Captain Coates

She gasped with excitement and shouted over the noise of the propeller. "The islands in the clouds are real!!" Cap'n turned back, letting go of the helm and letting the ship sink into the buoyancy of the fluffy clouds. "Of course they are! This here land is just as real as the ground down thither. You think if I snap my fingers this will all disappear?"
Betty's jaw dropped, eyes large in their childish innocence. "Well, duh!" She undid her seat belt, fixed the frills in her night gown, and fluttered her hair and eyelashes. "It's not normal that this exists, but it totally does!" She turned to the captain, "Will it go away if you snap?"
Captain Coates laughed three hearty hoots. "Yer not afraid, now are you?"
Betty shook her head, even though she was a tiny bit afraid. What if the ship poofed away? Would she tumble and fall down back to the Earth?
"Not at all," she answered.

She watched Coates's fingers brush together with a wince, almost preparing herself for her likely, tumultuous descent. Her heart nearly imploded when the sound reached her ears...but nothing happened.
The excitement rushed back into her all at once.
Betty jumped from her seat and roamed around the ship, peering over the edge and checking everything out. The water, or what would be, of the beachfront was made entirely of clouds and they moved and shifted like an ocean. Every so often, when the clouds parted a certain way, she could see the yellow blinking light on Mr. Willow's porch. She wondered how far up she was. She wondered if she was dreaming. But the breeze that smelled like strawberries and chocolate brushed her hair off her face.It was very much real. The stars in the sky looked like glitter against a big sheet of black construction paper, sparking and glittering against the giant Moon.
Coates grinned, excited by her excitement, skin near his eyes crinkling warmly, like melted sugar crystallizing."What do you say we dock and join the other children?"
"There are others?" Betty squealed.
"Course there are. This is the Island of Dreams. If you dream it, it'll be."