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Charlie squeaked at her happily, kicking his little feet and waving his tiny fists in the air.
“Awww,” the children crooned.
The adults had gone silent.
Jubal grinned and scooped Charlie out of the carrier, handing him over to his mother. Instantly, the little fellow snuggled into her neck, grabbing a hank of hair in his chubby palm.
“Miss McGuinty asked me to come here today to talk to you kids about following your dreams,” Jubal said, walking over to sit near her desk.
She tried not to smile at how big he looked in her small chair.
The kids were nodding their heads up and down so hard.
“Does anyone here have a dream?” Jubal asked.
Little hands went up, waving until it looked like the whole classroom was about to take flight.
“I had a dream I was a bird that ate candy worms,” one of the children shouted, then put both hands over his mouth when he realized he hadn’t been called on.
Jubal let out one if his deep laughs, the kind that tickled her insides, and everyone joined him.
“That’s my kind of dream, little man,” Jubal told him. “But does anyone have any dreams about what they want their future to look like?”
More little hands wiggled excitedly.
“You, there,” Jubal said. “With the green shirt. What’s your dream?”
“I want to make desserts in the cafeteria when I grow up,” the boy said earnestly.
The other students moaned in appreciation at the idea of all those lovely desserts.
“That’s a good dream,” Jubal told him, then turned to a little girl. “What about you?”
The little girl stood up.
“My dream is to be a schoolteacher, just like Miss McGuinty,” she said in a crisp teacher-voice.
“That’s a great one,” Jubal said. “You already sound like a teacher, good job.”
A few more students shared, and Jubal listened and asked questions when he didn’t understand.
For a man who claimed to have hated school, Chloe thought he was awfully good with children.
“There are different paths to achieve those different dreams, kids,” Jubal told them at last. “But all those paths have a few things in common. Do you want to hear about them?”
“Yes,” they all chorused.
“Okay,” he told them. “I’m going to tell you and then I’m going to give you an example. The first thing I want you to do is close your eyes.”
Chloe smiled as the whole sea of little eyes went shut, and some big ones too, including Jubal’s.
“I want you to picture your goal,” he told them. “Picture the details. If it’s making desserts, then picture your ingredients. If it’s being a teacher, picture your holo-board full of activities. I’m picturing a very special face.”
Chloe wondered what in the world he was thinking about. Probably something to do with his upcoming tour. After a few quiet months on Terra-58 she was sure he was eager to get back to his usual lifestyle.
“Now I want you to think about exactly what you have to do next,” he told them, opening his eyes. “For some of you, that might mean you need to talk to a grown-up to find out how to get from here to your dream. Some of you might already know what to do. I do.”
“I have to get right to the pet store,” said one boy, whose dream was to own an Ardoovian pale-fish.
