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Ferry awoke with a feeling of apprehension. He got out
of bed and drew back the curtains. The sun was already high in the sky, as he
had been able to sleep as long has he wanted to that morning. The delightful
scent of a delicious breakfast wafted into his room. He could hear his owner,
Jade, downstairs, tinkling with pots and pans in the kitchen. It was definitely
a special day, because Jade did not like cooking, but could do excellent meals
when she bothered.
You're supposed to feel happy; Ferry
told himself, so do it! Feel happy! It didn’t work. He couldn’t enlighten
his spirits. What would his party guests say? It was horrifying to think of:
birthday as a mutant JubJub! He wished wistfully that he wasn’t the lab rat.
The laboratory ray had made him strong, but it turned him female, made him look
girlish, turned him into a ghastly monster… and sometimes, it sure took a while
to switch back.
He sighed. He couldn’t avoid his birthday party
-- it was all planned. He walked miserably down the stairs and into the kitchen.
Jade was extremely busy with an apron tied to her waist, flicking fires on and
off, rushing to the cupboard to get this and that. If truth be told, she looked
as if she were quite enjoying herself. Ferry wondered why she didn’t cook more
often if this really was the case. He sat down in front of the dining table.
Jade turned around a noticed Ferry. She beamed.
"Ferry! Your guests will be coming along to have breakfast along with you, they'll
be coming soon, I expect…"
Ferry cleared his throat, trying not to look
too downcast. "Uh, Jade, there are only four seats. Not including you, there's
going to be me, Lyla, Cynna, Rine and whomever you've invited. Not enough."
Jade chose her words carefully. "Well… your
siblings haven’t the time to join you in the celebration this time, Ferry…"
Ferry stared at her. "But, why?"
"I told you, they're rather busy," Jade shrugged,
"but they've left your birthday presents for you."
Rather busy! Ferry thought angrily. It
was his birthday, his first birthday, and they decided not to come! Didn’t they
care that he had lived twelve months? He had only actually bothered to come
down for breakfast with the thought that at least his siblings wouldn’t be too
repulsed at the sight of him.
Ding-Doooooooong.
"First guest!" Jade said, looking excited. She
hurried off into the hall to open the door. Ferry waited nervously. Who was
it?
His question was answered in a matter of seconds.
There came a light patter of feet, and a Tyrannian Shoyru had appeared at the
kitchen door. She stopped when she saw Ferry. Her bright smile disappeared to
be replaced by a rather uncertain one.
"Well…" said Jade, looking from one to the other.
She tried to smoothen the little moment of awkwardness. "I'll serve breakfast."
"Hi, Jewellie," Ferry greeted, trying a smile.
Then he remembered that he looked rather alarming when he smiled, and dropped
it.
"Hi," JewelWings answered, sitting down opposite
him. Maybe it was Ferry's imagination, but she seemed to realize she had made
a mistaken right after she had lowered herself into the chair, for she was looking
right at him.
"I'm not looking too good," Ferry cracked, pretending
that the mutation was no big deal. "The Lab Ray didn’t groom me very well."
"Oh…" same half-hearted smile from JewelWings.
She laid a neatly wrapped-up present down on the floor beside her chair.
Ferry was luckily saved by the doorbell ringing
again. Jade walked out and came back with a blue Cybunny, Flatterieneo.
"Heylo, Ferreeee!" Flatterie shouted joyfully,
his loud voice bouncing off the walls and erupting in Ferry's mind.
"Hi," Ferry said quietly, blinking. Flatterie's
cheerfulness came quite unexpectedly.
"Aaand how are ya, mate?" Flatterie continued
in an amiable manner. "I see Jewellie's with you, too!"
"Yeah, hi," said Jewellie, who looked amazed
at Flatterie's abnormal behaviour. Ferry wondered if Flatterie was doing it
to cover up for his being a mutated JubJub.
Flatterie dumped a large, scruffy blue present
into Ferry's lap and took his place at the table.
"Um… thanks," Ferry mumbled, setting down the
present next to his empty plate, as Jade served him something that looked vaguely
like a bunch of filling stuffed between two pieces of toast.
"Ferry! Open up!" there was a loud banging at
the door. Ferry looked up, wondering if the doorbell was THAT hard to notice.
"I'll get it!" Flatterie jumped up, spilling
half his portion of breakfast in the process, and zooming out like an exploding
firecracker.
Ferry turned to Jade. "So, who else did you
invite?"
"_Moon_Fairy_Neo_," Jade answered promptly.
Ferry stared. "Who's that?"
"Pet of my friend's," Jade answered, "be nice
to her."
"Sure," Ferry sighed. He would be nice to this
Moon Fairy Neo if she was nice to him. As well as not being too revolted with
him around.
Flatterie bounded in with a Yellow Aisha. She
was smiling, and holding a nice white present.
"This is for you, Ferry," Moon Fairy Neo said
to Flatterie, sweetly.
"No," Flatterie laughed, "I'm not Ferry, silly!
He is!"
Moon Fairy Neo's gaze turned swiftly to Ferry.
She looked startled.
"I'm the lab rat," Ferry said monotonously,
"that's why I'm a mutant, in case you were wondering."
"Um… yeah," said Moon Fairy Neo, looking a little
bewildered for goodness knows what reason, and handing the present to Ferry,
"Hi. I'm _Moon_Fairy_Neo_, but you can call me Fairy. That's my nickname."
"Okay, Light Faerie," Flatterie piped up. Usually,
Ferry would be annoyed at Flatterie for answering for him, especially when it
was a pretty female, but this time, he didn’t mind. Anything he'd give not to
talk to somebody who didn’t feel comfortable with him around.
"I hope you haven’t eaten breakfast yet, Fairy,"
Jade said, gesturing towards an empty seat with a plate of food in front of
it.
Fairy shook her head and took the remaining
chair. She started to eat, and her eyes brightened considerably. It was obvious
she liked Jade's cooking. Jade looked very pleased, and offered dessert. To
her disappointment, they refused.
"Okay, why don’t you play a game?" Jade suggested.
Ferry raised his eyebrows. "What game?"
"WHOOOOO!" Flatterie shouted joyously, "let's
play MUSICAL STATUES!"
"Um…" Fairy shrugged.
"I like the sound of Musical Statues," JewelWings
said.
So Musical Statues it was. Jade turned on the
Boom Box, and everybody started to dance in the living room.
Flatterie immediately began a wild Mynci hooligan
thing, and smashed straight into the clockwork Wocky. However, the blow did
not seem to harm him. He picked himself up, continued…and sent a vase of flowers
gliding through the air and smashing through the glass of the Oak Wood Cabinet.
Jade snapped off the music. She did not look
too happy. Shards of glass were sprinkled around her feet. "Flatterie!"
Flatterie stopped dancing. "Um… oops. Sorry,
Jade."
"Um… it doesn’t matter," Ferry said hurriedly.
"I think we better stop this game," Jade said
grimly.
"Okay! We can go up to your room, Ferry!" Flatterie
said brightly, not at all embarrassed.
"Right. Whatever," Ferry nodded. He led the
way to his room, and shut the door behind him once all had entered.
"Uh… why do you have an Ice Chia Sculpture in
here?" Fairy asked politely, trying to make conversation.
"I was originally a Chia," Ferry sighed.
Flatterie brightened. "Oh, Co-ol!" He rushed
up to the statue, and gave it a sharp tap in the stomach.
The Chia's ice stomach crumbled to pieces. Flatterie
blinked. Ferry groaned. That was his Christmas present!
"Uh… sorry. I think it looks better this way,"
Flatterie said.
"I don’t," Fairy replied.
"I think we better go out for a walk," Ferry
said, through gritted teeth. This party was not coming down very well.
They agreed to his idea -- whatever the Birthday
Boy wanted. They told Jade what they were doing, crossed the garden, and leapt
over the gate.
"Let's go to Mister TOMBOLA!" Flatterie shouted.
"Shush!" Fairy said. "People are staring!"
Ferry couldn’t see why Fairy was so bothered
about the Island Natives -- he couldn’t really care less what they thought of
him. "Okay, Tombola."
"It's closed," JewelWings said, pointing to
a sign that said, Closed. Back in an hour or so.
"Oh, no," Flatterie groaned unconvincingly.
"Let's go to Faerieland," Fairy suggested.
"But we need to take a boat to Neopia Central,
and then fly up in a hot air balloon," Ferry said, "you bring any NP?"
"Yes," Fairy answered unexpectedly, "I have
enough to pay for all of us on both journeys."
"Excellent!" Flatterie cried happily. They rushed
off towards the harbour.
***
The Ticket Man stared suspiciously. "Bit young, aren’t you? Sure you're not
running away?"
"No!" JewelWings answered impatiently.
"It's his birthday," Flatterie said, jabbing
a finger at Ferry.
"Ah. Oh. That puts things in a different light.
Here are your tickets."
"Thank you," Fairy said, scooping up the tickets
and leading them all onto the ship.
The ship was a large white one, with the words
Breeze Flower painted in bright, shining bold letters on the side of it. The
deck was marble and highly polished. The four leaned over the edge to watch
the small waves leaping gently as the ship sped off.
***
Ferry, Fairy, Flatterie and JewelWings all clambered into a large hot air balloon.
Fairy tossed some NP over the edge of the basket, into the Transport Manager's
hands. The Manager smiled, and untied the ropes pinning the hot air balloon
to the ground. The balloon rose swiftly, and began to ascend high into the cool,
refreshing air. Only Ferry was too gloomy to let himself be refreshed.
It didn’t really feel like rising. It felt more
like Neopia Central was falling away from them. Ferry looked down. Yet another
balloon had risen, and was climbing up beneath them, though slightly faster.
"Uh… I think that hot air balloon just might
bump into ours?" he said quietly. Fairy leaned over the edge and peered down
at the balloon below. It was green and white-striped, with a red tinge from
the fire inside.
"That Manager ought to have been more intelligent,"
Fairy said crossly, seeing that Ferry was probably right.
"Oh, YAY!" Flatterie looked quite excited. "We're
going to crash!"
"Is that much to rejoice about?" JewelWings
questioned, raising one eyebrow with dignity.
"Um… yeah, it is," Flatterie smiled at her,
"just think-"
CRASH - THUD.
Their hot air balloon shook violently, tossing
them around the basket, and then a series of thuds below them came, as the green-and-white
balloon pushed theirs upwards.
"Great!" Fairy screeched, as she was flung to
the other side of the basket and forced to collide with JewelWings, "just great!"
Flatterie was screaming his head off. "AAAAAH!
AAAAAAAAH! HEEEEEELP!"
"And you thought it would be fun," Ferry muttered
under his breath, glaring at Flatterie before the side of his head thumped onto
the bottom of the basket.
"Welcome to Faerieland," the faerie greeted.
"Ah, I see you're in a spot of trouble. Well, hop out, and we'll send your balloon
back down again, so the second party can come out, too."
Ferry, Fairy and JewelWings managed to leap
out onto the soft, fluffy patch of cloud, but before Flatterie could follow,
he was tossed out of the way and sent spiraling through the air, nearly falling
over the edge of the basket. The hot air balloon below nudged even more violently,
and bounced Flatterie on the bottom of the balloon's basket heavily. Flatterie
gasped -- the force of the blows had knocked all the air out of his lungs.
"Uh-oh," JewelWings said, looking worried.
The faerie was at loss. "Oh no, oh no! What
can be done? Oh, dear! My goodness!"
"Do something!" Ferry told her rudely.
Fairy was the one who acted. She snatched the
edge of the basket containing Flatterie steady. "Get out!"
Flatterie heaved himself over the edge and tumbled
onto the cloud. He managed to get his breath back.
"Let's go to the Wheel of Excitement," Fairy
suggested. They agreed, seeing as there was no other thing to do.
Spin, spin, spin the Wheel of Excitement!
Ferry spun…
It landed on Jhudora. Jhudora cackled and waved
her hands, but nothing happened. They stood there foolishly.
"Well, that was rather a waste," sighed JewelWings,
"come on, let's go back. This is no fun."
In a deep pit buried in his stomach, Ferry agreed.
It WAS no fun. His party was ruined. "Nah. We can all go back to our homes.
I mean, it's getting late."
It was true. It had seemed such a short time,
but the sun was already beginning to set. The four of them bade their goodbyes,
and went their separate ways.
***
Ferry rang the doorbell. His sister Lyla, the brown Ixi, opened it. She smiled
at him warmly. "Hi, Ferry! How was the party?"
"Not good," Ferry answered grumpily.
Lyla laughed. "Come in."
Ferry entered, and a surprising scene met his
eyes. Balloons were hung up on the walls, as well as strewn all over the floor.
Confetti covered the ground and furniture. Dishes of rich, delicious snacks
were set up on the tables. The Boom Box was on, roaring loud, cheerful tunes.
Cynna the Purple Cybunny, Rine the Christmas
Shoyru, and Jade were dancing around, shoving each other playfully, snatching
the snacks up and wolfing it down.
"But…what…" Ferry stammered.
"Well, it's Jade's birthday, too," Lyla smiled.
"It IS?"
"Yeah, March 19th. Didn’t you know? I guess
you didn’t. But seeing as your party didn’t turn out too well, we can make this
your party, as well."
Ferry's eyes brightened. He threw back his head,
and laughed out loud before joining in.
The End.
The author would like to acknowledge her thanks to mellisa891, oliviathefirst
and bluestar385 for allowing her to use their Neopets as party guests ;)
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