Ray awoke to his alarm blaring. Feeling deep pangs of fatigue, he rolled out of bed and jumped into the shower, waking him up. He quickly threw on a pair of clothes and packed his books, then headed downstairs. The TV was on, to his surprise. He saw Sorrel slumped on the coach, obviously asleep.
Ray turned off the TV, noting at the remnants of whatever Sorrel had eaten out of his fridge the previous night. Speaking of that, the sun hadn't even begun to rise. He left Sorrel and continued to the Garage. Ray quietly opened the door, and Firedrake stirred. "Ray?" Firedrake murmured.
Ray flicked on the light and pressed the button to open the garage. "Hey, how's your wing?" He said with concern.
"I'm still in a lot of pain in that area, but otherwise fine," Firedrake said.
Ray paused. Studying the broken wing. "Alright, this is gonna make me late for school, but I should have done this last night anyway." He broke the sticks off of two brooms, and tied several bed sheets together. "Okay, just try to hold your wing up. Firedrake struggled as Ray balanced on his back, trying a splint to hold the broken bone in place. At last, he'd finished. Ray slid off Firedrake's back. "How's that?"
"Much better!" Firedrake licked his lips. "You sure do know a lot."
"Tell that to my teachers," Ray slipped on his motorcycle helmet and pushed his Kawasaki Ninja out of the garage.
"Alright, I'll be back this evening. If you get hungry or anything, can Sorrel take care of that for you?"
"I live off of Moonlight," Firedrake said proudly.
"Moonlight?" Ray reiterated. "Wow. Well, I need to get going, see you later!" Ray revved his engine, speeding down his driveway. "See you," Firedrake mumbled as he watched Ray ride down the driveway under the closing garage door.
Ray fought the traffic and found a parking spot at his school. Everything went fine up until fourth period.
"Can I have Raymond Sokolov to the front office, please?" The loud speaker in his classroom crackled. "Ray, get going," His teacher turned a page in his book as the rest of the class continued to take a quiz.
Anxiously, he marched the concrete block walls until he had reached the front office.
"Hey, I'm Ray," He told the receptionist. She pointed to a door at his right. He entered, and then his adrenaline spiked.
"Well hello there, son." It was the police officer from the night before, along with another police man. Ray caught the name on his badge, Officer Sir. Ray stifled a laugh.
"Take a seat," Mr. Harrison, the school counselor, said.
Ray sat down, and kept his cool. He made himself seem confused, and asked why he was here.
"Did you see this young man last night as you described to me?" Mr. Harrison asked Officer Sir.
"Yes, this is the boy, no doubt," Officer Sir replied. "I ran his license plate and this is him."
"Well?" Said the counselor. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
Ray paused, then remembered his plan. He took out two bullets in the officer's revolver, just in case he needed to work in a story.
"Well, he did stop me last night," Ray nodded. "The first time, he had accused me of smoking, which I wasn't. I work at a motorcycle shop after school. My Boss and a lot of his clients smoke, so the smell must have rubbed off on me. My boss will confirm that if you want."
"Er, first time?" asked Mr. Harrison. Officer sir turned bright red.
"I saw him twice that night," Ray said. Officer Sir and his companion exchanged glances. "I told you, what I saw was real," Officer sir whispered to the other police man just loud enough for Ray's young ears to hear.
"Well, up the street from my house, I heard a gunshot go off," Ray forced himself to speak as calmly as he could.
"Uh-huh," Mr. Harrison shot the officers a puzzled look.
"So I went out to investigate, I was afraid maybe someone had broken into my neighbor's house. I grabbed my rifle, which I do have a permit for and it is registered, by the way," He looked at the officers, then back to Mr. Harrison.
"I drive my motorcycle and in the middle of the road, I see this guy," Ray pointed at Officer Sir, "Sitting on the hood of his car, and holding his gun, and I could see a lit joint in his hand"
"Really?" Mr. Harrison's eyes widened. "What happened next?"
"That's a lie!" Officer Sir shouted angrily. Mr Harrison shushed him and repeated his question.
"I was just getting to that," Ray answered. "He saw me, and screamed something about seeing a dragon, or some sort of creature. I asked him if he was alright, and I came over and tried to help him, but he pulled the gun on me and told me to put my hands up. So I did."
Mr. Harrison had a slightly angry expression now. "Oh really?"
"Really," Ray repeated. "He saw something and freaked, he dropped his gun and got back in his car and sped off."
"Is that all?" Mr. Harrison asked. Ray nodded. "Well, hearing both sides of the story, Ray's side adds up, however yours does not," he faced the officers.
"What?" Officer Sir cried. "You're going to listen to this kid, instead of a police officer?"
"Can I interrupt for a moment?" Ray said. "Why don't you have him take a drug test before you question me any further."
Officer Sir's eyes widened. Ray smiled at him, the glance that was returned was a death glare.
"No! I won't take a drug test. This is absolutely ridiculous, listening to a kid instead of an police man."
"Why are you afraid of taking a drug test?" Mr. Harrison sighed. "Suspicious."
The room sat silent. All eyes were on Officer Sir, including the ones from his companion.
"Alright, fine!" He admitted. "I had smoked some marijuana that night, okay?"
"My, my," Mr. Harrison said. "Now this, I believe. Ray has a clean criminal record, as well as a clean disciplinary record."
The other officer put Officer Sir in handcuffs and escorted him off the school premises, charged with Possession of Illegal Narcotics and Falsifying Information.
"Ray, you can return to class. I'm sorry you got mixed up in this whole deal."
"That's alright, I'm just glad I was able to miss my quiz," Ray rebutted as he left Mr. Harrison's office.
He triumphantly walked back to class. Because of his quick thinking, he had protected Firedrake from being discovered. It was lucky that officer had a drug problem, or else there would have been trouble.