Tyler

Chapter 1
Tyler Jones Jr. was a 30-year-old single man with blond, curly hair who lived in his married sister Jamie’s basement. That made him sound like a bum, didn’t it? Well, that’s because he was. He had a job as a janitor at a local business office that he had been working at for nine months now. Tyler had hoped that it would be a way to get noticed by the top guys in the building but nobody ever notices a guy who always comes in late with his shirt on backwards- at least not for the right reasons. Jamie loved her brother but she and her husband Jack Reynolds were only going to give him a few more months in the basement before he had to find his own place.
So now you get what he’s like.
Don’t get him wrong though - Tyler’s a good guy at heart. When a girl scout comes knocking at his sister’s door when she‘s at work, he’ll buy cookies because he’s hungry. But when another girl scout mistakenly comes by the house again the next day, he’ll say “oh, what the heck!” and buy more to put smiles on their puppy-dog faces.
It was just before one in the morning on a Saturday.
Tyler had been watching television in the living room for a few hours. When Jamie and Jack got home from a restaurant in the city, they went up to bed and Tyler figured it was time for him to hit the sack too, so down to the basement he went. He clumsily slipped on his sock on the way down the slippery stairs. He rolled down but he was just so tired that the bump on the left side of his head didn’t bother him. He crawled into bed and shut the light.
Squeal.
What the-?
Giggle.
Tyler, confused, flicked the light back on quickly.
A young girl… in his room? In his room in the basement? In his room in the basement of his sister’s house? A young girl in his room in the basement of his sister’s house? In the middle of the night? A young girl in his room in the basement of his sister’s house in the middle of the night?
She was leaning on her side against the doorway. The girl had long, red, shiny hair and lots of freckles. She was apparently wearing pink pajamas with little bananas and monkeys on them. She smiled broadly at him.
“Hello!” She had a tiny and weak (but squeaky) voice.
Tyler was startled. “What in the world are you doing in my house?”
“I thought it was Jamie’s house?”
“Well, yeah, she’s my sister… Who are you? Do you live around here? Are you lost? How’d you get in here?”
“Too many questions!” she laughed.
Tyler stumbled out of bed. “What’s your name?” That seemed to be simple enough for her.
“Kylie. And you’re Ty.”
Ty? No one had called him that since high school... “Yeah. Do I know you, Kylie?”
“Well, you do now, silly!” she said rubbing her left arm subconsciously.
“Right,” His mind was racing. “Why are you here, in my room, at one in the morning? Is something wrong?”
The smile flickered and disappeared on Kylie’s face. “Why would you say that? You don’t like me?” She scrunched up her face like she was about to cry.
“No, no- that’s not what I meant- please don’t cry-” He couldn’t risk Jack and Jamie waking up. “Please-”
“Ok,” And she stopped. A smile reappeared on her face as if she had been happy the whole time.
“Were you faking?” Tyler asked, skeptical.
“No.”
“Ok… Well, why are you here?”
“I want you to come with me.” Kylie insisted. “Now.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.” She ran up to him and tugged on his shirt sleeves. She was barely up to his hip bone. “C’mon! Please, Ty! Please!” She tried to drag him toward the door.
“Where are we going?”
“I’ll show you!” She let go and trotted to the door, opening it.
What harm could come from this? She was a little, skinny girl that couldn’t hurt a fly if she tried. Tyler agreed and followed Kylie out the door. She was already down the hall and out the back slider door. He wanted to yell for her to wait up as he slid on his shoes but again, he didn’t want to wake Jack and Jamie.
He ran outside and closed the door behind him carefully. He wheeled around.
“Whoa! Where did that come from?”
Behind little Kylie stood a massive, swaying, purple hot air balloon.
“Kylie, what is a hot air balloon doing in my backyard?”
The little girl giggled and ran up to the balloon base. Tyler followed.
“Pick me up and put me in,” she said to him.
“Are you crazy? We can’t just go in it! For one thing, it’s not ours, right? And secondly, I don’t know how in the world to use this thing-”
“NONSENSE!”
Tyler tried his hardest not to yell.
A tall, skinny man had popped suddenly up out of the balloon base. He wore an all-purple tuxedo that was rather blinding, a just-as-purple bowtie, gloves and shiny top hat. He looked about mid-fifties with a graying mustache and bright blue eyes. He smiled broadly, showing several golden teeth.
“Good evening, my good man and little lady!” He helped Kylie into the base and she stood by his side, beaming. “You are with Kylie so that means that you are Tyler!”
Tyler was gaping at him. “This is bizarre.”
“Bizarre? Sorry, I’m not all too familiar with that word!” the man said. “The name’s Hubert! Come on in, old chap!”
“Hell, no!”
“Bad word!” Kylie said, pointing at Tyler. “Bad word, bad word!”
“Well, Mr. Tyler, maybe I can persuade you to come along,” Hubert said with his voice slightly muffled by his huge mustache. He searched in his pocket for something. “Ah! Here it is!” He pulled a photograph out. It was old, crumbling at the edges. Tyler immediately realized-
“It’s me and my dad when I was a little kid!” he yelled, utterly perplexed. He stepped up to the base. “How did you get that? It must be from 25 years ago!”
“I have my mystifying ways, my good man…” Hubert said mysteriously. “So won’t you come along for a little ride?”
“No! No, no, no. Now give me that photograph, it’s mine-”
“Get in.”
“What?”
“Get in and I’ll give it to you.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No, you’re crazy, Ty,” Kylie whispered. “C’mon. Please!”
Well, like was mentioned before, he was a bum, but he was a good guy, and he wasn’t about to let a little girl go off into the sky with a random man all alone.
He hopped in. He had expected it to be a lot smaller but there was just enough room for the three of them to lay down.
Hubert gleefully moved a few things above their heads with his hand and a fire ignited. They took off. He handed Tyler the photograph. He pocketed it in his pajamas.

Chapter 2
“Where are we going?” he thought out loud.
Hubert laughed heartily for what seemed like forever. “Just for a little ride! Don’t worry, my good man! I’d never do you wrong. Miss Kylie, would you like a lollipop?”
She nodded and he pulled the largest lollipop Tyler had ever seen out of his pocket- the same pocket the photograph had come from. The lollipop was the size of a large basketball. Kylie had difficulty holding it at first.
They were high above the houses and the treetops now. It was a warm summer night with no breeze down below and only a small one up above.
Ten minutes, according to Tyler’s watch, passed in silence except for an occasional laugh from Hubert.
They were well away from the town now. Tyler saw a river and a forest below. “When are we going back? Can I go home now?”
Hubert sighed wearily. “Well, if you insist.”
“Aww man.” Kylie said.
Hubert turned the hot air balloon around. The fire went out. They started to drop really slowly. Hubert stopped laughing.
“Hubert, what the hell is going on?” Tyler yelled. Kylie screamed.
“I- I don’t know-” Hubert roared, clearly frustrated and confused. They dropped another 20 feet, getting closer and closer to the treetops. “I’M SCARED!” Hubert screamed. “Help! Help!”
“You moron!” Tyler screeched, grabbing Kylie and holding onto her as they continued to plummet. “Why are you screaming for help? No one can hear you!”
“HELP! HELP!”
A flash of light blinded Tyler. Kylie continued to scream. Tyler ducked down as they stopped falling- in fact, it felt as if they had stopped moving at all. They were at a complete stand-still in mid-air. Tyler lifted his head up. Hubert was bending over the side, talking to someone. Tyler stood up.
“Thank you, thank you-”
“Who are you talking to?”
Tyler let go of Kylie and looked over the side. “Holy-”
The hot air balloon was being held up by a police car, but it had no wheels. It was floating in mid-air. Two men sat in the front seats.
“No problem. This happens all the time. The Yomikis did a rain dance to bring everything above them down- apparently including you, by accident of course. A few birds fell too!” The man chuckled. “Say, Hubert, you got passengers tonight?”
“Yes, indeed!” Hubert said whirling around to look at Kylie and Tyler. “Two!”
“Well, you better take them to see the Yomikis with you! They’ll want to apologize to everyone. You know them… a bunch of coocoos…”
Tyler was completely confused. Kylie didn’t seem to care.
The floating police car brought them to rest on the ground in a clearing of a forest. The forest looked thick and dark, not to mention scary. Tyler didn’t know what in the world was going on but for seem reason he didn’t want to ask. He had a funny feeling about this night’s happenings.
Hubert smoothed out his mustache with his fingers. “Kylie, my dear, let me help you out-”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait! Where are we going? We’re literally in the middle of nowhere-”
“Sir! You are mistaken! Look closer!” Hubert pointed beyond the police car into the darkness of the trees. At first it was pitch black, then-
“Do you see that? There’s a blinking beacon of light!” Tyler yelled. He hopped out of the balloon with Kylie, Hubert and the strange policemen in tow. He walked to the edge of the clearing and the blinking light grew brighter.
It was coming from a tree trunk.
“Step aside, Mr. Jones, if you will, please,” Hubert’s voice rang. He jogged in front of Tyler and tapped on the little blinking light- it was like a tiny light bulb planted into the tree trunk. The two policemen stood behind Tyler, waiting patiently, while Kylie hung onto Tyler’s side, smiling. Hubert tapped the light twice and it went out. Nothing happened.
Then something did.
It was a door. They all stepped back as it swung itself wide open. It was dark inside but it appeared to be a tiny closet-sized opening with stairs leading downward, into the ground. Hubert hopped in and Kylie ran after him. Tyler followed, cautiously.
The stairs led to a brightly-lit room that reminded him oddly of his basement bedroom in his sister’s house. It was a kitchen with a stove, a sink and a wooden table and chairs. A teenage girl sat at the table, looking bored while playing a card game with a middle-aged woman. An elderly woman sat right by the bottom of the stairs. She was rocking a baby back and forth in her arms.
They all had long, bright, shiny, red hair.
Hubert led the way to the door opposite the room. The redheads didn’t look up. Kylie ran to go and see the small baby. Tyler reluctantly followed Hubert into another room, this one a massive hall. The door slammed shut behind the two of them. The ceilings looked to be a mile high, decorated with the largest, fanciest chandeliers Tyler had ever seen in his life. Throughout the entire hall were long tables with bottles and jars and boxes and gadgets and small machines. A toaster sat on its side nearest Tyler. Blue smoke was slowly swirling around it. Three men in white lab coats and goggles speedily ran up to the pair of them.
“Good evening!” one of the men croaked, taking off his fogged-up goggles. He shook Tyler’s hand and the others followed. “My name is Hersh Yomikis. These are my brothers, Mersh and Bersh.”
Mersh and Bersh nodded at the sound of their names.
“Er - I’m Tyler.”
“I’m terribly sorry, Hubert and Tyler, we were unaware that one of our experiments could put you and the others into harm! As soon as we heard, we grew restless to apologize! This is not, I am afraid, the first time that an experiment of ours has unfortunately gone wrong or caused dismay. It will never happen again, Hubert.” Hersh continued. “I hope Kylie is not angry with us!”
Tyler got frustrated. “Yeah, well, your little ‘experiment’ nearly scared the shit out of a little girl so I wouldn’t be too happy if I was her!”
Mersh laughed. “Silly man, she is not a little girl.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind that now!” Bersh shouted, brushing off Tyler’s confusion. “Hubert, is your balloon in need of repairs? We can fix it if necessary! It will be the mission of the day! Or night, I should say!”
“No, no, that’s not necessary. It’s fine. It might be rather frightened to go out again but it’ll get through it alright. Good men, good men.” Hubert reassured them.
“You make it sound like the balloon has feelings.” Tyler said.
“Well, it does! Obviously,” Hubert said, shocked. Tyler didn’t answer.
“Would you like a cup of tea? Help yourself in the kitchen,” Hersh said warmly. Tyler and Hubert headed out the door and the three brothers went back to their experiments. Tyler glared back into the hall as he went to shut the door. Mersh was touching the toaster this his finger and sniffing it.
The four redheads- including Kylie would make five- were still in the kitchen.
“The policemen saw themselves out,” the old woman said quietly. Hubert nodded and helped himself to some tea. Kylie was still playing with the baby. Then she turned to Tyler.
“Did they tell you anything?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“About me.”
“What about you? I think they’re crazy, Kylie. They said you’re not a little girl.”
Kylie laughed.
“I know, I know,” Tyler laughed along.
Kylie stopped laughing. All of a sudden, she disappeared. Right out of thin air. Tyler started screaming her name. Hubert blocked his ears.
Then the baby disappeared. Then the old woman. Then the teenager. Finally, the middle-aged woman did, too.
In the center of the room stood one redheaded woman in a silky, silver dress who appeared to be about Tyler’s age.
“Who are you? Where’s Kylie? What’s going?”
“I am Kylie,” she said. “This is me now. That was me then.”

Chapter 3
“What?”
“This is me now as I am. I just so happen to be your age. The Kylie you met was when I was six years old. The other women sitting in the kitchen a moment ago were also me, at different ages. Would you prefer the old woman or the teenager instead?”
Tyler looked the woman up and down. Her face was like little Kylie’s, except aged and adult-like, so it must be her. “No…” he said, realizing how beautiful she was.
“Good,” She smiled broadly. “Hubert was a good friend to my dear father. I’ve known him forever.”
Hubert smiled proudly. Tyler was speechless. This was surreal.
“I can see you’re confused,” Kylie said softly. She stepped over to him.
“I- I don’t get it. What is going on? An hour ago I was watching television and getting ready to go to sleep, minding my own business! Then a little girl shows up in my bedroom and makes me go on a purple hot air balloon with some guy with a pocket like Mary Poppins’ bag and the balloon gets messed up by some funky experiments by people who live in a tree and a flying police car saves us and a little girl really turns out to be an adult who can be any age she wants-”
“And who is Mary Poppins?”
Tyler yelled. “What is wrong with you people! You’re not normal! You can all do weird stuff… I don’t know… You’re all…”
“…Special?”
He looked up. Kylie was standing inches from his face. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Well, you are too. We all are, only some of us know it.”
“How so? I’m the only normal one in this- in this tree.”
“Not true.” She smiled.
Tyler looked over at Hubert, who was sitting at the table. His mustache had turned purple. He wiggled it and it turned gray again.
“What can I do?” Tyler whispered. He was scared at the thought but curious all the same. “Anything cool?” He raised his eyebrows.
Kylie laughed. “I don’t know yet. We’ll find out though.”
“Well, how do we know that I can then? There’s no proof. You don’t even know!”
“Trust me, we know,” Hubert offered. He wiggled his mustache and it flashed purple again, then back to gray.
Kylie took Tyler’s hand. “C’mon, let’s go. We can go somewhere to help you find what you what to know. But I must warn you, it isn’t the happiest place. It’s different from what you’ve seen so far. It isn’t as pleasant, unfortunately.”
Hubert stood. “It was good seeing you, chap! Good luck then.” He shook Tyler’s hand tightly as the two of them left the tree.
Outside it was dark and humid.
“Where do we go from here?”
Kylie looked around. She faced the darkest part of the woods. “This way.”
They walked on through the woods for ten minutes. It was getting colder and the trees grew closer the farther they ventured. Kylie still held Tyler’s hand.
Kylie stopped. Tyler looked up. Ahead of them was a two-story, gray building with a single window in the upper-left-hand corner where a faint light flickered. Vines appeared to be growing thickly around the house as they walked. Black smoke billowed out of the chimney. The door blew open as Kylie approached it, Tyler in tow.
It was pitch black inside. Kylie, as if she knew where she was going, led him down a hall. A candle was lit on the floor. Tyler saw a narrow, winding, upward staircase. They went up the stairs, slowly and carefully, to the room at the end of a hallway. The door was ajar by two inches. Kylie pushed it open.
“You’ve come for some information, have you not?” sounded a deep, womanly voice.
Tyler alertly shot his eyes around the room and spotted an elderly woman rocking back in forth in a rocking chair by a fireplace. Kylie responded.
“Yes, we have, for him.”
A chill came over Tyler. The woman held up her head. Her wrinkly, old, pale face was highlighted with a pair of blank, staring eyes. She was blind.
“Sit.”
Kylie and Tyler sat on a couch opposite the woman.
“Mr. Jones, I’ve been waiting for you.”
“You have?”
“Yes. I am the Guide. Let’s make this quick, shall we?”
“Er - sure.”
“Miss Allen, I’ve seen you already. You bring Tyler to me, so now be silent.”
Kylie didn’t make a sound, just as she was told.
“Mr. Jones, take this mirror,” the woman said. She held out a handheld mirror for Tyler but as he reached for it, it slipped out of her hands and fell to the floor. It shattered immediately into a bunch of little pieces.
“I’m sorry, that was my fault, I-”
“Pick up the handle.”
Tyler followed instructions. The most amazing thing happened before his eyes. He lifted the handle but by the time he brought it back up, the mirror was back in place, fully restored, as if it had never been dropped.
“Whoa.”
“Yes, I knew that would be it. Be gone with you now. Leave me in peace.”
Kylie and Tyler left and remained silent until they were far from the room.
“I can undo things. Well, little things,” Tyler said. The words flew out of his mouth. “Did you see that? It was like, one second the mirror was shattered into pieces but I wished that it hadn’t been, pretty much, and then, voila- it was back to normal, the way it was before it had fallen, and the Guide must know I’d figure out what it means.”
Kylie smiled and stopped walking. “I’m glad the Guide helped you.”
“Me too.”
He stepped closer to her. Moonlight was shining on her face. She stepped closer to him. Then suddenly, a shadow covered them.
Hubert was above the treetops in his hot air balloon.
“OY! Kylie! Tyler! Up here!”
Kylie waved her arms. “OKAY!”
Tyler groaned as Kylie ran to where Hubert was lowering the hot air balloon. He had been so close…
He ran to catch up to her. WHAM. He tripped over a huge tree root sticking out of the earth and collapsed onto the ground. His ankle pounded with intense pain.
Concentrate. Concentrate.
The pain was gone. He was standing, once again, face to face with beautiful Kylie. Then suddenly, a shadow covered them.
“OY! Kylie! Tyler! Up here!”
Kylie waved her arms. “OKAY!”
Tyler carefully followed, stepping cleanly over the tree root in the ground.
They jumped into the balloon base with Hubert. He gave each of them a huge lollipop from his pocket.
“Take us home, Hubert,” Kylie whispered. She sat down on the floor and Tyler sat beside her, smiling.
“Your wish is my command!” Hubert shouted as they lifted into the air again. “So, Tyler, tell me about this Mary Poppins woman you spoke of earlier…”
After twenty minutes of a discussion about Mary Poppins (during which Hubert slyly asked if she was married) and lollipop licking, they arrived in Tyler’s backyard, where it had all started.
Hubert stayed at the balloon while Kylie walked Tyler to the back door and into the basement.
“You won’t forget to tell Mersh, Bersh, and Hersh that I said hello? And thank you to the Officers? And the Guide? And Hubert, I owe him a lot too-”
“Shh,” she whispered, putting her finger to his lips. Then she kissed him.
“Goodbye, Tyler.”
“Goodbye, Kylie.”
And she left. He watched from the window as the balloon drifted away into the night. He fell asleep moments later.

He woke the next morning, refreshed, and headed to the kitchen for breakfast with his sister.
“Good morning, Jamie!” he said cheerfully kissing her on the cheek.
“Uh, good morning…”
“Want some eggs, sunny-side up?” he offered brightly. “Maybe some bacon and toast too?”
“What’s wrong with you today? You’re never a morning person.” Jamie said.
“Yeah, I know,” Tyler admitted. “but I had the most mesmerizing dream last night, you wouldn’t even believe what happened. But it’s a long story, so I won’t bother getting into it.”
“Whatever you say, Tyler,” Jamie said stretching. “Oh, by the way, I let the dog out this morning to run around the back yard like I always do, right? Well look at what he found back there randomly. Isn’t that so strange?”
She pointed to the floor behind him. Tyler turned around.
There, laying by his feet, was a huge lollipop.
Tyler froze. He picked up the lollipop with one hand and pulled something out of his pocket with the other.
“What’s that you got there?” Jamie asked, peering at her brother.
Tyler held up the photograph of him and his father that Hubert had given him the previous night. He swallowed hard. It wasn’t just a dream, after all.

The End