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As the month dawned on every Neopian, the days became hotter,
and just about every vacation spot was overcrowded, so Kat and her pets just stayed
home and tried finding ways how to cool off.
"Glitter, flap your wings harder," said Angel
hoarsely. "This place is just about as hot as the inside of a volcano!"
"I'm trying, but can't you give me a break?"
asked the Faerie Acara. "I'm tired and I want a nice, cold smoothie to cool
down!" She stopped flapping her beautiful wings and flew off to the living room,
where Fluffy and Sweet were eating ice cream cones.
The blue Zafara sighed, and then followed his
older sister, who was now begging the white Aisha for a lick of her cone.
"Get your own," sighed Fluffy. "Kat has a whole
lot of ice cream, you know. Besides, one cone isn't enough for the two of us.
The same goes for you, Angel." The Zafara had been waiting to ask Sweet the
striped Kacheek for a lick as well.
As if on cue, a tall teenage girl came running
past them, and handed Glitter and Angel some ice cream. "I've got to hurry!
I have a very important meeting and I'm going to be late! Oh, and I'm on a faerie
quest! Honestly, they'd have to give me even more work than I can handle on
a hot day like this!" she said frantically.
"Do you need help?" asked Glitter as she wolfed
down her mint ice cream.
Kat shook her head. "No, thanks. I want all of
you to enjoy cooling off. Besides, you won't find my work fun or interesting.
Now, I have to go."
"Can't you back out of at least one job?" asked
Fluffy, biting her cone. "Then you can spend the day with us!"
"Oh, I can't do that," said Kat. "I already promised
them a month ago I'll be in the meeting. And I won't turn down a faerie quest,
now that it's expensive to train you. Great…and I have an unfinished story to
submit to the Neopian Times, too! When I come home, I'm throwing myself onto
the bed and not waking up till dinner." She grabbed her backpack and dashed
out the front door. "Behave yourselves, everyone! I'll be back as soon as I
can!"
Angel, Glitter, Sweet and Fluffy looked at each
other. "She's running again," remarked the blue Zafara.
"And there's nothing else to do," said Sweet.
"I hate sitting around! I want some action!"
"I wish we lived next to a lake, and then I can
cool myself off there," grumbled Glitter.
"I wish it were Christmas," said Fluffy sadly.
"Then it'd be cold, and fun, and really interesting. We'd have presents to open,
the Neohome to decorate, and hot chocolate to drink." Her siblings agreed and
nodded, still sighing.
Suddenly the striped Kacheek stood up, startling
his blue Angelpuss, Apollo. "Hey, that's a very good idea! We can have an advanced
celebration of Christmas right now! We'll have cold chocolate drinks instead
of hot chocolate, and we can try making snow of our own!"
"Wow!" said Angel. "We can definitely have fun!
Christmas is always fun! All right!"
"I hate to break the little bit of joy and happiness
we got here, but where will we get all that stuff?" asked Glitter skeptically.
"We need a tree, some decorations, and food, and don't forget the snow and cold
weather!!!"
Sweet's shoulders sagged. "Oh yeah…and if Kat
finds out we've been spending, she'll strangle us," he muttered. "We're short
on money right now, just in case you three didn't know."
"We can raid Kat's safety deposit box!" said
Fluffy. "I know where it is…and I bet she has some decorations and other fun
stuff in it!"
"What are we waiting for?" asked the Faerie Acara.
"Let's go!"
"Besides, it's always good to improvise whenever
we're short on Neopoints, that's what Kat says," agreed the white Aisha.
***
"It was a good idea to use some scarves to decorate the walls!" said Glitter,
hovering a few feet over her siblings' heads and hanging some of their scarves.
Fluffy was decorating the tree, and Angel was busy making more decorations of
his own. Sweet was still rummaging around the stuff they had gotten from the
safety deposit box, and he came across a snow sculpture of a Bruce.
"I'll put this in the garden!" the striped Kacheek
said, dashing off with the snow sculpture into the backyard.
Angel was now painting some of his homemade decors
with sparkly colors, waiting for them to dry and passing them to Glitter, who
could reach the highest branches of the tree. Fluffy heaved a Plastic Fir next
to the sofa and hung a Christmas wreath on the door.
While the three were busy decorating the inside,
Sweet ran back in with a small blue gun in his paws. "Our neighbors lent us
a Kacheek Ice Cannon!" he said happily. "Now we have some cold air and maybe
some ice crystals!" He fired a gust of icy wind and crystals towards the tree,
giving it a frosty effect.
"Nice one!" said Fluffy, smiling. "I'll go and
pick up some food…we can't have a Christmas without good food, and I don't mean
only jelly and omelettes!" She ran out with a purse full of extra money.
"Wait!" said Angel running towards the white
Aisha. "Kat said we should not spend any money, right? She told us to save!"
he shouted. Fluffy stopped in her tracks and answered loudly, "But Christmas
isn't Christmas without food! I bet Kat wouldn't mind!"
The blue Zafara shrugged, and went back to helping
decorate the tree. Sweet decided to decorate his room, and began snipping some
paper cut-outs of snowflakes and stars. The Faerie Acara propped up the Kacheek
Ice Cannon on a high shelf and tied some long string onto the trigger, so that
when anyone below pulled the string, a gust of wind and ice crystals would come
whizzing out like improvised snow. "Wow!" said Angel, as he cut out a large
gold star to put on the top of the tree.
***
Meanwhile at the Shop Wizard, Fluffy was having a hard time. All of the food
she wanted to buy was way too expensive.
"But…can't you find any roast beef under that
price? I only have 500 NP in my purse!" exclaimed the Aisha indignantly.
"Sorry, kid," replied the Shop Wizard with a
sigh. "No one's selling such a food at that low price. I know, because I've
searched every shop I found."
Fluffy felt like crying, but she still asked,
"Well…do you have any bacon omelette instead? Two pieces, please." At this the
JubJub in the cloak and hat nodded, and pointed her to the direction of a small
shop, not far from his tent.
***
"Well, what can we say? It's not very formal," said Angel. He, Glitter and
Sweet looked around at their now-decorated Neohome, while Glitter pulled down
the string connected to the ice cannon. "Hang on…what about presents?"
"Our toys!" answered Sweet. "Let's wrap up some
of the toys we haven't played with yet, and they can be the presents!" He grabbed
some plush toys and wrapped them clumsily in the paper they had left. He then
shoved them under the tree, which was now getting covered with more frosty crystals.
But Glitter was still pulling the string, and didn't notice that the ice was
weighing the tree down.
"Let go of the trigger!" yelled Sweet. "The tree's
going to…"
It was too late. The gust of wind blew the tree
over, making Angel dive aside to avoid getting hit. The blue Zafara crashed
next to the Plastic Fir, and the Christmas wreath fell on top of his head. Glitter
had already let go of the ice cannon, but it suddenly fell right onto a scarf
below it, weighing it down as well. The scarves were all pulled down and fell
onto a flustered Faerie Acara.
The tree fell right onto the wrapped "presents",
some of them getting their wrappers torn. When Sweet looked outside, the snow
sculpture had melted in the heat outside, and Fluffy was headed back to the
Neohome, with the food in her paws.
"We still have the chow!" said Sweet. "That's
not licked yet!"
Unfortunately, the white Aisha didn't see the
puddle of melted snow on the grass. She stepped right into it, tripped, and
sent the two omelettes flying into the air. Once Fluffy got up, the food landed…right
into the same puddle she fell into.
"No food," mumbled Fluffy.
"No decorations," said Glitter, coming out with
scarves all over.
"No snow," said Angel, clutching the Kacheek
Ice Cannon in his paws. "It ran out of ice, and I'll give it back to the neighbors."
"Everything's ruined!" cried Angel. Tears began
flowing from his eyes, and Fluffy came and took his paw. "Come on, everyone,"
she whispered solemnly. "Let's just go back inside and wait for Kat instead."
***
"What…oh…what happened here? Looks like a stampede of who-knows-what!" said
Kat as she opened the door. There was mess everywhere-puddles of what looked
like melted ice, a fallen tree, broken decorations and more chaos. Then she
found her four unhappy pets, huddled on the sofa, tearstains on their faces.
Sweet spoke up first. "We tried to make a Christmas
celebration in the middle of the Month of Swimming…"
"…But everything went wrong! We couldn't even
make good decorations!" screamed Glitter while tugging on a paper star stuck
on her ear.
"We only wanted you to have a good time despite
the hot, inhumane conditions outside,' added Fluffy softly, still consoling
Angel, who was sobbing uncontrollably.
Kat sighed and walked over to the quad. "You
know, even though I wasn't able to see everything, I think you did a good job.
I mean…you sacrificed a day that could probably be spent frolicking and playing
just to put all this up. I appreciate your efforts, but you didn't have to.
Who says we can't have fun on an uncomfortable day like this?"
"So you're…you're not mad?" asked the blue Zafara,
looking up with huge, pitiful eyes.
"Nope, why would I get mad? If it's the mess
you made or the failure to put up a nice Christmas celebration in the middle
of one of the hottest times of the year, it's neither. Like I said before, I
appreciate your efforts, and there is no mess that can be cleaned up." Kat thought
for a moment after speaking. Then she finally said, "I think I have a better
idea!"
***
"I thought cleaning up was supposed to be hard work, but it's actually fun!"
said Fluffy as she picked up the plush toys and tossed them over to Sweet, who
scored a perfect catch and shoved them into the safety deposit box.
"I agree!" said Glitter, who was tidying up the
pieces of paper scattered all over the floor. "And I can use these for an art
project I wanted to do!"
Kat smiled at the four, who were all tidying
and looking very happy. "Now you won't have to be bored on a hot day like this!"
She got out four cold slushies. "When you're done cleaning, you can have one!"
"Suddenly cleaning's a lot more fun than it already
is!" said Angel with a grin, as he picked up the fallen decorations.
The End
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