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Content
About the Author………………………4 Characters…………………………......5 Chapter 1………………………………6 Chapter 2……………………………..14 Chapter 3……………………………..22 Chapter 4……………………………..27 Chapter 5……………………………..37
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About the Author
Ling-Yu Huang was born and raised in small country off the coast China called Taiwan. In her mid-teen years she met a boy who took her to and from the United States, namely to the state of Michigan, which is the setting of the story.
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Characters
John Ford — a dreamer, a dreamer who can make dreams come true Mr. Jones — John’s best friend back in high school Julia
—
John’s
beautiful
and
considerate wife Lily — John’s lovely daughter Pida — John’s fairy friend, always helps John
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Chapter 1 Tell me about Mr. Ford
You’ve caught me, but don’t throw me back yet! You look familiar, and I have a story that just might be of interest to you. Not so long ago, in a small town not unlike our small town, lived a boy named John Ford. John Ford was a good kid, but nobody can be perfect. In his school age years, John Ford never
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seemed to care for homework. What seemed like every day in class, a teacher had to take the time to try to regain the young Mr. Fords attention, some going so far as to throw a marker cap at his head to get him to pay attention. Mr. Ford spent most of his time staring out the window. You see, Mr. Ford was a day dreamer.
Oh, and his favorite color was green.
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Mr. Ford was a day dreamer.
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To everyone that knew him, it seemed odd that John Ford was not troubled by the simple things that would trouble a child of his age. Never cried over the loss of a beloved toy, nor did he ever have to be punished at home for being misbehaving. If Mr. Ford was ever in trouble, it always seemed everything worked out for the better, or his problems just faded into history. Even though the Fords did not appear to be wealthy, it appeared that
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John Ford had it all; that John Ford could change the world. Every night, before he went to bed, John Ford wrote a short something in his journal. I had always wanted to take a peek into that journal and see what he was writing down. Unfortunately for me, he kept it locked, and locked tight. He didn’t have very many other friends, but Mr. Ford and I were good friends back then. We shared similar
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interests, or rather, a similar disinterest in school work. The only difference was he never seemed to get punished like I always did. I guess even then I was jealous. Where was I? Right. All children, despite their parents’ wishes, grow up. John Ford was no exception. Mr. John Ford, a 45 year-old manager of a local car dealership, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Mr. Ford was a happy person with a happy family. Mr. Ford
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had a wonderful personality that made everyone like him, and although he was not the most handsome man, Mr. Ford managed to marry a very beautiful woman.
Mr. Ford regularly
left for work at 8:30 a.m. and came home by 5:30 p.m., and when he came home, his wife, Julia, and his lovely daughter, Lily, would be waiting for him to have dinner together. To everyone that knew him, it seemed strange that John Ford was not troubled by the
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complex things that would trouble a man his age. His stocks always seemed to be going in the right direction, and despite the occasional economic trouble, Mr. Ford’s job was always stable. Everyone who thought it was strange was right, for John Ford had a very special secret.
Ah, did I mention he liked green?
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Chapter 2 What was Mr. Ford’s secret?
Right, right, about the secret. Mr. Ford had a very special secret; a secret that he kept from everyone, including me, his only friend! While I, who didn’t do very well in school, and ended up in the car sales industry; Mr. Ford, who didn’t do any better than I, went to college and became a business man. And, as if
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just to rub salt in my wounds, he was hired by my car company to be the dealership’s manager: my boss. Things had changed since we parted after high school. It seemed to me that Mr. Ford’s life had always gone right, but mine had always gone wrong. He moved in next door to my small house, though we never talked. Mrs. Ford mostly stayed at home, and the smell of her cooking often found its
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way into my home. No one cooked for me. One day, Mr. Ford had a celebration. It was his fifteenth wedding anniversary. Mr. Ford was taking his wife out to dinner. It was that day that I decided to find out what was his secret to happiness. While Mr. Ford was away, I broke into his home. There didn’t appear to be anything special. But when I broke into his bedroom, I saw an old, green
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box that reminded me of my childhood, but I just couldn’t remember what it was. I was very disappointed with my findings. Maybe luck was all he had better than me? As I was about to leave his house, it came to me like a dream. That was where Mr. Ford kept his journal when we were young. I thought, perhaps that could give me some information about his life. I hatched a plan. I could use this book to have him write anything he
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wanted, just as long as I had something he wanted. It took me awhile to open his many, many locks. What I read shocked me. He had written every dream he had ever had down inside these dozen notebooks. As I knew him best when we were in high school, that’s where I started to read. They all seemed very specific. Mr. Ford had written one dream that even I remembered. One day, we had a final
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exam in our math class, and the day before John Ford convinced me not to go to study, but rather come out and have fun. In his journal, he wrote that on the day of the test, his friend, Pida, would tell John Ford all the answers to all the problems, and John Ford would ace the test gracefully. Well, well, well, who was Pida, I wondered. Angel? Ghost? Ah! Pida was a lovely fairy, that John Ford described in the next few lines.
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So this is it, I thought, this is his secret to happiness. He could write anything he wanted to dream in his notebook, and those dreams became real. I began to wonder, perhaps anything I wrote he would dream too? I hatched a plan. I could use this book to have him write anything I wanted, just as long as I had something he wanted. A sound from one of the rooms had startled me. It was Mr. Ford’s
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young daughter, no more than 8 or 9 years old.
She was fast asleep in her
bed, moving around in a dream. I decided that she would be the perfect bargaining chip. I slowly lifted her out of her bed and took her back to my home.
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Chapter 3 What did you do?
I was so furious! How could a friend do this to another? Why would John be so selfish as to leave his only friend out? Where did he get all these special books? And who was Pida? Well, these questions would have to wait. For once, the ball was in my court.
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The next day, Mr. Ford came to work. He seemed very frantic, as if he had lost something very dear to him, though, what he was looking for wasn’t his daughter, but rather his journal. I wanted to have a talk with my old friend. I told him what had happened. I told him how I found his books, and how I found his daughter fast asleep. I told him that I wasn’t sure why he’d keep something so special from a friend. I decided, since he was
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a good friend, that I would make him a deal. I wanted not to have anymore troubles in my life. If he agreed not to bother me and do exactly what I say, then I agreed that he wouldn’t have any living nightmares to deal with. He reluctantly agreed. I decided to test this new power once before I went all out. I forced Mr. Ford to dream that I would sell 10 cars the next day. And sell 10 cars I did.
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After that, I slowly went mad with power! Dreaming of money, women, and more money, I didn’t care what damage I was doing to anyone. I didn’t care what I had to do to get what I wanted. It felt good. I became so careless, that one day I didn’t even check whether or not Mr. Ford wrote what and only what I wanted in the book. That night, it appeared that for Mr. Ford, help came
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in his dream. I guess all good things come to an end.
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Chapter 4 Who helped Mr. Ford?
At the time, I did not know that Mr. Ford could change his dreams after they started. All he had to do was ask his little friend, Pida, a fairy of dreams. If Mr. Ford made a mistake in his dream, Pida could help him get it right. Mr. Ford was waiting every night for me to make a mistake. Mr. Ford finally found his mistake and took
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advantage of it. Mr. Ford saw how distracted I was by the things I had gotten at Mr. Ford’s expense, and decided to write an invitation to his friend Pida to come save his daughter. Pida, like all dream fairies, controls peoples sleep. Dream fairies decide who gets dreams, and who gets nightmares. Mr. Ford had a similar power to the fairies. Maybe by just a stroke of luck, Mr. Ford had control over his own dreams.
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Pida, like all dream fairies, controls people’s sleep. 29
Without having to write anything other than the name Pida, Mr. Ford was able to get his little friend into his dreams and change it. One night while I slept, I was visited in my dream by a little girl who flew about around me. She introduced herself as Pida, and scolded me for all the things I had done and taken, and the people I stepped on to get them. Pida explained to me that Mr. Ford and Pida had been talking, and Mr. Ford
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asked that Pida make it so he could get his little girl back. Pida told me I would not wake up for three days, and during those three days I would be in the worst nightmare imaginable. For the next few days, I dreamed of monsters and demons, fire and devastation. Pida gave me only one spot to be safe, a cave deep underwater. When the worst of my nightmares came, I could swim down and hide, but only for a few moments
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before I needed to come back for air. I wanted nothing more than to be able to breathe like a fish so that I could stay there forever and never have to see the nightmares again. When I finally woke up in my bed, sweating from being chased by ghouls of all sorts, I ran to see what had happened while I had been sleeping. Lily, Mr. Ford’s daughter was gone. Mr. Ford’s notebook was gone. There was one thing in the house that hadn’t
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been there before... A letter from Mr. Ford with a return addresses from the car dealership. It read:
Mr. Jones, I’m sorry to say that the time has come to reduce the number of employees employed here at this dealership. I hope you understand why you had to be let go. Good luck, Mr. Ford
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Everything I had was gone. I knew that he had done this because of what I had done to him. This was his form of revenge. I had nothing now, no book, no dreams, not even my real job. The only thing I could do was beg Mr. Ford for mercy. When I was at Mr. Ford’s door, his daughter Lily opened it up and shouted “Dad, the neighbor is here!” and Mr. Ford came to see me. His greeting put me off a bit, as it was more than polite,
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almost happy to see me. Mr. Ford informed me that I was let go because of a policy at work that said if a worker did not show up to work for more than two days without a valid explanation or reason, that they had to be let go. Confused, I thanked him for his honesty, and left his home. It was as if all the things I did had never happened. That night I went to sleep. Worried about what I would do for money,
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worried about what and where I would go.
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Chapter 5 Was there a happy ending?
Well the ending was good enough for me. When I woke up I was in a pool of water. The water was very deep, and I couldn’t see the top or the bottom. I thought I was going to drown. After I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, I took in a great big breath of water and realized, I could breathe down here.
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That’s when I realized that Mr. Ford had helped me at last. He heard my last dream and made it come true. He turned me into a fish, and now I don’t need to worry about the nightmares that people have, or worry about a job or anything like that. Being a fish is very nice, you know? It just hurts when kids trick you with worms and things. But anyway, every so often when I fall asleep, I am visited by old Mr. Ford,
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and his little friend Pida. He often talks of his family and how much they have grown, and how much he loves them. He’s even showed me pictures of his grandchild. He tells me that I was right and that he was being greedy with his powers and he only used them only for him. Now when Mr. Ford dreams, he dreams for other people, so that they can be happy too, and I am quite happy too.
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Mr. Ford dreamed that his daughter Lily would grow up beautiful and she would marry a good, handsome man. Mr. Ford dreamed that his daughter would have good children so that Mr. Ford could be Grandpa Ford. You know, it’s quite dry out here and I’d love to be put back into the water now as it’s my bed time, and young kid, go sleep and have sweet dreams.
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But just one more thing before you go. You look quite a lot like Mr. Ford, and a lot like the picture of Mr. Ford’s grandchild. Maybe you should ask your grandpa about how to make dreams come true, and maybe he will let you inherit his magic power. By the way, it’s been very nice talking to you.
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Acknowledgements Cover Page http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/hoosier/images/rec_fil es/boy_fishing.jpg Page 8 http://images2.layoutsparks.com/1/119951/d ark-angel-fairy-wings.jpg Page 29 http://pro.corbis.com/images/42-18736111.jp g?size=572&uid={D45ABB94-9C90-4416-A6 4F-29109CA36DE3}
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John Ford looks just like an ordinary person on the street; however, he is anything but ordinary. Everything is perfect in his life. Mr. Jones, a friend and also a neighbor next door, eagerly wants to know what the secret behind John’s wonderful life is and found John’s secret in a notebook. Oh, no! Will Pida, John’s friend, help John out of trouble this time?
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