There wasn’t a sound that was heard or a picture to see in the room, the bedroom. His bedroom was the color of black. The color of black reminded the young boy, by the name of Olen Stephens – he hated his name – that he could get away from it all, hide from the reality of his life in this blackness before preparing for school in the next couple of hours. Now I am alone, it feels better this way, he thought, sitting up in his bed, seeing the flashes of car lights go past behind his bedroom curtains.
Instead of getting up, as he had done for the last three days waking up three hours before school time to seal his curtains shut, he didn’t, not because he was lazy and didn’t want to get up to do it, but because he was deep in thought again.
“I don’t want to lose the thought. I see it, imagine it in my head and I have to capture it before it leaves!” Olen yelled, jumping out of bed, tripping and falling to the floor. “Oh, crap! Please don’t do this to me again. I need that picture. It will be so great in my storybook collection.” He felt around on the floor as if he was looking for something. He felt the hard steel railing of his bed. Good. I’m right at my bed it has to be somewhere around here, Olen thought as he continued to feel around on the carpet floor.
He used the railing as his guide to get to his feet. He walked forward, slowly then a little faster. “Awh, man, this is getting easy, hum-hum-hum,” he hummed loudly, then that hum quickly changed to a yell that he tried very hard to mask by covering his mouth with his hands so he wouldn’t disturb his mother and father who were directly across the hall from him.
“Dang it, you stupid dresser drawer! Why did you have to be in the way? You made me stump my big toe and it hurts really bad now!” Olen took a deep breath. He reached his hand out. “Well, at least I found you, considering my now achy toe!” He found the switch, turned it counter-clock wise and his lamp came on.
“Awh, there you are, I thought I went to sleep and crushed you, for a minute, my trusty glasses,” he said. The grin that his mother always told him looks so pretty that he needed to show his beautiful teeth more often, vanished and disappeared. He could see a lot better, not because his lamp was finally on, but because Olen had his microscopic eye glasses hooked properly over the bridge of his nose.
Now consumed with a thought, different from the one that drove him out of his bed and lumbering to the floor, he went to his bedroom mirror. There, he didn’t see a tall, lanky fifteen-year old freckled-face Olen wearing huge eye glasses, he saw the boy with two first names, Charles Henry, who gave him wedgies and referred to him as the “Microscope Boy”, in his mirror.
He hadn’t stood up to Charles Henry since the six grade when Charles gave Olen his first wedgy and now, right there, in his mirror, he wasn’t going to stand up to him either. “Who cares about your smile when you have those over-size glasses on and those too tight pants on, dude?”
“Come on, Charles, not today. Can I get to class in peace today? I had a hard time getting those pants out of my butt yesterday!”
“Today is not wedgy, Microscope Boy, today is when you hand over all your money to me that is.” Olen tried to turn away but he couldn’t. Charles’s laugh was not only loud but it carried. Olen knew that, within seconds, the group of boys that hung out with Charles would be right there to poke fun at him along with Charles.
Olen looked back into the mirror after turning away for a brief second. Charles Henry was still there as Olen knew he would be. He stood there, every six feet two inches of him. Then a smirk showed in the red face that held two chins. Olen could hear the huh, huh, huh breathing of Charles so rhythmically controlled and hard that each of his breaths caused the brown hair that hung down over his forehead to go up and down with every huh, huh, huh that Charles Henry uttered. In short, Charles Henry reminded Olen of an enraged bull ready to charge.
“Every dime you have, Microscope Boy, unless you want to end up in one of these lockers! And if you think I’m playing games, then try me and I will show you that the only game I will be playing is you, Olen Stephens, Microscope Boy!” His fat, pale hands, that looked swollen to Olen, stretched out, waiting for him to reach in his pocket and give him all the money he had. “Now, Stephens, I need you to pay up!”
Olen stood there like a statue. Charles’s bottom lip from the inside out looked to have a load of nuts in it as if he was a chipmunk. His voice, although high, sounded as if he had something clogged in his throat.
“I don’t have any money to give you, Charles. If you can just wait until…”
“I’m not waiting until no time. I guess now I can put you in the locker with a wedgy or should I just sock you one in the face, take a picture and put it on my social media page?”
“Sock him one, Charles, and tagged all of us in the picture!” one of Charles’s friends suggested. “I have a new phone. You can take the picture with my phone. The picture will look like it is in 3-D,” another one of Charles’s friends said. “I think I’m going to sock ole Microscope Boy one right in his glasses and break them. What do you say, boys?”
Their answer was a resounding ‘yes’. The chants of “do it” then echoed in the hallway from Charles’s friends. Olen was shaking. He believed it would be better for him to embrace the impact of the hit, rather than trying to do anything out of the ordinary for him like run or possibly hit back. Olen closed his eyes, balled his fist but didn’t move it an inch from his waist.
“Right in your microscope glasses, Stephens.”
“Okay, you boys, stop all the horse playing and get to your classes unless you want me to report what I see, and I am referring to you, Mr. Charles Henry!”
“Yes, Mrs. Jones. I’m just letting Olen know that we are friends to the end. Isn’t that right, Olen?” Charles said, placing his arm around Olen’s neck in a wrestling hug.
“Yes, that is right. We are friends to the end,” Olen replied.
“You make sure you have that money the next time I see you, or else you will be the laughing stock of social media, Microscope Boy!”
With a gasping breath, Olen turned away from his mirror. “I can’t think about Charles and his band of crazy men. Oh yeah…, the thought! Now what was it that I was supposed to remember?” Olen said to himself as he rushed away from the mirror and to the top shelf of his closet. “There it is!” From there, Olen pulled out a notebook that read “Storybook” on the outside in cutout different color letters. Olen open it up to the first page. It was a nice picture of an elf that had been colored in green, purple and orange.
You done such a fantastic job coloring this one, Camden, wait till you see what I have next for you to color for me, Olen thought, placing the notebook on his bed. He then went to another labeled item in his room, this one said drawing easel. Olen closed his eyes and picked one of the colored pencils out of the tray at the front of the easel.
“I’m not for sure little lady, but I think I may have seen you in my dream a time or two, or maybe in my imagination. But one thing I am sure about is I saw you somewhere, maybe not as exactly as I draw you. But I think it will be close.” Olen smiled while talking to himself. “This is what I saw in my head, Mr. Easel.”
“Well, draw what you see, Mr. Olen, because this is your storyboard!” Olen said in a deep raspy voice as best he could from a fifteen year old boy pretending to make the easel talk.
“Why are we drawing today, Mr. Olen, so early in the morning?”
“Well, Mr. Easel, we are drawing today so that my young friend and neighbor Camden Jones can have something to color for me, he is like my assistant. He is really great at coloring things.” Olen went on with his imagination, pretending that his drawing easel was a real person. As his mind slowly drifted away from Charles Henry it slowly focused on what he saw within the large blank piece of paper on his easel. He squinted through his thick glasses. He could see not just an outline but a picture identical to the one he saw in his head. And just like the picture in his head, the picture on his easel was sketchy and unclear.
“What’s wrong, Olen, you look a little unsettled!”
“I am more than a little unsettled, Mr. Easel, I am a lot unsettled,” Olen said.
“Write what you see on the art paper, Olen.”
“That’s the problem; I see it but it is sketchy in my head and on paper, I don’t see any detail at all, Mr. Easel.”
Olen glared harder at the blank piece of paper then walked away. He truly didn’t want to go back to the mirror.
At this time detail doesn’t matter. You can always go back and fill in, Olen. Draw what you see, young man. Draw what you see. The room was quiet but the words he heard exploded with volume in his head. His favorite color was green; he snatched the green and orange pencils out of the slot, listening to what he heard in his head. Olen began drawing. He struggled for several seconds with the color pencil pinned to the middle of the white paper.
Then it came. What at first looked like orange scribbles on a blank piece of art paper, wasn’t. Olen stepped away his smile bigger than life. “A sketch of an orange bridge. Wow! That is super nice!” Then he took out a gray pencil and filled in some of the white above the orange bridge with the gray pencil.
“It looks like it’s coming together pretty well, Olen, and you took my advice.”
“Thank you, Mr. Easel, but there is just a little more I want to add since I do see something else in my head,” Olen said his voice rising to equate his excitement.
The black one was the next pencil Olen picked out. In his mind there was hesitation but afraid of what Mr. Easel would say if he put the pencil away, He filled in the white spaces that were filled with gray with the black pencil.
This is what I see; this is what is stuck in my head. Then the final colored of his drawing that Olen used was blue to fill in the white under the bridge. “I don’t know what I could call this, Mr. Easel. Would you happen to have any ideas?”
“To be honest I will let you spend the day at school coming up with something, and then if you still don’t have anything, I will pitch in with my ideas.”
“Thanks, Mr. Easel. I am always up for some creative ideas.”
“Looks like you have a few yourself. The drawing looks fantastic, Olen!”
“It’s just a sketch not even a line drawing. Maybe when I get home I can work on it a little more and add some detail to it, Mr. Easel. But right now I think I am going back to bed.”
“You need all of your rest, young man. But if you ever want to get up extra early or stay up extra late to express your ideas again, I'm always up to help you to put those ideas on paper, Olen.”
“Thanks, Mr. Easel. I will try to remember that.”
Admiring the picture that he drew with ease, his smile returned, Seconds later he was under his bed covers and back to sleep.
What only seemed like minutes, which was actually two hours, the yelling of “Olen, get up! It’s time for you to get ready for school,” came to his ears and woke him up.
He rose like a zombie or more like a person being chased by a zombie.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart? You look bothered by something.”
“Awh, honey, just past the eggs to Olen and leave him alone, he’s going through a boy’s phase that’s all.”
“Whatever boys’ phases are, Dad, could be I really don’t know!”
“Oh, Bob, you may be right. Olen is going through a boy’s phase. Okay, sweetheart, tell us her name. Don’t be shy now!”
With a squint and a frown that showed through red cheeks, Olen shook his head in embarrassment.
“Mom, I have no idea what you are talking about!”
“Oh look at him, honey. He is blushing. Oh, how cute!”
Olen pushed his thick brown hair out of his face and took only one bite of his eggs and a piece of his bacon before getting up and pushing his chair under the kitchen table.
“Sweetheart, you haven’t even begun to touch your plate. You need to eat your breakfast.”
“Oh let him go. He is a teenager. If he doesn’t want to eat his food then he doesn’t have to eat his food,” Olen’s father said his voice strong and husky. “Besides, I have been in your shoes before, son. I know what it’s like to go through what you’re going through at your age. You know why, son?” Olen’s dad’s voice rose.
“No, Dad, I don’t know why, but I am sure you’re going to tell me.”
“You are going through boy things, so if you want to go through them by yourself, by all means knock yourself out, kid. But when she wants to put one of those sloppy kiss smack dap on one of those cheeks of yours, don’t say I didn’t warn you!”
“Have a great day in school, sweetheart!” Olen’s mother said. But since Olen wanted to appear as if he didn’t hear them or as if he was ignoring them, he remained quiet and closed the door behind him.
Olen was a loner. The only friend that he had was his six-year-old neighbor, Camden Jones. They had something in common. Olen liked to draw and Camden like to color, so Olen drew a notebook full of pictures and Camden colored every picture he drew. Other than that, Olen was alone most of the time.
The school bus was always loud, rowdy kids running through the aisle, paper throwing and whatever else the children felt like doing, a few shoving matches but never any fights. Olen always wondered why the bus driver wouldn’t do more to prevent the mayhem that took place in the morning to school and in the evening on their way home.
Maybe she can’t do anything. I guess driving and trying to stop five kids from throwing spit wades at each other is nearly impossible, Olen thought.
Charles Henry didn’t ride Olen’s school bus but it didn’t matter because most of the time, he would find Olen somewhere before the morning bell to first period. Olen thought that since he wasn’t going to tell his parents about Charles Henry’s excessive bullying, maybe things would get resolved, if he told one of his teachers.
No, that is even a worst idea if Charles found out that I ratted on him things will be a lot worse for me. I think I better play it safe and give Charles Henry what he wants. But for now I should try and dodge him.
Olen was the last person to get off the bus but didn’t do so right away. He scanned the schoolyard in search of Charles Henry.
“I know you have to be somewhere out here. You’re not going to pass up five dollars, are you Charles? You made the promise that if I bring it then you wouldn’t bother me. Well, here I am Charles Henry!”
“Olen, are you okay?” the bus driver said, startling Olen almost out of his seat.
“Mrs. Clamorer; I didn’t see you!” Olen said, staring at Mrs. Clamorer as if he had seen a ghost. “All the kids are gone off the bus. I saw you from my mirror, you sat here three whole minutes staring out the window, and when I saw you were not making a move, I thought I needed to check on you. Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I was just admiring the flowers our school has, Mrs. Clamorer.”
“We have no flowers here at the school to admire, Olen!”
“Sometimes I get grass and flowers mixed up. I will see you later. Bye. Mrs. Clamorer!” Olen said, getting off his seat and pushing past the bus driver.
Mrs. Clamorer made her way back to the front of the bus while giggling her way back to her seat.
There were four separate buildings that made up Olen’s high school. To get to his building, which was building A; he would have to pass Charles’s building, which was building B.
“Just one more building and I will be right through the doors of building A,” Olen said to himself, as he used his fellow high schoolmates to jostle his way through the corridors and hide from Charles Henry. When the next to the last school bell rang and all the high-schoolers had cleared the hallway in Olen’s building, he was now ready to get to his 1st period class.
“Looks like I am going to get pass Charles after all,” Olen whispered, only for that whispered to be accompanied with the shakes and an upturned frown.
“I didn’t see you in the cafeteria, Microscope Boy,” Charles exclaimed from behind Olen. “So I thought I come see you before the last bell rung, you should have something for me. Hand it over, cause I ain’t got all day!”
From under a pile of leaves that was stacked near the side of the street in a yard, Whisk-pey poked her head out. She looked around. Everything looked unfamiliar to her. “Where in the world am I?” she said out loud to herself. Ento came up and out of the leaves and jumped on Whisk-pey’s shoulders.
“I’m not going to ask the same question you just ask, but I am going to say this much, Whisk-pey; we are definitely not in Make Believe anymore,” Ento confirmed.
Whisk-pey shook the leaves off her and Ento, then explored her surroundings. “This place looks much like our place, Ento. They have houses, but how did they get them on ground level instead of in the trees?” Whisk-pey asked.
“I’m not sure but I would like to know that myself!”
“Oh gees; the air here is awful I can smell the dirt and smog. This can’t be the place that my wish brought me to,” Whisk-pey said.
“If it is, then I think we need to find a one way ticket back to Make Believe, Whisk-pey!”
“I don’t think there is a way back,” Whisk-pey replied. “I wanted to be away from my father, and my mother. I didn’t want to feel like I was nothing to my father and mother, especially Dad. That’s how they were treating me and I hated it! To be honest, I miss home already, Ento. But to know what home was like for me, I think that starting here – where ever this here is – I am ready to start over from the beginning, Ento.”
Ento felt her pain and her sorrow because he, too, not only experienced the same thing, but missed home. He kissed Whisk-pey on her furry cheeks.
As they walked out and away from the pile of leaves he said, “So am I, Whisk-pey, so am I!”