Dino Pool Party

Lea recieves a text from her best friend, Juniper, claiming to have found a huge purple dinosaur in her pool. The girls dash over to find it to be true, but that isn't all that awaits them.

It had been three weeks since the girls encountered the creature named, Swampy, in the woods at Greenville Park, and they hadn’t seen her since. Lea began to worry. Kyra continued to work with the Gossamer Pen attempting to get it to write, but nothing worked. They still hadn’t told their parents what had happened in the woods that night. Lea didn’t want them to believe she had gone crazy, and Kyra feared they would take the pen away from her. She needed the Gossamer Pen…it was the only way she could fix this problem.

“Problem? Problem? Kyra, this is a catastrophe!” Lea shouted as they sat on a park bench.

“AWW! Lea, I’m telling Mom and Dad that you just swore!” Kyra yelled.

“What?” Lea was confused. “I didn’t swear, Kyra.”

“Yes you did.”

“What did I say?” Lea challenged.

Kyra paused a moment. She was trying to decide if Lea was tricking her into swearing too so she wouldn’t get into trouble. Kyra reluctantly spoke, “Cat-a*s-trophy?”

Lea huffed. Then she giggled. “Kyra, why would I possibly say that. I said Ka-tas-tropy,” She phonetically replied.

“Oh.” Kyra sat silently.

Lea could see her little mind working on another question.

“Lea, what does that mean?”

“This!” Lea held her hands up to the sky. “It means this! Us sitting here on this bench everyday just waiting for some freaky creature to walk out of the woods and talk to us.”

“What should we do?”

“I don’t know!” Lea barked. She crossed her arms and leaned back against the warm wooden bench. “Ouch!” She shot forward as it burned her skin. Lea was really mad now. “You know this is all your fault, Kyra!”

“No it isn’t!” Kyra fired back.

“If you hadn’t picked up that pen…” Lea began

“You bumped the table!” Kyra interrupted.

“You were playing with those kittens!” Lea pushed her finger into Kyra’s shoulder.

“You made me go into that antweek shop!” Kyra poked back, tears welling in her eyes.

“It’s ANTIQUE!” Lea screamed in frustration.

Music began playing from Lea’s back pocket.

“Your butt is singing,” Kyra moped as she kicked at the sand at her feet.

Lea removed her phone from her back pocket. She missed a call from Juniper. Lea began to dial her best friend back when the phone vibrated signaling that she had just received a text message. It wasn’t unusual for Juniper to be overzealous when trying to reach Lea. Once before, Juniper called her ten times in five minutes.  Lea opened the message not thinking anything was wrong. It read:

”There is a huge purple dino in my pool:0 Hurry!”

“Are you leaving now,” Kyra sounded disappointed. She hated when her sister left. Lea was her best friend.

“Yeah.”

Kyra looked so sad. She kept kicking the sand harder and harder, spraying it across the field. Lea felt guilty leaving her little sister alone.

“Why don’t you come with me?”

Kyra perked up. A smile as bright as the sun emerged across her face. She jumped up and ran to her bike.

“I’ll beat you there!” Kyra dashed off.

Lea quickly caught up. She passed Kyra as they left the park and headed for Juniper’s house. Juniper lived a few blocks north from their house. Lea whipped around the corner turning down Juniper’s street. Kyra wasn’t far behind. The two girls arrived, dropped their bikes in the grass and ran giggling into the backyard where splashing sounds came from behind a fence.

 Juniper stood on the deck, but she didn’t have a bathing suit on like Lea expected. She did, however, have a very, bright-orange pair of shorts along with a pink tank-top. Kyra shook her head when she noticed Juniper’s clothes.

“This girl must get dressed with her eyes closed,” Kyra muttered.

“Juniper!” Lea called, but her friend didn’t respond.

Juniper’s sunglasses rested at the tip of her nose and she peered over the top of them into the pool. Her facial expression bore the resemblance of someone who had just eaten something they weren’t expecting.

When Lea reached the deck and could see into the pool she screamed and jumped behind Juniper for cover. Kyra stopped at the second to last step. She thought for a moment about whether to run the other way or join them.

“Kyra you get up here right now!” Lea demanded in her motherly tone.

Kyra finished her climb and ran up to her sister who pointed into the pool. Water splashed into her face knocking her sunglasses onto the deck. Kyra’s clothes were soaked. She wiped her face with her hands. The sun gleamed off the water in the pool making it very difficult to see what was splashing around so vigorously. She searched for her sunglasses, finding them behind her sister. Now, Kyra was able to see just what her sister was so upset about.

Splashing about happily in the pool was a purple dinosaur, a T-Rex to be exact. It just so happened to be the same dinosaur that had disappeared from her notebook.

“Lea, I found the purple dinosaur,” Kyra calmly stated. “He’s cute. I really did a good job…”

“Shut it!” Lea barked. “What are we going to do now?”

Juniper hadn’t moved, or changed the ridiculous expression on her face. She just remained focused on the prehistoric creature swimming in her pool.

“Get him out of there before he breaks the pool, Kyra!” Lea commanded.

Another wave of water splashed over them, awakening Juniper.

“AHHHHH! Dinosaur!” She screamed in her whinny voice.

Lea covered her friend’s mouth, “Shhhhhh!”

Kyra pulled out the Gossamer Pen from her back pocket.

“What are you gonna do with that?” Lea asked.

Kyra and Lea shared a glance. Neither knew exactly what to do, but if this pen brought the creature to life with its magical powers, then maybe it could stop it too.

Kyra starred at the beautiful pen glimmering against the sunlight in her hand. She suddenly had an idea. Holding the pen like a wand, she pointed it at the large purple T-Rex. A strange sensation overcame her. She looked to her right and found Swampy standing at the bottom of the stairs.

“AHHHHH!” a muffled scream pierced out between Lea’s fingers as Juniper freaked out. She fainted in Lea’s arms causing the two girls to fall on the wet deck.

“Kyra, do it now!” Lea said in a strained voice from underneath Juniper.

She took a deep breath and clicked the button at the end of the pen.

The dinosaur had been ignoring the girls until he noticed Kyra holding the Gossamer Pen. It violently splashed water with its tail at the same time Kyra had clicked the pen.

Water cascaded out of the pool toward Kyra just as a stream of dark ink shot forth from the Gossamer Pen. The water crashed into the ink and hit Kyra knocking her down. The pen went flying from her hand directly toward Swampy. Kyra witnessed the red-skinned creature grasp the pen.

Swampy smiled and began to climb the steps. She passed Kyra and headed directly for the pool. Her claw-like feet scraping against the wood of the deck. The dinosaur opened its mouth to roar, but belched inside. Swampy covered her face as a green cloud surrounded her. Swampy pointed the Gossamer Pen and clicked the button on its end.

Kyra sat up and watched in amazement as the dinosaur was sucked back into the pen as a stream of purple ink. Once the dinosaur was gone, Swampy turned and smiled at Kyra.

“Thank you for the gift of knowledge, Creator! Now that I know how to use the Gossamer Pen…I shall use it wisely.” Swampy leapt from the deck and vanished from the yard.

“The Pen!” Kyra screamed and took off running.

Lea pushed free from Juniper and followed. They rounded the house, but it was too late. Swampy was gone.

“Why did she steal the pen?” Lea was panting heavily. Her wet hair matted to her head and hung in her eyes.

“Swampy!” Kyra yelled. She turned to Lea. “What do we do now?”

“I have no idea,” Lea attempted to fix her hair as she removed it from her sight.

“Where is the purple dinosaur?” Juniper asked.

Lea’s stomach twisted into knots.

Juniper now stood beside Lea. She was exhausted. Her arms hung at her sides as though they weighed 100 pounds, dragging her shoulders down with them.

The girls quickly explained to Juniper that she must have passed out from the heat. They pretended that everything that had just happened was a dream…all in Juniper’s head. Lea convinced her friend to go inside and lay down.

With Juniper safely back inside, Lea and Kyra went home feeling defeated and betrayed. Swampy had led them to believe she was on their side…their friend. Kyra was hurt most. How could one of her own creations betray her like that?

Once the girls returned home, Kyra went straight to her room. She sat at her desk and sulked. She flipped through the pages of her notebook wondering if any of her other creations would betray her. She flipped through until she reached the page that read ‘Swampy’. Anger surged through her tiny body. Kyra grabbed the closest pen she could find and scratched out the word, then wrote something underneath…FRENEMY!!!

A knock at the door spooked Kyra.

Lea entered and quietly closed the door. She was acting strangely. She held out her phone.

“We have a problem,” Lea whispered as she tip-toed through the room.

On Lea’s phone was a picture of Frenemy.

“Who sent you this?” Kyra demanded as she leapt from her chair and yanked the phone from her sister’s hand.

“SHHHH! Mom and Dad might hear you,” Lea whispered.

“Lea, where did this picture come from?” Kyra asked in a hushed voice.

“Juniper. Apparently, Swampy walked right past her house.” Lea pulled the phone back from Kyra.

“Frenemy!” Kyra corrected.

“What?”

“Swampy was my drawing. She never would have tricked me. So I renamed her what she is…an enemy that pretends to be your friend to get what they want,” Kyra explained.

“Frenemy?” Lea sounded like she didn’t like it.

“My drawing…I get to name it!”

“Fair enough,” Lea replied. “So what are we going to do about this? I had to tell Juniper the truth.”

“The truth!”

“Kyra, be quiet. Mom and Dad,” Lea angrily whispered. “Juniper’s mad at me now, because I lied to her.”

“I don’t care, Lea. Juniper will blab her mouth all over Greenville. Everyone is gonna know I freed Frenemy and all the others.” Kyra began to cry.

“Others, oh, my gosh. I had completely forgotten about the others.” Lea began flipping through Kyra’s notebook to find the blank pages, when she discovered two pages where stuck together again. “No way! Kyra, look at this!”

Lea pulled apart the pages to reveal a slightly damp and renewed drawing.

“Purple Dinosaur!” they stated in unison.