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In the kitchen upon his back lie Krawker_oth, quite tiredly,
in fact -- he'd been awoken early that Sunday morning by the angry squawks of
his owner, apparent. For the past twenty minutes, Krawker had been drowned in
a boring speech given to him by his owner due to the mess of water present within
the kitchen and the bathroom. Unfortunately, the Krawk woke up to see the mess
that he was blamed for, although he honestly did not make it himself. Ever since
the Maraquan paintbrush was officially released in Neopia, a lot of strange
events had occurred, and for Krawker everything seemed as if it were playing
part in some kind of plan. For example, while walking home two days before,
a piece of large seaweed lay upon the sidewalk, which caused Krawker to trip.
The fact that he tripped over that particular kind of plant was eerie; there
was not a body of water for miles and miles away from the city.
"Krawker -- how many times MUST I tell you not
to leave the water running before you go to bed?" Apparent frowned while taking
the rugged mop out of the cabinet next to the sink, awaiting a response from
her Neopet. A few moments of silence passed as Krawker shrugged his shoulders,
somewhat relaxed - he'd already tried to explain to his owner that he didn't
leave the water running, and it was not working in the least. Everyone in the
household knew that Krawker had a habit of leaving water running for extended
amounts of time, due to his love for swimming.
"If you've told me once, you've told me a bazillion
times." He sighed, wriggling the joints upon his claw-like feet while beginning
to count the tiles on the ceiling of the kitchen. Apparent sighed while handing
the mop over to her youngest Neopet.
"That's right. I have to leave for a few hours,
and since you don't seem to have any kind of a sincere apology within you, you
can mop up this kitchen until you find one on the floor."
Krawker, not trying to get himself into any more
trouble, took the old mop from his owner as she headed out of the door. Today
he'd look for a leak in the pipes, only for the fact that he was tired of being
blamed for the messes that appeared in the house, only the ones that involved
water, of course.
Glancing up towards the circular clock on the
wall, Krawker bit his bottom lip with thought. It was only eight in the morning,
and his older siblings had left for a day of shopping. "I guess I should actually
clean this mess. Then, I'll get to the root of this problem, I guarantee it."
So, he set out to work. There was water everywhere:
in corners, underneath the garbage can, leaking out of the walls -- anywhere
the liquid could seep, Krawker found it. Soon the bucket that he used to deposit
the water into was full, and Krawker found that every twenty minutes he'd have
to take it outside, dump it into the grass, and come back inside. After an hour
of heavy duty mopping, the floor was still as wet and sticky as it was before
the Krawk began to do his chores. An hour passed, and then two, until Krawker_oth
found it impossible to grasp the wooden pole of the mop any longer.
With exasperation and a mass of blisters upon
his claws, Krawker collapsed dramatically onto the tiled floor, splashing water
everywhere.
"I don't get it!" he cried, while frowning impatiently
towards nothing in particular. "I've had two freakishly real dreams about the
sea before, and now it seems as if the sea wants to haunt me for the rest of
my life. That's it; I'm going to find out where this leak is. Then I'm complaining
to the mayor!"
Semi-angrily the Krawk helped himself up off
of the floor, water dripping off of his smooth, scaly skin, and then stormed
outdoors. The air, rather warm and comfortable, immediately dried his wet state,
and the water that dripped out of the house. The neighborhood was quiet; it
was still early in the morning, however that didn't prevent Krawker from going
buck wild. Heading over towards the back of the NeoHome where he'd often seen
his older brothers play, Krawker started living up to his word. Partly due to
the fact that he was nervous as to why all of these events were springing up
randomly, the Krawk headed into the cellar of the house.
The cellar was deemed the scariest part out of
the NeoHome. Krawker and his siblings often swapped scary dreams or thoughts
of things that they had in relation to the small, underground floor of the house,
so no one dared to go down into its depths unless told otherwise. To Krawker's
surprise, the cellar wasn't in the least bit scary during the daytime. Sure,
the atmosphere was a little dark and dusty, but otherwise everything seemed
fine. He released a sigh and then slowly headed down the concrete stairs. It
was empty -- with the exception of a few shelves and old rolls of Christmas
wrapping paper. There were a few Spyder webs visible in the corners.
"Now, only to find the pipes.." Krawker declared
and then hopped over to a stool that sat in the middle of the room.
The pipes to the NeoHome hung overhead. The Krawk
stood on the tips of his hind claws in order to grasp the largest pipe available.
Once in a steady positioning, he deftly boosted himself up in order to perch
on the edge of the pipe.
Not much talking was necessary for the first
twenty minutes of being in the air. In fact, Krawker found it really easy to
slide on the pipes, being quite small and having slippery skin became an advantage
at this point. As time passed, he was unable to locate a leak, which would hopefully
be the solution to all of his problems. Exasperation and a thought of failure
running through his mind, about a half hour later Krawker simply jumped to the
ground. The house was drenched in water due to something unknown.
"Well, that didn't work," Krawker_oth sighed
while using a claw to wipe the strings of sweat off of his forehead. "Everything
else down here seems fine. I'll check the boiler before getting back to the
kitchen to try and clean up that mess again."
Upon the now hardened soles of his clawed feet,
and tired, jointed yellow legs, Krawker headed towards the large boiler in the
corner of the room. The large metallic machine stood seemingly bold and soldier-like,
alone there in its corner, clouds of dust lingering around the atmosphere. Krawker
checked for any signs of a leak or a broken pipe. Once again he was stricken
with failure. As a result of his anger, the Krawk stood up from his crawling
position on the floor and kicked the side of the boiler.
"Now I have no idea what is going on, and I
have to go right back upstairs and clean this mess..." he began, until something
on the floor caught his eye. A thick piece of forest green seaweed lay there,
by itself, on the edge of the wall. Krawker observed it for a moment, recalling
the fact that it looked almost identical to the one he'd seen earlier in the
week, and then skidded onto the floor.
"Aha! This is something that might help me out.
If I just figure out where it came from, then there'll be water -- and, Dice-A-Roo!
My problem will be solved."
Happily, Krawker yanked the plant off of the
floor and then stood up. The walls of the cellar began to vibrate angrily, sending
dozens of tiny rocks onto the floor and clouds and clouds of dust into the air.
He gasped, and then ran towards the stairs with fright. Then, it happened. Through
the many cracks in the walls, hundreds and hundreds of pieces of seaweed began
to shoot uncontrollably into the air -- falling onto the floor, sticking to
the furniture, clinging to the ceiling, everywhere. Krawker, dumfounded by the
unexpected and peculiar event, scrambled up the stairs to the cellar and shut
the door once he was outside. Seaweed had already helped itself onto his back
and his legs.
Unsure of what to proclaim, or even think to
himself, the Krawk scrambled back inside. Hoping to escape all of his problems
by doing so, he'd only run into another. Apparent was back home, angrily surveying
the appearance of the kitchen, which was still drenched in water.
"Did you not do anything while I was
gone, Krawker? Do you think this is a joke?"
Gasping for breath, Krawker_oth raised one of
his claws in a gesture, telling his owner to hold on one moment. He himself
wondered if the whole happening was a joke, or yet, another dream. "I'm sorry..
I, uh, got caught up in playing outside a few minutes after you left."
Not in the mood for argument, and quite tired
anyway, apparent thought for two minutes before nodding to herself. "Alright.
Go clean that grass off of yourself and I'll call a plumber."
Krawker happily did as he was told. It took him
fifteen minutes to shower, and throw away the seaweed that had collected in
the bathtub. "Well, I'm glad today is finally over. Now I can go back to being
completely sane."
The downstairs bell rang, and following his owner's
call from the living room, Krawker ran downstairs. He looked out the window
and saw a plumbing truck, with a logo of a plunger on the side, which convinced
him to open the door. On the steps stood a rather short plumber, wearing a cap
over their forehead, and grasping a bag full of random tools.
"C'mon in," Krawker waved and then pointed to
his owner sitting inside. We've got a big leak--"
Krawker screamed as the unexpected appearance
of the plumber became visible to him. The short, sky blue Aisha removed his
hat and flashed a smile while wriggling his fin on the wooden doorstep. "A leak,
eh?" he squeaked, holding a tone in his voice that sounded somewhat like gargling.
"Well, water's my specialty, you can count on that." A smile slithered onto
his ghostly lips.
He was apparently Maraquan.
Krawker fled to his bedroom.
The End
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