There are ants in my Lucky Green Boots Circulation: 183,173,032 Issue: 472 | 3rd day of Celebrating, Y12
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Wishing


by foreverh0mes

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“I wish... for a bag of peanuts!”

      “I wish... for a Baby Paint Brush!”

      “I wish... that my owner would love me.”

      All the heads of the pets in line for the Wishing Well turned to look at the Bruce. Petra, her face turning red, hurriedly dropped five Neopoints into the seemingly bottomless well. It was all she had. Petra then ran off back to her house. Her owner Kelly seemed not to notice as Petra slipped through the door of their elegant house and over to her tiny first-floor bedroom.

      Petra the blue Bruce’s room was furnished with one-Neopoint furniture: an orange Kreludan bed, an orange Grundo wardrobe, and an Altador rug. The walls were bare and the floor was hard cement. Petra_3309 may have been her owner’s first pet, but obviously enough she was not her favorite. Petra was with her owner all through the stage of newbie. Then Kelly had discovered Key Quest, gotten good at it, and won many paintbrushes. She sold these over and over and never used one on her Bruce, who quietly would go along with anything her owner said. After becoming a multi-millionaire, Kelly acquired many well-painted, well-named pets and traded endlessly. All through that time Petra would shyly sit in the corner of their Neohome like a forgotten toy.

      Yes, it was true Petra did feel neglected – and also unloved, plain, boring, and like one who has failed their owner by being so ordinary. She could still remember when Kelly was “ordinary”. Back then she had been good enough for her owner. But Kelly had progressed, and Petra... well, Petra had not been able to catch up.

      One day, though, Petra had snuck out of the house on her early-morning walk. She’d been so deep in thought that she had wandered into the Plaza. When she realized she had gone the wrong way, she was about to turn around when something caught her eye. She ran up to it: an old, quaint well with a mystical feeling. A small gold plaque read ‘The Wishing Well! Throw in some Neopoints, tell it what you want, and see if your dreams come true!’

      Petra had excitedly tossed in some of her Neopoints and told the Well firm and clear: “I want my owner to love me again!”

      Nothing had happened, but still Petra had gone there every morning with five Neopoints. She wondered often if her wish would come true if she tossed in a larger sum of money, but she was not rich. Every day of every other week she either helped the Health Frog sort his vegetables or watered the Gardening Store’s plants, and she got paid ten Neopoints for each job. Since Petra only got to work every other week, she needed to divide the Neopoints in half to cover her wishes during the week she didn’t work. No matter how she balanced it, Petra’s wishes had not ever come true. Kelly continued to ignore her completely.

      And so it was inevitable that Petra was abandoned.

      Dumped in the cold, hard Pound, Petra spent her days sniffling in the corner of her cage. It wasn’t so much because Kelly had abandoned her as it was that the Wishing Well – to which she’d given every one of her Neopoints – had not used its magic powers to help her.

      The caretaker assigned to Petra’s and her neighbor’s cages took a liking to the blue Bruce. She smuggled her a cheap book like A Day in the Life of King Roo whenever she had the chance. Sometimes she would chat with Petra, and the depressed Neopet would tell her pieces of her saddening life story. The caretaker, whose name as Jess, would listen attentively to all of Petra’s stories and would not become impatient when the Bruce could not continue without starting to sob. Eventually Jess was told about Petra’s regular Wishing Well visits, in the hopes that it might help her. And so one day, Jess secretly let Petra out of her cage and sent her off to the Wishing Well with five hundred of her own Neopoints.

      “Just make sure you come back, now, Petra,” Jess said, her hand on the Bruce’s slick shoulder. “We’ll both be in trouble if you run away.”

      Petra had never thought of it once. The Bruce rushed off ecstatically to the destination of her old morning walks. Nobody was there because of the time; it was too early. Petra leaned over the rim of the well and looked in at the bottomless blackness. She let the Neopoints fall into the well. They fell so far that Petra could not hear if they landed. She cleared her throat and stated her wish. It was different from her regular one, because now she had no owner to love her. But her wish did not come out as she thought.

      “I wish... for a friend.”

      Petra was not sure why she said it. Jess was a friend, wasn’t she? No, Jess was an acquaintance. Petra longed for a real friend, one who, if she had a real home, she could play Usukis with or have sleepovers. She wanted a pet she could tell all her secrets to, who would never stop to think of Petra’s plain appearance.

      Petra, knowing nothing was going to happen right away, was turning to go when someone slammed into her. She was knocked to the ground, and she opened her eyes again to see a Bori rubbing its head.

      “Oww,” it moaned. Petra struggled to her feet and extended a flipper to the Bori.

      “Can I help you up?” Petra asked. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to knock you over.”

      “No, no, I knocked you over,” the red Bori apologized. She took Petra’s flipper and pulled herself up. “I was just coming here to make a wish.”

      “Me, too!” Petra exclaimed. “If I can ask, what were you going to wish for?”

      “A Slymook,” the Bori replied. “Or, really, any kind of petpet. I just need a little company.”

      The Bori looked down sadly. “My owner just achieved her dream pet,” she continued. “She hasn’t played with me at all since. I think she’s going to dump me in the Pound any day now, and I’ll probably want a friend if I have to go in there. That’s why I just hope the Wishing Well will grant my wish.”

      “Actually, I’m in the Pound right now!” Petra said. The Bori looked up, surprised. “I was just let out so I could go to the Wishing Well, but my owner abandoned me a while ago. My name is Petra, how about you?”

      “I’m Crechenda,” the Bori said. “You know, I bet that if I go to the Pound, we could be really good friends!”

      “That’d be great!” Petra cried. “You know, I just asked the Wishing Well for a friend, and it looks like I got one!”

      Not so long afterwards, Crechenda was abandoned. She and Petra were put in the same large cage at the Bruce’s request, and they became great friends. Petra forgot all about the wishes that the Well had never granted, because to her, this one was worth every neopoint.

The End

 
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