Ink on the Wind

Pen Tower stood in the middle of Chapter City like a giant ballpoint pen stabbed straight into the sky.

Pen Mother Goat hovered beside the open balcony, her blue supersuit speckled with black ink splats. Wind tugged at her light tan fur and her black ink-splat mask.

Her phone buzzed.

“Lost Tourist Report,” the screen read. “Corner of Once-Upon Avenue and… uh… it’s gone.”

She frowned and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Down on the streets, food carts steamed. A pumpkin carriage honked at a delivery van. Everything looked normal—until a long, squeaky rubbing sound drifted up.

“Squeeek. Squeeek. Squeeek.”

Pen Mother Goat tapped her map app. Street names blinked, then turned into empty gray bars.

“Nope. Not today.”

She leaned over the railing and used her sharp eyes to scan a signpost below.

A small white cleaning drone rolled in circles around it, pressing a pale pink wheel to the letters like it was eating them.

Pen Mother Goat gripped her belt, ready to summon her giant pen, and dropped from the balcony toward the avenue

Soft Wheels, Sharp Turns

Pen Mother Goat dropped fast and landed on Once-Upon Avenue with a thump that made a hot-dog cart wobble.

The little white cleaning drone spun its pale pink wheel and squeaked at her boot.

“Hey! Spit out the street name,” she said.

Its single black camera-eye blinked. It beeped like a tiny microwave and zoomed away.

Pen Mother Goat snapped her phone up. On her map, more labels flickered into blank gray bars.

“Fine. Ink fence!”

She fired a thin line of black ink across the sidewalk.

The drone hit the line, rubbed, and—squeeek—erased the fresh ink like it was candy. The ink smear splashed onto a signpost, and the drone polished that clean too.

“Oh no. It eats new stuff.”

The drone zipped onto a glass elevator platform climbing the outside of Pen Tower. As it rose, it scrubbed huge directory letters right off the tower wall.

A man in clear goggles and a neon orange vest clung to the rail, one hand full of squeegee tools.

“Lady Goat! It erased my safety labels!” he shouted. “Which button is ‘STOP’ now?”

Pen Mother Goat flew beside the moving platform, teeth clenched, watching his fingers hover over two identical blank buttons