My son demands to know which world I want to adventure in: dinosaur world, desert world, or forest world. I choose forest, “because I love trees” I tell him. So along we go, stomping through the forest, which really consists of me changing his brother while he walks around in circles. “There are a lot of vines in this forest” he says. So many, in fact, that we had to slash them down with machetes. I mentioned that I didn’t have a machete so he kindly hands me 100 imaginary machetes from his backpack and I smile at his idea of generosity. A few more moments and I yell “What was that?!” hoping he will use the opportunity to add something to our adventure. “Oh no!” he replies, as he ducks behind me, “Arrows! It’s a trap!”. The vines weren’t just vines, they were triggering arrows and dropped axes. We dodged this way and that and he narrates me through the forest where everything we come across is ‘treacherous’. Now there is no way out, he explains. When he is looking for me to add something to an adventure he poses an impossible task. I have two options: come up with idea after idea that he will shoot down, or come up with a solution inventive enough that it sparks his imagination further. I tried climbing the trees and they were too thick, so that’s when I saw it. “Look, there.” I whisper. “What’s a pipe doing in the forest?”. He takes the bait and looks up in awe.

“Pipe world…” he murmurs. “Let’s go!”. We both take a small hop forward, wondering what’s in store for us in Pipe world. Traveling through a maze of pipes, we pass above the tree line going higher still, up through the stars until we notice. “…there’s something in the pipes with us…” They look black and spiny and it’s hard to tell if we are chasing them or they are chasing us but in a frenzy we go higher and higher until we come out of the darkness into something so bright we can’t even see. My sons eyes are still adjusting when I see it. Not just one puffball, but dozens, headed straight for us, and they are bright red. Should we hide back in the pipes, hoping the black puffballs have gone? Before we can answer, they swarm us and we are surrounded. Enveloped by puffballs we realize how our worries have faded away and it feels like we are wrapped up in an enormous blanket. We look around again.

“It’s sky land and it’s beautiful!”. A glass plate gives the illusion that we can walk on clouds and ducks float by in the air. The puffballs come in many colors here, the king and queen puffballs are both brown and happy surrounded by their babies. The babies play together creating different shapes but right in front of us they form a beautiful rainbow and we feel welcomed. Other adventures take us back to sky land and we find that some people have grown so fond of it that they never left, building shops for other adventurers that wander by. My son and I don’t stay. We are forever explorers.

We pass back through the pipes to try to find our way out again. Again we pass through the night sky while chased by the pipe puffballs, who seem to lose their sunny disposition and color in the darkness of the night. Excited we rush towards an exit only to find ourselves above, not below, the trees. The branches and leaves are so thick they create the floor of our final land in this adventure.

“Bubble world” seems pleasant at first. Giant bubbles float by. Water sprays out of one of the pipes creating a pond where a few ducks find respite. We drop down to the treetops too, only to find that “Ouch! The blades of grass that grow on top of the leaves are actual blades!” With our feet cut up I leap into a bubble, calling down that it’s safe, just before my bubble is popped and I fall down to the unforgiving grass. My son saw the whole thing, another bubble, mean and green, wielded a blade of grass as a weapon and popped my bubble. That gives us an idea, and carefully snatching our own blades we make our way into new passing bubbles, quickly popping the other poppers before they can pop us. We float along one way but we fear the spraying water might pop our bubbles, so head a different direction only to find that our bubbles are getting lower and lower, closer to the ground. We spot a cave nearby. I peak in and see the face of a large, red, fearsome bubble. We decide to float over the cave, but we can float no further. Small blue sticky bubbles have adhered to ours and are bringing us down right towards the cave. I try to peel mine off and end up popping my own bubble. My son is successful, and I jump in his bubble just in time to dodge the cave. He steers us back to the pipes and we leave this deceiving land to face the darkness yet again.

This time we find an exit quickly and jump down to another section of the forest below. On one side of us is a bridge over fire, and while we are trying to figure out if we should venture across it, we hear an ominous voice behind us. Turning around we see nothing, just a dense forest of trees, but then we hear it again: a voice so low and broken it’s like the trees themselves are talking to us. That’s when we notice the cracks in a nearby tree are moving, forming a face. We move closer.

“Who goes there!” demands the tree. On edge from the many dangers we’ve already faced, our hands instinctively reach for our blades, but we are seasoned travelers and know things are not always as they appear. My son waves me on, encouraging me to engage with the tree, and I see in his eyes that he has my back if things go poorly. I explain how we found ourselves here and the dangers we’ve faced thus far. The tree sympathized with our tale as he had heard of the black puffballs before and the traps were setup to protect this forest. He told us that we were not to cut down any more vines and if we promised to not harm any more plants he would tell us how to get out of the forest. The way was not across the bridge. We had to pass a pipe with black goo dripping out. That black goo was a great mystery of this land and brought everything to life. We followed the advice of the tree, sheathed our weapons, and carefully made our way past the black goo and out of the forest world.

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