Starry Hats

     Sinister dark green eyes turned on a cowering yellow JubJub. "So, boy, do you have it? Am I to spare you for today?"

     The JubJub - a particularly tiny one - gulped. "Er, you see, Miss Jhudora, I was-I mean, I did- well, there are a lot of stores- a lot of them sell codestones-"

     Jhudora gave him a dismissive glare that closed his mouth almost immediately. "Hm. Very well. Leave, now."

     Wiz scurried out as fast as he could, leaving not one yellow hair behind him but at least five, as he had a strange tendency to shed when nervous.

     As he came out of the peaked building, his feet settled on pale purple cloud, and he relaxed just the tiniest bit.

     A seemingly bored faerie Hissi was sitting next to the door, holding what appeared to be a stack of flyers.

     He glanced Wiz up and down. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you didn't get your item."

     Wiz shrugged. "Uh-uh."

     The Hissi plucked out a green flyer from the stack and shoved it between Wiz's toes.

     Wiz read it curiously. "Did YOU fail one of Jhudora's quests? Shame on you, pitiful Neopian! Your score has been reset to zero, same as the chance that you will never get on the high-score table and be one of Jhudora's favorite test subjects, er, people.

     However, never fear! You can always come back in 24 hours to do another one of these lovely quests!

     This has been a message from the Jhudora Is A Lovely Beast organization."

     Wiz glanced up at the Hissi. "Who wrote this?"

     The faerie Neopet snickered. "Some of my friends. They love making fun of Jhudora and her quests. It's pretty dumb to think that you can get her Tan Blush in fifteen minutes and thirty seconds, huh?"

     Wiz nodded. "Tell me about it."

     He waved goodbye to the Hissi and started walking away, before he remembered that he was on a cloud. He stopped and looked around for an Eyrie Cab to wave down.

     After a couple minutes a motherly looking Starry Eyrie flew up to him "Hello, dear, and where to today?"

     Wiz gave her his address and she flapped away gently.

     As they flew, the Hissi's words echoed in his mind. ...pretty dumb...

     Wiz, of all pets, should know how "dumb" it was. He'd been doing a study on faerie quests for the past couple weeks, just because neoschool was over for a teenaged JubJub like him and he was supposed to do something with the rest of his days.

     An idea to make quests easier for the rest of Neopia had been swirling around in his mind for a while now, but he didn't know how to make it concrete, how to make it work.

     He was jolted from his thoughts by the noise of the Eyrie's feet hitting the ground in front of his tiny house.

     Wiz absentmindedly walked into the small brown cottage, whistling a little tune to himself.

     He collapsed on his couch. Searching for a relatively cheap Har Codestone in shops all day hadn't quite been relaxing.

     The JubJub must have fallen asleep after a couple minutes, because he soon found himself immersed in a dream where there was a solution to all of his - and the rest of Neopia's - shopping problems.

     He awoke with a start; similar to if it was a nightmare.

     However, it was hardly such, and gave him an excellent idea to build upon for the next couple days...

     ***

     Exactly three days later, Wiz was sitting in a rather shabby booth (made out of old planks of wood and rusty nails) outside the marketplace.

     Taped messily to the front of the booth was a sign that said "Want your shop listed in my super-cool directory? Come here!"

      Wiz had never been the best student in his English class, and therefore did not know how to properly write an advertisement.

     Or, really, anything for that matter.

     Because of this, he had been waiting there for at least three hours with no takers, and he wasn't exactly the happiest right then.

     Finally, a pink Uni walked up and glanced him up and then, the same way the Hissi had.

     "I don't know what your super-cool directory idea is, but it's obviously not working," she stated flatly.

     He gave her an annoyed look. "Thanks for pointing out the obvious."

     She grinned. "Maybe if you told me your idea, I could help?"

     Wiz sighed, and started talking. By the time he was finished, the Uni was looking excited.

     "That is the best thing I think anyone has thought of since sliced Chokatoes!"

     Wiz gave her a strange look, but she continued chattering on about her advertising ideas. After a while, he started to get the feeling that this girl really knew what she was talking about.

     She paused for a second. "Oh, and by the way, my name's Mellie. What's yours?'

     "Wiz," he told her in a slightly intimidated voice.

     Her face lit up. "Perfect!"

     ***

     The very next day, Wiz was sitting behind a similar booth.

     However, this time, it was decorated in bright, colored paper that proclaimed "The Shop Wizard!" in loud letters.

     Wiz was rather grumpily seated next to Mellie. The grumpiness was because he was outfitted in a cape and wizard's hat, both decorated with multi-colored stars.

     Mellie had insisted on this, to match with the magic theme she'd thought up.

     Besides Wiz's grumpy mood, the day had gone pretty well. Several Neopians had signed up to be listed in the Shop Wizard Directory.

     Mellie was still racking her brain to think of a simply faster way to find things, though.

     Everyone was asking about that, in fact. After a while, Wiz was tired of it.

     Mellie had started to notice this. The Uni had her own idea going, to make it easier on everyone.

     ***

     By the next day (Wiz had found Mellie was no slow worker), Mellie had another idea going.

     "Want to find what you need, and fast? The Shop Wizard is here for you!"

     Somehow she had gotten several other Unis to run through the pages of the directory and find the shops that sold the cheapest of each item. This was no small job, however, and the Unis were looking pretty tired by the end.

     By the end of that day, Wiz was exhausted too. His day had been made, though, when a baby Kacheek told him that he and his Uni team had helped her find the perfect gift for her mommy.

     ***

     It was many years after that, when the itty-bitty Kacheek must've been grown up and talked without a lisp, that the Wizard really became popular.

     Then, it was millions of pets, not only Unis, that were running back and forth. Each group of pets was assigned to a group usernames with the same beginning letter, just to make it easier for everyone.

     Wiz only stood as the mascot for the system, as the name "The Shop Wizard" had gotten quite famous now.

     Mellie was extremely happy with the little hat-shaped building they had gotten not too long ago, in their usual spot in front of the marketplace.

     But most of all, the thing that mattered to everyone, was that Wiz had finally gotten over wearing a hat and cape.

The End

Neomail comments are always welcomed! I most likely would love to hear from you if you've read this, and a special thank you goes out to Soda and Annie, just for being there.