The Glimmer Academy

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. But when there were...

Esther settled back in her old leather office chair, and it creaked in protest. She extinguished the lamps with a flick of her hand and closed her eyes to focus. Then hesitated a long moment, but she could still feel the faint call tickling just at the edge of her awareness. It seemed like a weak talent, but a talent nonetheless, and they couldn't afford to have another one snatched up by the guardians sect.

With a sigh she opened her mind, visualized a crack in the darkness of the office, gritted her teeth, then launched her awareness through the crack into the darkness in-between. Long-nailed fingers of darkness scrabbled at her, but she slipped free and pushed forward. She edged through a narrow gulch draped in long wet ebony tangles and felt the sides closing in. Darkness drew closer, its hot breath in her ears. She lurched downward, then straight up breaking free, and skimmed over a jagged black crystalline mountain top down into the valley at the bottom. She sailed across a vast, lonely plain of darkness that stretched to an endless horizon, with nowhere to hide. She could feel the presence of the black dragon, or at least that’s what they called it. It's cold gaze swept from the darkness feeling for her, leaving a trail of black frost that hung motionless in the air. She held perfectly still, making herself small, then noticed the faint glimmer she had been seeking. She edged towards it and tried to draw it to herself, but could find no purchase on the strangely slick surface of the glimmer. She puzzled over it, having never found one quite like this before. She circled around it, encompassing it completely, and hushed the glimmer's sleepy whimper. The icy gaze of darkness hesitated, then swept back towards her. She launched straight up and over, dodging the dragon’s grasping black talons, and sailed out of the valley.

The dragon’s angry roar receded behind her as she tasted a puff of fresh air. She followed it, slipping through a crack in the in-between. Back in the office, her eyes snapped open and she smiled. The glimmer was still cradled in her awareness, gently sleeping. The talent was sufficiently developed, so he was ready for the academy, but she puzzled over the odd shape of his talent.

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Vern squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hold onto the wisps of the dream. It had started in a dark, ominous place, but he was rescued and finally had rested in a warm, comforting embrace that had felt so familiar it ached. He had belonged. But the alarm clock continued its relentless clamor.

"Vernon Irving Pudder, get down here now!" Aunt Edith yelled up the stairs.

"Coming…soon!" Vern bellowed, his voice cracking and turning into a screech at the end. Use of his full name meant it was already his final warning.

Vern sighed and pulled the threadbare yellow blanket higher under his chin, exposing his feet to the cold as they hung off the end of the cot. According to thermodynamics, convection required the heat to rise, but it never seemed willing to make the long trudge up to his drafty attic bedroom.

He swung his feet around and stood gingerly on the chilly, scarred wooden floor. He had carefully laid out his clothes and calculator for the first day of freshman year on the top drawer of his dresser. The top drawer that wouldn't close anyway, so it made a convenient shelf.

Vern whispered his new mantra, "Come on, Vern, you got this, this year will be different."

He grabbed his almost new kakis from the secondhand store, hopping on one foot as he pulled them on, muttering "Come on, Vern, you got this."

The polo shirt looked almost new, but it had a teddy bear on the chest pocket, or maybe a gummy bear. It was from the boy’s department since he was still so skinny, so it was a bit short. But if he pulled his pants up high enough and cinched them tight above his bony hips, he could tuck in the shirt. And the bottom hem of his pants would be so high it probably would stay cleaner. "Double bonus!" Vern said cheerfully.

Vern squinted at the pocket emblem again. It might be a care bear, but he wasn't sure which one. He frowned, a discussion of the exact classification of the genus of this particular care bear according to the Linnaeus method would be an appropriate topic for the nerd herd, not for the audience of his higher aspirations. "This year will be different," Vern insisted.

He pulled on his socks and stood as tall as he could in front of his mirror, puffing out his chest. He'd been working out with gallon milk jugs partially filled with water, and he was sure he could tell the difference. He moved his head left and right to see around the crack in his dresser mirror, smoothing his bristly brown hair into an acceptable part.

"This year will be different." he repeated to himself. "You rejected all your buddies’ ideas of wearing a video game t-shirt and jeans for the first day of school like we usually do. You are escaping from the nerd herd to join the popular posse. You are going to dress like them, talk like them, and be like them, in order to be liked by them. You are sufficiently camouflaged so as to pass unnoticed amongst them until they accept you as one of their own. You will belong."

Vern glanced at the positive sayings on the sticky notes holding the cracked corner of his mirror in place. "Come on, Vern, you got this, this year will be different." said one, and then the other note Aunt Edith had given him, "Vern, you are enough."

He glanced down at himself, "Yes, I'm ENOUGH disguised to fit in!"

Vern shot his fists skyward in victory, spun around, and tromped toward the stairs.

He hesitated at the top of the stairs, lost in thought. He bent down near the cracked banister and picked up a thick three-inch wooden splinter he had picked loose over the summer. He tested the sharpness of the point on his thumb, then nodded and slid it through his back belt loops and underneath his belt to secure it. "Just in case this year isn't different," Vern murmured.

His aunt was halfway up the stairs, so he lurched to a stop. Vern stood tall with his chest out and his hands on his hips in his best superhero stance. "So, what do you think?"

Aunt Edith looked him up and down, then smiled sadly. "Do you have a handkerchief?" she asked.

"No, I forgot" Vern exclaimed and turned to go back up the stairs.

"Vern," Aunt Edith hesitated, "Get the red one."

"Oh, so it'll match the bear on my pocket!" Vern said with a broad smile.

"Yes," Aunt Edith said with a sigh and turned away.

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