Chapter 1

It was a summer day. The day felt quite long, fairly hot, as expected from the season, but this didn’t seem to disturb the two young friends walking down the granulate path of a local park during an odd yet yearly summer festival. The blinding sun kept the atmosphere radiant; the lack of trees made room for the sky.

“Did you bring any money?” said Tiffany. Dylan looked around his backpack to no avail.

“Shoot, no I forgot,” he sighed, tilting his head slightly down, “I must’ve left it at home.”

Tiffany looked at him with playful disappointment, whatever that meant.

“You had one job Dylan, one…”

“I know, I know…”

“Well now what?”

“I guess we can walk around.”

And that’s what they did. They walked around, stopped, continued walking, stopped once again, and so on every time they found themselves in front of game booths, souvenir boutiques, or even food stands. The food this year wasn’t particularly special, but it had its distinctiveness. The souvenirs and prizes however were uncommon. Very very uncommon in fact. Tiffany kept gazing at the souvenirs pinned to the cork boards, and Dylan noticed that.

“You should’ve brought money…” she said.

“I’m sorry, we can always buy something tomorrow.”

“It’s not the same…”

It wasn’t the same, since Tiffany always bought a souvenir on the first day of the festival. It became a tradition for her, and for some reason Dylan followed it. He now looked bummed. Maybe there was a way to cheer the friends up, but what could that be?

“Your mom still doesn’t lend you money?” he asked.

“Not until November.”

“Sad.”

A wicked thought struck Dylan in the head. He didn’t condone his own idea, but he couldn’t bear looking at Tiffany’s baby-doll eyes any longer. He turned his head, flirted his hair to the side, and smiled at her. Tiffany looked confused for a second. After that second, she still looked confused.

“Let’s go,” she said, weirded out.

“Right ahead of you.”

Dylan was waiting for the right moment to leave, but no opportunity seemed to come up. Tiffany was aloof. Birds chirped and flew from nest to nest. She contemplated the scenery. The sun was getting closer to the horizon, but not quite enough to be considered a sunset. The sky’s blueness slowly faded into a majestic orange colour.

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“Hey,” whispered Tiffany still fixated at the sky.

“Yeah?” replied Dylan still fixated on his thoughts.

“Isn’t it…” she said, now fixated at something else.

“Isn’t it what?”

“Did that bird’s nest just fall?”

“What?” he repeated, unable to understand what she said.

“Oh my goodness, we gotta do something! What if there’re eggs?”

That was very likely, since most birds lay their eggs anywhere from late spring until mid-summer. Dylan barely listened to what she was screaming about, but he found it to be the perfect time to leave and seek for help, not that he intended to. He ran across some other kids of his age, dodging any eye contact. He stopped once he made it to the souvenir booth. He placed his hands on the counter, stared the booth-keeper down and blurted out something incomprehensible.

“He… Hey. I… huh…” panted Dylan, realizing he might’ve run too vigorously.

“Umm is anything the matter?”

He took a deep breath and restarted his sentence. “Hello, this might sound weird, but could you help my friend take care of a bird’s nest mishap?”

“Umm I don’t think I can leave this booth at the moment.” The booth-keeper looked young and inexperienced. He wasn’t quite sure of what to do or what to say when asked such a specific task, especially when it’s unrelated to his work space.

“Please, birds’ lives are at stake. It’s straight ahead,” he gestured, “and the girl is wearing a flashy red hoodie. It’ll be difficult to miss.”

“Umm all right I’ll take a look, I guess. Wait here.”

Dylan watched the man leave the booth unattended. He stood there for a minute, looking around. The keeper was no where to be seen. Dylan scratched the side of his temple then sighed. His plan was working. He jumped over the counter effortlessly. He examined what he should take. A sudden chill grazed his forearm. He looked back. Nothing was there, except for stacks of boxes filled with different plush toys. His hand moved on its own, taking one of the items. He was disoriented from his involuntary movement of the hand but thought nothing of it. He glimpsed at the plush.

This seems fine.

He unzipped his bag and carefully placed the reward. He looked back at what he had just accomplished.

“Well, that was easy.” Dylan rushed back to Tiffany.

The booth keeper put the nest back on top of a tree branch. Tiffany thanked the man, then went to confront Dylan.

“Was that really necessary?”

“Was what necessary?” Dylan knew exactly what she was referring to.

“Ugh, never mind.”

“…” Dylan looked at her in silence, hesitant. He hoisted his head slightly to the right.

Dylan started walking again as Tiffany wandered away. The sky became dark; it seemed that the incident took longer than expected. The sun left the sky and gave its place to the moon. The amber rays turned into dull silver knives, cutting the park into bits of light and darkness. Oddly, this metamorphosis did not dull the surroundings, but contributed to its beauty. Dylan tucked his shirt. His pants tightened as he squatted down, lifting his bag over his head. Tiffany also sat down on the grass beside him.

“Why is the moon so pretty today?” she smiled.

“Hmm, dunno.”

After his response, a brief silence filled the air. Everything was peaceful, but it was quickly disturbed when Dylan spoke.

“Oh right, here’s a gift.” He handed over his bag, with the stolen stuffed animal.

“Oh? It’s a… green bird? Where’d you get this?”

“Uhh.” He thought very hard to cover up for his lie. “The booth-keeper gave it to me, as… uhh appreciation, for the… helping the native bird population, or something.”

“Uh huh,” she nodded, “aw, well thanks!”

She widened her arms and went in for a nice warm hug. The hug looked more like a halfway hug though, due to the awkward side by side sitting position they found themselves in, as well as the voluminous bag that was sitting on Tiffany’s lap. She loosened her arms as she rustled the bag around, closing, zipping and mostly unnecessarily tapping the pockets, to give it back to its rightful owner.

Tiffany lay her back on the ground, straightening her crossed legs in a way that it looked like she was at the beach. The plushie rested on her chest, faced down. The other friend rested his upper back on a tree trunk. He sighed once again, this time out of satisfaction. He looked up at the starry sky, contemplating awhile.

“Hey,” he whispered.

No response. Dylan directed his gaze elsewhere. Tiffany was fast asleep. He took a deep breath as the darkness became even darker: his eyes slowly shut.