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“Do learn from your mistakes, Jhudora and you won’t
have to be jailed again and again for your misdoing!” Fyora, the Faerie Queen
warned the sulky Dark Faerie as she unlocked the jail chamber of Jhudora.
“Oh, I will, Fyora, I will …” Jhudora muttered through clenched teeth, a
sly smile starting to form on her face. “As soon as I get my revenge on those
meddling fools… without getting into trouble!”
“Now, Jhudora, surely you don’t mean to do those poor Neopets any harm,
do you? After all, you shouldn’t have gone down to Neopia to search for Neopets
as guinea pigs for your latest horrible experiment! Do ask them if they are
willing instead of just taking them by force! Do I make myself clear?” Fyora
said in a sharp voice, speaking to Jhudora as though she was a three-year old
Faerie.
“Yes, Fyora …” Jhudora mumbled, making sure to cross her fingers behind
her back when she made that promise.
***
Before the first shafts of golden sunlight flooded my bedroom and warmed my
fur, I was already up and awake, sitting at my writing desk with my favourite
leather-bound scrapbook and Pencil of the Earth Faerie all neatly arranged on
the desk the night before.
I took a sip from a steaming, hot cup of Cobrall
Coffee as I closed my eyes in pleasure, savouring the rare peace and silence
that I don’t normally get washing over me like a refreshing wave of serenity.
Today was a special holiday… it was Usuls’ Day
and being a Faerie Usul, I was given a day off school. I always look forward
to such holidays since those are the days when I can do whatever I like and
there’s no homework.
Now, if I can only think of what to write, I
thought as I drummed my paws on my table and stared at the blank pages of my
scrapbook, my mind going equally blank with no ideas forthcoming So, in order
to gain some inspiration, I gazed out of my window, the whole of Neopia Central
stretched out like a picture canvas at my feet.
And sure enough, while I was admiring the magnificent
and glorious sunrise, I remembered an event that happened not too long ago and
since still no brilliant ideas were willing enough to visit my brain at the
moment, I decided to record that incident down although it is already seared
in my mind and is one that I’d never forget … …
It all started when I went into an antique jewellery
shop with my best friend, Violet, a Striped Usul, one Saturday afternoon. I
was admiring some rather fine pieces of delicately crafted bracelets when one
particularly astonishingly exquisite silver necklace that had a large, glowing
emerald pendant caught my eye. I gasped in awe and motioned for Violet to come
and take a look at it.
“Oh my gosh,” Violet murmured, looking at the
necklace almost with reverence. “ That necklace is so gorgeous! It’ll go great
with my striped fur!” she added, afterthought.
However, the necklace was as expensive as it
was beautiful and I knew that never in a million years would I be able to afford
it. I sadly turned away and came face to face with a hooded figure clad in a
rich purple robe. A purple veil hid the stranger’s face and I could only see
its dark eyes that had a hard-jewelled gleam.
“You desire to own this necklace, I presume?”
the stranger spoke in a rather cold voice that sent chills down my back.
“Wh … why, yes, indeed,” I stammered, wondering
how on earth did that stranger know what I was thinking about. Oh well, she
probably heard our conversation, I thought, shrugging the whole thing off.
“Well, I can get it for you, if you want it
so much …” the stranger’s voice sounded enticing and tempting, almost eager.
Alas, I was too stunned at what she had just
said that everything just went blank for a while and I didn’t really hear the
tone of her voice. “Y… you’ll get it fo…for me?” I now sounded incredulous.
Why in the world was a stranger willing to pay for what I wanted? Deep in my
heart, I knew that there was something awfully wrong somewhere, but the mere
thought of owning that beautiful necklace was simply too much to think about
and I foolishly agreed to her offer, especially when I saw Violet just standing
there with her mouth wide open. I simply couldn’t resist it!
The stranger then carefully took the glowing
necklace from its glass case in one clawed hand before slithering over to the
counter to pay for it. At that point of time, my head was filled with too many
thoughts on what kind of clothes I should wear that would match well with that
necklace that I failed to notice the shopkeeper looking scared when the stranger
had talked to him.
He was even muttering words like, “Fine, fine,
you needn’t pay! Besides, this is a cursed necklace, who would want to own it
anyway?” Violet overheard his last part of the sentence and since she already
felt suspicious from the start about this whole fishy business, she couldn’t
help getting the gut feeling that there was definitely something evil about
both stranger and necklace.
“Pearl, I don’t think you should take the necklace!
Somehow, I feel that it isn’t safe for you to wear it!” she warned me in an
urgent voice.
I simply snorted and retorted in a sneering voice,
“Hah! Yeah right. First you tell me that the necklace is so gorgeous, then you
tell me that there’s something’s wrong with it! More like you don’t want me
to be the envy of everybody in school tomorrow!”
“Pearl, I’m serious!” Violet hissed in a furious
voice, sounding half-hurt, half-angry at my sarcastic remark.
Just then, the stranger glided smoothly over
to us as she handed me over the necklace that was now placed in an elegant royal-blue
velvet case.
“Here you go!” she purred in a lazy, satisfied
voice, sounding like a cat that had just eaten a full meal. “Enjoy wearing it!”
Then, letting out a peal of shrill laughter full
of pure evil, she disappeared in a puff of purple smoke. This would have made
any Neopet stop to think, “ What’s up with that stranger?” But not me, even
with my mind ringing with Violet’s warnings about that necklace as I left the
shop with the velvet case tucked underneath my arm. The only sensible reason
I can now think of was that the stranger must have cast some sort of enchantment
spell on me that had made me become so obsessed with the necklace that my mind
blocked out all warnings that were being sent to me by my instincts.
Anyway, when I got home, Bond and Sleek007 were
happily playing tag (as usual) with *Starlight*.
“Hi guys!” I greeted them cheerfully as I made
my way upstairs. “ How’s your day at school?”
“Stinks!” came back the simple reply that I
always got everyday. Even *Starlight* was starting to become as rowdy as them.
Hmmm, I think I better not let her mix around with the boys so much in the future
if this is how they are going to influence her, I thought as I carelessly tossed
the velvet case onto the desk before leaping into my cozy bed for a short nap.
After a few minutes, I opened my eyes again, and the first thing I saw was the
velvet case in which the necklace lay.
“Surely it wouldn’t hurt to wear it now…” I
wondered aloud as I got up.
So, grabbing the velvet case and carefully taking
out the necklace, I eagerly put it on… and that was when I got the shock of
my life. A huge beam of blinding light engulfed me and I started screaming in
terror. Then… as sudden as it had come… the bright light disappeared. I rubbed
my eyes, not sure if this was real or not, shrugged my shoulders and headed
downstairs to show off my necklace to my siblings. However, to my amazement,
instead of ‘oohs’ and ‘ aahs’ I expected to get from the others, I received
screams and shouts of terror. I was totally bewildered until Bond finally shouted,
“Aaaaaaahhh! There’s a mutant in our house!”
I started screaming in fright too upon hearing
the word, ‘mutant’, thinking that there was an evil mutant somewhere in the
house. This caused the rest to go berserk as they thought I was about to attack
them. Pure havoc and chaos reigned the house as everybody started running about
and screaming for help. Just then, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and
saw a mutant facing me.
It couldn’t possibly be me … could it? I thought
as the horror and recognition crept over me as I reached out my paw to feel
my fur.
Then it hit me. I’d been turned into a mutant
because of that necklace! I immediately closed my eyes in horror before opening
them, taking in my whole new figure as 3 huge, yellowish blinking eyes and horrid
brown-coloured fur greeted my very eyes.
I tried to calm the others down, telling them
that it was I, Pearl. However, they wouldn’t listen and continued stampeding
around like mad Elephantes who have just escaped from the asylum. I closed my
eyes in despair as I let out a low moan of frustration at my own stupidity in
being taken in by that stranger.
Just then, a door slammed shut and I winced at
the sound of it as though I had just been slapped in the face. It was babygalz693,
aka Trisha. Bond and Sleek007 and *Starlight* all rushed towards her, their
voice mixing together, making it hard for Trisha to decipher what in the world
were they talking about.
Being the good ol’ usual un-surprised and cool
person she always was, Trisha instructed my 3 siblings in a calm voice to quieten
down before ordering Sleek007 to explain everything.
So Sleek007 started off by saying that he had
seen a big, fat ugly mutant coming down the stairs and that was when they all
started running about.
“No! It’s me, Pearl! You gotta believe me!”
I couldn’t help crying out in a strangled voice as tears streamed down my cheeks
like rivulets. All heads turned towards me, and all my 3 siblings, except Trisha,
screamed again and dashed off to hide the minute they saw me.
“And why should I think that you are Pearl?”
Trisha questioned in a cold voice, her eyebrows arched in a puzzled expression.
“Because …” and within seconds, I’d already
poured out the whole story to Trisha who only kept silent as she listened.
“I see,” she finally replied, sounding still
not convinced that I was really Pearl. “ But I’m still not truly convinced about
who you claim to be … let’s see … then can you tell me all the secrets that
I’ve told you and only you alone?”
“Certainly,” I answered without hesitation and
began ranting out about all the secrets that Trisha confided in no one except
me.
Trisha’s eyes got bigger and bigger every second
I talked and I knew that she was starting to believe that everything I had said
was true.
“Trisha, what am I gonna do? I don’t want to
remain a mutant all my life! I wanna go back to being a Faerie Usul not a mutant
one!” I asked at the end of my explanation, looking pleadingly at my owner who
was frowning in concentration.
“You say that the necklace you’d put on is cursed,”
Trisha stated in a matter-of-fact tone. “Do you remember having offended anybody?”
“Well, there was Jhudoras … but the person she
should have been most angry with is *Starlight* since *Starlight* was the one
who hit her and cause her to faint …” my voice trailed off as I started toying
around with my fur. Then I remember that it was mutant fur now and stopped touching
it immediately as I scowled in disgust.
“I think that she wants to destroy us all, but
in a different way … she wants to humiliate us instead! In that way, she needn’t
go to prison again. Ah, Jhudoras is a real sly one, I should have known …” Trisha
finally spoke up in a trembling voice, shaking her head in dismay. She looked
scared and I knew that Jhudoras most probably had finished serving her prison
sentence and had come back for revenge. “ That hooded figure must have been
Jhudoras … I fear that trouble is brewing in the air … we’re moving to Mystery
Island … as soon as possible!”
“What!” I practically shrieked in shock
when I heard Trisha say that. “ But what about my friends? What about my school?
What about Neopia Central?”
“I’m sorry, but we have no other option,” Trisha
replied grimly, tight-lipped.
“But Trisha, Jhudoras will still hunt us down!
It’s no point hiding from her! And do you think moving is so easy? I don’t think
that furniture is so easy to move!” I protested in a desperate voice as I gestured
wildly at all our furniture
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Trisha said,
glaring at me impatiently. “We’ll just pack up our bags and leave…
leave , do you hear me! To another place, as far away from Jhudoras as possible!”
I shook my head in resignation. This was simply
too stupid. In this situation, we were dealing with Jhudoras who is; after all,
a Dark Faerie, and could always check her crystal ball to see where we were
and what we were doing.
She might even be spying on us right now! I realized,
shuddering at the very thought.
“I’ll tell the rest to pack up…” Trisha continued
but was cut short by a huge puff of purple smoke. My eyes widened at the familiar
sight. I remembered seeing that puff of smoke somewhere …
“Greetings, my dear Trisha. Leaving so soon,
I suppose! Too late, unfortunately. I saw the whole scene on my crystal ball
… a very handy device, don’t you think so?” Jhudoras drawled in an annoyingly
casual tone. “Oh yes, and Pearl, the new mutant! Looking very pretty today,
aren’t you? You must thank me for making you that way!” she added, smirking
at me in a way that Evelyn, the snobby Gold Wocky also did whenever she was
mocking me.
“Why you …” I began but was cut short by Trisha’s
restraining arm on me. So I gritted my teeth instead and growled softly. My
hatred for Jhudoras was burning inside me and I knew that in any minute, I was
going to explode like a volcano and do something rash.
Trisha obviously sensed this too and told me
quietly to go to my bedroom.
“I’ll handle this myself,” she muttered, patting
me on the head reassuringly before nudging me towards the direction of the staircase.
So, I reluctantly edged myself slowly towards the staircase and was almost reaching
it until …
“Just where do you think you are going?” Jhudoras’
sudden sharp voice pierced the air like a bullet.
“Uh … to the bathroom?” my answer sounded more
like a question as I tried my best to look innocent.
“Fool! Don’t think I do not know what you are
trying to do!” Jhudoras sneered, taking me by the scruff of the neck and setting
me down forcefully onto the couch despite my rather weak protests.
Just then, Bond, Sleek007 and *Starlight* all
came rushing out. Apparently, they had no idea what was going on and thinking
that I had gone already, had decided to come out and see what was going on.
Jhudoras spotted them at once and an evil grin started to play at the corners
of her mouth.
“Hello, once again, young Neopets! How nice
to see you all again!” she said, speaking with the air of someone who had the
upper hand.
“Yeah … we meet again, I suppose,” Bond muttered,
shifting his foot uneasily.
“What do you want, Jhudoras?” Sleek007, always
the braver one, piped up, trying to sound as though he didn’t give a Horus’s
hoot whether Jhudoras was standing right in front of him or not.
“What do I want… such a silly question. Lucky
for you… I’m not going to do anything to you… yet… just wait and see! I’ll be
back to mock at all of you soon…” the sound of Jhudoras’ cackling lingered
as she vanished once again in a rather dramatic puff of dark purple smoke.
“What are we gonna do now, Trisha?” I asked,
noticing that she had gone deathly pale and silent after Jhudoras had made her
dramatic appearance and disappearance.
“I don’t know, Pearl, I simply don’t know …”
Trisha murmured, shaking her head in defeat.
To be continued …
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