100 Mueller Lane
Sequoia, AK 94340
Nov. 17, 1994

Dear Someone,

Ted, my best friend and I drew up this really cool dream house out in Alaska. It was down in a valley in the mountains someplace, but it would cost billions of dollars to build. We decided that maybe, since we couldn't build it, someone else could.

In the 1995 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records, it said that Dean Macs....I don't know, well anyway, we called up Dean what's his name and asked him if he could build our dream houses. In a careless manner, he said that he owned a place just like the one that we wanted out in Alaska. We asked our parents about it, and they said "yes." We packed our bags, said good-bye to our families, and we jumped into his hovercraft.

I was surprised at his figure. He was about twenty, tall, with brown hair and eyes. He had glasses, which didn't surprise me, but on his feet; he had the weirdest looking shoes, that I had never seen before in my life (except just a couple of seconds ago). A glint of silver showed, it was a zipper on his shoe!

"Huh? how did you know about 'The Shoe*'?"

*"The Shoe" is a registered trademark of Copey Shoes Inc. It's from the inventions that we did in 5th grade (Mrs. Renaud was my teacher).

"Mrs. Renaud told me, and I liked it so much that I made one for myself. I didn't sell it because that would be bad. I also changed the name from 'The Shoe,' to 'Shoe,' because its easier to say!"

On the way, we told Dean about the underground monorail system with heated walls to keep the ground thawed, the tree fort, Ted's house in a sequoia, and the floating chairs.

After that, we talked about the world and life at home. Soon we saw white on the ground and mountains in the distance.

Later, after we had scouted out the valley, an F-17 came hurtling towards us, and it landed about a mile away. A group of about twenty people came walking over to us. They had construction hats on and belts with hammers and nails. I showed the head guy my drawings, and he revised them on his laptop computer. He showed us the walkthrough of our place, it was great.

Dean came walking back from the makeshift tent, with warmer jackets for all of us. Soon it began to snow, so we built a fire under a tree. I fell asleep after a couple of minutes.

I was awaken by the sound of helicopters. A giant tree was being lowered into an even bigger hole. "Ted's Tree," I thought, "it must be."

"Wake up," Dean laughed, "you've been sleeping all morning!"

Ted was over at the newly planted sequoia , helping the architect. I went into the tent and changed. I had breakfast, and then I ran over to the place where my own house was being constructed. The guy in charge of this operation beckoned me to come over.

"So," he said, "what do you think of it?"

"It's great. But what about all of those trees?"

Dean, who had just been over at Ted's, came over. "Oh, don't worry about any of the trees. The way that it's planned we'll only have to remove those three little trees out there, and then bring them back by Ted's."

"Good idea."

At that moment, the three trees were being carefully lifted out of the ground and carried over to their new location.

* * *

After about a week, the men were done with our houses. Then they started working on our gigantic aquarium and the playground area. Dean had left for awhile, but that didn't bother us (there was too much going on).

He was back in five days. The guys had just about finished the tank, and they were done with the playground. I asked him later how come he had gone. He said that he'd rather not talk about it, so I didn't ask him again.

The next morning, running water awakened me. "They must be filling the tank," I thought. I was right.

In three hours, a weird looking jet arrived carrying the sea animals. Divers were loading up the animals into special carrying nets, and soon all the animals were in the tank and the plants were on their way.

I had gotten a suit too, so in I went. The orca's names were Abby and Billy. They were willing to give Ted and me rides on their backs. It was great! The sharks didn't bother us, even though it was kind of scary sometimes.

After that, I went into my now finished house to take a shower. Then, I took a look around my house. The basement had heated walls so the permafrost would not break them. Also there was a place that still had construction tape around it, that was the place where the monorail would hook up to my house. I went back upstairs to the library. There were lots of books, I think as much as there were in the public library that's in Pella!

Ted was in there, reading (as usual). I grabbed a book and flopped down. A note was on the end table. It read:

HI, THIS IS DEAN. I WANTED YOU TO KNOW THAT I AM GOING
TO BE GONE FOR AWHILE -- MAYBE A MONTH, BUT I DON'T KNOW.
SAM WILL HELP YOU IF YOU NEED ANYTHING. YOU WILL BE STARTING
SCHOOL IN A WEEK. MRS. THIES WILL BE YOUR TEACHER.
SEE YA IN A MONTH OR MORE.
(SIGNED) DEAN

"Hey Ted, you read this letter yet?"

"Yeah, I can't believe that Mrs. Thies is actually going to be our teacher! Let's go set up that TYCO racetrack that you've got. I'll race you there . . .GO!"

We went racing down to the playroom. I was glad that Dean left the note. He must have a lot of business to attend to!

* * *

School came, it wasn't that bad. We were studying how to write a letter. We each decided to write a letter to our parents, inviting them out to the alley. I got an "A" grade on it, so I sent it.

Our parents came and we showed them around. Our brothers went out to the tank. My parents had also shipped in a very large package. I couldn't imagine what could be in it.

After dinner Dean arrived. We introduced him to our families. Finally, after what seemed like hours, we got to open our package. It was two young colts! The men that had been working on the monorail, started right in on building a stable. I couldn't think of a name for my horse right at the moment, so I just dropped the matter.

Dean had a package for everyone there, too. Inside there was a pair of "Shoe's" for everyone there. I was so happy, everything seemed to be going perfectly.

We went out onto the deck. There was a cart hanging from cables, and everyone jumped into it. I had never seen this before, but Ted must have, because he moved a little lever. We went roaring towards his tree.

Soon, we stopped. Ted showed us around his place, it was amazing to find out how big that sequoia actually was! We all settled down into nice, cozy chairs, and I fell asleep. I was really going to like it here!

- The author.

PS - I named my horse Dean.