Questions This is the time that is no time: She’s in a vast white roofless room with an alien green sky above. It’s … what? The playroom? Yes, the playroom. Their playroom. (No, she’s lying on the floor of the bandstand. ) Question 1: What's the meaning of 'This is the time that is no time?' She’s a woman of a certain age. (No, she’s a little girl. ) There is no time. (It’s 1974 and there’s all the time in the world. ) Question 2: What does ‘It’s 1974 and there’s all the time in the world’ imply?She needs to breathe from the tire. (She doesn’t. ) Something is looking at her. Something terrible. But she is terrible to it, as well, because she’s bigger than she’s supposed to be, and she’s here. She’s not supposed to be here. She’s supposed to be in the box. Yet she is still harmless. It knows that, even though it is Question 3 / 1: because she’s bigger than she’s supposed to be --- what’s the meaning of ‘she’s supposed to be?’ Question 3 / 2: What’s the meaning of ‘She’s supposed to be in the box?’ (just a kid ) very young; barely out of the nursery, in fact. It speaks. —You are make-believe. —No, I’m real. Please, I’m real. We all are. Question 4 / 1: Here, nursery == an area in a hospital where new babies are looked after until they go home? Question 4 / 2: ‘—You are make-believe’ is said by the alien and ‘—No, I’m real. Please, I’m real. We all are.’ is said by Julia. Right? Question 4 / 3: ‘—No, I’m real. Please, I’m real. We all are.’ --- We == Julia and Barbie and that alien? ( p.s. In this case, there are only two people and one alien, Julia, Barbie, that alien ) The leatherhead regards her with its eyeless face. It frowns. The corners of its mouth turn down, although it has no mouth. And Julia realizes how lucky she is to have found one of them alone. There are usually more, but they have (gone home to dinner gone home to lunch gone to bed gone to school gone on vacation, doesn’t matter they’re gone ) Question 5 / 1: What’s the meaning of ‘doesn’t matter they’re gone?’ Question 5 / 2: doesn’t matter they’re gone == doesn’t matter IF they’re gone? gone somewhere. If they were here together, they would drive her back. This one could drive her back alone, but she is curious. Question 6: but she is curious == but she is curious about if this one could drive her back alone? She? Yes. This one is female, like her. —Please let us go. Please let us live our little lives. No answer. No answer. No answer. Then: —You aren’t real. You are— Question 7: ‘—You aren’t real. You are—’ is said by that alien, right? What? What does she say? You are toys from the toyshop? No, but it’s something like that. Julia has a flicker-memory of the ant farm her brother had when they were kids. The recollection comes and goes in less than a second. Ant farm isn’t right, either, but like toys from the toyshop, it’s close. It’s in the ballpark, as they say. Question 8 / 1: Does ‘It’s in the ballpark’ mean that ‘ant farm’ is close to what that female alien says? Question 8 / 2: It’s in the ballpark --- does ‘it’ refer to ‘ant farm?’ —How can you have lives if you aren’t real? —WE ARE SO REAL! she cries, and this is the moan Barbie hears.—AS REAL AS YOU! Silence. A thing with a shifting leather face in a vast white roofless room that is also somehow the Chester’s Mill bandstand. Then: —Prove it. —Give me your hand. —I have no hand. I have no body. Bodies aren’t real. Bodies are dreams. —Then give me your mind! The leatherhead child does not. Will not. So Julia takes it. Question 9: What’s the meaning of ‘Bodies are dreams?’ Question 10: What’s the meaning of ‘Then give me your mind?’ Question 11: What’s the meaning of ‘So Julia takes it?’ P.S. About Question 3 / 2: What does ‘She’s supposed to be in the box’ mean? I guess the author compares 'she' to an ant and 'the box' to a glass box filled with dirt and a lot of ants in it. It's like 'Ant farm' because they are trapped under the Dome (like ants are trapped in a glass box) now. Does it make sense?