Late at night, KiwiBonk the Aisha awoke, and heard a
strange sizzling noise. Since she was half asleep, she rolled over and thought
nothing of it, until the next morning, when she discovered someone had burnt
her new 'Neopia Girl' magazine to a papery crisp.
"Alison!" KiwiBonk cried.
"What?" KiwiBonk's owner said, sticking her
head in the room.
"Someone burnt up my magazine!"
"Oh, you probably left a magnifying glass around
here somewhere, and it started a fire."
And that was the end of that, until Rumples_Skin_Skin
burst into the living room later that day, with a lump of ashes in his paw.
"Chino!" he shouted at his little brother, who
was playing video games.
"What?" answered ChinoGod, without looking away
from the TV screen.
"Did you set fire to my wrench?"
"But wrenches are made of metal," MinxJade,
the second oldest in the family, said. "And metal can't burn."
"Well this metal obviously did," Rumples grumbled,
then stomped off to his room to find a replacement wrench.
And that was the end of that, until Alison was
cooking supper that evening. As usual, the meal was fried Baggus and red Chiaberries.
Alison had turned away from the stove for a moment, to untie Chino's shoelace,
and when she turned back, the Baggus had been burnt. Toasted. Incinerated.
"Peanut!" Alison hollered.
Peanut, Chino's Flightning Bug, flew in from
Chino's room, which took her five minutes, since her flight was jerky and irregular.
Peanut's wings could create nasty electrical shocks, and those shocks often
caused things to burn.
"Peanut, you've been a very bad girl!" Alison
scolded. "You've burnt our supper!"
"Thank Fyora!" MinxJade said under her breath.
She wasn't very fond of Bagguses.
"Bbzzttp!"
"It wasn't Peanut," Chino said. "She couldn't
have flown into my room that fast." Alison agreed. She looked around the kitchen
for things that might have caused her Baggus to erupt into flames. A toaster,
a fridge, an oven, a slightly smouldering Flightning Bug, and a green Aisha
playing a NeoBoy was all she saw.
"Maybe some hot grease caught fire," KiwiBonk
suggested, as she walked into the room.
"No, Bagguses aren't greasy."
"Maybe that Baggus was burnt to begin with,
and you just didn't notice," said Rumples.
"That's ridiculous. I would too notice," Alison
scoffed.
"Maybe," Chino said, looking up from his video
game at last, "A bunch of evil intergalactic Poogles came down from outer space,
fried the Baggus with their super turbo lasers, and left in their light speed
space ships before we even noticed."
"Or maybe," said Alison, "The Baggus spontaneously
combusted."
Her pets laughed, even Chino, who didn't know
what 'spontaneously combusted' meant. But Alison was dead serious. That night
after a supper of Chia Berries, she brought her pets and the Baggus in question
to the Neopian Hospital, where someone could confirm if it indeed combusted
spontaneously.
While they were waiting in the appropriately
named Waiting Room, the four Aishas started to complain that there was absolutely
no need for them to be there, especially Chino, who had forgot his NeoBoy at
home. At last the receptionist called out their number, and Alison brought her
pets and the Baggus in to see Dr. Ghastly.
Dr. Ghastly was a tiny red Nimmo who had to
stand on her chair to see over the top of the examination table thing with the
piece of white paper on it that's always in doctors' offices.
"Hmm," said Dr. Ghastly. "Hmm...." She
poked and prodded at the Baggus, took its temperature (still warm), and listened
to its heartbeat while Alison patiently watched, Chino whined, and the rest
tried hard not to laugh.
"Well," Dr. Ghastly said at last. "This little
guy's been in quite a fight."
"Oh, it's not a little guy," said Alison, "It's
a Baggus, and I was wondering if you could tell me-"
"THAT'S A BAGGUS!?!" the little Nimmo roared.
Alison blinked. "Um...yes."
"GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!!! YOU'RE WASTING MY VALUABLE
TIME!!! GET OUT!!!!" Dr. Ghastly threw open the door, and her expression completely
changed. "And have a nice day," she said, smiling sweetly.
Alison and her four pets bustled out of the
hospital, Alison in a fluster, and everyone else slightly weirded out.
"I'm never going to that doctor again," Chino
said.
"Maybe it didn't spontaneously combust," Alison
said. "Then who could have done this?"
"I guess we'll never know," MinxJade remarked.
"Yep, it sure is a mystery," Rumples said.
"No!" Alison shouted. "I will find out who did
this disgusting deed, or die trying! I will not stop looking until this criminal
is behind bars! Truth and justice shall prevail! Now who's with me?"
KiwiBonk looked at Alison. Alison looked at
MinxJade. MinxJade looked at Rumples. Rumples looked at Chino. Chino looked
at a bug that was slowly making its way from KiwiBonk's front left paw to Alison's
right foot.
"I'm with you!" a voice boomed. Everyone turned
around. A big blue blob was waddling towards them on the sidewalk of Neopia
Central. It was head and shoulders taller than all the other pets and owners.
As it came closer, they realised it was a blue Kacheek, and the biggest one
they had ever seen.
"My name is Kharlos," the Kacheek said, extending
a chubby paw for them to shake. "I couldn't help overhearing your conversation,
and when I heard your inspiring words, I knew I had to help."
"Oh, thanks!" Alison said. She introduced all
her pets.
"So what exactly is your problem?" asked Kharlos.
"My Baggus was suddenly and mysteriously burnt."
"Hmm..." said the massive Kacheek. "Very strange.
But you know what helps me think when cornered by a problem like this?"
"No," said Chino, who was cranky and bored and
therefore very rude.
"A nice big cloud pizza." Kharlos led them to
the Neopian Food Store, a giant building in the shape of a burger. They sat
down, and Kharlos ordered two cloud pizzas and two Loveberry pies. Everyone
except Rumples and Kharlos had one piece of pizza and one piece of pie. Rumples
had two pieces of each. Kharlos had ten pieces of pizza and ten pieces of pie.
"That accounts for his um...large size,"
KiwiBonk whispered in two of MinxJade's ears.
Alison and Kharlos were talking about who could
be behind this 'diabolical act of evil'. Alison seemed to think it was a Fire
Faerie who played a trick on her. Kharlos thought it was the evil Lava Ghoul
who liked to burn stuff for no reason.
"There's only one way to find out," Kharlos
said. "We must go to the scene of the crime."
Kharlos had a hard time squeezing through the
front door of their NeoHome, but Snuffs climbed out a window and bit him on
the behind, and that got the job done. They all gathered in the kitchen. Peanut
was still there, hovering by the fridge.
"Hmm...." said Kharlos, examining the frying
pan full of ash where the Baggus had been burnt. "It's as I thought. This is
the work of the Lava Ghoul!!!"
Alison gasped. The Aishas sighed. Peanut made
a weird sizzling noise with her wings.
"How do you know?" asked Rumples.
"Uh...because it was burnt," Kharlos said as
if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
MinxJade's belly rumbled and she opened the
fridge to see if anything edible was inside. The fridge was full of Bagguses.
"Alison, you didn't de-gas these yet."
"That's because they're not ripe," Alison said,
who, with the help of Kharlos, was setting up a Lava Ghoul trap.
"Now, of course, the only thing a Lava Ghoul
will eat is lava," Kharlos told Alison.
"I'm gonna go watch TV," said KiwiBonk. "Who's
with me?"
"I'M WITH YOU!!!" a high squeaky voice chirped.
A flying ball of fire flew in from the living room. It had two black eyes and
an evil smile. It looked like a Fuzzle on fire.
"Who are you?" MinxJade asked at the same time
KiwiBonk said, "Okay, what show do you wanna watch?"
"I am a very scary flaming wuzzle!" said the
very scary flaming wuzzle.
"Alison! That's what burned the Baggus!" Rumples
cried.
"Not now, Rumples. What were you saying about
bait, Kharlos?" Alison said.
The wuzzle cackled and flew towards Alison's
rear end. "OW!" she screamed.
Kharlos swung at the wuzzle but missed. Still
laughing hysterically, the wuzzle glided into the microwave. Chino dove for
it and slammed the door. They all breathed a sigh of relief, except for Alison,
who was too busy trying to extinguish her behind to notice.
Suddenly, the microwave glowed red hot and grew
bigger. "It's gonna blow!" Chino shouted. That it did, and pieces of flaming
metal were scattered all over the kitchen. One of the pieces hit MinxJade in
the face as she was screaming "Metal can't burn!"
Rumples whacked the wuzzle with a broom. The
wuzzle laughed harder and the broom burst into flames. He shoved the broom at
KiwiBonk, who gave it to Alison, who dropped it on her foot by accident. "Shucks,"
said Alison, and put her foot in the slop bucket to put out the fire.
Next, the fuzzle attacked Chino. The flame singed
Chino's fur, and he started to cry. KiwiBonk grabbed the nearest grabbable liquid,
which was a can of Neocola, and tried to douse the flaming wuzzle with that.
But she missed, and MinxJade was soaked with the brown liquid.
KiwiBonk called out an apology, and opened the
fridge. There was no lemonade, or milk, or Chia Pops, or anything. Just Bagguses.
So she grabbed one of those. The wuzzle saw her, chuckled and zoomed towards
KiwiBonk, who put the unripe Baggus in front of her face like a shield.
"No!" Alison cried. "That's Tuesday night's
supper!"
The wuzzle came in contact with the Baggus. But
instead of burning, the Baggus grew bigger. And bigger. It was nearly the size
of Kharlos' stomach when the wuzzle realised what it had done.
"Uh oh," it said in a tiny voice.
The Baggus burst. The Baggus juice from the unripe
Baggus doused the flame of the flaming wuzzle, and everything else in the kitchen,
too. "Uhh..." Rumples groaned, and wiped the Baggus juice out of his eyes.
"What happened?" Chino asked.
Kharlos' face was a sickly shade of green. "I
don't feel so good," he murmured, clutching his stomach.
Neither did anyone else. The Baggus juice had
a horrible smell, kind of like smelly socks and rotten omelette.
Alison's butt and foot were put out, finally.
"Ah," she sighed. "Smell that Baggus juice. Doesn't it make you hungry?"
"On the contrary," Kharlos moaned. "I don't
think I'm ever going to eat again."
MinxJade and KiwiBonk grinned at one another.
"Why did the Baggus explode?" Chino said.
"Oh, because warm air takes up more space than
cold air. The little bit of Baggus gas inside the Baggus was cold because it
was in the fridge, but when it was warmed up by the wuzzle, it got hot and started
to expand. There wasn't enough room in the Baggus for the warm air, so it blew
up!" Alison chattered happily. Every time she said the word 'Baggus', Kharlos
groaned and put a paw over his mouth.
Spitfire, Rumples' pet Airax, flew in to investigate
the smell. "You weirdos," he said, perching on top of a small black pile of
ash.
"That must be what's left of the wuzzle," KiwiBonk
remarked.
"Well, that solves our problem," Alison said.
"No more burnt Baggus."
"Great," said MinxJade.
"Kharlos, would you like to join us in a snack
of Bagguses?"
"No thanks." Kharlos headed for the door. "I'm
strictly on a diet of vitamin pills from now on."
While they were cleaning up the kitchen, KiwiBonk
discovered the oven was still on. In fact, heat waves were radiating from it
because it was on as high as it could go.
"Well, Alison," said KiwiBonk. "I guess you
really did burn that Baggus."
"You mean I'm not a good cook?" Alison whimpered.
"Guess not."
Alison was so disappointed she shut herself in
the marble room and refused to come out until she had read every single cook
book in the house. That left the Aishas to have a supper of Angel Aisha Cookies
and neocola, which of course, was fine with them.
The End | 
