The display was an attractive one: the faerie paint brush
sat on a velvet pillow in a glass case, surrounded by photos of Neopets with
pastel coloured wings savouring the wonderful gift of flight. Daisy stared at
it wishfully. "Someday," she said to the sunny yellow Kacheek in her
arms, "someday, Sunshine, that will be yours."
Sunshine smiled wistfully. Daisy had only come
to Neopia a couple of weeks ago, but she had already saved up 10,000 Neopoints
in what she called her "Paint Brush Fund." Owning a faerie Kacheek
was Daisy's dream, and being able to fly was Sunshine's dream. But with faerie
paint brushes costing well over 100,000 NP, they were both a long ways away
from seeing their dreams come true.
Daisy brought a red apple up to the counter to
make a purchase. The shopkeeper was a teen-age Wocky with a face full of pimples.
He suddenly shouted, "DING DING DING!!! Wez gots a winner!" and pulled
a rope hanging down to shower confetti all over Daisy and Sunshine. He rushed
over to shake their hands. "Congradz, kiddies! Me ish pleased to announce
youz our two-hundreth customer and win an faerie paint brush!!!"
Sunshine gaped. "Did you say a faerie paint brush?"
"I ish did, all righties!" he said,
with grammar that would make his first-grade teacher roll over in her grave.
"All yaz gots tah do ish fill out dis form with yours personalish info."
Daisy sighed. "Come on, Sunshine. What he probably
means by that is that I'm some sort of ‘finalist' in his little contest, and
he'll probably take our e-mail address and start spamming us. They do that on
Earth, too."
"No no nos!" the Wocky insisted. "Youz
no need tah say your e-mail. Youz ish only just needing tah write down yours
username and one another tinyish detail!"
"Well..." Daisy looked at Sunshine,
who was doing her "bambi-eyes" routine. "All right." She
filled out the form and handed it back to the Wocky.
"All righty!" the Wocky beamed. "Tomorrow
wez will come byish tah deliver da paint brush."
"Tomorrow?" Daisy asked. "Then I really am THE
winner?"
"Da one and onlyish," the Wocky assured
her.
"Wow! Thank you!" Daisy started to leave but
turned around and asked, "By the way, what type of accent is that?"
The Wocky looked offended. "Me ain't no
gots a accent, mam. Me ish one-hundred percent Neopianish."
Daisy rolled her eyes. "Well, thanks anyway!"
And the two of them left. As they walked, Daisy sang their favourite song to
Sunshine. "You are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine. You make me happy when
skies are gray."
I've got a pretty good life, Sunshine
thought. And tomorrow, it's going to get even better once I have my faerie
wings.
"Me's owner is gonna be so proudish of I,"
the Wocky said as he scooped up the confetti to dump on the next sucker who
came to make a purchase. As the last lines of Daisy's song rolled back to him,
he smirked at the irony of the words they held. "You'll never know, dear,
how much I love you. Please don't take my Sunshine away."
***
The next day, while Daisy was at school, a visitor came knocking on the door
of her NeoHome. Sunshine ran and answered the door to a short, scrawny teen-age
boy with a bony structure and a pimply face. "Hey, there," he said.
"This is daisy_gal101's house, aint it not?"
"Are you here to give me the faerie paint
brush?" Sunshine asked excitedly.
"That's right," the stranger smirked.
"I knew it!" Sunshine said excitedly, then added
"When you said ‘aint it not' it reminded me of how your shop keeper talks."
The boy grimaced. Honestly now, he thought,
I can't possibly be THAT bad. "All righty then," he said, unaware
that that too sounded like the pimple-covered Wocky, "before I can give
ya the paint brush I got to have a look around you're house. Can ya give me
a tour?" When Sunshine hesitated, he pulled out a small brass key and said,
"See? You can trust me. Daisy even sent me the key." He demonstrated
by locking and unlocking the door from the outside.
Sunshine nodded. "Okay." She let him in.
"It's bamboo," the boy said with a bit of disappointment
as he looked around. "Small, too. It doesn't got no upgrades, either. Aint nothing
too impressive here."
"That's because we just got here," Sunshine said.
The boy snorted. "Of course. Newbies. Should've
known I wouldn't get nobody else... coming to my shop, I mean."
Sunshine wasn't at all sure she liked being called
a "nooby," whatever that was. She wasn't even sure she liked this guy. But for
a pair of pastel wings, she decided it would be worth putting up with him. "So,"
Sunshine said sweetly, "you never told me your name."
"Huh? My name? It's Zito. Why do ya wanna
know?" Before she could answer, he added, "Don't you even have any
furniture here?"
"Sure, in the other room."
"THE other room?" Zito asked. "Man, I sure don't
want to live here!... I mean, not even hippothikelly."
"Hypothetically," Sunshine corrected him.
"Whatever," Zito said, and wandered
into the next room. "Holy Kau! Where you little newbies get this?"
he asked.
"What, you mean the heart-shaped bed?"
"Of course that's what I mean! There's nothing
else in here! Doesn't that cost, like, 150,000 Neopoints?"
"I don't know. It was a gift."
"A GIFT!" Zito shouted. "Wow!
Now THERE'S something worth swiping... I mean... sweeping... erm, sleeping.
Yeah, sleeping in, that's what I mean."
"What's a swiping?" Sunshine asked.
Zito gave her an odd look. "You can pronounce
hyperthetickly-"
"Hypothetically."
"Whatever. But you don't know what swiping means?"
"Nope."
"Whatever. Anyway, um, I have to go get the paint
brush and then I'll be back. Okay?"
"Okay. Buh-bye!"
***
The big Skeith at the bank adjusted his reading glasses and looked at the waiting
list. "Daisy_gal101?"
Finally, thought Zito as he approached
the desk.
"Good day mada-" the Skeith looked
up at Zito. "Erm, sir. I'm sorry, young man, but you'll just have to wait
your turn like everyone else. I just called up Daisy_gal101. Is YOUR name Daisy_gal101?"
"Yes."
The Skeith gave him an odd look. "I don't
think so."
"It is."
"No it isn't."
Zito showed him a card and the Skeith shuffled
through some papers then looked up. "My apologies, sir. It is only that...
you don't LOOK like a Daisy_gal101. You haven't been using the lab ray on yourself
by any chance?"
"I ain't even got access to it." Zito assured
him. "Now, I'd like to withdraw everything from my account and my safety deposit
box. I'd also like to take a look at my personal files."
"Quite," the Skeith said. He was about
to leave when he turned back and said "If I were you, I would change accounts
FAST."
***
Sunshine was lying in her bed, daydreaming about wings and rainbows, when she
felt the ground shift beneath her. She looked over the edge of the bed to see
that two Elephantes wearing painters' clothes were carrying her away. "Hey!"
she shouted, "What are you doing?"
The Elephantes looked up in surprise. "Get
off the bed, kid! We're moving it to a different NeoHome!"
"What?!?! Why?"
"'Cause your owner told us to, that's why!" And
with that, they shifted the bed so that the thoroughly confused Sunshine rolled
onto the floor.
***
Zito was on his way to pick up Sunshine when a yellow Lenny dressed in a mail
carrier's uniform swooped down. "Neomessage for... Daisy_gal101?"
The Lenny looked at Zito. "Well, like, I guess you can call yourself whatever
you want. Here you go." She handed him the letter.
The letter, which Zito assumed was from a friend
of Daisy's, read something like this:
"GIVE DAISY HER ACCOUNT BACK NOW!!! YOU ARE SUCH
A _______!!!"
The words that filled in the blank, which will
not be mentioned here, contained dollar signs in the oddest places.
"Would you like to send a reply?" the
Lenny asked casually, taking out a pen and a notepad.
"Yeah. Say, ‘she shouldn't have given me her
password.''"
The Lenny blinked. "Like, um? I'm not allowed
to, like, say that? You know?"
Zito slapped his head. "I mean, say ‘she shouldn't
have given me her p-a-s-$ word."
"Okay, like, will do," the Lenny said
and flew off.
No sooner had she left than Sunshine came running
up. "Zito! Zito! Something's happened and you were the first person I could
find and-"
Zito cuffed her on the head. "Shut up! Ya want
to know what's been going on today? I'll tell you." He grinned coldly. "Ya know
that information form you wanted your owner to fill out? It asked for her password.
And she gave it to me. That means that her account is MINE. Everything in Neopia
that once belonged to her is MINE. And you, little pet, you are MINE. At least
until we get to the pound." Before she could recover from the shock, he scooped
her up and stuffed her into his backpack along with everything he'd taken from
Daisy's safety deposit box.
***
Zito left the pound very pleased with himself. The whole raid had gone through
without incident. Well, unless you counted the embarrassment for having such
a girly account name. But all in all, it could have been a lot worse.
Suddenly, a group of police Chias jumped out
from behind various hiding places and surrounded him. They were armed with what
appeared to be miniature frost cannons. "Zito!" shouted one of them,
"You are hereby frozen for swearing, scamming other users, and using multiple
accounts to play potato counter."
***
Sunshine sat in the pound weeping. She remembered how happy she had been before
she became obsessed with getting a faerie paint brush. Daisy had always been
there for her. They would sing and play Kacheek seek and other games. And they
would always have plenty to eat. And just maybe, if they hadn't been in such
a hurry, they could have someday afforded a faerie paint brush.
She had been in the pound only for a few hours,
but she figured she could be there for years. That's why she was surprised when
a young girl - older than Daisy, but not quite a teenager - stopped right in
front of her. "This is the one, Rose!" she called to a pink Uni who
quickly came over and and let Sunshine out.
While the girl was filling out the adoption forms,
Sunshine talked to her other pet, a Jubjub called Poley. Though Poley assured
her that the girl was a good owner, Sunshine could see that there was something
troubling him. When she asked, he sighed. "Oh, it's just that... well... she
doesn't earn very many Neopoints you see? I mean, she can always afford to feed
me, but nothing else. And... I've been wanting a Halloween paint brush. I keep
hoping that someday we'll be able to afford it, but now that there are two pets
to feed that will never happen."
Sunshine smiled. "Poley, trust me on something,
okay? If your owner is really as great as you say she is... it's worth it."
The End | 
