Dream Fragments

The Dream Doctor Mysteries

Dream Student

Dream Doctor

Dream Child

Dream Family

Waking Dream

Dream Reunion

Dream Home

Dream Vacation

Fever Dream

Dream Wedding

Dream Fragments: Stories from the Dream Doctor Mysteries

Betty & Howard’s Excellent Adventure

A Box of Dreams: the collected Dream Doctor Mysteries (books 1-5)

Dream Sequence (the Dream Doctor Mysteries, books 1-3)

The Jane Barnaby Adventures

Finders Keepers

Losers Weepers

Her Brother’s Keeper

The Jane Barnaby Adventures Box Set

Welcome to Romance

Finding Dori

All available in Audio, Digital, and Print at:

www.jjdibenedetto.com

Copyright © 2016-2018 James J. DiBenedetto

All Rights Reserved. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

ISBN:978-1517701246

Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used factiously. Names, characters and places are products of the author’s imagination.

Cover design by: Emma Michaels

www.emmamichaels.com

Book design by: Colleen Sheehan

www.ampersandbookinteriors.com

Printed by: Createspace

First printing: 2016

Writing Dreams

Arlington, Virginia

www.jjdibenedetto.com

Table of Contents

Title Page

Also from the Author

Copyright

Author's Note

Girl's Best Friend

That Girl

Girls on Film

Mother Knows Best

Doctor Moo

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

Betty and Howard's Excellent Adventure

Visiting Hours

Movie Night

The Candidate

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Acknowledgements

About the Author

If you’re reading this, first of all, thank you for picking up this collection of stories!

The ten novels of the Dream Detective Mysteries cover nearly twenty-five years in the life of Sara and her friends and family. But there are gaps between each book, and lots of stories to tell about what happens when we’re not reading about Sara’s adventures. The twelve pieces in this collection give you a glimpse into some of those moments, as well as showing us what Sara was doing a decade before the opening chapter of Dream Student, and what happens to her a quarter century after the end of Dream Wedding.

This collection also lets some of the other characters tell what’s going on from their points of view. In the novels, we’re always in Sara’s head, and, here, you get a look at how things unfold from other perspectives. Just to give you a little background on each of the stories:

Girl’s Best Friend shows us a childhood memory that Sara tells us about in Dream Student, but here we see it from a very different point-of-view.

That Girl takes place during chapters 9-10 of Dream Student, but we see those events from the perspective of Sara’s future mother-in-law, Helen Alderson. And, as one might imagine, Helen does not exactly see eye-to-eye with her son’s new girlfriend.

Girls on Film brings us back to Sara’s point-of-view, and we see what happens during her final Spring Break, just a couple of months before her college graduation.

In Mother Knows Best, we jump ahead to Christmas of 1992, nine months after the end of Dream Doctor and a few hours before Lizzie is born. And we see how that moment looks through the eyes of Sara’s mother, Betty Barnes.

Doctor Moo takes place shortly before Sara’s graduation from medical school. It’s an early introduction to Lizzie Alderson, and we see Sara learn one final lesson from her least-favorite teacher.

With Great power Comes Great Responsibility occurs shortly after the end of Dream Child, and we see one of the unexpected consequences that arise from Sara telling her parents about her ability to visit other people’s dreams.

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness showcases Lizzie’s first day of kindergarten. It takes place nine months after the events of Dream Child.

Betty & Howard’s Excellent Adventure takes place concurrently with the first three chapters of Waking Dream. We jump into Betty Barnes’ head to view her and Howard’s first-ever vacation out of the country through her eyes.

Visiting Hours also takes place during the events of Waking Dream, just a few days after Betty and Howard return from Europe. In this story, we follow Lizzie around the hospital, where she meets someone who’ll appear again later in the Dream Doctor Mysteries.

Movie Night takes place in the long gap between Fever Dream and Dream Wedding. The Alderson family has a new dog, and it’s time to give him a name.

The Candidate also takes place between Fever Dream and Dream Wedding, and we see exactly how and why Howard decides to run for mayor of the town of Aisling, New York.

Finally, To Sleep, Perchance to Dream jumps ahead twenty-five years past the end of Dream Wedding. Sara steps into her father’s dreams one final time. This was originally intended to be the epilogue of Dream Wedding, but after a lot of consideration, I decided it fits better here. There’s one other thing about this story—one small detail that Sara’s father mentions has been overtaken by events as reporters like to say. He laments never having seen his beloved Philadelphia Eagles win the Super Bowl, which, when this story was written, they had never done. However, they did win the Super Bowl in February of 2018, which would have made Howard Barnes very happy. I’ve left the story as it is, though.

I hope you’ll enjoy these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them!

(December 1980)

This box is very small. I do not like it. I do not like it. I do not like it!

I hear people. They are very loud. The other people were loud, too. I was scared of them. They yelled when I pooped in the house. I don’t want to poop in the house. But I have to poop. If I poop in this box, they will yell at me. I will be BAD. I don’t want to be BAD!

Something is happening! I hear a person. She is right outside the box. She is loud, like the other people. But her loud does not hurt my ears like the other people. She is opening the box. She is opening the box! She is opening the box!

This is not where I was! I am somewhere else! There were bars and everything was gray and hard and sharp. This is not-gray and the floor is soft and there are no sharp things.

There were many many small furry people at the other place. I am the only small furry person here. There was only one big, not-furry person at the other place. But there are many big, not-furry people here. There are two smaller big people. One is a boy with a little not-gray fur on his head. The other one is a girl. She is bigger than the boy, and she has more not-gray fur on her head. She smells friendly.

She is picking me up! She is kissing my head! She is yelling at me, but it is nice yelling. There are many bigger big people. I do not know how many. I know one, and I know two. I do not know what is more than two. There are many of them, and they smell happy. They are making a noise I do not know, but they are smelling happy, so it is a good noise.

The smaller girl big person is not yelling anymore. She is making noise, but it is more quiet. I do not understand her. If she could talk properly, like all the small furry people at the other place, I would understand her. But she…

Good dog!

I understand that! I know what Good Dog means! It means I am GOOD! I am GOOD! I am GOOD! I want to be GOOD! I want to be GOOD all the time always! I will be GOOD, and the small not-furry girl will like me and she will always smell friendly and everything will be GOOD always and always!

She is petting me and rubbing my belly and scratching under my jaw and saying Good Dog over and over. That means she loves me! I am licking her face. That means I love her!

I like this new place! All the not-furry people smell happy. But I like the small not-furry girl best, because I love her! She smells happy and friendly and full of GOOD!

I see something else. I see a tree! I know what trees mean! But it is inside. Trees are always outside. Outside is where I poop and I pee. And trees are the best place to poop and to