Felix Discovers the DreamWorld and Other Stories

by Alyce Wilson

  Chapter Three - Felix Visits the DreamWorld Zoo

  Felix wanted to go to the zoo, but has mommy said he couldn't because he had a cold. And even though he pointed out that the polar bears and penguins and lions and tigers probably wouldn't catch his cold, she told him that the other human could. So he spent all day drawing zebras and giraffes when really he wanted to be meeting them in person.

  When he went to bed that night, his mom suggested that maybe he could go to a zoo in his dream, and he'd be able to see all the animals that he would ever want to see, including some animals that probably don't even exist. She hung his animal drawings next to the bad, telling him they were for inspiration. When he asked her what "inspiration" meant, she said it meant something that gives you ideas.

  After his money kissed him goodbye and turned out the light, he could barely see the animal drawings in pale blue light of this night light. The giraffe looked like it had a longer neck than it should have, and the hippo looked like it had a head on each end. He wondered what zoos would look like on other planets, what kind of animals they would contain. He closed his eyes and imagined purple lions and sharks that could walk on land. He saw a leopard with spots that moved and even a hyena that could speak English. When he opened his eyes, he saw a large arch made of marble and silver blocks. Across the top was etched the word "ZOO."

  Next to him, Drusus, his dinosaur friend, bounced around excitedly. "I'm so excited," he said needlessly. Then all of a sudden, the dinosaur stopped bouncing. With a concerned look on his face, Drusus asked, "You don't think they'll put me in a cage, do you?"

  Felix shrugged. "Why would they?"

  Drusus leaned his long neck down to talk softly in Felix's ear. "Because I am an animal."

  As gently as he could, Felix corrected him. "You're not animal; you're a dinosaur."

  As if trying to understand, Drusus shook his head slowly. "I thought dinosaurs were animals, but just really, really old ones."

  With authority, Felix answered, "Yes, but a zoo is only for new animals, so you'll be okay."

  Drusus looked relieved, and soon looked excited again. "When will Hobart get here? I can't wait to go inside!" The dinosaur bounced back and forth on his feet.

  Just when it seemed that Drusus was going to explode from excitement, Hobart rolled up, beeping and whirring.

  Felix asked the robot, "Why were you late?"

  Hobart clicked and whirred in an impatient sort of way. He answered in his usual robotic monotone, "I had to park the spaceship." The robot rolled ahead, zipped through the gate, and Felix and Drusus followed.

  Just inside the entrance, a crowd of people gathered around a small enclosure. Many of them had cameras out, taking pictures of an animal that Felix could not yet see.

  Felix couldn't see over all the people, but Drusus craned his neck and reacted with delight.

  "What is it?" Felix asked, as he stood on his tiptoes to try to see.

  Drusus said, "I'm not exactly sure. It looks like a lion, but not like any lion I've ever seen." Then Drusus seemed to think about what he'd just said. He added, "Actually, I haven't seen any lions, except in pictures, but this doesn't look like any of those lions either."

  Felix pushed forward until he could steal a look at the animal. Drusus was right: it didn't look like any lion he'd ever seen before, but it looked more like a lion than anything else. The animal was a rich magenta color, which is a lot like red was a little bit of pink added, or at least that's how he would describe it if he had to. The animal had four legs, a strong powerful chest, and a long tail with a little tuft of feathers at the end. Instead of a mane, this animal had a ruff of feathers. Instead of a lion's full set of sharp teeth, this animal had a short, stout beak just like a bird.

  Felix thought he had seen an animal like that before, maybe in one of his Mommy's mythology books, which means stories people tell about things that mostly didn't happen. If he had seen a picture of such an animal before, he couldn't remember what it was called. He leaned forward to get better look at the sign in front of the animal's enclosure, but he couldn't read it. The letters were all squiggly.

  Drusus asked him what the animal was, and Felix said importantly, "I believe it's a bird lion." Drusus repeated the name, as if memorizing it.

  Felix was about to call out to Hobart to see if he could see the animal. Hobart had no problems seeing: he'd extended his legs until was towering above the rest of the crowd, spinning his head from side to side as he looked at the bird lion. Then, spinning his head towards the next enclosure, the robot made an interested beeping sound, shrunk down to his normal size, and rolled towards the next animal.

  Waving at Drusus to follow, Felix soon caught up with his robot friend, and together, the three of them zigged and zagged through the crowd. All around them, boys and girls, mommies and daddies pointed at the new animal. He heard one girl call out, "Wow! I always hoped I'd see one of those!"

  This animal was even more popular than the last one, and Felix couldn't squeeze through to get a look. He jumped as high as he could but still couldn't see it.

  Kneeling down, Drusus suggested, "Climb on my back, and I'll help you see." So Felix scrambled onto the dinosaur's back, swinging his leg over the side. At first he wasn't sure what he should hold onto, but he discovered that Drusus had short green tuffs of fuzz sticking out all over. That's when Felix remembered that Drusus was really a plush dinosaur.

  Slowly Drusus stood up, and as he did, Felix craned his neck to see into the enclosure. It was like a little green park with white and yellow flowers and a beautiful tinkling waterfall in the back, which ran over crystal rocks. Felix knew that they were quartz, because he collected rocks with his Daddy.

  But the most amazing thing was the animal that stood in the middle of the field, switching its tail back and forth as it munched on fresh grass. The animal looked like a white horse with glints of pink and blue in its mane. She had a large, spiral horn growing out of the center of her forehead. Felix knew immediately that this was a unicorn.

  "I've always wanted to see a unicorn," said Drusus. "Do you think it will grant us wishes?"

  Hobart said, in a robot sort of way, "Wishes do not exist."

  Wistfully, Drusus said, "I wish that wishes did exist. Think of all the fun we could have."

  As he spoke those words, the unicorn looked right at the three friends. Her mane glowed, and a golden light surrounded them.

  "I think the unicorn is granting your wish," Felix said, in a hushed voice.

  Drusus looked delighted. "You mean my wish that wishes existed? Does that mean that wishes exist now? I wish I knew." A second later, Drusus said, "Of course! I wished that wishes existed, and so now wishes do exist and I can wish for something."

  Felix cautioned, "Make sure it's a good something."

  Drawing himself up importantly, Drusus announced, "I, Drusus the dinosaur, wish we would all be happy!" Immediately, he gleamed. "It worked! I'm feeling all bubbly inside." He capered around as best he could on his stubby legs.

  Dancing with him, Felix said, "I'm happy, too!" He hummed a happy tune and skipped, just because he could.

  All around them, boys and girls and mommies and daddies danced and sang happily. But not Hobart. Hobart was absolutely still.

  Gently, Felix asked him, "What's the matter, Hobart? Aren't you happy?"

  Hobart replied in a robotic monotone. "Robots do not feel."

  "So you're not sad?" Felix asked, as he continued to dance.

  Hobart answered, "I am not sad. I am a robot."

  Felix smiled and stretched out his hand to the robot. "Then dance with me!"

  With a pleasant beeping noise, Hobart rolled in circles around Felix as Drusus stomped cheerfully beside them.

  After a certain length of time, Drusus stopped dancing and said, "Hey, where did the unicorn go?"

  Felix was surprised to see the enclosure was now empty. The graceful unicorn no longer stood in its grassy, flowery field. It also wasn't
drinking from the waterfall, or taking sugar cubes from the zoo visitors at the fence. The unicorn had vanished.

  "The unicorn was stolen," Hobart said.

  "How do you know?" asked Felix. "I was too busy dancing to notice."

  Drusus admitted that he'd been too busy dancing, as well. Plus, he added, he'd also been too busy trying not to stomp on Felix's little feet with his big ones. "That takes more concentration than you'd think," Drusus said.

  Hobart simply said, "Robots notice everything." Then, rolling away quickly, he said, "They went this way." Felix and Drusus followed, because it seemed the thing to do.

  The robot rolled quickly over the sidewalk, which was made out of a stone with little twinkly bits in it that reminded Felix of stars. When Hobart bumped over the rougher parts of the sidewalk, he made little beeping noises, as if muttering to himself. Every once in a while, he stopped, spun around to take in his surroundings, looked down at the ground and up at the sky, and then started up again.

  "What's he doing?" Drusus asked, in a hushed voice.

  Felix responded, "I think he's tracking the unicorn thief."

  Drusus nodded and then, after a pause, asked, "What's tracking?"

  "It means following their tracks," Felix answered. And then, because it looked like Drusus was about to ask another question, he added, "Tracks are like footprints and other signs a person or animal leaves behind. Like broken twigs or scattered sand."

  Immediately, Drusus dipped his long neck so that his head was close to the ground. "I