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Anna gently patted Jessa’s head, and then tied the cotton
scarf around her neck. Her eyes then darted around the darkened room, and she
took a deep, nervous breath.
“C’mon Jessa,” she whispered, grasping onto
Jessa’s paw. “We must go.”
Jessa nodded, staring fearfully up at her older
sister. “Are you sure we’ll be okay, Anna?” she asked softly.
Anna flashed an assuring smile. “Yes,” she stated
weakly, “we will be fine. Now please c’mon, you mustn’t dilly-dally any longer.”
Jessa nodded, a single tear rolling down her
cheek. The baby Aisha and Anna then started walking toward the front door.
~~~~
It was Amelia, the family’s petulant old maid, who discovered the Aisha and
Acara missing from their beds. She did not think much of it at first; it simply
struck her as two less distractions for her to deal with. It was only when she
discovered the note, written on beautiful, expensive stationary did she realize
something was wrong.
Dear Whoever Finds This,
This is rather hard for me to write this – I’ve
started this letter approximately 10 times before. The others I couldn’t finish;
they ended up promptly in the garbage. I decided, though, that this one won’t
have the same fate as all of those others did. I’m going to finish this, even
if it’s hard.
To start off, if whoever finds this is not mine
and Jessa’s owner (Caitlyn) please hand it to her after you finish reading.
However, now I will continue to the main point of this:
Jessa and I have run away. Don’t get me wrong,
we do live the lives that most pets drool over, but quite frankly, the two of
us personally do not like it. The mansion, the maids, the butlers, the gourmet
foods… all of that and more is just too much. Most other Neopians would give
their life for a single bite of Grapefruit Cake, let alone eating the delicacy
every other day. Also, others would find it enchanting to spend a lone night,
or even a mere hour in such a fine house as the one we reside in.
I will now get straight to the point – I do clearly
know how tedious my blabbering tends to get. Jessa and I have gone to find a
different life… a normal life. We will dearly miss you, Caitlyn. Please know
that we are all right, and someday maybe we will visit you. Do not hesitate
to adopt another needy pet.
Sincerely,
Anna
And
Jessa
Amelia gasped, surveying the letter once again.
She had known for quite a while that Anna and Jessa had been getting tired of
the pampered life, but the maid would never have expected them to have run away
like this!
Quickly, she rushed out of the room she was
in and toward the dining room, where she knew Caitlyn would be reading the latest
edition of the Neopian Times, as she always did on Saturday mornings.
Caitlyn did not take the news well.
“This is a forgery!” She immediately bellowed,
slamming the letter down on the polished mahogany dining room table. Tears crept
into her eyes, and she started breathing heavily.
“I wo –”
Amelia could not finish her sentence, as Caitlyn
yelled for her to leave. It was unwise to disobey the teenager, as she had in
the past had problems with her temper.
So Amelia nodded slightly, and then glided away
to return to her job.
~~~~
The story reached Neopian Times headlines by the next morning’s paper.
ONE OF NEOPIA’S RICHEST OWNER’S
PETS RUN AWAY
6,000,000 NEOPOINT REWARD FOR
THEIR SAFE RETURN
The long, and although fairly dull, article
explained what had happened, and how Caitlyn would give 6 million Neopoints
to the owner who could return her pets safely back to her. This, of course,
sent most all readers of that morning’s newspaper into a frantic search for
Anna and Jessa.
One of those readers happened to be a young,
brown-haired girl named Chocolate.
~~~~
“6,000,000!” Chocolate exclaimed, thrusting the Neopian Times into her purple
Acara’s paws, “they’re offering 6,000,000 Neopoints for the secure homecoming
of their baby Aisha and electric Acara!”
Her own Acara, Sareona, frowned, skimming over
the piece. “That’s a little drastic,” she said. “I mean, afterall, the two did
run away in the first place.”
Chocolate snorted. “And you’re telling me! I
wouldn’t even offer that much for you if you were kidnapped – no offense.”
Sareona rolled her glossy blue eyes. “No offense
taken, Choc. Anyway, are you gonna look for them? I heard that a couple of pets
from this neighborhood are going out this afternoon. They said that if they
found them, they’d split the reward.”
Chocolate shook her head back and forth. “Nah,
I’m not wasting my precious time to find some rich-and-famous person’s runaway
pets.”
Sareona nodded. “Yeah, same here. Anyway, I sorta
wanted to just have a lazy-day today. Ya know, just sit around doing nothing.”
“That’s my girl!” Chocolate exclaimed, smiling
dumbly.
Sareona rolled her eyes again, but then replied,
“Well, I’m going to start my day now. In the living room. With a 9am-in-the-morning
nap.”
Chocolate nodded, and her Acara skipped out of
the room.
~~~~
Anna sighed, glancing at Jessa, who was now so tired that she was tripping
over her own paws. The two had been walking for nearly 6 hours now, and even
though both were weary, Jessa, being just a tot, was trashed.
“You can sleep in my arms, c’mon,” Anna whispered,
gently scooping her sister up.
Jessa nodded hazily. “G’night,” she murmured.
“’Night, Jessa,” Anna replied.
Although it was difficult to do so with her
sister’s added weight, Anna continued on. It was pure luck that nobody spotted
she and Jessa… afterall, a lot of Neopia’s population was looking.
~~~~
Anna and Jessa’s manor was ensued in chaos. Caitlyn was an emotional wreck,
and she went around all day barking orders and being irritable with anybody
she crossed paths with.
Neopian Times journalists creeping around her property was
not necessarily a good thing either.
It had not even yet been a day since the story
was printed, and still, every other hour Neopians from each and every land came
to her door with random baby Aisha’s and electric Acara’s. None, of course,
were her own.
“That’s it!” She finally screamed, slapping
a framed portrait of Jessa off the wall. “I want those pets, and I want them
now!”
“We all know that, Miss Caitlyn, but unfortunately
that is not possible,” Fay, a young Kougra maid who happened to be standing
a few feet over at the time, said.
Caitlyn shot her a menacing glare, and then
with that, briskly strode away.
~~~~
Sareona, who had fallen asleep on the living room couch (as planned), was
awakened when her younger sister, Carri, burst through the front door.
“You’ll never guess what happened!” the Tonu
exclaimed, tossing her dark green scooter-helmet to the side.
“What?” Chocolate called from the kitchen.
“Well, originally my friend May and I were just
gonna go pester the tourists at Tombola but then we saw a baby Aisha and electric
Acara standing to the side! Well, May told me ‘bout these runaways and well,
to cut a long story short, we might be 3 million Neopoints richer!” Carri grinned.
Chocolate clicked her tongue in disapproval.
“Carri!” She scolded, “This is ridiculous! First off, those pets probably felt
bitter about however you two forced them to go with you, and why does this concern
us? We don’t need the Neopoints – of course we could use them some way or another,
but let’s let some very needy person claim them.”
Carri’s grin faded. “Aww! You’re no fun, Choc!”
she whined.
“Fun? Try putting yourself in those innocent
Acara and Aisha’s places – ya know, the ones who you forced?” She suddenly appeared
at the doorway. “Now, CarridellReylin, you march right to your room and stay
there ‘till you’ve had some time to think about what you did.”
Carri scowled; her owner only used her full name
when she was very angry. Shooting her a piercing glare, the Tonu stomped away
to her bedroom. Chocolate walked back into the kitchen. Sareona lay awake for
a few minutes, but then drifted back into slumber.
~~~~
Eventually, Anna had to stop to rest herself. She gently lowered Jessa onto
the lush green grass she was walking on, and then lay down there herself. Normally,
sleeping on such material would’ve been uncomfortable for the Acara. But she
was so exhausted now that within 10 minutes, she was dead asleep.
~~~~
May flapped her wings harder, panting. This flight to this Caitlyn person’s
Faerieland home was taking a lot longer than she had expected.
The Eyrie glanced back and the trembling baby
Aisha and electric Acara, who were sitting silent on her furry red back. May
almost felt bad taking them, although ‘almost’ was the keyword.
She knew that there were many baby Aisha’s and
electric Acara’s out there, and the chances of the two she had found being the
right ones were slim, but still, 3 million for each herself and Carri was a
lot of Neopoints…
May suddenly broke out in a grin when she saw
the humongous mansion, which she knew to be Caitlyn’s, a little ways back in
the distance.
This is it, May, she told herself, This
is it.
Taking in a deep, anxious breath, she started
beating her wings even harder. And within 3 minutes, May arrived at the front
gates of Caitlyn’s home.
To be continued...
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