HOME | DD

Description
4
Um, Houston, We Have A Problem…

I limped to Ruby’s house on a sore foot at noon the day after the whole kissing episode. I heard off-key singing from her bedroom and entered cautiously.
She was in her human shape, but only wearing underwear. I froze, blushing furiously. She winked at me and kept on singing.
“Break it off, boy, cuz you got me feelin’ naughty…” she warbled, dancing around the room. She stumbled, her usual grace gone, leaving her clumsy and off-balance.
RU Drunk??????? I wrote in the dust.
“Set it off, boy, you make me hot all over my body…”
UR!
“Break it off to-ni-ii-ii-ii-iite!” She wasn’t even looking at my words on the wall. She spun around and collapsed on her bed, giggling.
“You know, I saw Nick at the bar,” she commented, stretching. Despite obviously being hammered, her articulation was perfect, if dreamy. “He said alcohol made him himself. But I drank it, too, and I’m not him!” She found this insanely funny, and laughed shrilly. I was angry. Nick had been at the bar with Ruby? What had he done to her? I guess I shouldn’t have, but I hadn’t expected him to let her get this drunk. And where had she learned these songs? She didn’t have a radio or anything.
“Listen up, y’all, cuz this is it, the beat that I’m bangin’ is duh-li-cious!” Ruby sang. I left and returned to my house.
“Yeah, I forgot to tell, you,” Nick was watching TV when I came in, but he looked up to talk to me. “Ruby downed a crapload of beer last night. I didn’t know it was possible to get that drunk.”
Well, I’m glad you were there to stop her, I signed.
“Do I look like her mother?” Nick returned to the television. I vanished into the kitchen and headed back to Ruby’s.
She was in the exact position I had left her in.
“F to the E R-G the I the E and can’t no other lady put it down like me…”
I stormed up to her and shoved the bottle I carried in her face. She broke off her song and looked up at me, confused. I shook it so the contents sloshed around.
“You want me to drink it?” she guessed. I nodded. “No. Ya know, Will, you look better as a dragon.” She smiled and leaped off her bed. She began to sing.
It was slightly creepy. Her entire song was vocalizations intermixed with some humming. The tune was unlike anything I’d ever heard. And then, she started to dance.
For the life of me, I couldn’t tell you what she did. If my life depended on remembering how she did what she then did, I would die. All I know is that her movements reminded me of speckled, brown-and-black dragons. My head was full of the image of… me. As a dragon.
The world lurched, and I was suddenly a dragon. Ruby laughed and lifted her hands over her head, fingers splayed at the ceiling. She continued to sing and dance, though now her dance changed. She moved with sudden, jerky movements, getting faster and faster. When it seemed like she couldn’t possibly move any faster, Ruby jerked to a halt, one finger flashing up to point at the ceiling. She stopped singing.
A bolt of lightning shot from her fingertip and scorched the plaster. She waved her hand and drew a heart with the lightning. Hmm. This was a frightening development.
“Ruby, stop it!” I cried. She snickered and grinned.
“Okay, Opaljewel,” she agreed, dropping her hand. I went still.
“I’m not Opaljewel, I’m Will.”
“Of course you are, Opaljewel. Oh, is that for me?” she took the bottle from my nerveless claws and swigged the liquid inside. “Mm,” she smacked her lips and hiccupped. She released her spell in a flash of light and frost-flowers and curled up on her mattress. She went completely still, occasionally hiccupping.
After a few minutes, Ruby began to snore gustily. It was a sure-fire remedy for any drunk, courtesy of my brother’s drinking habits. I smiled wearily and jumped onto the bed beside her. I threw the blanket over her, and then realized that I didn’t remember how to change back.
Well, this is nice, I thought. You ask how to change back, she tells you, and you promptly forget. Will, you’re a royal idiot. There was nothing to do but wait for Ruby to sleep off her drunken stupor.
Six hours later, I was still waiting.
Holy crap, how long is this going to take? I paced in a restless circle. A faint scuff from downstairs made my ears shoot up. Perfect timing for some teenager to be exploring the house. Could anything else go wrong today? I padded silently to the stairs. Peering down, I saw a flash of black hair and green cloth.
Raven?!
This got better every minute. As I sat, undecided, she came back and mounted the stairs. I pulled my head back, but not before she saw me.
“Hey, Nick, there’s something up here!” she yelled. Nick was here, too?! I scampered back to Ruby’s bedroom. Finally, a bit of luck. She had stopped snoring. Maybe I could hide her somewhere until they were gone. With this plan in mind, I grabbed her around her belly and tried to pull her off the bed.
Well, she came off the bed.
With a loud thump, the albino slipped from my grasp and hit the floor. I hoped she hadn’t been hurt, but now Nick and Raven knew where we were. As I hurriedly tried to drag her somewhere, anywhere, they came in. Ruby’s snout opened and she began to snore again.
So, there we were.
Two teenagers in the doorway, staring at a speckled dragon wearing a necklace made of one of the teenagers’ brother’s hip-chain crouched over an albino dragon wearing the necklace of their albino friend, snoring fit to wake the dead. It was like a scene from a really bad science-fiction-comedy. Even I couldn’t have failed to put two and two together.
“Will?” Nick asked, eyes bulging. I bared my teeth and growled. If he thought I was a real dragon, he’d probably go to call animal control. When he was gone, I could knock out Raven like Topaz had knocked me out and get Ruby out of there. “What… how…”
“And Ruby, too,” Raven pointed. “She’s still drunk. Though she didn’t have quite that many teeth the last time I saw her.”
“Maybe I should call animal control.” Bingo.
“More like the zoo,” Raven snorted. “Don’t be a retard. If you leave there’s just me against a wild animal.” Lord, I hated this girl.
“Good point. But what do we do?”
“I’ll call on my cell phone,” Raven pulled it out of her pocket and flipped it open. “Hello? Is this animal control? Yes, my friend and I were searching an abandoned house, and we found two big lizards. Yeah, they’re growling and they look rabid or something. They’re the size of big dogs. Yeah. Uh-huh. 7529 Arum Lane. Okay. Thank you.” She snapped it shut. “They’re on their way. They advise us to leave if they look dangerous.” I rolled my eyes.
“Woah! Did you see that, Raven? It understood us!” Nick cried. I raised my eyes to the heavens. At last, I had made contact. “We’d better go, before it attacks.” It was time to stop all this talk about attacking. Maybe, if he knew it was me, Nick wouldn’t let animal control find us. Yeah, right. More likely, he’d laugh as they carted us away to the national zoo. Oh, well, it was worth a shot.
“I wouldn’t hurt you, Nick,” I told him. Huh. I sounded like an alien in a cheesy science-fiction movie.
“Oh my God, Raven, it talked!”
“Nick, I’m not an animal, it’s me, Will!” I snapped. “Can’t you see the stupid necklace?” I pointed to where my crystal lay against my chest.
“Don’t listen to it, Nick. Come on, we both know that your brother is definitely a human,” Raven glared at me. “Let them do science experiments on it or whatever. It’s just a mangy lizard.”
“Do I look like a lizard to you?!” I opened my wings fully, rose to my hind legs, and stretched my jaws as wide as they went to show off my fangs. On my hind legs, I was almost as tall as he was. Typically, that was the point where Ruby woke with an extreme hangover.
“OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” she moaned piercingly. I clapped my claws over my ears and folded my wings back. Nick and Raven must have taken this as an attack cry, because they took off like bats out of hell.
“Shut up, Ruby, we have bigger problems than your drinking habits right now!” I snarled. I was being unfair, but way too much was going on right then.
“Whassgoinon?” she mumbled, opening bleary eyes.
“Nick and Raven, of all people, found us and called animal control. They’ll be here in a few minutes, so get off your butt and fly!” I picked her up and set her on her claws. She swayed and nearly fell again.
“Cannfytooired,” she slurred as I caught her just in time.
“Then we’ve gotta turn into humans! Quick, how do I release it?”
Before she could answer, there was a heavy thumping noise from the lower floor, followed by several sets of footsteps. Crap.
“Come on, Ruby, if we don’t get away, we’ll end up in a zoo!” I screamed. This woke her up, and she made a mad dash…
… straight at the damn door that was now blocked by an animal control dude with a tranquilizer gun. He fired at Ruby, and she dropped like a stone. I launched myself at him, claws, fangs, and horns ready to take him down with me.
Apparently, the sight of a juvenile dragon in full-attack mode was too much for the guy. He turned and ran. I landed in the hallway, skidded around in a circle, and leaped again.
I felt a tiny prick on my shoulder just before I crashed into the dude. Surprise, surprise, I’d been tranquilized. My vision blurred, and I lost contact with my claws. I fell, a useless heap of brown-speckled-black scales. Everything went black.

I slowly regained consciousness on a smooth, cold surface. It was metal. I heard soft voices close by, and a strange beeping noise. I opened my eyes.
I was lying on a table, surrounded by humans in white. Machines lined the walls, and there were several tubes attached to various parts of me. Will lay in a similar state, only still out, a few feet away. No way was I going to tolerate this.
I rose with a furious roar. The humans yelled and scattered as I flipped open my wings and ripped out the strange tubes. I jumped onto Will’s table with a flutter of my wings. I reached out a claw to remove the tubes coming out of him, but then I felt something on my shoulder.
I twisted around to see a needle-dart thing sticking in my scales. It was another one of those sleep-needles. What had Will called them? Tranquilizers. Crap. Once again, I sank into unconsciousness.

I had a strange dream. I dreamt that I was in the hospital again with a broken finger. Only, Ruby was there, too. She was angry and people were trying to make her shut up because it was a hospital and they had a strict no-pets policy.
“But she’s not a pet,” I said to Nick. In my dream I could talk.
“Don’t worry, Will, I’ll make her be quiet,” my brother picked up a hunting rifle and shot at me. I couldn’t move because someone must have replaced my bones with lead while I wasn’t looking. But then, Ruby was there, next to me. She swatted away the bullet and sat on top of me.
“Ruby, let me sleep,” I complained. I spun away, back into oblivion.
I didn’t dream anymore after that.
When I awoke, I thought I was still back in the little house I shared with Nick. I didn’t open my eyes, wanting to think over the strange dreams I had had.
Well, the whole dragon-magic thing was real; the dream was too long to include that, too. But Ruby getting drunk and being discovered by Nick and Raven couldn’t have been real. And the episode in the hospital was the stupidest dream I’d ever had.
Well, I guess I had to wake up and face the day. I opened my eyes.
I immediately wished I hadn’t.
The first thing I noticed was the roughly tumbled blocks of concrete, akin to that of a ruined house. Hum. The second thing I noticed was the thick glass behind which a bunch of scientists stared at me intently.
God, I was in a zoo.
I stood shakily, and the scientists flinched back. I couldn’t imagine why. I probably looked like a mess; which was exactly what I felt like. Not to mention that I was behind bullet-proof glass.
“Hmm, no signs of aggression,” one scientist mused, scribbling on a clipboard. “Seems confused.”
“He has very acute hearing,” another noted. “See how he looks at us? He can hear us talking through the glass.” Oh, perfect, now I was a science experiment. And where was Ruby? I trotted away from the scientists to look for her. The terrain was rocky and pitted, but the enclosure was small. It was roughly ten yards by twenty, with cathedral ceilings. Alright, not really small. Ruby was lying under a ‘tent’ made of two slabs leaning against each other, awake, but shivering violently.
“Ruby?” I nudged her with my snout. “Are you alright? What’s wrong?”
“M-my n-n-eckla-ce,” she sobbed. Dragons couldn’t cry, but her chest was wracked by furious dry sobs. “Th-they t-t-t-ook it!” That was when I noticed that my necklace was missing, too. As soon as I thought of it, I felt a cool surface under my stone and another stone close by. They must be on a table somewhere.
“But, wait! Aren’t they our soul-stones?!” My eyes widened in horror.
“Uh-h-huh.”
“Crap.” This was not going well at all. “Okay, Ruby, hold it together. I’m gonna talk to them, I’ll get it back.” I strode purposefully towards the scientists, who were still diligently taking notes and calling out observations.
“They communicate with each other!”
“He was comforting her!”
“He showed an almost human reaction of shock!”
I put my foreclaws on the glass and looked deeply into one of the scientist’s eyes. I slowly reached out and touched my chest. Even more slowly, I extended that claw out, palm up. The scientists gibbered in shock and pleasure. Oh, wasn’t I the clever dragon, then? It looked like I was going to have to be more specific. I was loath to actually talk to them, but desperate times…
We need our necklaces, I signed. It was a little awkward, what with the claws and all, but the message got through.
“He knows sign language!”
“His intelligence level is surprisingly high for a reptile.” Well, thanks, Poindexter. Of course, nobody rushed off to get our necklaces. Though someone did run away to get a translator. That was a start.
Ruby wobbled up next to me. I laid a claw over my lips so she didn’t talk and give us away. She nodded in bleary understanding, though she looked about to heave. A woman ran up to the glass, looking flustered and excited.
Can you understand me? She signed out slowly.
Give us our necklaces, I replied. Give them back now. Her face lit up and she yammered about how amazing this was. Spare me. Give us the necklaces. I was starting to sound like Tarzan.
Where did you learn this? The lady signed.
I’m mute, not deaf or blind, I signed back, almost forgetting that I was a dragon. Just give the necklaces back, already! Ruby is going to pieces! This, of course, prompted another wave of enthusiasm. Everybody was amazed that Ruby had a name. They were also mystified as to how I knew the phrase ‘going to pieces’.
Why do you need them? The translator wanted to know. I glanced at Ruby. Once I saw her drawn face and trembling legs, I made a snap decision.
They are our soul-stones, I solemnly signed. Give them back. The lady spoke to the scientists and, happy day, one of them ran for the necklaces. I had made contact!
Where did you come from? The lady asked while he was gone.
I honestly have no idea. Well, it wasn’t quite a lie. Okay, so it was.
What are your names?
Rubygem and Blackgem, I signed. Please let us go. She ignored this comment.
Will you attack us?
If it would help us escape. What had I just said?! Why hadn’t I lied and said ‘no’? I sometimes wonder what is wrong with me. She conveyed this to the white-coats with some level of trepidation. No doubt, she was looking at our teeth and claws.
How old are you?
I’m fourteen and Ruby’s the same, I think. Look, do we have to talk now? I’m tired. And I was. The tranquilizers had made me sleepy again, so now I was swaying on my feet. Without waiting for a response, I curled in a ball and tucked my snout under my tail-tip. From there, it was a short step away to sleep.
When I woke, my necklace was back around my neck. I could feel the coolness against my scales as well as feeling the scales against my stone (if that makes sense at all). I stood and stretched, arching my back like a cat. I looked down, expecting to see my black crystal. Instead, I saw an egg-shaped ruby gleaming against my scales. I think I actually screamed.
It was… indecent, like looking at someone naked. I couldn’t wear her soul-stone, I couldn’t. Ignoring the gibbering of the scientists - did they never sleep? - I bounded away to find Ruby. She wasn’t in the cage with me. I ran back to the crowd of geeks in lab coats.
Where’s Ruby? I silently demanded.
Did you have a nice sleep? The fruity lady asked with a big smile on her face.
Fine, knock it off, I’m not three. Where’s Ruby? I repeated. The smile dropped off her face, and she had the good grace to look sheepish.
In another enclosure, she seemed to reconsider. Another room.
I know what an enclosure is, thanks. Give me my soul-stone! I ripped off Ruby’s ruby and set it carefully on the ground. I stepped back a good five yards and sat, waiting. Tentatively, an animal handler came in, wearing a thick, leather suit. He gingerly picked up the ruby and left. Far away, I felt someone pick up my stone in a leather glove. A few minutes later, he returned with my own soul-on-a-chain. I gratefully put it on.
Thank you, I politely told her.
Can Ruby speak sign-language? She asked.
Nope. But she understands if you talk to her. Can I see her, please?
I’m sorry, but she’s being tested right now. Maybe later, the false smile was back. In the meantime, why don’t we talk?

This sucked. I mentally cussed out the damn animal-handler up and down as he treated me like a dumb animal.
“Okay, now can you tell me which block is red?” the man smiled cheesily. A red triangle, a blue square, and a yellow circle, all made of wood, were on the ground in front of me. Hmm, this was a tough one. Let me think.
I contemptuously flicked the triangle.
“Very good!” the guy handed me a piece of fish. “Good girl! My smart Ruby!” I chewed up the fish and spat it on his foot, relishing the look on his face.
“Bad girl! No, Ruby, no spitting,” he admonished. I blew a raspberry. The scientists watching through the window must have been having a field day with this.
We went through questions 2-6 (Which one is blue? Which is yellow? Square? Triangle? Circle?) without mishap. Unless, that is, you count me spitting out all the fish on the handler’s feet. I longed to tell him to cut it out with the ‘my smart girl, Ruby’ already. But Will had told me to be quiet and I was. Now I understood a fraction of what it must have been like for him, to have all these things to say and to be unable to say them.
“Okay, Ruby, I’ve hidden a ball in this room. Where’s the ball, girl? Where’s that ball?” he encouraged me with sentiments like that. I leisurely stood and yawned. I stalked to the corner and picked up the tennis ball in the corner. Squeezing, I popped it in my teeth. I then proceeded to chew up the pieces and spit them out over his shoes. This was kind of fun.
I was subjected to all sorts of humiliating tests of my intelligence before they took me back to the cage Will and I shared. I saw that it was located in a large, airy building. There didn’t seem to be many people, but the few I saw were either animal handlers or scientists. They led me down the hallways with a chain leash until we came to the enclosure. I was flattered to see all the warning signs about dangerous animals. Will was sitting on the other side of the glass, chatting with the sign-language lady.
“Move it, ma’am, Ruby’s coming through,” my handler warned. She moved and I was shoved through a tiny door.
“You all right, Ruby?” Will asked as soon as the humans had left.
“It was awful,” I groaned. “They made me feel like an idiot monkey! I had to tell them which shape was a triangle. Though, it was fun spitting fish all over that guy. What did they make you do?”
“She asked all kinds of questions about us. I lied through my teeth all day. Really, what do dragons eat most of the time? I said all meats, fresh but dead.”
“Yeah, pretty much all meats. Though our prey is usually still living only a few seconds before we start to eat it.”
“Well, I wasn’t about to say that. Call me a sissy but I’m not eating anything still breathing,” Will shuddered. “I am a human.”
“Should we tell them that? I’m supposed to follow fate and do whatever in order to save the islands, but you don’t have to suffer with me,” I offered.
“No. If I expose myself as human, so do you. Now there’s an idea…” We spent the rest of the day in deep discussion. The lights in the ceiling slowly dimmed, imitating a sunset. When it was fully dark, we lay down to sleep in our human shapes, putting our fate in the hands of whatever deity found it first.

“OH MY GOD!!”
“Get out of there!”
“How did they get in?!”
The screams pulled me from a fitful sleep. Someone grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the cage. The plan was working! I tried to wake up fully.
“What were you doing in there? How did you get in?” Ruby’s handler guy demanded. I pointed at Ruby.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she chimed in, her arm in the grip of another hulking animal-handler. “We’ll just go now.”
“Like hell! Where are the dragons?” The man shook me until my teeth rattled.
“Leave him alone! I didn’t see any dragons in there. They aren’t real,” Ruby could have been a wonderful actress, had she been human. She sounded exactly like a scornful teenager. Nevertheless, they hauled us off to a small room, sat us down in hard chairs, and made us (Ruby) answer millions of questions.
“What are your names?”
“Brittany and Scott.” We’d chosen average, nondescript names last night.
“What are your full names?”
“Brittany and Scott Johnson.”
“Brother and sister?”
“Yes.”
“What were you doing in the dragons’ cage?”
“Just fooling around.”
“Why isn’t your brother talking?”
“He’s mute, sir.” The translator, who was standing in the corner, chewed her lip thoughtfully.
“Is anybody else noticing a distinct similarity? The brown-scaled, green-eyed dragon said he was mute, and the brown-haired, green-eyed boy is, too. The albino dragon is gone, but we find an albino girl in her place,” she piped up.
“Are you suggesting that we’re dragons?” Ruby laughed, like the idea was ludicrous. It wasn’t all that far off the mark, either.
“Turn out your pockets,” the lady commanded. Busted. Ruby’s necklace and my hip-chain were in my pocket. They would’ve been too noticeable if we were wearing them. When I didn’t comply, the animal handler grabbed my collar and dug around in my pockets.
“Leave W- Scott alone!” Ruby cried. But it was too late.
“Look, they have the albino dragon’s necklace!” the guy held it up triumphantly, not letting go of me. “And the other one’s chain!”
“We found them in the cage,” Ruby lied. “We thought we could sell them.”
“Did you find a black crystal, as well?”
“No.”
“Did Blackgem find them?”
“No, he…” Nice, Ruby. Real smooth. “I, I mean, I found them. Who’s… Blackgem…?” She trailed off.
I was carried by my collar back to the cage, Ruby following helplessly. He tossed me back in and shoved her in behind me. He and the lady walked away briskly, talking quickly in low voices.
That didn’t go so well. I wrote in the dirt on the ground.
“Tell me about it,” she sighed. “Now we’ve just made them think we’re magic dragons.”
We kind of R.
“But not in the way they think. Will, do you think that they’ll kill us?”
I doubt it. Animal rights activists’d B all over them. If they ever found out. They’ll probably put us in a zoo after they test us.
“I hope you’re right.” Me, too.

I crunched a bowl of cereal in my dingy kitchen. Raven danced into the room, holding a newspaper.
“’S up?” I asked.
“Those dragons we found? Look!”
Look, Nicholas!
She shoved the paper at me. I looked. The front page was covered by an endearing picture of two dragons curled up together, deeply asleep. The headline read: SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH OR SCIENCE EXPERIMENT GONE HORRIBLY WRONG? LIVE DRAGONS FOUND IN VIRGINIAN SUBURB!
The article went on, gushing about how they communicated intelligently and seemed to have a religion of their own centered on their necklaces. Quotes from famous scientists assured the public that they were living and not fakes. Apparently, the public clamored to see them. Apparently, scientists were considering rewarding the brave adolescents who had inadvertently found these amazing creatures.
“They may have opened the way for a whole new perspective on how nature works,” one lady said.
“Isn’t it great?” Raven squealed. “We may be rewarded!”
It’s great! It’s wonderful!
“Unless it’s with money, I doubt we’ll need it,” I returned to my cereal, fighting the part of my brain telling me how wonderful it was. As always in Ravens presence, I could almost feel my brain shutting down, ceasing to function.
“You are such a killjoy, Nicholas,” she pouted. Then she brightened. “Maybe they’ll let us help take care of them! The brown one was so cute!”
“They aren’t dogs, Rave,” an unreasonable anger flared in my chest. “They’re living, thinking beings!”
“We should go see them,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken. Maybe I hadn’t. It was hard to tell fake from real when Raven was around. She was… different. “Let’s go see them, Nicholas!”
See the dragons, Nicholas, it’ll be fun!
“Sure.” I suddenly liked the sound of that. I could see the dragons, maybe the only ones in the world, and maybe even take care of them. That would be great. We left immediately, Raven leading the way. The story of my life: Tagging after Rave for the better part of sixteen years. Sigh.

Description
4
Um, Houston, We Have A Problem…

I limped to Ruby’s house on a sore foot at noon the day after the whole kissing episode. I heard off-key singing from her bedroom and entered cautiously.
She was in her human shape, but only wearing underwear. I froze, blushing furiously. She winked at me and kept on singing.
“Break it off, boy, cuz you got me feelin’ naughty…” she warbled, dancing around the room. She stumbled, her usual grace gone, leaving her clumsy and off-balance.
RU Drunk??????? I wrote in the dust.
“Set it off, boy, you make me hot all over my body…”
UR!
“Break it off to-ni-ii-ii-ii-iite!” She wasn’t even looking at my words on the wall. She spun around and collapsed on her bed, giggling.
“You know, I saw Nick at the bar,” she commented, stretching. Despite obviously being hammered, her articulation was perfect, if dreamy. “He said alcohol made him himself. But I drank it, too, and I’m not him!” She found this insanely funny, and laughed shrilly. I was angry. Nick had been at the bar with Ruby? What had he done to her? I guess I shouldn’t have, but I hadn’t expected him to let her get this drunk. And where had she learned these songs? She didn’t have a radio or anything.
“Listen up, y’all, cuz this is it, the beat that I’m bangin’ is duh-li-cious!” Ruby sang. I left and returned to my house.
“Yeah, I forgot to tell, you,” Nick was watching TV when I came in, but he looked up to talk to me. “Ruby downed a crapload of beer last night. I didn’t know it was possible to get that drunk.”
Well, I’m glad you were there to stop her, I signed.
“Do I look like her mother?” Nick returned to the television. I vanished into the kitchen and headed back to Ruby’s.
She was in the exact position I had left her in.
“F to the E R-G the I the E and can’t no other lady put it down like me…”
I stormed up to her and shoved the bottle I carried in her face. She broke off her song and looked up at me, confused. I shook it so the contents sloshed around.
“You want me to drink it?” she guessed. I nodded. “No. Ya know, Will, you look better as a dragon.” She smiled and leaped off her bed. She began to sing.
It was slightly creepy. Her entire song was vocalizations intermixed with some humming. The tune was unlike anything I’d ever heard. And then, she started to dance.
For the life of me, I couldn’t tell you what she did. If my life depended on remembering how she did what she then did, I would die. All I know is that her movements reminded me of speckled, brown-and-black dragons. My head was full of the image of… me. As a dragon.
The world lurched, and I was suddenly a dragon. Ruby laughed and lifted her hands over her head, fingers splayed at the ceiling. She continued to sing and dance, though now her dance changed. She moved with sudden, jerky movements, getting faster and faster. When it seemed like she couldn’t possibly move any faster, Ruby jerked to a halt, one finger flashing up to point at the ceiling. She stopped singing.
A bolt of lightning shot from her fingertip and scorched the plaster. She waved her hand and drew a heart with the lightning. Hmm. This was a frightening development.
“Ruby, stop it!” I cried. She snickered and grinned.
“Okay, Opaljewel,” she agreed, dropping her hand. I went still.
“I’m not Opaljewel, I’m Will.”
“Of course you are, Opaljewel. Oh, is that for me?” she took the bottle from my nerveless claws and swigged the liquid inside. “Mm,” she smacked her lips and hiccupped. She released her spell in a flash of light and frost-flowers and curled up on her mattress. She went completely still, occasionally hiccupping.
After a few minutes, Ruby began to snore gustily. It was a sure-fire remedy for any drunk, courtesy of my brother’s drinking habits. I smiled wearily and jumped onto the bed beside her. I threw the blanket over her, and then realized that I didn’t remember how to change back.
Well, this is nice, I thought. You ask how to change back, she tells you, and you promptly forget. Will, you’re a royal idiot. There was nothing to do but wait for Ruby to sleep off her drunken stupor.
Six hours later, I was still waiting.
Holy crap, how long is this going to take? I paced in a restless circle. A faint scuff from downstairs made my ears shoot up. Perfect timing for some teenager to be exploring the house. Could anything else go wrong today? I padded silently to the stairs. Peering down, I saw a flash of black hair and green cloth.
Raven?!
This got better every minute. As I sat, undecided, she came back and mounted the stairs. I pulled my head back, but not before she saw me.
“Hey, Nick, there’s something up here!” she yelled. Nick was here, too?! I scampered back to Ruby’s bedroom. Finally, a bit of luck. She had stopped snoring. Maybe I could hide her somewhere until they were gone. With this plan in mind, I grabbed her around her belly and tried to pull her off the bed.
Well, she came off the bed.
With a loud thump, the albino slipped from my grasp and hit the floor. I hoped she hadn’t been hurt, but now Nick and Raven knew where we were. As I hurriedly tried to drag her somewhere, anywhere, they came in. Ruby’s snout opened and she began to snore again.
So, there we were.
Two teenagers in the doorway, staring at a speckled dragon wearing a necklace made of one of the teenagers’ brother’s hip-chain crouched over an albino dragon wearing the necklace of their albino friend, snoring fit to wake the dead. It was like a scene from a really bad science-fiction-comedy. Even I couldn’t have failed to put two and two together.
“Will?” Nick asked, eyes bulging. I bared my teeth and growled. If he thought I was a real dragon, he’d probably go to call animal control. When he was gone, I could knock out Raven like Topaz had knocked me out and get Ruby out of there. “What… how…”
“And Ruby, too,” Raven pointed. “She’s still drunk. Though she didn’t have quite that many teeth the last time I saw her.”
“Maybe I should call animal control.” Bingo.
“More like the zoo,” Raven snorted. “Don’t be a retard. If you leave there’s just me against a wild animal.” Lord, I hated this girl.
“Good point. But what do we do?”
“I’ll call on my cell phone,” Raven pulled it out of her pocket and flipped it open. “Hello? Is this animal control? Yes, my friend and I were searching an abandoned house, and we found two big lizards. Yeah, they’re growling and they look rabid or something. They’re the size of big dogs. Yeah. Uh-huh. 7529 Arum Lane. Okay. Thank you.” She snapped it shut. “They’re on their way. They advise us to leave if they look dangerous.” I rolled my eyes.
“Woah! Did you see that, Raven? It understood us!” Nick cried. I raised my eyes to the heavens. At last, I had made contact. “We’d better go, before it attacks.” It was time to stop all this talk about attacking. Maybe, if he knew it was me, Nick wouldn’t let animal control find us. Yeah, right. More likely, he’d laugh as they carted us away to the national zoo. Oh, well, it was worth a shot.
“I wouldn’t hurt you, Nick,” I told him. Huh. I sounded like an alien in a cheesy science-fiction movie.
“Oh my God, Raven, it talked!”
“Nick, I’m not an animal, it’s me, Will!” I snapped. “Can’t you see the stupid necklace?” I pointed to where my crystal lay against my chest.
“Don’t listen to it, Nick. Come on, we both know that your brother is definitely a human,” Raven glared at me. “Let them do science experiments on it or whatever. It’s just a mangy lizard.”
“Do I look like a lizard to you?!” I opened my wings fully, rose to my hind legs, and stretched my jaws as wide as they went to show off my fangs. On my hind legs, I was almost as tall as he was. Typically, that was the point where Ruby woke with an extreme hangover.
“OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” she moaned piercingly. I clapped my claws over my ears and folded my wings back. Nick and Raven must have taken this as an attack cry, because they took off like bats out of hell.
“Shut up, Ruby, we have bigger problems than your drinking habits right now!” I snarled. I was being unfair, but way too much was going on right then.
“Whassgoinon?” she mumbled, opening bleary eyes.
“Nick and Raven, of all people, found us and called animal control. They’ll be here in a few minutes, so get off your butt and fly!” I picked her up and set her on her claws. She swayed and nearly fell again.
“Cannfytooired,” she slurred as I caught her just in time.
“Then we’ve gotta turn into humans! Quick, how do I release it?”
Before she could answer, there was a heavy thumping noise from the lower floor, followed by several sets of footsteps. Crap.
“Come on, Ruby, if we don’t get away, we’ll end up in a zoo!” I screamed. This woke her up, and she made a mad dash…
… straight at the damn door that was now blocked by an animal control dude with a tranquilizer gun. He fired at Ruby, and she dropped like a stone. I launched myself at him, claws, fangs, and horns ready to take him down with me.
Apparently, the sight of a juvenile dragon in full-attack mode was too much for the guy. He turned and ran. I landed in the hallway, skidded around in a circle, and leaped again.
I felt a tiny prick on my shoulder just before I crashed into the dude. Surprise, surprise, I’d been tranquilized. My vision blurred, and I lost contact with my claws. I fell, a useless heap of brown-speckled-black scales. Everything went black.

I slowly regained consciousness on a smooth, cold surface. It was metal. I heard soft voices close by, and a strange beeping noise. I opened my eyes.
I was lying on a table, surrounded by humans in white. Machines lined the walls, and there were several tubes attached to various parts of me. Will lay in a similar state, only still out, a few feet away. No way was I going to tolerate this.
I rose with a furious roar. The humans yelled and scattered as I flipped open my wings and ripped out the strange tubes. I jumped onto Will’s table with a flutter of my wings. I reached out a claw to remove the tubes coming out of him, but then I felt something on my shoulder.
I twisted around to see a needle-dart thing sticking in my scales. It was another one of those sleep-needles. What had Will called them? Tranquilizers. Crap. Once again, I sank into unconsciousness.

I had a strange dream. I dreamt that I was in the hospital again with a broken finger. Only, Ruby was there, too. She was angry and people were trying to make her shut up because it was a hospital and they had a strict no-pets policy.
“But she’s not a pet,” I said to Nick. In my dream I could talk.
“Don’t worry, Will, I’ll make her be quiet,” my brother picked up a hunting rifle and shot at me. I couldn’t move because someone must have replaced my bones with lead while I wasn’t looking. But then, Ruby was there, next to me. She swatted away the bullet and sat on top of me.
“Ruby, let me sleep,” I complained. I spun away, back into oblivion.
I didn’t dream anymore after that.
When I awoke, I thought I was still back in the little house I shared with Nick. I didn’t open my eyes, wanting to think over the strange dreams I had had.
Well, the whole dragon-magic thing was real; the dream was too long to include that, too. But Ruby getting drunk and being discovered by Nick and Raven couldn’t have been real. And the episode in the hospital was the stupidest dream I’d ever had.
Well, I guess I had to wake up and face the day. I opened my eyes.
I immediately wished I hadn’t.
The first thing I noticed was the roughly tumbled blocks of concrete, akin to that of a ruined house. Hum. The second thing I noticed was the thick glass behind which a bunch of scientists stared at me intently.
God, I was in a zoo.
I stood shakily, and the scientists flinched back. I couldn’t imagine why. I probably looked like a mess; which was exactly what I felt like. Not to mention that I was behind bullet-proof glass.
“Hmm, no signs of aggression,” one scientist mused, scribbling on a clipboard. “Seems confused.”
“He has very acute hearing,” another noted. “See how he looks at us? He can hear us talking through the glass.” Oh, perfect, now I was a science experiment. And where was Ruby? I trotted away from the scientists to look for her. The terrain was rocky and pitted, but the enclosure was small. It was roughly ten yards by twenty, with cathedral ceilings. Alright, not really small. Ruby was lying under a ‘tent’ made of two slabs leaning against each other, awake, but shivering violently.
“Ruby?” I nudged her with my snout. “Are you alright? What’s wrong?”
“M-my n-n-eckla-ce,” she sobbed. Dragons couldn’t cry, but her chest was wracked by furious dry sobs. “Th-they t-t-t-ook it!” That was when I noticed that my necklace was missing, too. As soon as I thought of it, I felt a cool surface under my stone and another stone close by. They must be on a table somewhere.
“But, wait! Aren’t they our soul-stones?!” My eyes widened in horror.
“Uh-h-huh.”
“Crap.” This was not going well at all. “Okay, Ruby, hold it together. I’m gonna talk to them, I’ll get it back.” I strode purposefully towards the scientists, who were still diligently taking notes and calling out observations.
“They communicate with each other!”
“He was comforting her!”
“He showed an almost human reaction of shock!”
I put my foreclaws on the glass and looked deeply into one of the scientist’s eyes. I slowly reached out and touched my chest. Even more slowly, I extended that claw out, palm up. The scientists gibbered in shock and pleasure. Oh, wasn’t I the clever dragon, then? It looked like I was going to have to be more specific. I was loath to actually talk to them, but desperate times…
We need our necklaces, I signed. It was a little awkward, what with the claws and all, but the message got through.
“He knows sign language!”
“His intelligence level is surprisingly high for a reptile.” Well, thanks, Poindexter. Of course, nobody rushed off to get our necklaces. Though someone did run away to get a translator. That was a start.
Ruby wobbled up next to me. I laid a claw over my lips so she didn’t talk and give us away. She nodded in bleary understanding, though she looked about to heave. A woman ran up to the glass, looking flustered and excited.
Can you understand me? She signed out slowly.
Give us our necklaces, I replied. Give them back now. Her face lit up and she yammered about how amazing this was. Spare me. Give us the necklaces. I was starting to sound like Tarzan.
Where did you learn this? The lady signed.
I’m mute, not deaf or blind, I signed back, almost forgetting that I was a dragon. Just give the necklaces back, already! Ruby is going to pieces! This, of course, prompted another wave of enthusiasm. Everybody was amazed that Ruby had a name. They were also mystified as to how I knew the phrase ‘going to pieces’.
Why do you need them? The translator wanted to know. I glanced at Ruby. Once I saw her drawn face and trembling legs, I made a snap decision.
They are our soul-stones, I solemnly signed. Give them back. The lady spoke to the scientists and, happy day, one of them ran for the necklaces. I had made contact!
Where did you come from? The lady asked while he was gone.
I honestly have no idea. Well, it wasn’t quite a lie. Okay, so it was.
What are your names?
Rubygem and Blackgem, I signed. Please let us go. She ignored this comment.
Will you attack us?
If it would help us escape. What had I just said?! Why hadn’t I lied and said ‘no’? I sometimes wonder what is wrong with me. She conveyed this to the white-coats with some level of trepidation. No doubt, she was looking at our teeth and claws.
How old are you?
I’m fourteen and Ruby’s the same, I think. Look, do we have to talk now? I’m tired. And I was. The tranquilizers had made me sleepy again, so now I was swaying on my feet. Without waiting for a response, I curled in a ball and tucked my snout under my tail-tip. From there, it was a short step away to sleep.
When I woke, my necklace was back around my neck. I could feel the coolness against my scales as well as feeling the scales against my stone (if that makes sense at all). I stood and stretched, arching my back like a cat. I looked down, expecting to see my black crystal. Instead, I saw an egg-shaped ruby gleaming against my scales. I think I actually screamed.
It was… indecent, like looking at someone naked. I couldn’t wear her soul-stone, I couldn’t. Ignoring the gibbering of the scientists - did they never sleep? - I bounded away to find Ruby. She wasn’t in the cage with me. I ran back to the crowd of geeks in lab coats.
Where’s Ruby? I silently demanded.
Did you have a nice sleep? The fruity lady asked with a big smile on her face.
Fine, knock it off, I’m not three. Where’s Ruby? I repeated. The smile dropped off her face, and she had the good grace to look sheepish.
In another enclosure, she seemed to reconsider. Another room.
I know what an enclosure is, thanks. Give me my soul-stone! I ripped off Ruby’s ruby and set it carefully on the ground. I stepped back a good five yards and sat, waiting. Tentatively, an animal handler came in, wearing a thick, leather suit. He gingerly picked up the ruby and left. Far away, I felt someone pick up my stone in a leather glove. A few minutes later, he returned with my own soul-on-a-chain. I gratefully put it on.
Thank you, I politely told her.
Can Ruby speak sign-language? She asked.
Nope. But she understands if you talk to her. Can I see her, please?
I’m sorry, but she’s being tested right now. Maybe later, the false smile was back. In the meantime, why don’t we talk?

This sucked. I mentally cussed out the damn animal-handler up and down as he treated me like a dumb animal.
“Okay, now can you tell me which block is red?” the man smiled cheesily. A red triangle, a blue square, and a yellow circle, all made of wood, were on the ground in front of me. Hmm, this was a tough one. Let me think.
I contemptuously flicked the triangle.
“Very good!” the guy handed me a piece of fish. “Good girl! My smart Ruby!” I chewed up the fish and spat it on his foot, relishing the look on his face.
“Bad girl! No, Ruby, no spitting,” he admonished. I blew a raspberry. The scientists watching through the window must have been having a field day with this.
We went through questions 2-6 (Which one is blue? Which is yellow? Square? Triangle? Circle?) without mishap. Unless, that is, you count me spitting out all the fish on the handler’s feet. I longed to tell him to cut it out with the ‘my smart girl, Ruby’ already. But Will had told me to be quiet and I was. Now I understood a fraction of what it must have been like for him, to have all these things to say and to be unable to say them.
“Okay, Ruby, I’ve hidden a ball in this room. Where’s the ball, girl? Where’s that ball?” he encouraged me with sentiments like that. I leisurely stood and yawned. I stalked to the corner and picked up the tennis ball in the corner. Squeezing, I popped it in my teeth. I then proceeded to chew up the pieces and spit them out over his shoes. This was kind of fun.
I was subjected to all sorts of humiliating tests of my intelligence before they took me back to the cage Will and I shared. I saw that it was located in a large, airy building. There didn’t seem to be many people, but the few I saw were either animal handlers or scientists. They led me down the hallways with a chain leash until we came to the enclosure. I was flattered to see all the warning signs about dangerous animals. Will was sitting on the other side of the glass, chatting with the sign-language lady.
“Move it, ma’am, Ruby’s coming through,” my handler warned. She moved and I was shoved through a tiny door.
“You all right, Ruby?” Will asked as soon as the humans had left.
“It was awful,” I groaned. “They made me feel like an idiot monkey! I had to tell them which shape was a triangle. Though, it was fun spitting fish all over that guy. What did they make you do?”
“She asked all kinds of questions about us. I lied through my teeth all day. Really, what do dragons eat most of the time? I said all meats, fresh but dead.”
“Yeah, pretty much all meats. Though our prey is usually still living only a few seconds before we start to eat it.”
“Well, I wasn’t about to say that. Call me a sissy but I’m not eating anything still breathing,” Will shuddered. “I am a human.”
“Should we tell them that? I’m supposed to follow fate and do whatever in order to save the islands, but you don’t have to suffer with me,” I offered.
“No. If I expose myself as human, so do you. Now there’s an idea…” We spent the rest of the day in deep discussion. The lights in the ceiling slowly dimmed, imitating a sunset. When it was fully dark, we lay down to sleep in our human shapes, putting our fate in the hands of whatever deity found it first.

“OH MY GOD!!”
“Get out of there!”
“How did they get in?!”
The screams pulled me from a fitful sleep. Someone grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the cage. The plan was working! I tried to wake up fully.
“What were you doing in there? How did you get in?” Ruby’s handler guy demanded. I pointed at Ruby.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she chimed in, her arm in the grip of another hulking animal-handler. “We’ll just go now.”
“Like hell! Where are the dragons?” The man shook me until my teeth rattled.
“Leave him alone! I didn’t see any dragons in there. They aren’t real,” Ruby could have been a wonderful actress, had she been human. She sounded exactly like a scornful teenager. Nevertheless, they hauled us off to a small room, sat us down in hard chairs, and made us (Ruby) answer millions of questions.
“What are your names?”
“Brittany and Scott.” We’d chosen average, nondescript names last night.
“What are your full names?”
“Brittany and Scott Johnson.”
“Brother and sister?”
“Yes.”
“What were you doing in the dragons’ cage?”
“Just fooling around.”
“Why isn’t your brother talking?”
“He’s mute, sir.” The translator, who was standing in the corner, chewed her lip thoughtfully.
“Is anybody else noticing a distinct similarity? The brown-scaled, green-eyed dragon said he was mute, and the brown-haired, green-eyed boy is, too. The albino dragon is gone, but we find an albino girl in her place,” she piped up.
“Are you suggesting that we’re dragons?” Ruby laughed, like the idea was ludicrous. It wasn’t all that far off the mark, either.
“Turn out your pockets,” the lady commanded. Busted. Ruby’s necklace and my hip-chain were in my pocket. They would’ve been too noticeable if we were wearing them. When I didn’t comply, the animal handler grabbed my collar and dug around in my pockets.
“Leave W- Scott alone!” Ruby cried. But it was too late.
“Look, they have the albino dragon’s necklace!” the guy held it up triumphantly, not letting go of me. “And the other one’s chain!”
“We found them in the cage,” Ruby lied. “We thought we could sell them.”
“Did you find a black crystal, as well?”
“No.”
“Did Blackgem find them?”
“No, he…” Nice, Ruby. Real smooth. “I, I mean, I found them. Who’s… Blackgem…?” She trailed off.
I was carried by my collar back to the cage, Ruby following helplessly. He tossed me back in and shoved her in behind me. He and the lady walked away briskly, talking quickly in low voices.
That didn’t go so well. I wrote in the dirt on the ground.
“Tell me about it,” she sighed. “Now we’ve just made them think we’re magic dragons.”
We kind of R.
“But not in the way they think. Will, do you think that they’ll kill us?”
I doubt it. Animal rights activists’d B all over them. If they ever found out. They’ll probably put us in a zoo after they test us.
“I hope you’re right.” Me, too.

I crunched a bowl of cereal in my dingy kitchen. Raven danced into the room, holding a newspaper.
“’S up?” I asked.
“Those dragons we found? Look!”
Look, Nicholas!
She shoved the paper at me. I looked. The front page was covered by an endearing picture of two dragons curled up together, deeply asleep. The headline read: SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH OR SCIENCE EXPERIMENT GONE HORRIBLY WRONG? LIVE DRAGONS FOUND IN VIRGINIAN SUBURB!
The article went on, gushing about how they communicated intelligently and seemed to have a religion of their own centered on their necklaces. Quotes from famous scientists assured the public that they were living and not fakes. Apparently, the public clamored to see them. Apparently, scientists were considering rewarding the brave adolescents who had inadvertently found these amazing creatures.
“They may have opened the way for a whole new perspective on how nature works,” one lady said.
“Isn’t it great?” Raven squealed. “We may be rewarded!”
It’s great! It’s wonderful!
“Unless it’s with money, I doubt we’ll need it,” I returned to my cereal, fighting the part of my brain telling me how wonderful it was. As always in Ravens presence, I could almost feel my brain shutting down, ceasing to function.
“You are such a killjoy, Nicholas,” she pouted. Then she brightened. “Maybe they’ll let us help take care of them! The brown one was so cute!”
“They aren’t dogs, Rave,” an unreasonable anger flared in my chest. “They’re living, thinking beings!”
“We should go see them,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken. Maybe I hadn’t. It was hard to tell fake from real when Raven was around. She was… different. “Let’s go see them, Nicholas!”
See the dragons, Nicholas, it’ll be fun!
“Sure.” I suddenly liked the sound of that. I could see the dragons, maybe the only ones in the world, and maybe even take care of them. That would be great. We left immediately, Raven leading the way. The story of my life: Tagging after Rave for the better part of sixteen years. Sigh.