The Mysteries of Harris Burdick Picture 1

 ARCHIE SMITH, BOY WONDER

Archie Smith woke up on Saturday. It was earlier than he intended to wake up. He wasn't sure what had caused him to stir. He had felt something, or someone. He gave a quick look around but no one was visible and nothing seemed out of place, so he climbed out of bed. Archie pulled on his clothes, ran his hands through his unruly red hair, and thumped down the stairs to the kitchen to see if his mom was up yet. She was. She had busied herself with her tablet and a hot mug of coffee at the edge of the kitchen counter. Her eyes on the screen she barely moved when he came around the corner. "Mornin'" she said as he entered the room. Her coffee held tightly in one hand and the other scrolling through the emails.

"Good morning." Archie grabbed the cereal off the top of the fridge and filled a platic bowl to overflowing with the colorful pellets. When he added the milk it looked like the cearel would bubble out of the bowl but somehow he made it work without spilling. His mom eyed him suspicously as he managed to carry the bowl and spoon to the table without making a mess. Archie knew what he was doing. He sat and ate the whole bowl. "Can I go out to the park this morning?" His mom nodded in reply.

"Just clean your room first. There were some clothes left in the corner from last night. I saw them before I went to bed."

Archie rinsed out his bowl and headed back up the stairs. Just as he got to the landing he heard voices coming from his room. They sounded small and not like any voices he had heard before.

Archie crept into his room and found nothing out of place. No one was there.

Three weeks ago Archie and his mom had moved to the house. They were starting over, again. Archie had moved 4 times in the last 3 years. He was never sure how long his mom would stick in one place. This move had just been across town. The move before that had been across the country. He hadn't made many friends yet. Because of moving so often, Archie didn't go to school anymore. He did classes online. His only hope of making friends was meeting someone by accident in the park or while out and about with his mom. His mom worked from home. She didn't seem to have many friends either.

Once his room was cleaned, Archie headed out the door. He had seen the park when they pulled up to the house in the moving truck. He was glad it was so close to his house. It wasn't just one of those "kiddy parks" this one had a baseball field and a soccer field. He had a good feeling that he would eventually meet someone there and make some friends. Everytime he had gone in the past few weeks no one was there. Well, someone was there but it was always young moms with little kids who couldn't even blow thier noses by themselves let alone go play baseball or football. He hoped this Saturday would be different.

Archie got near the park and saw the usual strollers and heard the giggles of toddlers. Then he saw Liam. He didn't know his name yet but Liam was sitting on the wall next to the slide. He had white tennis shoes on with bright red laces. One was tied and the other was not. His head was down like he was staring a hole in the foam floor of the playground. His hands crossed on his chest. He seemed angry. Archie wasn't sure if he should go up to him but he was the first kid even close to his age that he had seen since his move. He wasn't going to let this chance pass him by. He sprang over and plopped on the wall next to him. "Hi! I am Archie."

"Hi." That was all Archie got.

Archie sat and stared at the ground for a moment, "I am new around here do you want to play something with me."

"I can't. My mom is making me sit here and watch my baby brother while she takes me sister to the bathroom."

"Oh. That's cool. What do you like to do?"

"Not this." This kid was not giving Archie much to work with. Archie began to get up and move on. "I like to draw pictures," The boy blurted out before Archie got fully to his feet.

"Nice. I am not very good at drawing. I do yoyo tricks sometimes. I am not that great at them."

"My mom should be back soon. Then we can hang out. I am Liam."

Archie and Liam hung out under the climbing fort on the playground for an hour talking. They didn't really have a topic. It went from pictures of dragons that Liam had drawn to the places Archie had seen in his travels, to the way it must be so nice for Liam to have siblings and how lucky Archie was to be the only child.

Around eleven Liam's mom told him it was time to leave and Archie and Liam waved bye. Archie headed back to his house too.

Archie's mom was lost in her computer when Archie walked in the door. He waved at her and headed up the stairs. He plopped down on his bed and pulled out a sketch book he had gotten last Christmas. He was not a good drawer but he did like to try. He began to draw a dragon like the ones Liam had discribed. It ended up looking nothing like a dragon. He closed his sketch pad. 

He wanted to figure out waht he was good at. He didn't really even know what he liked to do. He did a little bit of a lot of things and none of them really clicked with him. Nothing that said, "this is waht I want to do." Nothing that said, "This is something I love." Did he have something like that? Did some people jsut not have a "thing."

That night he went to bed still thinking about how to find his "thing". He didn't see that small light float from under his closet door and hover just above his head. He didn't see the three others slide in through his open window slowly weaving through his blinds and behind his curtains. His eyes closed just as a small voice aked, "Is he the one?"

The little lights danced around his ceiling as he fell asleep. The tiny voices whispering back and forth in excited chatters. They were pretty sure they had found who they had been looking for. He was just who they needed.

They landed on his desk and in the stillness their form took on more shape. They were fairies. Fairies that existed only in fairy tales and fantasies. Fairies that had no buisiness being in Archie's room in Archie's world and in Archie's story. But they were there none the less.

One of the fairies was pacing in cirlces. He couldn't seem to be still. Another sat on the laptop as he listened to a third. "He is deffinetly the one. He fullfills all the criteria. I have been watching him for a while and it has to be him!"

"How can you be sure? What if he isn't the right one? What will happen to us?" The nervous one continued to pace as he shared these concernes. Suddenly he tripped and a pencil slid across the desk and landed with a clatter on the wooden floor below. Archie started and sat up. His eyes were wide as he searched the dark room. The fairies scattered and hid. Thier lights flitting across the room scared Archie but his brain could not fathom what they were. He calmed his mind and decided it must have been passing traffic lights through the blinds. He lay back down and tried to fall asleep again, when he heard the unmistakable sound of a tiny sneeze. When he opened his eyes he saw the lights scatter again and knew he was not just seeing lights from traffic in the street below.

He sprang from his bed and began to run to the door. He flipped the light on as he passed the switch. "Please just be a dream... please just be a dream." He didn't want to wake him mom over a nightmare. He wasn't a little kid anymore. He took a deep breath and turned slowly to face his room. He saw the open window and heard his heart pounding in his chest. He left it open at night. He always had. Had he allowed someone into his house? He went towards the window slowly, one foot in front of the other. He reached out and started to push down on the frame and shut the world outside when all the sudden half a dozen lights were flitting around his face. They felt like june bugs, the way they clung to his hair. 

"Please don't close the window. We won't hurt you."

Archie sat down at his desk and covered his eyes. "Please be a dream...Please go away..."

He felt them drop from his hair and heard one sigh near his ear. "Archie Smith. We need your help. Please don't be scared."

He lifted his head and uncovered his eyes. Peering back at him were five tiny faces with eyes the size of  pin heads. Thier mouths curved in the smallest of frowns. Thier foreheads covered with the thinest worry lines he had ever even imagined. "You need MY help?"

"Yes! Archie, you are the only one who can do what we need done. You are the only one with the ability to open the lock."

"Open what lock?" asked Archie in disbelief.

The fairies told Archie a tale that was too extravegant to believe. Thier world was hidden from view of most humans. However, a few humans possessed the gift, like Archie, to see them and to see into thier world. Archie's father had been one of the fairies protectors. They had grown close throughout his childhood and when he grew he didn't loose his ability to see them as most adults did.

The ability didn't end just with that. The ability to see fairies also came with a gift. The gift was passed from parent to child in order to keep the fairy world secure. Archie's father had not lived long enough to share all this information with Archie but he had left the gift for when Archie was old enough to understand its importance.

The fairies lead Archie to the stuffed bear that sat on Archie's bookshelf. He never played with it. It had been his fathers. "Pick it up and turn it around." Archie did as they said and saw the back of the bear had a loose stitch. He gently tugged it to find a pocket inside. A  small velvet pouch was deep inside. Archie pulled it out. He felt it gently with his fingers. Sometime was inside. He took it to his desk and gently dumped its contents out. A small gold ring fell onto the desk along with a golden chain. "Put it on, Archie."

Archie slipped his finger into the ring and immediately felt a rush as he shrank down to the size of the fairies. He flitted about on silver wings just like them.

"We have to open the lock."

"What lock?"

"Our world is threatened by a darkness we do not understand. We cannot get back home. The darkness has locked the door to it. The only way back is to break the lock. Please help us. We know you can do it. You need to come with us now."