snoopy and Joshua atop and laughing up a storm. Down they swooped, Snoopy at the controls and Josh swinging around the diaper cannon. Toonk! Toonk! Toonk! Josh fired away, loaded diaper after loaded diaper screamed down, smacking into tree branches and spraying us below. What was going on? And what were Snoopy and Josh doing in my dream? This was all wrong. And smelled worse.
Next thing I knew, Mom and Dad were in my room and shaking me away.
“Wake up. Wake up. What’s wrong Matthew? It sounded like you were having a bad dream and yelling like you were being attacked by something.”
It took a moment before my head finally cleared away the dream clouds and knew everything was okay, that I was at home and safe in my own bed. That’s when we heard the yelling from Luke’s room. All three of us ran across the hall. Luke was still asleep but calling out, “Diapers! Please, no more diapers.”
Mom shook him awake and gave him a big hug, “It’s okay Luke. It’s okay.” Seems he’d been having the same dream as me. I didn’t think that was possible. Unless…. Hmm, was it possible?
A moment later we heard noises from Joshua’s room and all four of us ran down the hall. There he was, in his crib and still sound asleep with a smile on his face and softly chuckling. Every so often he mumbled, “Toonk, toonk, toonk.” Wow, could it be all three of us were having the same dream? Nah, there was no way that was possible. But still, it sure seemed that way.
Five minutes later, snuggled back in my bed, I fell asleep. And woke up to the smell of bacon frying and Gramps calling, “C’mon boys! Rise and shine. We ‘re burning daylight and have places to go, things to see.”
I looked at Luke. He looked at me, nodded and said, “It’s good to be back.”
I woke up in the middle of a nightmare. Two of them actually. In the first, my cousins Matt and Luke were being bombarded with diaper bombs by their little brother Joshua. I don’t know how but Josh was aboard a flying doghouse like the one in the Peanuts cartoons. There was a white dog doing the flying but I couldn’t tell if it was Snoopy or not. Strange but what the heck, dreams are always strange. The worst part was how hard Josh was laughing. For a toddler that kid sure has a wicked sense of humor. Somehow or other, Matt and Luke were on a black, plastic raft beached along the Mississippi River together with our Grandpa Mark (we all call him Gramps).
In the other dream, the raft was stuck on a sandbar somewhere downstream from us on the Big Sioux River. They’d been there for a few days and were running out of food. Next thing I knew a storm rolled in over the prairie. Wind, rain and hail pummeled down on them. A minute later, off in the black distance, I could see a tornado approaching. They were in big trouble for sure. I tried to warn them but wasn’t able to speak. Then tried to signal them but couldn’t move my arms. That’s when I woke up on my tummy with my arms pinned beneath me. I was scared for them and trembling in fear of what might happen. Like all dreams it seemed like it was actually happening. Somehow I knew I had to find a way to help the three of them.
Not knowing what to do I rose, crossed the hall and snuck into my sister Mollie’s room. I wasn’t expecting her to be awake in the middle of the night but she was. And she seemed as frightened as me.
Mollie whispered, “Did you see the tornado?”
I sure wasn’t expecting that. We quietly talked it over for a minute and realized we’d been having the same dream.
“Mollie, I don’t know why but I think what’s in my first dream has already happened but the second one with the tornado hasn’t. Even though it’s only a dream, somehow we have to find and warn them.”
“Dream or not,” whispered Mollie, “I think you’re right. I also think that if we can reach the three of them before they get stuck on that sandbar, everything will be okay. Yes Jakob, in some ways dreams aren’t real. But in others they are. They’re like a world hiding behind our waking world and the two of them go hand-in-hand. For whatever reason, we have to find Luke, Matt and Gramps before it’s too late.”
“So, how in the world do we do that?”
“Jakob, sometimes you make things harder than they have to be. The solution is simple. We were each having the same dream and the dreams told us the three of them were in trouble. So to save them we first have to go back to sleep and wait for another dream to take us to the next step. Now go back to your room.”
So, that’s what I did.
A few minutes later I found myself still in bed but my mattress was hard as a rock. And slippery as could be. No more than ten feet away, about as far as her bed is from mine in mom and dad’s house if you took the walls out of the way, there was Mollie, also still in bed and sitting up. The funny part was her bed was made from Legos and her blanket was woven from what looked like little, blue alligators. I sat up and looked toward my feet. Sure enough my blanket was also made from hundreds of little, blue alligators and they were singing softly, so softly I couldn’t make out their words. Next I noticed my bed was also made from Legos, big ones just like Mollie’s.
My sister turned to me and said, Time to get up and listen to the music.”
“Huh?”
“Jakob, are you already as deaf as Gramps? Listen to what the ‘gators are singing. It’s a simple song and makes sense to me.”
Mollie started singing, “Get out of bed, stand on the ground. Take your Lego bed apart and change it all around. Make a raft, raft, raft. Make a raft, raft, raft.”
So that’s what we did, sang and built. Made a many-colored raft with a little cabin in the middle and a mast. For a sail we sang to the ‘gators, “C’mon ‘gators we don’t want to fail, clamp yourselves together and make us a sail, a sail, a sail.” And that’s what they did. Now we not only had a way of using the wind, we also had entertainment.
When done we did a high five, a low five, a fist bump, slid our singing raft off the sand and into the current. We were off and on our way down the Big Sioux River to a rendezvous with our cousins and Gramps.
We’d been on the river for three days. Mostly we floated and let the current carry us where it wanted. When we drifted too close to shore or had to move out of the way of a big paddle-wheeled river boat, Gramps would grab the tiller and direct us on a safe course. Neither Luke nor I had ever been on the Mississippi before and didn’t know what to expect. What we found was interesting and like everything else we’d done with Gramps, was also a little strange.
Gramps said it was his fault, “I used to be able to control when we were as well as where, good as good can be, but now time kind of bounces around on me. Sometimes it’s today, sometimes it a thousand years ago. The hard part is learning to accept when we are and doing whatever we have to do to fit in with that time. At the moment we’re cruising along in about 1870. That’s why that big paddle wheeler steamed by an hour ago. Should we move much farther into the past we just might have to deal with rapids on the river. Ahead, in our time those rough spots in the river are gone. The Army built dozens of locks and dams to both control the flooding and allow big barges and ships to travel safely.”
Seeing as how we had the wind to our backs, Gramps put up the sail. We still didn’t move very fast but we did put quite a few miles to our rear. He had Luke man the tiller while I stood up front and scanned the river for dangers like rocks, floating trees, or maybe even herds of bison. Late in the afternoon we came upon the first truly fast water of the voyage. Gramps lowered the sail and told us to get ready for some fun. Whenever Gramps tells us to get ready for fun he usually means things are going to get a little bit scary. Yes, I was worried but so far we’d come through all our adventures without a scratch. Guess once again it was time to let Gramps take over. What he did was, as usual, odd as could be and something I’d never thought of doing. I mean, who could?
“C’mon lads, gather over here. We’ve got us some work to do. Luke, you face down river. Matt, up river. Me, I’ll stand on my head and we’ll all hold hands. Form a chain. Next we’ll count backwards from nineteen to eleven. No more no less. Ready?”
So that’s what we did. Counted slowly ‘cause it was hard making sure we got the numbers in just the right order. I don’t know why but fourteen went into hiding for a moment but then it popped into my head. Whew! That was close.
No sooner did we call out eleven and all three of us started to vibrate. The raft also. Then, just before we came upon a sharp drop of the river and were no more than a second from smashing into a huge, jagged rock, all three of us and the raft turned into bubbles. Lots of bubbles. And we settled down on the water and flowed smoothly through the dangerous water.
Yes, that was a little odd even for Gramps but wasn’t the strangest part. Each and every bubble had a goldfish in it. Big ones, little ones, each fish just the right size for the bubble it was in. At first I didn’t know if I’d be able to look and see anything because the water was moving so fast but then it all turned into slow motion and I was. Suddenly, no more than two feet away, in one of the biggest bubbles, something was moving in the goldfish’s eye. I squinched my eyes and stared and stared till I saw what it was. Or should I say, who it was. Yup, there was Luke, tiny as could be. He was no more than a reflection in the fish’s eye and he was smiling and waving hi. Could it be I was the same? Just maybe I was. Around me were two more big bubbles, and inside, two more goldfish, and in their eyes were Gramps in one and the raft in the other. I hope you understand that they weren’t really in those goldfish eyes. No, they were nothing but reflections, like seeing them in mirrors. Something like they were there and not there at the same time. By now I figured for sure I must be the same. If so, it felt like I was real. Even pinched myself to make sure.
We swirled by rocks and over big, feeding river fish. It felt like we were part of the river. Never felt that way before. I searched around me to see more bubbles and goldfish. Yup, in every one of them was a fish and in every eye there was a Luke or Gramps or raft. Crazy. Then, all of us swirled out and into calm water where we gathered in a pile of foam. Once there, each and every bubble popped at the same time and we found ourselves back on the raft. Soaking wet for sure but safe and sound. Luke started giggling, reached into a pants pocket and pulled out a goldfish. We all laughed at that. What could I say about what happened except that it did. Oh well, this was only a dream. Like Gramps said, a fun dream to be sure, but just a dream.
Meanwhile, back on the Big Sioux:
Mollie and Jakob weren’t long into their float down the brown river when it happened. In fact they were still in South Dakota or if they were on the east half of the river, Iowa. Truth is it didn’t matter at all which state they were in as you shall see. What did strike their attention was not having seen a plowed field or farmhouse for quite a while. This wasn’t country crowded with a lot of buildings by any means but not a single sign of civilization was certainly odd. Even odder was the weather, warm and wind free with towering purple clouds off on the horizon below a bright, winking sun. Yes, the day star was winking like an eyeball as though to draw attention to itself.
It was Jakob who first noticed, an odd moment in itself seeing as how his mind was usually on the roam everywhere but where he was at the moment. He couldn’t help it. The young man simply had an active mind and it needed room to look around. Anyhow, what called his attention to the sun were the shadows it cast from the shoreline trees. Instead of pointing away from the sun like any self-respecting shadow should, they pointed toward it. “Strange,” thought Jakob. His eyes followed the shadow-pointing trees then up.
He turned to Mollie and asked, “I could be wrong but as I recall, the sun is usually round and solid. And so bright you can’t look right at it. Almost every time I draw it in a picture, just before I start laughing and the sun explodes and wipes out the the solar system in a blaze of fire that is, I draw it round ‘cause that’s what shape it is. What do you think?”
“Yes, that’s the way I recall it. What do you think about the that thick, band-like line across the middle?”
That’s what was happening all right. All of a sudden the line began to turn left, then right, back and forth, faster and faster. Finally it stopped for a moment before the sun broke up and began to form letters, one at a time: B E S U R E T O D R I N K Y O U R O V A L T I N E.
The two of them laughed, “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine? What is this? Is the sun turning into Ralphie’s magic decoder from “A Christmas Story.” A crummy commercial from a movie? They both agreed that if their dream was going to keep heading in this stupid direction they’d simply wake up and be done with it. Seemed the sun understood, nodded yes and went back to just being the sun.
But that wasn’t the end of the weirdness. Not at all. No sooner did the two of them sit back, relax and let the wind move them down the river then, off in the distance, beneath the towering purple clouds, a soft roar arose. Hard to hear at first, almost like the wind was playing tricks on Jakob and Mollie’s ears. But the noise grew a little louder. Then louder still till there was no doubt something was coming and coming fast. And the louder the roar, the taller the purple clouds.
Mollie’ forehead wrinkled as she stared off toward the west and said, “I have no idea what’s going on or what’s coming our way but I’m starting to get a little nervous.”
It was then that the ground began to shake and rumble and a cloud of dust arose and slowly began to blot out the smiling sun till the two of them were surrounded by an evening in mid-day. The river began to vibrate, then splash in all directions and form waves from the front, sides and rear, tossing the little’ plastic raft about.
Above the roar Mollie and Jakob began to hear a buzzing. A wall of buzzing from horizon to horizon. The first bee passed them like a bullet. Then a fly. ZZZZZZZZZZZOWWWWWWWW! More and more they came, a cloud of flying bugs. Our heroes dove into their on-deck hut and held on for dear life. The bees and flies were followed by birds, millions of birds. Sparrows, ducks, storks, cardinals, passenger pigeons, every kind of bird imaginable. Then animals. Mice, chipmunks, squirrels, cats, dogs, bobcats, wolves, saber-toothed tigers (saber-toothed tigers? Dear Lord what was going on?), deer, moose, rhinos, bison, a thundering herd of bison, an ocean of bison, lastly came woolly mammoths. Yup, it was the mammoths that caught Mollie and Jakob’s notice that something out of the ordinary, way out of the ordinary was going on. There hadn’t been a woolly mammoth of the Dakota plains for thousands of years. And all of those animals ran plowing through the Big Sioux River. Ran so hard and fast they dried up the river bed for twenty miles in each direction. Threw up so much dirt the Big Sioux was dammed solid upstream. Left the two of them on the dry river bed and tucked beneath a bank as the herds thundered and flew by and over them.
Lastly they heard a booming voice. A thundering voice louder even than the roar about them. It seemed to be yelling, “YEE-HAW! KEEP ON A MOVIN’! WE GOT US A GOD-DIRECTED APPOINTMENT WITH DESTINY! YES SIR! THAT’S WHAT WE HAVE ALL RIGHT! SO ALL YOU FLEA BITTEN VARMINTS JUST BETTER KEEP ON A-RUNNIN’! YEEEEE_HAWWWW!!!!” Followed by the cracking of a mighty whip.
No sooner did the two of them hear the whip when they saw the wielder. And what they also saw was near impossible to believe but there it was, no doubt about it.. Noah’s ark on wheels in a flying cloud of dust and being towed by fourteen thousand, two hundred and thirty-six reindeer. Atop the ark was Noah himself, crackin’ away with a hundred yard long whip and yelling like a thunderstorm.
Jakob whistled and softly said, “That’s sure something you don’t see every day.”
The ark flew right over the top of the dam, crashed down atop it and continued on in hot pursuit of nearly every animal in North America for the last ten thousand years. Yup, Jakob was right, you sure don’t see that every day.
Seems the water of the Big Sioux had piled up behind that dam and when Noah and his big wood boat came down on it like a meteor from space, they blew it all to pieces. Mollie and Jakob had no sooner crawled out of the cabin and dusted themselves off when they heard and saw the fifty foot high wall of water roaring down at them.
Mollie scream, “Hang on Jakob, here it comes!”
Over here on the Mississippi, Luke, Gramps and I were having a swell time; good weather, plenty of food thanks to Jonah and his whale of a grocery story, and a crescent moon at night. Not just any crescent moon either. This was a smiling one that punched a time clock and slept during the daytime over on the other side of the world.
As I recall, it was on the fourth night, under a near full moon that we felt the rumble and heard the roar. Off on the horizon soared towering, moonlit clouds. Pretty as could be but Gramps said a storm might soon pay us a visit. As it turned out he was both wrong and right at the same time. What did pay us a visit was a storm of sorts but not like any I’d ever seen before.
Luke and I crawled in the cabin and tried to sleep but neither of us were having much luck what with the roar in the distance. Wasn’t so much the roar that was keeping us awake more that it kept growing louder with each passing minute. Finally Luke and I couldn’t take it any longer and crawled out of the cabin to see what we would see.
Gramps was already up and had a cup of coffee in his hand. He took a sip and said, “Good thing the moon is bright tonight. Not sure what’s coming but I sure want to see it.”
No more than a heartbeat later the first bee came smoking by and was immediately followed a wall cloud of bees and flies that blurred by like a million angry bullets. No sooner had they passed then all the birds in the world came winging and quacking and yodeling through, above and below us. They were followed by a sea of small animals stretching as far as we could see. What struck me most was a herd of turtles wearing running shoes, all of them yellow with blue stripes, sprinting by on their hind legs. Never thought I’d ever see that. And fast? Those turtles were so fast they had to run up and over a passel of rabbits that weren’t quick enough to scamper out of the way. Had Aesop seen what we were seeing, he’d have had to change one of his fables. No sooner did we spy the throng of bison, giraffes and a hundred other kinds of big animals then they were upon us in a cloud of dust, flying tree limbs and one poor chickens bouncing from back to back and squawking to high heave herd. Did they slow when it came to the river? Not in the least. The entire thundering herd ran right through the river. Pushed so hard against each other and ran so fast they dried a path clean from Iowa to Wisconsin. Left the three of us high and dry and sitting there on our raft surrounded by a school of flapping bullheads.
By now we were into the rhinos, elephants and Kodiak bears. Big, big animals one and all. By now the three of us were bounced around under a cloud of falling dust and holding onto the raft for dear life. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, the ground began to rumble, crumble and shake so hard, it pummeled up into a dam on the upriver side. Stopped up the mighty river behind a hundred foot high wall and made the Mississippi as mad as could be. That river wanted nothing so much as to bust down that wall and get even with all those crazy herds of animals. Wash ‘em all the way into the Gulf of Mexico without so much as a moment’s layover in the French Quarter of New Orleans to enjoy all that good Creole cooking.
It was just behind the wave of pink elephants blowing bubbles from their trunks that the three of us saw the ship. Gramps said, “Well if that don’t beat all? I’ve heard tales of a great flood and also of a big boat by the name of the Ark but never, ever figured on seeing it, especially in the state of Iowa, painted in John Deere colors and bouncing along on oversized tractor tires. Puttin’ two and two together that must be Noah atop the ship and caterwauling up a storm. Always figured him to be a serious and sober man what with the whole world to save but from what I see, the man’s a little over the edge. Maybe way over the edge and into the next county. As to all the reindeers pulling his ship, I figure Noah’s got himself confused with someone else.”
As the Ark rolled closer we could see Noah wasn’t the only person or animal on that boat. No sir, there were heads sticking out of every single porthole. Monkeys, mongooses, macaws, mice, marsupials of all sorts, moose, mountain goats, myna birds, mules, mosquitoes, even a Muppet or two and that was just the ‘M’s. Atop, behind the great man, stood Noah’s family and a few of his neighbors who’d stopped by to have a cup of coffee only to find themselves on the world’s biggest, land-roving boat and thundering over the Great Plains of North America on the other side of the planet. Did they see that coming? No sir, they did not.
Noah was doing a pretty good job of cracking his super long whip and driving the herds on but the crowd up top with him kept yelling, “Louder! Louder!’ And “Faster! Faster!” Lord did they make a racket, like a storm of noise, the biggest, baddest, wettest storm ever. A storm so big that should it ever start raining words from the sky, it might never stop.
It looked for sure like the Ark would pass right over us and we’d be goners for sure but then Gramps caught Noah’s eye, gave him a big crescent moon wink and pointed up river where the big dam was. Noah laughed and gave us a thumb’s up, hung a sharp left, hit a bump, the Ark flew up in the air like a rocket and came crashing down on the dam. Not good.
Well it sure wasn’t good and at the same time it was. No sooner did the Ark hit the dam then the ocean of water that’d piled up for hundreds of miles all the way back to the Minnehaha Creek where we’d started, broke loose, turned the big boat nose downstream till it was pointing right at us, then came surfing down on us like gangbusters, as Gramps would’ve said if he’d not been yelling, “Oh me, oh my. Hang on boys were off to the races!”
The river hit us first, bounced us a little to the west and the next thing I knew we were racing downriver, the three of us on our little plastic raft, side-by-side with the Ark and both boats on the face of a roaring mountain of river.
Let’s see, where did I leave Jakob and Mollie? Ah yes, they were atop a large wave of floodwater and racing south on the Big Sioux River. At first they were terrified as to what might happen. Then for a while they were only scared. After twenty-three minutes and eleven seconds, the two of them began to realize they might be okay and surfing on a river might actually be fun. Next, they began to laugh about their strange situation and began to plot things they might do to make their ride even more fun.
Jakob stood up and began to rock the raft to the right and the left. With each bobbing of the boat, they began to zigzag just a little bit. “I’ve got an idea Mollie, why don’t we both get on the same side of the raft to see what it does?”
So that’s what they did and slowly the boat began to drift to the right. They moved a little forward and the raft slid down the face of the wave. They moved toward the rear a little and found themselves balanced just below center of the wave top and still slowly gliding to the right.
“Jakob, let’s run to the other side and see what happens.” They scampered and sure enough, the boat slid to the left.
Next thing you know the two of them were trying this and that, up and down, back and forth, just like they were on the biggest surf board in the world, on the biggest wave west of the Mississippi and they were having the time of their lives. That’s when it all changed.
What they didn’t know - well, had they given their situation some thought and considered how it came about, what happened next sure wouldn’t have come as a surprise - was where Noah and his huge herd of beasts had been before they crossed the Big Sioux. I’m sure two well educated children like our surfing heroes, must have been aware of the mighty Missouri River to their west. They also had seen what happened when all those millions of animals thundered across a river. But had they given it any thought? No sir, they had not. But they quickly learned the error of their ways.
As fate or luck would have it, a Noah-caused wave of enormous size was also rumbling and roaring down the mighty Missouri to their west and had been for hundreds of miles. Lucky for our two heroes, not all of the animals on the Great Plains had been rounded up by Noah and his monstrous Ark. Nope. It seems one baby bison had been sleeping in the shade of a sprawling cottonwood tree along along a stream in the area of Wyoming the Cheyenne called Greasy Grass. When the baby awoke he found himself covered in dust and all alone. No matter where he searched, he could not find his mom and dad. Yes, he was one unhappy bison, bawling out, “Mom!” And crying out “Dad!”, till he was caught up in a monstrous wave that’d overflowed the banks of the Missouri many miles away. Then he instantly turned into one scared bison, who was tossed to and fro, up and down and back and forth in the monstrous wave for many, many miles.
Back on the Big Sioux, Mollie and Jakob heard it before they saw it. At first it was nothing but a soft rumbling in the distance, barely loud enough to be heard over the wave they were riding. Slowly the noise grew and grew and grew till it became like a hundred thunderstorms all rolled into one. Finally they saw it, a mountain of a wave storming down the huge river they were rapidly approaching. They barely had time to understand what was happening before they were in it.
Think of a washing machine. A big washing machine. One so big it was tumbling boulders and trees. Also now, one small plastic raft made from Legos with two children aboard who were wishing they were home in bed and not caught up in their Grandfather’s silly imagination and at the mercy of his fingertips as he pecked out this dangerous story. Ah, what they didn’t know was a couple of paragraphs earlier he conjured up a baby bison. Not only did he think up the bison, he made it into a white bison with magical powers. Not great magical powers mind you but just magical enough to get Mollie and Jakob out of their predicament. This baby bison had the power of the Toot of Propulsion. When he grew scared, very scared, because being only a little scared wasn’t enough to give him the Power, he could turn himself into a little, woolly, bottle rocket. Whether air or water, the itty-bitty bison could suck it in through his mouth and blow it out his backside with such force, he could either fly through the air or jet-ski through water.
As luck would have it, just as our heroes thought they were done for, the baby bison found the raft and Mollie and Jakob, jetted his way back and forth, gathered them up and propelled all four of them onto the face of the wave. Once again they were back to surfing, soaked to the bone and with a new companion.
