How Expensive Art Thou, O Love! by jack_278 |  |
I am--was--a blue Shoyru. Now I'm a Fire Shoyru, but that's an entirely different
story. I lived nowhere, really, I lived in the streets. My owner--she wasn't
so poor, in fact she was very rich, but she didn't spend much time with me,
mostly, I think, because she was more concerned with her budget and getting
more Neopoints than even getting me and my three siblings a decent NeoHome,
let alone the kind of luxury most NeoPets with rich, caring owners enjoy. So
we wandered the streets, usually seeing her once or twice a week, begging Neopoints
for food and even toys, if we could get enough NP from begging and working.
We were hungry and poor, only, the Soup Faerie wouldn't give us soup on account
of the amount of Neopoints our owner, Ellff_777, had.
But that's just background information. My actual story starts when we--my
siblings and I--decided to go to Elfie's shop, maybe get a few NP's off her
if we could. We started off from the Amusement Park bench where we'd spent the
night. It was a crisp, cold morning, a little snow on the ground that looked
pretty, but boy was it cold! Trouble was, we had no clothes or anything, so
we were very cold, freezing really. Well, actually, we did have an old, threadbare
jacket we'd found in a dumpster, but that went to the youngest of us, my little
brother. Bing_98 was a scrawny, cheerful Green Lupe, hardly more than a pup,
so he got the best of everything because he was so little and young, he really
needed that stuff.
Hardly anybody was out in this freezing-cold weather, unsurprisingly, except
for a few other pets like us with neither money nor home. Fortunately, it wasn't
much of a walk to Elfie's shop, Elfie's Emporium--a real nice, big shop, that
she made loads of money off of, but like I said, she didn't use it on us, didn't
use it at all really. So we got there before the real crush of customers came
in. She had pictures of us all in the shop--me, JeeBee, the twin Yellow Zafaras
SnowBerry90 and SnowCherry180, and little Bingy. Mostly that was just to show
she really loved her pets--As if!--for commercial purposes, I think. She had
music, too, but not the loud, annoying music loads of other shops had. This
music was soft and pleasant.
Elfie was there, with her salesperson smile, her fashionable clothes. Still
she frowned when she saw us. "Whadya want this time?"
They all looked to me, I suppose because I was oldest, so I sort of had to
answer. My teeth were chattering, from fear, and cold, too. Like I said, it
was freezing cold outside, and I hadn't thawed off yet. "W-we-ell w-we thou-thought
m-maybe, you've s-such a n-n-nice shop, and s-s-s-so much NP, and we w-wouldn't
need too much NP for a d-decent living, we w-w-wouldn't b-bother you 't all...and
m-maybe even not th-that much, maybe just..." I quaked under her freezing stare,
but bravely went on "Love! From you! P-please!"
"You little pieces of filth! Don't you know how expensive love is nowadays!
Out! Out!" She shouted.
"B-but you've so much money--" I was still whimpering as she swept us rudely
out of the store with an on-sale broom.
We stood outside in the cold. Berry, as we called SnowBerry90--we called SnowCherry180
Cherry-- stuck his paws into imaginary pockets, trying his best to look cheerful.
"Well-ll," he chattered, "Th-th-that went we-ell."
Cherry scowled. "This always happens! C'mon, guys, we gotta find somewhere
to stay, warm, so we don't freeze. Maybe we could stay in somebody's house."
He started walking towards the residential streets in Neopia Central. We were
already in sight of Rainbow Lane when Bing began to whimper, the way he does
when he's scared or hungry or both. A lot of the time he starts bawling soon
and then everybody thinks we're an annoyance. Me and Cherry and Berry exchanged
glances, and hurried up the pace. Being the oldest, I was the one who had to
carry Bingy, because mostly he was whimpering because his legs were so weak
and little and all. He was real young. Still I hadn't so much strength myself
for him. He could get kinda heavy after a while.
We finally came to a house, pretty big, and real nice, so we figured whoever
owned it had to be rich. Rich meant he could afford to keep us the night, at
least to us. Cherry rang the doorbell apprehensively, but we had to wait a while
before a loud, cheerful voice called out "Who's there?"
"Just some p-poor NeoPets!" I called out for us.
The door opened, and this guy, about 15 or so, peeped out at us, then invited
us in. He was tall, with wavy brown hair and blue eyes. We came in thankfully,
and, closing the door, he followed us in and showed us into the living room.
He was rich-- an expensive Kauvara set of furniture, all that. There was a Skunk
Acara curled up on a couch, reading.
We told him our story, and he listened carefully, then nodded. "I'll go talk
to your owner, such as she is, and we'll arrange to adopt you. In the mean time...Skaake,
why don't you show them around?"
The Acara immediately put down his book and smiled at us. "Hey, future siblings!
C'mon, I'll show you all we've got."
To make a long story short, the house was really great. Matt--that was the
boy's name, apparently-- got us adopted without much trouble. That night, I
for the first time went to bed in a wonderfully soft, luxurious, wonderful,
aromatic Coconut Bed.
The next morning when I woke up, for a while I couldn't remember where I was,
or why. Then it all came back to me-- the events of the night before, Matt,
Skaake the Skunk Acara. I grinned and bound out of bed, holding the wonderful
clothes I was wearing today in speechless wonder for a moment. I'd never had
all this before! Not only that, but something new was in the room: A Robo-Poogle
that would do anything I wanted it to!
Another wonder was the voice of Matt calling up "Skaake, Bing, Cherry, Berry,
and JeeBee! Breakfast is ready!"
Happily, I ran lightly down the stairs into the kitchen, where the smell of
Hot Cakes was wafting up from the five stacks on the table. As I bit into a
Hot Cake, savoring the taste, Matt handed me an issue of The Neopian Times.
"As you're first up, you get to read this first." He smiled, and went back to
flipping another serving of Hot Cakes.
I flipped quickly to the Articles section, gulping down a delicious Chocolate
Milkshake as my eyes scanned the page. None really caught my interest until
I saw an article on pet pampering. I looked at that, and suddenly gulped and
stared as I saw that the article said a decent pet-pamperer should be spending
more than twenty-thousand NP if he could on his pet!
So Elfie was right. Love was expensive.
The End |
