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Succeeding in tugging me over to the three stories that
were on display, each specially placed in a glass case, Trisha immediately went
over to Evelyn’s story, her eyes peering anxiously at it.
“ Let’s see… oh, it’s a story about a Kougra
who got lost in the wilderness and later met with many obstacles, hmm…”
I pretended to look at the article too, although
the truth was, I didn’t want to look at any story at all. All I could see right
now was Evelyn… gloating as she paraded her gold trophy around, saying things
like, “ I won it, you know! I tell you, my writing skills are a lot better than
that Pearl! She’s a big loser and a cry-baby too!”
Suddenly, Trisha gave a loud and disgusted, “
Yuck!” I jerked my head up, startled and puzzled. It also caused people around
us to stare at her since Evelyn’s story was supposed to get admiration, not
disgust.
Wondering why Trisha was so disgusted with Evelyn’s
article, I took a closer look at her story and after scanning the whole story,
I understood why. Although Evelyn’s story didn’t have any single spelling error
or anything, there was nothing really interesting about it that could really
catch my attention.
Trisha then muttered a furious, “ I’m going to
see the head judge, Mr. Tweeds!” before stalking off. I followed behind, trying
to keep up with her.
“Forget it, Trish! It’s okay!” I protested, jogging
alongside with her. ( That’s how fast she is! ) I didn’t really want to stir
up trouble as it is.
“But I don’t think it’s okay!” Trisha shot back,
rapidly entering the main building of the magazine and heading in the direction
of the general office.
However, just when Trisha was about to raise
her hand to knock on the door, she caught a murmured ‘ bribe’ from the interior
of the office. Instantly, her ear was against the door, her face puckered up
in concentration as she tried to listen.
I did the same too and soon I could make out
two voices from the hushed conversation that was going on in there.
“What?! You want me to let your pet, Evelyn,
win every year? Won’t people get suspicious? Argh, I shouldn’t have told you
that I was planning to hold this competition every year! Especially since your
daughter has such poor writing quality…” there was a thud as Mr. Tweeds pounded
his fist on the table in frustration.
“Shut up! I’m paying you good money, so why worry
about what will happen? Relax, I’ll take the full responsibility lest anything
goes wrong…” a cold voice cut in.
“I certainly hope so…” Mr. Tweeds muttered, letting
out a nervous, unusually high-pitched laugh.
Just then, a thin pink Lenny carrying a stack
of folders came walking past us. However, when she saw us sticking our ears
against the door, she stopped at once, glaring at us suspiciously.
“What are you doing here?” she asked in an altogether
not-too-soft voice.
As soon as she asked that question, the door
was flung open and there, stood a plump, old blue Aisha with huge glasses and
a tall, well dressed man with a hard, cold gleam in his eyes as he stared at
us, his arms folded.
Both Trisha and I were speechless as we stared
at the Pink Lenny, then at Mr. Tweeds and Gomez.
“I believe she was asking you a question, miss!”
Gomez hissed icily as he leant closer towards Trisha, his startling green eyes
looking nonetheless menacing.
“I… I was planning to ask him why Evelyn’s written
story was placed in first place since it is obviously not very good to me. And
our head judge here,” Trisha pointed to a now cowering Mr. Tweeds with vehemence,
“seems to think so too!”
“How long have you been standing outside here?”
the man asked, his breath starting to become ragged as he tried to remain cool
although his eyes betrayed the fact that he was growing fearful.
“Long enough to know that you bribed Mr. Tweeds
to award your precious pet the first place in the writing competition!” Trisha
spat out as she glared at the man, who was so afraid of being discovered that
he took a step backwards.
Then, suddenly recovering, he shook his head
and started to grin triumphantly at us.
“Ah, but you shall not tell anybody… not when
we are still here!” he lunged for us and managed to get Trisha in a tight grip
before tying her up with some rope that Mr. Tweeds had hurriedly supplied from
his office.
I stood frozen to the spot while I watched him
tie Trisha up with astonishing speed. After he had done so, he started for me.
That was when I suddenly found my legs again and started running for my life.
I panted heavily, perspiration trickling down my forehead as my heart pounded
against my chest.
“Gomez, you must not let that Usul tell the secret!”
Mr. Tweeds shrieked, his voice full of fear.
I turned back and saw Gomez, the owner of Evelyn
( I didn’t know his name until now! ) chasing me with absolute wild panic in
his eyes.
I gasped in fright and ran even faster. I could
now see the door in sight now … closer and closer… I closed my eyes and started
to scream to get people to notice me.
“You fool! Don’t you dare scream!” Gomez bellowed,
lunging for me and managing to grab my tail.
I screamed again but to no avail. Gomez, being
a rather strong man, simply dragged me along by my tail. I watched the door
desperately, knowing that it was hopeless now to do anything. So, I did the
last thing any self-respecting Usul definitely wouldn’t have done.
I started kicking with all I was worth with my
stubby legs. Gomez’s eyes widened in surprise at first before he burst out laughing
at this ridiculous sight.
Upon laughing, his grip on my tail loosened and
I was able to flick my tail away from his hand, get up and start running again
with the what dignity I had left.
Before I knew it, I had burst out of the door
and started yelling, “ Gomez bribed Mr. Tweeds to let his pet Evelyn get the
first place in the writing competition!” Everybody who was busy talking and
eating outside gasped when they heard my announcement. Then they started murmuring
between themselves about this rather astonishing piece of news.
“No wonder Evelyn’s written piece wasn’t as good
as I expected to be! This is absolutely outrageous, I’d say!”
“Well… I’m more stupefied as to why Evelyn’s
owner has to do such a thing like that! Doesn’t he know that this would only
cause his account to get frozen?”
“Of course he should know! But we shouldn’t just
trust this little Usul’s announcement just like that! For all we know, she might
be lying …”
Just then Gomez grabbed me from behind and forced
a smile as he muttered to me through clenched teeth, “Wait till I drag you inside!
You’ll know what’ll happen to you for telling this!”
“Hang on a tick first, mister Gomez!” somebody
shouted from the crowd, his voice full of suspicion. “Is what this little Usul
is saying true?”
“Did you really bribe that… what do you call
him… Mr. Tweeds?”
“Aren’t you afraid of your account being frozen?
Don’t you care about your pet?”
Gomez was clearly unnerved by all these questions
and his whole body started trembling with fear. Still, he forced himself to
remain calm as he knew that this would only further aggravate the situation
he was trying to handle right now.
“Why of course I did not bribe the judge! Evelyn
is a sheer talented Wocky and I’m very proud of her winning tonight’s first
prize!” Gomez replied in a smooth voice that had only a hint of anxiety in it.
“Then what are you doing, holding that poor little
Usul like that?” another person shouted from the crowd. “ She ain’t done nothing
wrong although she did say something that wasn’t true!”
I saw Gomez force another pleasant smile at whoever
who had just spoke up from the crowd before taking his hands off me to indicate
that he wasn’t doing anything guilty. I wriggled free before he could think
twice again and said in a loud and falsely bright voice, “Gee, but my owner
is still inside that building! I wonder what’s taking her so long!”
I glared at Gomez with a threatening you-better-set-Trisha-free-or-else
look. His smile quickly turned to a grumpy scowl as he grudgingly stomped inside
the building mumbling something like, “I’ll go set her free now!”
I could tell that the crowd was getting more
and more suspicious by the minute. However, little did I expect him to come
out with a glinting Cobrall dagger flashing dangerously against Trisha’s throat!
I rolled my eyes in despair. This was such a
typical move of a villain like him!
“Nobody moves or this girl gets it!” Gomez snarled,
placing the dagger closer to Trisha’s throat.
“Gomez! Don’t do this!” a voice full of pure
shock and horror shrieked. It was Evelyn and it was obvious she didn’t expect
her owner to go overboard.
“I’m sorry, Evelyn, but I have no choice!” Gomez
growled, his expression softening when he saw his pet running towards him. I
could tell that he was one easily distracted villain, which isn’t good for him
at all.
Unexpectedly, Trisha executed a swift karate
chop that had Gomez tumbling to the ground and the Cobrall Dagger spinning out
of his hand.
“Wow, Trisha, how did you do that move?” I exclaimed,
running over to Trisha to make sure that she was okay.
“Watched and learned it on TV!” Trisha answered
without hesitation, winking jauntily at me as she dusted herself.
The Chia Police soon arrived and found Evelyn
leaning against Gomez, her eyes closed in agony for she knew that her owner’s
account was going to get frozen and that there was a chance that she would not
be able to go to school or do anything else anymore.
“Oh, Gomez!” she wailed before proceeding to
burst into tears.
“We can still get away!” Gomez was screaming,
a crazed look in his eyes as the Chia police led him away.
Evelyn just bit her lip and shook her head mutely.
When I looked at Evelyn’s heartbroken expression while she followed her owner,
I felt a wave of sympathy washing over me and ran over to console her.
“What do you want now!” Evelyn barked, staring
right at me with pure hatred in her eyes. “You’ve already destroyed everything
I have! You satisfied? It’s your fault you took everything away from me and
I’ll never forgive you for this! Never, never!”
Those words echoed inside my head repeatedly,
making me feel so guilty that I couldn’t even muster a smile when Mr. Tweeds
presented me with the first prize award instead.
“I’m sorry I accepted that bribe from Gomez!
Now I have to go to jail… but before that, I feel that I should present you
with this award first! I’d originally intended to give it to you, but I was
as foolish as to accept a mere sum of money from somebody just because I was
in debt!” Mr. Tweeds apologized as he passed me the golden trophy that Evelyn
had simply left behind when she went along with her owner. “Have a happy internship
at the Literary Works of Neopia magazine!”
I nodded without saying anything as I watched
him being handcuffed and led away as my emotions were a mixture of sadness,
guilt and joy.
“So, I guess this does call for a celebration
after all!” Trisha remarked, smiling warmly at me as she ruffled up my fur fondly.
“I suppose so…” I murmured, gazing at the police
cars that sped away into the night.
“And I’ll bake a huge Mega-Minty Korbat Cake
with extra icing and mint! Oh, and some Spooky Doughnuts too!” Trisha was ranting,
not realizing how quiet I had become.
“Trisha… do you think it’s my fault?” I interrupted
while Trisha was midway contemplating about whether she should make Cobrall
Coffee or Kaubuggle Mocha for the drinks tonight.
“Your fault about what?”
“Is it my fault that Evelyn and her owner landed
in such a mess?”
“Don’t be silly! It’s more of their fault! They
know fully well what would happen if they bribed the judge and yet they took
the risk! You tell me, how foolish can they get?”
“Real foolish?”
“Yup! Real foolish …”
“Oh…” I murmured, gazing out at the vast depth
of the inky night as I secretly prayed that Evelyn would be happy and well wherever
she was right now...
Epilogue: Evelyn is currently in another owner’s care after being put in the
pound when her former owner’s account got frozen. When I met her on the streets
one day, I could see that she looked rather happy and that was a relief for
me as I’d felt partly responsible for her plight.
The End
Author’s note: This is only a fictional story with fictional characters
and fictional … well, yeah, you get the point!
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