Long ago, back when cable TV still ruled the living room, Oliver Riley had been sitting in front of the television set in the living room. He was only five years old at the time, so he couldn't remember which channel it had been on, and to this day, he swears that the nature documentary must be lost media. But, whatever it was, that program became the spark that ignited his love for animals.
The particular subject of this documentary was foxes, and it inspired him so much that he grabbed a notebook, climbed the stairs to his room one step at a time, fished his box of crayons from his desk, and plopped himself down on the carpet of his bedroom. But just as he reached for the crayons, he froze! He had a dilemma. He had forgotten what color foxes were! Were they yellowish, orangish, or reddish? He had only just learned his colors, after all.
Just then, the sun set beneath the hilly horizon beyond the rooftops of his suburban neighborhood, triggering the streetlight right outside his window. The glow spilled into his room like a spotlight, and he glanced up to the warm, amber-y orange hush against the dusky blue sky. The boy was mesmerized! He grabbed the colors from the box and drew a fox with dusky blue fur and golden-orange eyes.
"Look! I drew a fox!" the boy presented the drawing to his mother, who was sitting at the kitchen table on her phone.
"Hold that thought, Jess--my son drew something," she said, setting her phone down to take a look. Honestly, a fine piece of artwork for a child who was drawing on the surface of the carpet.
"Wow, Picasso! That's awesome! What's his name?"
The boy bashfully shuffled in place, thinking hard. Then he landed on a sound that made him giggle. "Ziggy."
"May I borrow the crayon?" she asked.
He handed it over.
"How do you spell it?"
"I dunno!" he giggled. "Sound it out."
"Okay then." She carefully wrote: "Z-I-G-G-Y." She then took her son's artwork and attached it to the fridge with a magnet.
The first tale Oliver spun unfolded on the blustery autumn afternoon, when the wind howled through the trees into their yard like a mischievous spirit, sending golden leaves pirouetting through the air. Oliver, bundled in a thick sweater two-sizes too big, chased after them and watched them dance in a swirl. And of course, according to him, Ziggy was right there beside him, darting between the swirling foliage, with him, even if his mother couldn't see him.
He insisted to his mother that the wind came from beyond the fence.
"And... the wind... has pockets!" Oliver declared between gasps, flinging himself into the pile his mother had just raked together.
"Pockets?" she echoed, resting her gloved hands on her hips. "What on earth for?"
"That's where it keeps." He thought for a second, his hand reaching down and picking up leaves beneath him then proudly showing them "The leaves it steals!"
"Do they really steal the leaves if they aren't ours to begin with?" she teased, ruffling his wind-tousled hair.
"They are ours!" he squealed, dissolving into giggles as he tossed the leaves into the air like confetti.
Then, throughout the winter, when Oliver was stuck in the house, he started insisting, the hallway lights had to stay on or off. Both upstairs and downstairs. No exceptions!
"Behind the walls is where The Keeper lives." he whispered one evening, eyes wide with certainty. "He watches over the whooooole house!"
His mother withheld a chuckle. "So he's not a subletter, huh?" she mused, tapping her chin. "We're living in his house rent-free."
Oliver nodded, attempting clumsily to shape his fingers into a heart. "He cares for us very much."
"What does he look like?" she asked, leaning in as if sharing a secret.
"A spider..." Oliver murmured, his voice dropping to a hush.
"Yeah?"
"With glasses."
"Naturally."
"And a hat—" He scrunched his face in concentration. "like Abraham Lincoln." (The only president he knew at the time.)
"Sounds like a dignified gentleman," she remarked, lips twitching. Oliver didn't know what dignified meant, but he nodded anyway.
This particular tale filled an entire sticky note—front and back.
Soon winter thawed into early spring, there weren't many kids Oliver's age on their quiet cul-de-sac, so most afternoons he'd head to the backyard and pretend to play with Ziggy. And afterwards, his mother would call him in for dinner, and he would ask if Ziggy was invited too.
He always was.
And during these dinners, Oliver would talk about the day they'd had.
One of the first tales, Oliver finally disclosed where Ziggy had been living when not constantly visiting him; a treehouse in that grove.
At the table, Oliver swung his legs under his chair, too excited to sit still. "It's got a rope ladder and a flag and everything!"
His mother leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. "A flag? What's on it?"
"A fox!" he rolled her eyes, "obviously."
"And there's a secret knock to get in!" He demonstrated by rapping shave-and-a-haircut his spoon against the table.
"I'm surprised I've never seen it out there!" his mother said, always playing along.
"There's a lot of things you can't find if you aren't looking for them."
"True, true." she conceded.
His mother turned and looked at the fridge, "You know, that drawing of Ziggy is looking rather lonely. I think he needs his tree house."
She grabbed him a paper and his crayons, and he gladly drew it out for her; the ladder, the flag, and even a little pinwheel jutting from the leaves. It was put on the fridge next to the first drawing.
By that April, Oliver recounted his latest discovery. "There's an Upside-down Mountain," He declared, waving his fork like a conductor's baton. "It hangs from the sky like a light!" (He didn't know the word chandelier, but his mother pieced it together.)
"Oh?" She sipped her tea, hiding a smile. "How do you climb it?"
"You need special shoes!" Oliver bounced in his seat, nearly upending his milk. "If you fall up the mountain, you land in the clouds and—"He launched into a series of energetic jumps, shaking the table. "—boing! Like a trampoline!"
"Did Ziggy take you there?" she asked, steadying her cup.
"Yeah!" He plopped back down, breathless.
"I need a picture of this mountain," she begged, sliding paper and crayons toward him. Oliver snatched them up, eyes gleaming. "Only if I can use glue and glitter!"
"Why's that?"
"Because a Queen made of Glitter lives there!"
"A Queen?" She gasped theatrically. "May I call her Queen Glitter?" (Her pen was already moving, jotting notes for the folder.)
"Yes! That's her name!" Oliver insisted, then stammered in excitement.
"And—and—and! There was a spider as big as my hand! He shoots webs from his hands like Spider-Man!"
"Really?" She feigned shock. "Is he... related to the Keeper?"
"No," he said, as if it were the silliest question in the world. "They're the same guy!"
This one she simply had to have a drawing and it joined the other two soon enough!
By June, Oliver's imagination had taken another leap forward. He had been going to school, and throughout the beginning of the summer had been a regular at the Brookside Library and what he learned there absolutely supercharged his creativity--—this month's particular fixation? Alliteration.
"Ziggy showed me to his neighbor," Oliver declared one afternoon, sprawled across the living room rug with crayons scattered all around him. "Grandmother Goose!" He grinned, clearly proud of the name.
His mother looked up from her book, amused. "Does she live in a shoe?"
Oliver shook his head vigorously. "No, she lives in a garden! And she has a wishing well!" He paused, then added, "the wishes come true, but only if you whisper them."
"Any wish?"
"No only little wishes, not big wishes" He answered disappointedly. "Big wishes need a special star. "
"What did you wish for?" she asked, though she already suspected the answer.
"A little pet dragon," Oliver admitted, "But Ziggy says I have to wait until my birthday. The well only grants birthday wishes."
"Sounds like we've got a while to wait, huh?"
He had been working on his latest drawing: Oliver and Ziggy perched on a toadstool, having tea with a fairy princess in a pink gown. Yellow spots on her head appeared to be a dandelion crown. She was a garden surrounded by squirrels, including balancing a tiny teacup on its head.
His mother wrote in her notes 'Princess Pixie and her Squirrel Servant's in Grandmother Goose's Grand Garden near The Weeping Willow Wishing Well.'
That summer, Ziggy had apparently taken Oliver to an impromptu beach trip, looking for seashells
"But instead, we found a person-sized sandcastle!" According to him, there were crab guards on patrol who had kicked them out for trespassing, but not before Ziggy swiped one of their lances to give to Oliver.
His mother smirked. "I didn't even know we lived walking distance from the ocean."
This tale would be accompanied by another drawing joining the gallery on the fridge, of them fighting pirates, Oliver wielding the lance he acquired from the giant crustaceans, and Ziggy with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other hand.
By early autumn, Ziggy had finally taken Oliver down the path from the treehouse in the other direction to a new part of the kingdom—a bustling town called Bibbleberry. According to him, it was either throwing a party or panicking about mobs. Sometimes both.
"Mobs?" his mother asked one evening.
"Like, monsters and stuff," Oliver explained,
The town's mayor—an ostrich named Oscar—frequently summoned Oliver and Ziggy to deal with the situation. Oliver hadn't decided if Oscar was also the postmaster, but he definitely wore a tiny hat and talked very 'fidget-y'.
"That's where Westley the Wizard," Oliver pointing to the latest picture on the fridge. Oliver said. "He teaches Ziggy magic."
It showed him and Ziggy brewing potions in a crooked shop. An owl in a wizard hat stirred a beaker beside them. He had feathery eyebrows and a white patch on his chest that looked suspiciously like a beard.
His mother, holding a magnet shaped like a novelty pickle, looked at the fridge—already nearly full.
"Remind me to buy more magnets," she muttered, placing the drawing with care.