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Untitled Document
"Well, if isn’t the two stupidest Pets on the playground!"
Terrence, a red Blumaroo, cackled.
Dan, a yellow Kiko, simply rolled his eyes and
continued on his way, bobbing along the path that led to the swingset. Dan paused.
The yellow Kiko sighed and turned around, waving an irritated flipper at his
brother, a bumbling green Scorchio called Bob.
"Hurry up Bob!" he called, crossing his flippers
over his chest. Bob grinned stupidly and lumbered over to his brother.
"Dan!" he shouted, throwing his scaly green
arms around the Kiko, enveloping him in his embrace. "Hi Dan!" Dan coughed and
squirmed out of the Scorchio’s grasp, glaring angrily at his brother.
"Quit it Bob!"
Dan had a right to be angry. Since Bob didn’t
have any other friends, the green Scorchio was constantly hanging around Dan,
his brother. Bob was also somewhat dim-witted, so whenever anyone saw the two
Pets, they would automatically assume that they were both stupid.
In reality, Dan was quite intelligent. He got
straight A’s in Neoschool, and always had the highest scores on the exams. But
no one ever noticed that. They only noticed it when Dan did something wrong.
Then, they would say,
"Look at the stupid Kiko! He and his brother
sure are dumb!"
Just thinking about it made Dan’s blood boil.
Bob also had another irritating habit. He would
take simple, inanimate objects, a can of soup, for example, and talk to them,
insisting them to be alive. It was extremely disturbing.
At the moment, Bob’s stationary "friend" was
a rainbow sticky hand. The green-scaled Scorchio waved it around the air, watching
it wiggle and jiggle with wide eyes.
"Hey Dan, you know what Mister Sticky says?"
he asked, staring excitedly at his rainbow sticky hand. Dan sighed, resigning
himself to a long day of chatting with a Battledome item.
"No Bob, I don’t. What does Mister Sticky say?"
he asked sadly, heaving a great sigh. Bob grinned toothily.
"He says that he knows how to cheer you up!"
the Scorchio replied. The Kiko snorted.
"Oh? And how is that?" he asked, gazing wistfully
at a group of highly intellectual Pets across the playground.
"Mister Sticky says that some old Aisha who
lived in a big mansion just bit the dust and left all of her items to anyone
who was brave enough to get them."
Dan felt a glimmer of interest. "What kinds of
items?" he asked, trying not to sound TOO intrigued. Bob sniggered, his wings
flapping.
"Oh, ALL sorts! She was a rich old Aisha, yuh-huh."
Bob began counting off all of the items on his stubby green claws. (They were
stubby because he bit them so much). "—Toys, Battledome stuff, Trading Cards,
and books. Lots and lots of books!"
Dan gasped. If there was one thing in Neopia
that he loved… It was books. He had already read every single book in the Neoschool
library, and quite a few that he had managed to grab from the shelves of the
bookstore in Neopia Central before someone else snatched them up. Bob grinned.
"So do you wanna go?" he asked, grasping his
Rainbow Sticky Hand in his claws. Dan rubbed his fins together, a malicious
grin forming on his face.
"We’ll run the old house dry…" the Kiko replied.
***
Bob had wanted to visit the mansion after his favorite television program,
"Lucinda Uni’s Smile Hour", but Dan insisted that they go right after school.
The green Scorchio led the way to the mansion,
occasionally pausing so that he could ask his rainbow sticky hand for directions.
Finally, the two Pets reached the large, menacing mansion that towered on a
crumbling hill. Strangely enough, the skies seemed to be darkening and thunder
had begun to rumble off in the distance as soon as the two Pets arrived.
"What an intriguing change of weather!" Dan
exclaimed. "Maybe we’LL get to see some lightning." At the Kiko’s last statement,
Bob shuddered and cowered behind a scraggly bush.
"Err, I don’t like lightning, it scares me!"
The Scorchio glanced at his Rainbow Sticky Hand. "An-and neither does Mister
Sticky!"
Dan growled at his brother as he bounced irritably
up the stairs to the front door of the mansion. "I don’t care if Mister Sticky
is the emperor of the free Neopia! We’re going into the house, and we’re going
to get those books, or be painted-ghost-without-the-brush trying!"
Dan turned the doorknob and eased the door open
with a loud creaking sound. The Kiko peered inside the house and grinned. He
could see a large, circular room filled with thousands upon thousands of books,
all of them just itching to be read. Dan complied by bouncing gleefully into
the library and throwing open the books, devouring them like a mad Kiko. (Not
literally, of course).
Bob followed tentatively after his brother, Mister
Sticky dangling limply from his claws. He glanced fretfully around the dark
and scary room before scurrying up to Dan, who was still pouring over books.
"Dan? Dan? Can we please go now?" he asked.
Dan simply dismissed his plea with a wave of his flipper. Bob sighed and sat
down in an overstuffed, moth-eaten armchair, playing half-heartedly with Mister
Sticky. Suddenly, the rainbow sticky hand began to rise up on its own, not unlike
a Cobrall being coaxed out of a basket by a Cobrall charmer. Bob watched in
fascination as the rainbow sticky hand began to sway from side to side, lulling
the Scorchio into a false sense of security and contentment.
Suddenly, the rainbow sticky hand lashed out
and struck Bob across his snout. The green Scorchio leapt up, rubbing his jaw
and flapping his wings wildly.
"Dan!" he shouted frantically. "Dan! Look at
this! I think that Mister Sticky’s been possessed by the ghost of the old Aisha!"
The Kiko waved his flipper casually in the air.
"Not now, Dan," he replied, still completely
engrossed in his book.
The rainbow sticky hand grabbed Bob’s face, enveloping
the Scorchio in a cloak of rainbow-colored sticky material.
"Mmmth! Mmmth!" he cried, stumbling blindly
around the room as he tried vainly to remove the sticky hand from his face.
Dan sighed exasperatedly, turning around to face the Scorchio.
"Honestly, Bob! Can’t you just be quiet for
one sec- SWEET MERCIFUL JUPPIE! It IS alive!" Squealing like a scalded Snorkle,
Dan ran out of the mansion, followed closely by Bob, who had finally managed
to pull the avenging sticky hand off his face.
The two pets returned to Neoschool, telling anyone
who would listen about the evil rainbow sticky hand. Those who bothered to listen
would scoff and call them liars and Scardey-Aishas, none of them believing their
tale. Eventually everyone, including Dan and Bob, forgot about the whole thing,
and life returned to normal.
Still, no one ever ventured to the abandoned
mansion atop the crumbling hill. I’m not entirely sure why, maybe it’s because
of the strange, long, hand shaped rainbow-colored thing that can be seen stalking
the deserted corridors of the old mansion on dark, stormy nights… Muhahaha!
The End
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