"CARRIE! COLEY!" someone said in the early morning hours. "Time to wake up
and get ready for school!"
Coley went downstairs, but I lingered in her bedroom. Today would be my first
day at school, and I had lots of friends, but I was still worried. In the stories
that Mum always read to me, there was always a club called "Painted Pets." I
was Christmas painted, but lots of the other pets would be gold, silver, desert,
cloud, and even faerie! Most of my friends were painted, but all of them were
white or something like that. But I was hungry, so I headed downstairs.
Her elder brother, Coley, already went to Mystery Island Prep (their school)
and was very popular, so she decided to ask him some questions.
"Do you have any clubs at your school, Coley?" I asked sweetly.
"Sure!" responded Coley, his mouth full of cereal. "The Drama Club, The Debating
Team, the Music Group… And lot's more! Why do you want to know?" asked Coley.
"I meant to ask if there were any social clubs. Remember when Mum read us
The Neopian Times, and there was a story with a club called painted pets? Do
you have that at your school?" I corrected.
"Ya. Of course. I'm supposed to be one, but most of the boys just say no so
they can play soccer or football at recess. But the leader of it all, Jessica,
has a crush on me. So if she bothers you, just mention I'm your brother and
she'll suddenly want to be your best friend," said Coley. He sounded so confident
that I believed him.
Just then, Mum came into the kitchen.
"Caroline375! Coley121! I'm ashamed! You have to leave in fifteen minutes,
and you're not even out of your pajamas! Quick! Scadaddle!" she said.
I trudged upstairs. When I got to my room, I opened my closet and started rummaging
around for my school uniform. I found it and placed it on my bed.
It was boring looking. It was a blue tunic, a blue and black tie, a white blouse,
a blue blazer and sturdy black oxfords. Mum had bought it for me when they'd
gone to register, last week. At least no one could tease me about clothes! I
put all of it on except for the tie and went to find Mum. She was in her bedroom.
She smiled when she saw me and tied my tie. She took a picture, and then we
went to find Coley.
He was in the entrance hall, waiting for me. Mum smiled and sent us off.
The walk was quick. When we got there, my friends were all waiting. There was
Kata, my best friend who was a white Aisha, Winny, her sister, a blue Chomby,
my older friends, Rennie, a white Kougra and Emmie, a white Uni, and my new
friend, Zigeys the purple Zafara. They were all smiling at me. I joined them
and we went over to a crowded corner of the playground.
A desert Chia greeted them.
"New kids, huh? This is painted pets exclusive club. You can only enter if
you are painted. I'm Jessica, the leader," she said.
We all walked closer to them, but Jessica stopped Winny when she was about
to go further.
"Only the painted pets are allowed in," said Jessica snottily. "The scholarship
students are THAT way," Jessica said, pushing Winny towards two mutant Chias.
Winny burst into tears and the Chias comforted her.
Kata tried to break away from the group, but strong arms held her back.
"WINNY!" she cried, bursting into tears.
"No use crying over that, that thing," said Jessica. " Blue, red, yellow and
green pets aren't allowed, even if they are painted afterwards. And that will
only happen if someone overpowers me, and that won't happen unless they are
painted faerie!" she laughed at the thought. Then the bell rang and we all went
inside.
Most of my friends and I filed into a fourth grade classroom, but Emmie and
Rennie went into a sixth, and I saw Coley disappear into Madame Jenkins seventh
grade class.
Kata, Zigeys, and I chose seats side by side in the back row of the classroom,
but Winny sat with her friends near the front. I tried not to cry.
The day was okay. The teacher was young and kind, and she treated everyone
equally. When I didn't understand a math question, she explained it to me and
didn't even get angry. At two thirty I went home with my brother.
"How was school? Any homework?" asked Mum.
"Okay. But Jessica's MEAN! She wouldn't let Winny play with us. And she teased
the scholarship kids because they are mutant Chias! We tried to go play with
Winny, but people stopped us. And now Winny thinks we're snotty and she isn't
speaking to us!" I told Mum all this and burst into tears. Coley looked sympathetic
and Mum pulled me close. I calmed down a bit, but not much. Then Mum took me
into her room and told me her plan.
Jessica was mean to Winny the next day and the day after that. But the day
after that was Friday; so most boarders went home. Winny, Zaythe, Xaviar388,
and Winny went home, but my other friends stayed at my house. Coley had decided
to spend the weekend with Zaythe in Neopia, so Mum any my friends and I were
all alone. It was ten o'clock, and my friends and I were supposed to be asleep,
but we were lying awake, talking.
"What did you mention about a plan yesterday, Carrie?" asked Emmie.
"Oh… That… Mum thought of it and it's really mean… it's mean to Jessica… Really
mean." I mumbled. I was suddenly embarrassed.
"TELL!" begged my friends. So I did.
"Okay. Okay. What we're trying to do is defeat Jessica, so one of us will
rule painted pets and let Winny in to prove she is still our friend. What's
going to happen is tomorrow night at the dance, Jeremy, my boyfriend, is going
to pretend to be Jessica's date, because next to Coley, she likes him. Michael,
that boy that we sit next to, pretended to ask me to the dance, so everyone
thinks that now. He will pretend to be sick, and not come, and when Jessica
teases me about not having a date, Jeremy will abandon her, and come be my date.
She will flee the dance, probably crying, but that's only half of it. Mum has
saved enough money to paint me faerie, so on Monday, I will go to painted pets
and claim my rightful place as Queen of Painted Pets Exclusive Club. Good?"
I asked my friends. They all nodded. Then Mum entered the room.
"GIRLS" she exclaimed, pretending to be mad, but really kind of smiling. "You
ought to be sleeping! It's eleven! But since you are awake, we will go shopping
for dance equipment on Saturday. So get sleep so you're awake tomorrow, okay?"
she kissed me and went to bed. About an hour later, we all fell asleep, too.
Mum woke us up the next morning and we all went to the Mystery Island marketplace.
She handed us each some money.
"Each of you owners gave you 500 Neopoint to spend," she said. "Could you
please meet me back here in two hours? I need to go food shopping. Stick together,
okay?" she said. We ran off.
After we had gone, I realised I had gotten 1000 Neopoints to spend. I knew
it was because our family was richer than my friends were, but I didn't mention
the extra money. We all went off and found a huge department store and went
to find dresses.
Kata found a periwinkle dress almost immediately with shoes to match, Zigeys
found a purple one that almost exactly matched her fur, Emmie found a gorgeous
pink one with very pretty shoes to cover her four hooves, and Rennie found a
cute skirt and shirt set with even cuter sling back shoes. But I didn't find
anything. Zigeys and I roamed around the floor, her looking for shoes, and me
looking for shoes and a dress.
I had almost given up hope when I found it. When I found it, I was very glad
I hadn't. It was long, slim fitting and tied at the back like a halter-top.
Best of all, it was a beautiful shimmering gold colour. It was 500 dollars,
but I bought it before my friends noticed the price. I found shimmering gold
shoes, and Zigeys bought the same ones. We all headed down to the make up floor.
I bought gold lipstick, gold eye shadow, and because there wasn't any gold blush,
I bought some tan. The rest of my friends bought make up to match their dresses,
and we went to the Usuki section with our leftover money.
I had four hundred Neopoints left, and I looked around for an inexpensive bride
Usuki. I found one, and I didn't have any money left. Zigeys bought a prom date
Usuki to marry to my bride. Rennie wanted to buy a Goodie Two Shoes Usuki to
be the minister, but it was too expensive, so she bought a flight attendant
to be the minister. Kata bought a prom queen Usuki to be the maid of honor,
and we all went to find Mum.
***
A few hours later, after we were done with our Usuki wedding, Mum told us to
get changed. We all put on our dresses, and helped each other get our make up
on, and then we went downstairs to get mum to brush our hair. I peeked out a
window and saw tons of ferries, mostly coming from Neopia Central, but lots
coming from other places, too. Each ferry was full to the brim with students
from Mystery Island Prep who where coming back for the dance. I kept looking
out the window as Mum brushed each of my friend's hair.
I went to sit down were she could easily brush my hair, and instead of excepting
my blue short hairbrush, she handed me a wrapped package. Inside, was a gold
brush and mirror set! I thanked Mum and turned around to hug her.
She laughed. "You think I'd let my little baby go without a brush that matched
her dress?" she asked. Then Coley and his friends arrived. They got changed
into their nice clothes, and we all went to the dance. I didn't see Winny on
the way. We got to my school and went to the gym. I almost immediately saw Jessica
dancing with Jeremy, her yapping on, and him looking bored. He saw me and looked
my way. Jessica noticed and looked, too. She looked beside me for my date, and
when she didn't see one, she started to tease me, just as we had predicted.
"Oh, hello Carrie," said Jeremy. Jessica looked furious. "Would you like to
dance?"
It was great. I floundered of with Jeremy, and Jessica started to cry and ran
out of the gym. The rest of the dance went by in a flash. Before I knew it,
I was in my bed and fast asleep.
The next day my friends and I had to travel to Neopia to go to the rainbow
pool. She bought me a faerie paintbrush on the way, and we arrived at the rainbow
pool. She picked up the brush, and started to paint me with it. I felt a delightful
tingly feeling and something coming from my back. I looked in the mirror and
saw a faerie staring back at me. NEAT!!!!!
Everyone got excited, and Emmie grabbed my hand and took flight. I went with
her.
It was glorious. Wind tickled our backs and we sped my shop tops. I looked
down at my friends and realised they did not look so happy, though. Emmie and
I swooped back down and we went home.
I tried to keep my wings hidden until Monday, and it worked fairly well. Besides
a few kids who went to Mystery Elementary, the local public school, no one knew.
I set off to school as usual on Monday. But as we got closer to the school,
I started to fly. Emmie did too, and the rest of them clambered onto her. She
staggered and almost fell, so I went back and grabbed Kata, the smallest out
of the three. We started flying toward the school again. We arrived and made
a graceful stop at Painted Pets Exclusive Club.
Jessica was furious. She couldn't believe that Caroline some Christmas painted
Usul had overthrown the mighty Jessica! She gave me the leadership and acted
like a sore loser for a long time. Instantly, I started to change the club.
I threw out the mean people, and there wasn't actually very many of them. I
pointed to Jessica and started to speak.
"You ca..." I stopped. I suddenly realised that although Jessica was not a
very nice person, she had already been punished. "You can stay," I finished.
My friends looked astonished, but they quickly understood. I kept making changes.
I ran around a while to find a blue Chomby and two mutant Chias, but I didn't
find them. I was about to turn back when I heard someone address someone else
as Winny. I turned around.
I couldn't believe it. The species were right, but the Chomby was purple and
the Chias were white.
"WINNY!!!! COME BACK! YOU CAN JOIN PAINTED PETS! AND YOUR FRIENDS!!!!" she
looked my way and suddenly hugged me. She followed me back to the others.
"Welcome to Painted Pets, Winifred," I joked. "And who are these fine ladies?
The white coats are gorgeous!"
Winny smiled. "These two are two of my best friends, Jennie and Janie. Sisters."
One of them, Jennie I think, smiled. "You are probably wondering where the
white cam from. I will tell you. About a year ago, when Sloth created the mutants,
our owner bought two and tested them on her two pets, us. When she saw the horrific
effects that occurred, she wanted to abandon us but didn't have the money. She
drank a lot and barely fed us, and we had to work very hard to get scholarships
to come her to be away from her. But we did. We never had friends, so no one
helped us, but when Winny came along, everything changed. She took us home for
the weekend and her owners heart softened when she heard what we had been through,
and she went out and bought us the white paintbrushes. She painted us, and here
we are."
We all liked the story. Winny asked about my wings, and I told her the story
of Jessica's downfall. She like that story. Then the bell rang and we all went
inside.
The End | 
