Willow Nertstorm wasn’t the type of person who likes dances. Willow’s parents, however, were.They brought her to just about every dance in town, and told her she had to go to school dances, which were her least favourite type of dance, and the type she happened to be at on November 18th, 2016. But that’s not really what the story is about, so let’s start at the beginning.
Willow went to a school ten blocks away from her home, it was called Macile High and had about three hundred students. Willow’s class had nineteen kids in it, a few of which were her friends. Then there was Oliver.
Oliver Gregory Simons, a grade 8 who doesn’t sit with anyone, doesn’t talk if he can avoid it, doesn’t participate in anything he can get out of, and has a severe peanut allergy. If you were to walk by Oliver at school and introduce yourself, he would probably say very quickly and quietly “Hi,” before going back to reading his superhero comics or drawing very intricate superhero suits. If you were to then go further and ask him for his name, he would probably say “Oliver,” in the same quick and nervous voice. Willow had never gotten past the “Hi,” and “Oliver,” stage, so she really didn’t know much about him, that was until October 3rd, when Oliver suddenly levitated off the playground around 3:30, and flew away.
Since Oliver never talked to anybody, no one ever found out how Oliver could fly, until that day I was talking about earlier, November 18th, 2016. It was the Welcoming Winter Annual School Dance at Macile High. Willow had to go, of course. Shortly after her parents dropped her off, Willow slipped out the front doors and into the nighttime streets. She shivered in the icy cold air. Then she saw Oliver leaning against the side of the building staring at his phone. Willow decided she would join him, since there was nothing else to do. She slipped down beside him, “Hey Oliver,”
“Hi,” He said, still looking at his phone.
Willow decided to attempt at a conversation, “So you don’t like dances either?”
“Huh?”
She’d gotten another word out of him! “Well, you’re sitting out here instead of dancing,”
“Oh, yeah,”
“Too much expectation to dance well, which I could never do,” Willow stated “And nobody ever wants to dance with me,” she added
“Yeah,” replied Oliver. He put down his phone. It looked like he was about to say something more, but he stayed silent.
“I wish there was another option for things to do. I mean right now the options are to dance or sit outside in the cold,”
“Or pretend you’re really hungry and hover around the food table for the entire dance,”
Willow was shocked for a second and Oliver probably wondered why she wasn’t talking. Oliver had said a sentence! Willow gathered herself, “I tried that once,”
“I wish I could just fly away,”
“I thought you could fly, you flew home from school a few times. It’s amazing!”
“I can’t right now,”
“Why not? How do you fly?”
“Can’t tell,” said Oliver shortly, and with that he returned to his phone and started concentrating very hard on closing all the apps that were open. That seemed to be the end of their conversation.
Willow entered the decorated school gym and slipped over to the food table while trying to be invisible. She grabbed a handful of chips and stood in the corner eating them as quietly as possible. She ate a few more things before she decided she didn’t want to be the type of person who just comes to parties for the food and she walked towards the door. She ate her last chip and was about to open the door when she paused. She heard hushed voices, one of which was Oliver’s. “This should last you awhile,” the one who wasn’t Oliver said
“Thank you so much,” said oliver “I’ve been needing some of these,”. Willow quietly slipped out onto the doorstep. It was hard to see in the dark, but she could tell that the other person was at least a couple years older than Oliver. Willow watched as Oliver pulled two hundred dollar bills out of his pocket and exchanged it with the boy for a small ziplock bag filled with something grey, maybe multiple very small grey things.
“There’s ten in there, I’ll see you again next year,” said the older boy
“Bye!,” replied Oliver. The other boy slipped away into the darkness.
Willow stepped up to Oliver. “Who was that?”
Oliver looked very startled and quickly slipped the bag into his pocket. “My friend,” He replied nervously.
“What did he give you?”
“Nothing,” stated Oliver, in a voice that made it clear he knew no one would believe him.
“What’s in the bag? I won’t get you in trouble, I just wanna know what it is!,”
“It’s Ashtabs,” Oliver said quickly and quietly. He looking around.
“Is that some type of drug? I’ve never heard of it,”
“I guess. They’re not very dangerous though,”
“What do they do?” Asked Willow, half worried and half interested.
Oliver looked around quickly to make sure no one was watching. “They make me fly,” he whispered.
“So you just eat one and it makes you fly? Do they have any side effects?”
“Yeah, they have a couple side effects. But they’re totally worth it. I’ll sell you one for twenty five dollars,”
“Wait, I won’t try it unless I know what the side effects are,”
“If you eat more than ten per year you’re pretty much guaranteed to have cancer within ten years of starting using them, that’s why my friend will only sell me ten per year,”
“What are they made out of?”
“Ash from bird bones,”
“I don’t want one,” decided Willow
“They’re amazing, just try one, I’ll give it to you for twenty,”
“Alright I’ll try one,” and Willow dug in her pockets and came up with a twenty dollar bill. She handed it to Oliver and he handed her a tablet. He took one out for himself. She counted down. “Three, two, one,” and they put the tablets in their mouths.
“You dissolve it under your tongue,” informed Oliver, so Willow did that. It was probably the worst flavor she had ever tasted, but she managed to dissolve the entire tablet and swallow. “Now we just wait about twenty minutes,”.
Willow and Oliver waited together beside the building. They talked for a while until Oliver suddenly said “OK, let’s try flying,”
“How do I do it?”
“Just jump,” Oliver demonstrated. He jumped up, and instead of coming down, he hovered as if he were standing on an invisible surface.
“Here I go!” Annabelle exclaimed. She jumped as high as she could, and she stayed in mid-air.
“We’ve only got about ten minutes before they run out, but check this out,”. Oliver started running and in about one second he was on the other end of the street. “Follow me!” he shouted. Willow ran towards him, she realized that the tablets must make you be able to run very quickly as well.
Together Oliver and Willow ran around above their town for about ten minutes, getting higher all the time until the could barely see the dogs in people’s yards. Eventually they started walking back towards the school. Soon they found themselves floating gently back to the ground. Their feet touched the pavement just outside the school, you would never know anything had happened. “That was fun, but I don’t really want to do it again, too risky with the cancer,”
“I guess you’re right, it is pretty dangerous,”
“Would you rather be able to fly for fifteen years, or be able to live for about eighty or ninety,”
“I don’t know, I mean, I like to live in the moment,”
“But how could you just kill yourself like that?”
“It wouldn’t make too much of a difference in the world if I died,”
“I’d miss you, and not because you can fly, because you’re a nice person,”
Oliver stared at Willow for what seemed like a full minute. He looked shocked. Oliver tugged the bag of Ashtabs out of his pocket and shoved them deep into the bottom of the trashcan by the entrance to the school. He looked like he wasn’t quite sure how he felt.
Willow decided to change the subject “Wanna dance?”
***
Willow will never forget the day she first flew, she had been so thrilled to fly, but at least half the reason she would never forget that day was because it was the first day she danced with Oliver.
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