Page 24 of Barbie: Dreamscape

“How—how safe is this?” I call down to him, panicked, white-knuckling the sides of the boat. I’m hovering just above the rooftop of the garage.

“Not very!” he says from below.

Wonderful.

“But how—”

The boat shoots forward before I can say another word, and my body slips down its center, before my back slams into the custom leather seat Sunny fitted onto the platform, almost like a pilot’s chair.

Oh. My. Fates.

I’m actually flying.

Sunny’s boat rides the breeze as easily as mine rode the canals, and I peer over the side, looking below at a dreamy, sleepy Heartland as I barrel straight through town.

I fly over the library. The deli. The shops. The fire station. The ribbons of sparkling waters between them. Every single place I’ve ever seen and known my whole life, until it all ends, and—

I can see the mist, pink and thick as a wall. I’m racing toward the edge. Toward the unknown. Farther than I’ve ever been in my life.

“Barbie!”

Panic eddies through my veins. I turn, only to see Robin, carried by a dozen birds, flying after me. Her eyes are wide with panic. Her glowing scepter is lifted. “Wait! Please!”

I open my mouth to reply, my heart fluttering with guilt at the distress I’m causing her, but no words come out. I can’t stop now.

I’ve appreciated everything she’s ever done for me.

But now it’s time I do something for myself.

“Faster!” I tell the boat as she closes in. But the motor just sputters, already at max speed.

Really? This is the time Sunny actually listened to Teacher?

I’m close, though. Nearly to the mists. And the closer I get… the more the necklaces I wear begin to glow, until the light cast from them is so bright it creates a halo around me. Then a shield. Then an orb.

I don’t know what’s happening. But Robin’s voice behind me is growing even more alarmed. I can’t hear what she’s saying through the sound of this magic’s shimmering hum.

“Barbie!”

Robin’s nearly next to me now. She reaches out, as if to pull me and the boat back—

But before she can, I crash right through the mist.

Afraid and Doing It Anyway

The world is bleeding pink.

I’m hurtling through a waterfall of stars, galaxies that look like every shade of my closet, until finally, the boat gives a series of jolting lurches, almost like it’s trying to spit me out, and I’m catapulted forward, cartwheeling through the swirling vastness.

My scream echoes all around me as I plummet downward, my stomach dropping out, my body flipping wildly, until I crash against something hard—

Ground.

My bones jolt with the impact. It takes a few moments for me to move at all, and I’m lucky I didn’t break anything, though my limbs feel like they’ve all been pulled in different directions. I groan into a faceful of—

Flowers?

I lift my head, just in time to see the boat fade to a tiny dot of pink in the distance, off on its own adventure.