Meepits *ebil music*

     Socks' head immediately shot upward from the couch and faced one of the many screens in front of him. What he saw was something so shocking, so horrifying, so scary that I needed to get permission from the meepits to even mention it - HIS OWNER.

     Socks let out a shrill squeal, and started searching frantically for a big red button, which he found in less than a few seconds. He thumped his little paw (if that's what you'd call them) on the button, leaned against the wall and panted as the televisions, chairs, tables, laptops and the lot got put upside down, and within a minute were replaced by comfortable, fluffy pink cushions, lamps, music players and posters. Each of the seven meepits in the room jumped on a cushion, closed their large, creepy eyes and pretended to be asleep - it was only three more seconds until Socks' owner walked into the room.

      "Aww, Socks! You've brought your little friends along for a play," his owner whispered, tugging at Socks' cheeks.

     -x-

      "That's it. Next time we have a secret meeting, we're doing it at MY neohome. MY owner doesn't barge in every ten minutes to check on me," Wannabe-Kadoatie said angrily.

      The next day, the six other meepits met Wannabe-Kadoatie at his house. The first thing they saw once they had arrived was what was in Wannabe's hand - it looked like one of the class rolls in neoschool. Six strange stares were being sent in Wannabe's direction, but each was ignored. He put the roll in front of his face and started calling out names.

      "Bob," he said professionally, and looked around as if looking to see if the blue meepit was present on that day. Sir Bob of Geraptiku looked up awkwardly, not knowing whether to laugh or... laugh. He decided to laugh. Wannabe sighed and dropped the roll on the ground.

      "All right, all right." He turned to face the door. "Let's get this over with."

     The Christmas meepit lifted up the mat and revealed a glistening silver key to everyone before inserting it into the lock of the door and holding it open for everyone to walk in.

      Much like Socks, he too had a button that swapped from the ordinary neohome furniture to the meepit's world-domination-meeting-furniture, in case of emergencies.

     Each meepit sat down on a chair around the circular table and watched as Wannabe grabbed his pencil and rolled open a large piece of paper. He drew a circle and wrote 'Neopia Central' in the middle.

      "Snarkie," he said, pointing his pencil at the Faerie meepit directly across from him. "When I give the signal and we've got Neopia exactly where we want 'er, you're going to go over HERE." He drew an X near the bottom of the circle. "And Times New Roman, I want you to go over HERE," he said, drawing a slightly larger X about North-East from where Snarkie was said to go.

     They didn't get very far after that, however, because Wannabe's owner came walking into the room not long after. They only just managed to swap everything back to normal before she found out that her lovely meepit was part of an evil gang that would soon take over all of Neopia and have all the Neopians, pets, and other petpets as their slaves. But the petpetpets were on their side, so they weren't planning to do anything evil to them.

     The seven meepits were arguing for the rest of the day whilst walking to drop each other off at their own neohomes.

      "'We're doing it in MY neohome... MY owner doesn't barge in every ten minutes', you said..."

     They continued to argue until a new, mysterious voice was heard from behind them.

      "I hear you guys are lookin' for a place to have your 'secret meeting', huh?" the strange meepit asked.

     The group nodded, and walked closer as the meepit beckoned them.

      "I've got just the place. See, I'm one of those abandoned meepits - got dumped after I bit my old owner's hand. After a Neopian moves outta their house, I move in. I don't go there much, though, 'cos I needa get out and find food and stuff. So the only time I get in there is to get in bed - it's practically as good as new."

      Snarkie looked at the other meepits, then back at the stray. "Is there furniture?" she asked. "Because we need furniture. You can't just expect us to stand up all day."

     Her fellow meepits nodded in agreement.

      The abandoned meepit laughed a low, croaky laugh. "It wouldn't be a proper neohome if it didn't have furniture, now, would it?" He paused for a moment, looking at each of the other meepit's faces. He then continued. "I've gotten some free furniture and stuff to make a living 'cos I'm all alone with out an owner, and I'd say it's looking pretty decent at the mo'. So, you gonna use it or not?" he asked, tapping his foot on the pavement. "Hurry up now, I've got people to see, places to go... the works."

     Wannabe-Kadoatie took a step forward and stuck his chin up high. "We'll take it."

     The strange pirate meepit gave the others the address, and walked away.

      "Life's good being an abandoned meepit," he said loudly with his back toward them. "People'll give ya anything if you put on a sad face."

     -x-

     The seven meepits met at the address the strange meepit had given them the next day, and were shocked at what they saw.

      "Oh. My. Gosh."

      "I think I'm in heaven..."

      "How awesome is this?"

     For what they saw was the most spectacular sight a meepit could ever imagine: the house was covered with everything meepit.

     There were little bushes cut into the shape of meepits standing proudly next to a meepit fountain with water shooting out of the meepit's mouth, the plants on the floor were in the shape of meepits, and, basically, the entire neohome in general was in the shape of meepits. It was WONDERFUL. (*cough* Creepy. Large, staring eyes everywhere... *cough* scary, I know. *shudder cough*)

      "Glad you like it."

     The meepits turned around to see the same stray they saw the day before.

      "By the way - call me..." He paused. “Poke," the pirate continued sharply, looking the meepits straight in the eye. Snarkie and some of the other female meepits started giggling at such a strange name, but stopped abruptly at the look on his face. Poke walked toward the neohome and opened the unlocked door. Inside was very different from the outside - full of cut-out newspaper articles and wrinkled old books based on how to escape from the cops.

      "Uhh... what's all this?" Socks asked, anxious.

     Poke just looked at him glumly, and replied in his husky voice, "You can never be too safe." He walked toward the chairs, sat down and stuck his arms out horizontally.

      "Well? Good enough for ya?"

     The meepits nodded. "Good," said Poke. Wannabe-Kadoatie once again rolled out the paper and continued drawing X's where he wanted everyone to go. After he had finished three more meepits' areas, a siren was heard. Poke looked up in alarm and raced to the window. He then pulled the curtains so that the inside of the neohome could not be seen and faced his fellow meepits, face alert with panic.

      "Cops."

     Everyone scrambled in random places - under chairs, couches, tables, behind long curtains, the places you'd usually hide in when playing Hide-and-Go-Seek.

      Socks poked Poke and whispered in his ear, "What in Neopia are the cops doing here? You haven't stolen anything, have you?"

     Poke shrugged. "Just one or two things... you know. So this place feels more like a... home."

     At that very moment, a fat yellow Chia with a blue cap and uniform could be seen through a crack in the wall, and Socks ran up toward it to get a better look. The Chia's hat was lighting up red every three seconds, then returned to being blue. It was the hat that seemed to be making the siren noise. While Socks was busy thinking about how intelligent police hat makers were nowadays, Poke continued talking.

      "All right... maybe it was about five. Or six," he said, without any sounds of regret in his voice.

      "Sine, I know you're in here. We saw you through the windows before you closed them," the Chia said through a megaphone outside. "It's better that you come out now and receive less of a punishment than that you do this the hard way and get in big trouble with the rest of the police. It’s your choice."

      "Sine?" Socks whispered anxiously. "Who's Sine?"

     Poke looked at Socks as if he was just one of those ordinary, dim-witted meepits you see every day.

      "Me, you idiot."

     Poke (or Sine, as was his real name) knew that when you own up quickly, you, in fact, DON'T receive less of a punishment than when you don't. So he did the only thing he had gotten up to in his books - he snuck away from his hiding place out the back door.

     The Chia policeman opened the door and beckoned for the other policemen and women to come in.

      "He wants to do this the hard way," he said as his fellow police officers marched their way inside. They all started looking in every room in the neohome for Sine - some officers even checked the garden. After achieving no success, they finally gave up and started to walk back across the street, the hat-siren no longer screaming.

     The pirate walked around the neohome slowly until he was next to where the crack had been. He peeped in and gave a little wink to his fellow meepit friends. He then looked around to check that the coast was clear - he was pleased to see the police had walked far away from the house by now. He walked toward the other side of the road and followed the path calmly. His friends watched him through the door until they could see him no longer, and after he disappeared, Snarkie looked back at the others and said casually, "Well, that was cool."

The End