Oliver's Quest

Chapter 1

"Almost... there," Oliver muttered to himself. With a few more bangs of his hammer, the nail finally fell into place. He let out a sigh of relief.

"Are you ready, Carrot?" he asked his pet bunny, who was white with orange spots. Carrot squeaked excitedly in reply. Oliver lifted him gently into a small wooden box with wheels, and set it on a mini roller coaster track he had made out of bits and pieces he had found around his house. He pushed it, and watched as the cart began to roll forward.

All of a sudden, Oliver's father opened the door and peeked inside. "Are you okay? I heard bangi-"

His jaw dropped as he watched Carrot race around the room. Carrot slowly reached the end of the track, bumped into a marble, and ran back to his cage. That marble started a chain of events that ended up pouring Carrot's rabbit food straight into his bowl, where he was waiting patiently. Carrot was delighted at this, and began to eat.

"Did you really make all that?" asked his dad in wonder.

"Yeah," replied Oliver.

"Well, I was going to call you downstairs for dinner. Your mom made your favourite blackberry pie for dessert!"

"You can go down. I'll be there in a minute!" Oliver said, wishing his parents knew how much he despised their blackberry pie. Their raspberry pie, on the other hand, was heavenly.

"Okay," said his dad, and left. Oliver turned to Carrot, who was munching happily out of his food bowl. "Now you stay right here, okay?"

Carrot didn't seem to want to do anything different, so he went back to eating. Oliver petted him, and then turned and left the room to go eat dinner.

Oliver headed downstairs to the dining room. He walked in on what appeared to be a very excited conversation between his parents.

"I was just telling your mom about your little roller coaster you made," said his dad, as his mom spooned hot soup into his bowl.

"Oliver, we found some interesting news for you," said his mom. "So, King Adrien just sent out a message about how his royal engineer, designer, and builder just retired. He's asking for someone to take his place."

"This would be a good opportunity to start earning money, maybe get a permanent job that you actually like," said his dad.

Oliver agreed to try it out and see if he likes the job, and his dad told him that the job starts tomorrow. Oliver couldn't wait to start!

Later, after a delicious bowl of soup and an amazing slice of blackberry pie, he brushed his teeth and went back upstairs to go to sleep.

He locked Carrot in his cage, and put his little blanket over him. When he was closing the curtains on his window, he thought he saw a faint glow coming from the forest. It was very eerie, and made him feel really weird. As he continued to watch, the light slowly began to swirl, creating beautiful patterns of changing colours. It crept into his mind and reawakened all of his happiest memories. He remembered the day his dad came home with a little box, and remembered his feeling of excitement when he heard it squeak. He relived his ninth birthday, when his parents gifted him with a mini tool box, which he then took into his room and disappeared for at least four days,  and only coming out for meals. While he watched all these moments play out before his eyes, he noticed that in every one there were swirling patterns of light like the ones outside his window right now. He hadn't seen them at the time, but they were hidden everywhere.

I must be imagining things, thought Oliver before turning off the lights and going to sleep, and having an amazing night filled with wonderful dreams of light and colour.