Oliver's Quest

Chapter 2

Oliver's alarm clock was not an ordinary alarm clock. As soon as it began ringing, the alarm clock released a rope that flew up and dropped a pillow on his face. He woke up and turned to go back to sleep. All of a sudden, Carrot leaped out of his cage and started running all over him. "Okay, okay, I'm coming!" said Oliver.

He quickly jumped out of bed, almost knocking poor Carrot to the ground. Luckily, he landed on the soft pillow from Oliver's 'alarm clock', instead of on the cold, hard, floor. Oliver dragged himself to the bathroom, and brushed his teeth. Then he stumbled down the stairs.

When he got downstairs, he saw his parents eating oatmeal at the table. When Oliver came into the room, his mom said, "You know, the king said that even thought your job starts tomorrow, you could come to the castle in your free time to see how it is. Now, would you like some toast?"

"Okay," said Oliver. He was planning on checking out the area where the glow was coming from yesterday, but he decided that he could wait until tomorrow. Oliver took his cheese slices and put them on his toast, lost in thought about what the palace would be like. All of a sudden, he had a thought. Why isn't there any competition for this job? He decided that it was a good thing, and tried not to let his doubts consume him, but he knew they would eat away at him eventually.

After breakfast, Oliver unlocked his bike and rode to the beautiful palace of the royal family of Valworth. As he began to near the famous castle, he thought he spotted a guard. He arrived at the castle, and got off his bike. "Hello, and welcome to the royal palace of Valworth! Would you, by any chance, be Oliver Holt?" Oliver was very surprised that the king wanted to meet him so badly that he set up a guard to He followed the guard through the two big doors.

When he had first seen the castle, it looked like the kind of fancy place that wouldn't be that comfortable, but the inside seemed so cozy! It had fireplaces, big windows, and a lot of places to relax.

Oliver followed the guard through a maze of corridors. They finally arrived in a room that could easily be the size of Oliver's whole house. In the room was a man entering his early 50's. He was sitting in a nice, comfy chair, and was reading a book. The guard who had welcomed him said, "Your Majesty, this is Oliver Holt, the boy who is going to replace William." At this, the king looked up and smiled. "Hello, Oliver! It's a pleasure to meet you!"

Don't embarrass yourself, don't embarrass yourself, repeated Oliver in his head. "Nice to meet you too, sir," replied Oliver shyly.

"So, Oliver, do you have any experience with building, crafting, or designing?" asked the king.

"Well," Oliver said timidly, "I like to build things with parts that I find around my house."

"Excellent! And what kind of 'things'," asked the king with air quotations, "do you build?"

"Um, yesterday, I finished building a roller coaster for my pet bunny, Carrot, that poured his food into his bowl," said Oliver. "It's kind of a weird idea, but it works," said Oliver awkwardly. At this, King Adrien let out a deep, rumbling laugh. Oliver's ears turned red and he smiled sheepishly. Way to go, stupid, he scolded himself.

"I sure would like to see that," said the king with a grin. "Anyway, I have recently been reported to by three of our citizens that they were strolling through our library when they found some old scrolls. When they tried reading them, there was no text; only diagrams that looked like designs of some sort. So they wanted me to show William, our old inventor, but he had mysteriously retired right when I had went to go ask him. It might have been a coincidence, but I am uncertain," he said. "Another strange thing is that they had found them on a desk, as if someone had thrown it on the table and left in a hurry. It would be great if you could look at it and see if you could decipher it. Are you willing to try?" asked the king.

"Sure," said Oliver, trying not to be overwhelmed by the knowledge that King Adrien was trying to stuff into his head all at once.

"Good," said King Adrien. Then he turned to the guard who had escorted Oliver to the room. "Could you please retrieve the scrolls that were found last week?" he asked the guard. "Right away, sir," the guard said before hurrying off.

The guard arrived with some old, cracked, yellowed scrolls. He placed them at the table in front of him before he saluted King Adrien and left.

Oliver studied the paper. Although the diagrams were very well drawn, Oliver noticed that the lines were slightly wobbly, as if the person who made this had been nervous or scared. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. Much to his surprise, Oliver recognized a lot of the parts of the diagrams, and tried to explain as best as he could to King Adrien. For one whole hour he talked, forgetting his nervousness, and just doing the thing he did best, as the king became more and more astonished at the amount of knowledge that Oliver had. When Oliver finally finished, the king said, "Well done, Oliver! You have done what no one else could. I am proud to call you Valworth's official inventor. Now I will return this to the library, and you can make your way outside and back home. Have a good evening!" He got up, picked the scrolls, and started to leave. All of a sudden, a small paper fell out from in between the scrolls. On it was a clear drawing of the forest around Valworth, with a circle around the area where Oliver had seen the strange glow last night! Quickly, before King Adrien could see, he scooped it up and stuffed into his pocket. "Okay, see you tomorrow," said Oliver while he rushed out of the room, trying not to make it obvious that he was hiding something. When he got outside, unlocked his bike and pedalled home as fast as he could.