Joe Hardy could hear his brother’s voice.  It sounded far away.

“Joe! Come on, Joe!”

Slowly, the blond child opened his eyes.  He recognized Frank’s warm brown eyes peering down at him.

“Am I okay?” Joe asked.

Frank made a face.  “No silly.  You got your tonsils out, remember? That’s why you couldn’t play outside today.”

Frowning, Joe forced himself to sit up.  He opened his eyes in surprise when he recognized his dad’s chair.  “I’m in the family room.”

“’Course,” Frank replied, shaking his head. “You’ve been here most of the day, watchin’ Dad’s DVD’s.

“Anyway, Mom wants to know if you feel like eatin’ supper with us.  She made potato soup so it won’t hurt your throat.”

“Frank, didn’t you and Tony and Chet get captured by the Rattlesnake Gang today?”

“Rattlesnake Gang?  What are you talkin’ about?”

Joe sighed. “I must’a dreamed it.  It was so cool, too.”

“You mean you dreamt it, not dreamed it,” Frank corrected.

Joe stuck out his tongue. “Who says?”

“You’re goofy!” Frank laughed, hitting Joe with a small pillow.

“It was neat though,” Joe persisted.  “I met the Lone Ranger and Tonto and Batman and Robin, even though they were dressed pretty weird. 

“You and Tony and Chet were captured and I helped rescue all of you. The Lone Ranger even gave me a star pin like the real Texas Rangers wear.”

“Sounds like you had a nice dream, Joe,” Frank acknowledged.

“It wasn’t all good,” Joe said, his face becoming serious.  “In a lot of it, I was really scared, and you almost got hanged and a bad guy shot me!”

“No wonder Mom says you gotta overactive imagination,” Frank grinned.

“Overactive ‘magination? What’s that?”

“Never mind. So are you comin’ to supper or not? Mom wants to know if she should set a place for you,” Frank asked again.

“Yeah, but I better go to the bathroom first,” Joe replied.

“’Kay, see you at the table,” Frank said as walked back into the kitchen.

Joe climbed out of the comfort of his father’s chair, but stopped and picked up the DVD case from the end table nearby.  It had a picture of the Lone Ranger and Tonto on the front.  Across the top was a blazing headline that read: “The Adventures of the Lone Ranger.”

“Guess it was all a dream,” the child said softly to the character on the case.  “I could never be a real hero like you, rescuin’ people and fightin’ bad guys.”

Joe set the case back down and stuck his feet into his slippers.  He pulled on his robe and padded softly down the hall to the bathroom.  He could hear his mother’s laughter and he smelled something wonderful.  He picked up his pace and hurried in to wash up.

Joe ran his hands under the water for a minute, then reached for the soap, rubbed it between his hands, then rinsed off.

There was no towel on the towel rack. Joe bent down to pick up the stool Mom kept handy so he could reach the towels in the cabinet.  As he leaded forward, something fell from the pocket of his bathrobe.

Joe reached down and picked up the small, round object.  He looked at it carefully, and then his eyes grew wide with astonishment.  In the palm of his wet hand, was a silver Texas Ranger star.

Forgetting about the towel, Joe ran to the dining room where his family was having supper.

“Look! Look what I have!”

“Let’s see, buddy,” Fenton said, pulling the boy onto his lap. “Wow! That looks like a real Texas Ranger badge.”

Frank almost choked on his soup.  He looked at Joe’s grinning face and thought about the dream his brother told him about.

“Where in the world did that come from?” Laura asked, admiring the star.

Joe glanced at his brother.  Frank just grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

“Maybe it was from the Lone Ranger,” Joe tentatively suggested.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Fenton declared with a smile.  He gave his wife a conspiratorial wink.

“Frank, pass the bread please.”

The End

Noah’s original chapter 2

(with spelling corrected so you can understand it):

Frank, Tony and Chet came in the door.  Mr. Hardy had made lunch.  He brought Joe to the kitchen.

“Joe! Come here and sit by me!”

“Hi, Frank!” Joe said.

“Are you building the fort?” Joe asked.

“No. We will wait until you are better,” Frank said.

“We need your help,” Chet said.

Joe was happy.  He would get to help build the fort.

“We are making a bridge across the creek,” Frank said.

“We won’t have to use the old log again,” Tony said.

“It is a good bridge,” Frank said.

The boys finished lunch.  Frank, Chet and Tony left.  Joe watched them go. He was sad.

“Can I go?” Joe asked his dad.

“No son,” Mr. Hardy said.  He was sad, too.

“Rats!” Joe said.

Joe went back to watching the DVD shows.