Chapter 14 – Caught

Monday, October 5th

“Mom! Could Lamar and I go to the beach with Pinky? Do you wanna come?” I said to Mom after supper.

“No, honey, I’m too tired from work. We were missing some stockers and I had to pick and place a lot of merchandise. Those dog food bags are heavy! You two go and have fun.” Mom looked outside. The sun set earlier each day. “It looks dark enough. You should be able to hide. Take off from the roof. That’s safer than climbing out the window.”

“Will do! C’mon pinky!” I grabbed my stuffed dragon. He stayed asleep until I woke him up.

“I’ll race you up the stairs, Shayla!”

“No way! I’ll take the elevator.”

“I’ll beat you!” Lamar ran into the stairwell.

I punched the button. “Hurry up, you stupid elevator.” Finally, it arrived and I punched the top floor. I hit the ‘Close door’ button over and over to make it close faster.

When the door opened again, Lamar appeared, panting and grinning.

“I beat you!” he crowed.

“You beat the elevator. It’s so slow.”

“Yeah, it’s old. Mom grew up here and she says it’s the same as when she was a kid.”

“Wow. That’s old.”

We walked onto the roof. I felt its warmth from the day, but the breeze made my cheeks cold. I was glad I wore my jacket. I put Pinky on the gravel and said, “Wake up, Pinky!”

He grew to the size of a small dog and looked at me. “I need a hug to grow more.”

“Sure Pinky!” I squeezed him hard. “I like hugs too.”

“They help me grow, especially your hugs, Shayla.” He grew to the size of a horse. He lowered his long neck so we could climb on his back.

“Hey Pinky, does my hug help you grow?” Lamar leaned forward and squeezed his neck.

Pinky grew to the size of a rhino. I saw one in the zoo.

“Thanks, Lamar! Yes, the more hugs, the better!” He flapped his wings and we rose in a swirling cloud of dust and gravel.

“I love take-offs the best!” I yelled.

“I love landings. It feels like an elevator dropping,” Lamar said.

“And I love flying above the clouds, looking at the moon and stars,” said Pinky. “Where to, children?”

“The beach!” we said together.

* * *

I looked up from the TV and saw a pink dragon take off from the apartment building across the street.

“What in the world?” I jumped up and opened the sliding door to our balcony. It circled above the building and then began climbing. I pulled my phone from my pocket and began a video of it. I tracked it until it disappeared into a cloud.

“I can’t believe this.” I replayed the video. The pink dragon flapped from the building to the cloud. It seemed to have two figures on its neck. “Oh, wow. Hey, Maria! Come here!”

My roommate, Maria Chen, walked into the room chewing a taco. She swallowed. “These fish tacos are to die for!”

“Tell me what you think of this video.” I showed her my phone.

“Huh. Hey, is that the building across the street? Are they filming a movie over there, or are you prankin’ me?”

“Neither. I happened to see a dragon across the street and I took this video.”

“C’mon. I know you’re prankin’. How’d you do it?”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“This is my phone. I stuck it up to the window and pressed the record button one minute ago.”

“Send the video to my computer. I’ll prove it’s a fake.”

I walked into Maria’s room behind her. “I know what I saw.”

“Yeah, yeah, tell me all about it. I’ll catch you red-handed, McQueen. Maria turned on her computer and opened her email. “Okay, here’s your email and your video. Let’s play it and look for editing.

The video played on the 32-inch curved monitor in slow motion.

“Looks pretty good, McQueen. I’ve got to give you credit for a good job. Pretty good for an education major.”

“So you believe me?”

“Nah. It’s probably a deep-fake you did by AI. Let’s take this still of the pink dragon and do a reverse image search on it.” Her hands flew over the keyboard.

“What’s a ‘deep-fake’?”

“It’s a well-edited video that’s hard to prove it’s fake. They’re usually generated by AI, artificial intelligence.”

“How could I have done that?”

“There are dozens of sites that’ll take your input data and make any kind of video you want. Ah, what do we have here?” A page of pink dragon images came up on her screen.

“Which of these look like your dragon?”

“Um, this one, I’m pretty sure.”

“Let’s see—yep, 98% match on your image! Very good. You can buy this stuffed animal for $30. So I’d say you bought this stuffed animal, took a picture of it and a video of the apartment across the street, and put them together using an AI site.”

“I don’t even know how to do that! I’m not a geek like you!”

“That’s why it’s such a good fake. I’d never guess you could do that, Heather.”

She used my first name, which meant she was really serious. I glanced out the window. “If you’re so sure of yourself, look outside and explain how that’s a deepfake.”

Maria gaped out the window. Across the street, a pink dragon landed on the roof of the apartment. Two little kids got off and then the dragon disappeared. One of the kids ran down the stairs into the apartment.

“Let’s go! We’ve got to investigate this!”

“But I’ve got homework to grade!” Maria dragged me out the door.

The air chilled me with the breeze. “I’m cold. Let me go back and get my jacket.”

“Toughen up, McQueen. We’ll be in the apartment in a minute.”

“You’re jaywalking!”

“It’s okay as long as you don’t get caught. How long have you lived in Chicago?”

We went into the building and to the elevator. “You know that. I’m going on my fourth year here at Xavier.”

“Yeah, sometimes I forget you’re a corn-fed farm girl.”

“Hey. Those are fighting words!” I flexed a big bicep at her, looming over her in the elevator.

“You’re only fun if I can get you mad at me. We’re on the top floor. Let’s see what we find on the roof. Hurry!” Maria sprinted to the stairs. I followed her.

In the stairwell we found a kid running up the stairs with a picnic basket. “Hey! You! Are you goin’ to the roof?”

“Uh, yeah. Do you have some problem with that?”

“No, we’ve never been there before. We’ll follow you.” I smiled at the kid. He looked about twelve and wore a hoodie. Maria and I often played ‘good cop, bad cop’. She had the mouth and I had the bulk. It worked on the streets of Chicago.

We tromped up the stairs. With a floor to go, the kid took off the last flight and burst through the door. “Shayla! We’ve got company!” he yelled.

We came out right behind him. We saw a little girl, maybe five, in pigtails holding a pink, stuffed dragon. It looked exactly like what Maria had found on the internet.

“Hi, kid. I like that dragon. Where’d you get it?” Maria advanced on the girl.

“My mommy gave it to me for my birthday! You stay away or I’ll—“

“Or you’ll what?” Maria advanced on the girl. I shook my head. Maria had all the tact of a cobra.

“I’ll have Pinky eat you!” She squeezed the dragon and it popped out of her arms like it was alive. Then it grew to elephant size. Then dragon-sized.

“E-e-e-e-e!” Maria screamed, spun around, and fell, still scrambling backward across the roof.

“We’re sorry kid! We saw your dragon from across the street and couldn’t believe what we saw. Now we believe it! Don’t let it hurt us.” I picked up Maria and turned and faced the dragon. Its head loomed four feet above us, with its mouth open, ready to bite us. Its warm breath smelled sweet, like a candy shop.

“How do I know you won’t hurt me?” She sounded as skeptical as Maria.

“Hey Shauna, just have pinky eat them, like those gang members. No muss, no fuss.” The boy seemed eager.

“Nah, that wouldn’t be right. That woman scared me. Now she’s scared.”

“You got that right, kid.” Maria stared up at the gaping maw over us like a pink awning.

“C’mon Shayla. Don’t hurt us. Your dragon’s scared us, now we’re even. We’ll leave you and go home.” I knelt next to Maria on the graveled roof. “Please,” I begged.

“Okay. Do you promise to leave us alone and not tell anyone? Cross your hearts and hope to die?” Shayla said.

“Stick a needle in your eye?” Lamar added.

We recited, “Cross our hearts and hope to die, stick a needle in our eye.” We held our hands over our hearts.

“I don’t think we can trust them, Shayla,” Lamar said.

“Pinky, can you make them keep their word?”

The dragon straightened up. "I can’t, but you can, Shayla. You’re the magician.”

“All right. I wish you can’t tell ANYONE about me or Lamar or Pinky, and you can’t ever hurt us. EVER!”

I felt weird and all tingly over my body.

“Ew,” said Maria. “That’s like going down a steep roller coaster.

“That’s my little magician!” The dragon, (Pinky?), said. He clapped his forelegs together, shrunk down, and hugged Shayla.

“Let’s test them, Shayla,” Lamar said. “What did you see on the roof tonight?”

“Uh, we saw y—y—y—uh.” I struggled.

“And the dr-dr—dr--. Thing.” Maria finished.

“What’s our name?” Shayla had her hands on her hips.

“L-, er, Sh--, uh. I can’t say,” I said.

“I never saw you before,” said Maria.

“I think we’re good here Shayla.” Lamar looked at Shayla.

“Go home. And don’t be so nosey.” Shawn pointed to the staircase. The dragon grew to full size. Shayla and Lamar climbed on its back and it took off.

We watched it go into the clouds. Just before it entered the cloud, it vanished.

Maria looked at me. “I’m going to quit drinking and smoking pot.”

“I’m going to start.”