Benny looked through his wallet and handed the 82 neopoints to the red Uni
behind the counter. He lifted a young blue Chia by the name of Curlly543 into
his arms, then began carrying him out of the Adoption Agency. Outside waited
Benny's two long-time pets, Goosh_24601, a level 19 blue Lupe, and SilentGryphon,
a level 5 rainbow Eyrie. Curlly534 looked at these two older and stronger pets
with a bit of fear in his eyes.
"Don't let them hurt me!" He whimpered, burying his face in Benny's shoulder.
Benny held Curlly534 closer to him.
"It's okay, these are your new foster siblings, Goosh and SG. Goosh is the
Lupe and SG is the Eyrie. You'll be living with us for awhile, so you can go
to school and get stronger before you're adopted by a permanent family." Benny
told the frightened little Chia. "Goosh and SG aren't going to hurt you; they're
going to be very nice. They know all about helping me with Chias."
"But Lupes EAT Chias like me!" Curlly534 protested, his shrill little voice
making Benny's ears ring.
"Not me. Benny says if I eat any of the foster Chias, he'll have to punish
me. You're not gonna like Benny's punishments. He's strict." Goosh_24601 replied.
SilentGryphon began walking away from the Adoption Agency, getting impatient
to get home, so Benny and Goosh followed.
"You won't eat me?" Curlly534 asked, wanting to get another confirmation.
Goosh shook his head.
"Nope. Benny makes sure I get lots to eat, and my favorite food is baked juppies.
What's your favorite food?" Benny smiled thankfully at Goosh. He was incredibly
helpful with the foster Chias; he always knew just what to say to calm them
down or cheer them up.
"Um... Baked beans?" Curlly534 replied, sounding ashamed.
"Baked beans? Is that what they feed you at the Adoption Agency?" Goosh asked.
Curlly534 shrugged.
"Baked beans and tins of olives, and sometimes dried apricots."
"Oh, you won't have to eat any of that junk anymore. Benny feeds us good food.
Not neggs or anything, unless it's our birthday, but good food. He'll make sure
you get strong and smart and everything." Goosh assured the young Chia. Now
Curlly534 started to squirm, so Benny set him down and held his little pudgy
blue hand as he kept talking to Goosh all of the way back to their NeoHome in
Neopia Central.
When they got home, Benny showed Curlly534 to his room, which was labeled
on the door "Chia room - Private!" Inside was a tiger bed, a kau print bed,
a fungus ball print desk, and two blue bean bag chairs. Curlly534 turned around
and gave Benny a confused look.
"Don't I share a room with SG and Goosh?" He asked. Benny shook his head a
little.
"No, they each have their own room. You'll share your room with Chasa202.
He's our other foster Chia. He's at the Mystery Island Training School right
now, but he'll be home later tonight, in time for dinner. This room is just
for the two of you. No one, not even me, is going to come in here without one
of your permission. The kau print bed is yours. The bean bag chairs are for
when I get you a book to read. You can do whatever you want now, but be cleaned
up and in the kitchen in time for dinner at five o'clock, okay?" Benny said.
Curlly534 nodded a little, and Benny went to his room to take care of his book
keeping.
Being a foster parent is expensive. He spent and average of twenty thousand
neopoints on each foster pet, and it was starting to really hurt his bank account.
He was steadily losing neopoints, and he was soon going to be broke. Perhaps
Curlly534 would have to be the last foster Chia, at least for awhile. Benny
knew it would be very hard on him to know that there were Chias in the Adoption
Agency waiting to get families who would continue to wait until he could save
them and make them stronger. However, it wouldn't do any good to adopt another
one if he couldn't even afford to send them to the Training School or buy paint
brushes for them.
"Benny?" A voice asked at the door. Benny looked up to see Goosh standing
in the doorway, poking his little nose inside.
"Come on in, Goosh. What's up?" Benny asked, patting the end of the bed. Goosh
stepped inside and padded over to the bed, where he curled up on the end of
it.
"He's crying in his room." Goosh was referring to Curlly534 of course, and
Benny sighed. This particular Chia seemed more scared than most of the previous
ones, but at least he wasn't angry or destructive. Chias who'd been without
a good owner for quite awhile often had major behavioral problems. Usually,
a little while with Benny's good supervision fixed the problem.
"Okay. Thanks for letting me know." Benny then got up and headed to Curlly534's
room to comfort him. On the way he realized, that even if this was the last
foster pet he could take in for awhile, at least he'd be able to make a difference
for this one, and he'd already made a difference for many Chias in the past.
In the end, all of the Chias that had left his home had been back out of the
Adoption Agency within an hour, with levels of at least 3, higher stats than
all of the other pets in the adoption agency, and painted beautiful colors.
They'd all left happy, and found wonderful permanent homes, making all of the
trouble worthwhile.
The End | 
