NPIA Headquarters, an Undisclosed Location Somewhere in Neopia Central
"Pleeeeeeeeease?"
Chief the yellow Wocky glanced nonchalantly at
Agent_Magnolia, who was nearly falling off of her chair. "Magnolia, please don't
do that."
"But you KNOW it's the only way I can get you
to give me the day off," the disco Aisha replied. "Oh, come on, Chief - you
know I deserve it!"
"You always deserve it!"
"And do I GET it?"
"Mag-nolia."
"Oh, PLEEEEASE? Please-please-please-please-PLEEEEEAASE?"
Magnolia begged once again. She knew she'd get the day off sooner or later.
She just knew it.
"Okay, fine! Take the day off! Take tomorrow
off! Just...don't...DO that!"
"Oh, THANK you!" Magnolia squealed, heading for
the office door. "I promise I'll make the best of it! And I won't take another
extra day off until Christmas!" Magnolia closed the door behind her.
Chief sighed. "Sure she won't."
Magnolia's House
"Can you believe it only took me one pestering
to get two days off?" Magnolia chirruped over the phone. "The office must be
pretty uneventful today."
"It must have been!" Noelle replied. "But I wasn't
at the office today, so I wouldn't have known. I just got off a case yesterday,
and I won't be back until the day after tomorrow. Holiday preparations, you
know."
"Huh. You know, I'm really glad to have the time
off, but the problem is that I don't know what to do with it."
"You could..." Noelle paused. "...Go to a movie?"
"Nothing interesting is really playing right
about now."
"Oh, oui. Well, you could try an amusement
park," Noelle suggested.
"You're kidding!" said Magnolia. "To keep Sys-op
chained to a roller-coaster would be a lifetime achievement!"
"Same for me," Noelle added. "Well, how about
a spa treatment, then?"
"A spa treatment?" Magnolia asked. "I've never
done that before."
"Really? Well, it's the perfect thing to do with
your time, if you ask me," said Noelle. "'Chutes D'eau' is the place I always
go to. I highly recommend it."
"And knowing you, it's probably sickeningly expensive,"
Magnolia muttered under her breath.
"What was that?"
"I-I said, 'It might be a bit expensive.'"
"Oh, don't worry about it. Look, I'll make a
reservation for both of us, so you won't feel as intimidated."
"Aww, thank you, Noelle - you're a real pal,"
Magnolia said in gratitude. "I look forward to it."
"Great! Take Sys-op along with you, as well.
Write down this address, and I'll see you there tomorrow morning. I'll aim for
an eleven thirty reservation, okay?"
"Okay," Magnolia replied. "Thanks again."
"See you tomorrow, then."
Magnolia hung up the phone and sat down in a
rolling chair in her room. "Who was that?" Sys-op asked, sitting up in her spot
on the ottoman.
"Noelle's going to make us an appointment at
Chutes D'eau--really nice of her," replied Magnolia. "We'll meet her tomorrow.
You're coming along too."
"Oh, really?" queried Sys-op. "That sounds nice.
What time tomorrow?"
"She said she'll aim for eleven thirty tomorrow
morning. I should be there at ten o'clock just in case."
Chutes D'eau Spa
The door to the elegant waiting room opened slowly.
Magnolia looked up at a spotted Blumaroo secretary in the doorway. "Magnolia
Cherry and Sys-op; Noelle Delacroix, everything's set up. We'll take you in
now."
"Funame? Again?" asked Magnolia. "You're a spa
secretary now?"
"Oh, no, this is just part-time," replied Funame
as Noelle and Sys-op stepped into the peaceful hallway. "The actual secretary's
out sick, so I took the job for now."
"All right, then. Thanks, Funame," said Noelle.
A striped Wocky met Magnolia, Noelle, and Sys-op
halfway down the hall. "Oh, I just called them in," Funame told her.
"No problem," the Wocky replied. "Whichever one's
Noelle..." Noelle waved. "Right. You have that room down the hall to your left.
Sys-op, you're with Noelle, and Magnolia...ah, I'll take you."
The Wocky led Magnolia down to an elegant room
on the right of the hallway, a window showing a view of the city. One thing
Magnolia felt uneasy about was that an aquarium could be seen through the transparent
glass floor. "Now, if you'll sit in that seat and relax, I'll be with you in
a moment."
"But it's -"
"I SAID RELAX!" the Wocky screeched, pushing
Magnolia into the chair. "Now; I'm Sienna, and I'll be your hostess here at
Chutes D'eau." She paused. "I think the first thing we ought to do to start
is the - err -"
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Magnolia
asked as Sienna scrambled around a few shelves of various green bottles.
"Quiet, Magnolia. Who's giving the treatment
here?" Sienna retorted with a frown. "Ah-ha!" She quickly returned with a large
green jar. "Now hold still. This is the aloe vera...er...cucumber...jasmine...ylang-ylang...ginger...mask."
Sienna quickly dumped the mask from the jar onto Magnolia's face and spread
it around with a towel, covering her eyes.
"HEY! WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?" Magnolia shrieked,
scrambling around to remove the towel.
"Well, you NEED to put a towel over it to keep
it from...evaporating. Yeah, it does that real easily," Sienna replied.
"Fine, I'll leave it on," Magnolia replied. "You
know, this isn't really relaxing."
"Shush it. Now, cucumber wrap, I think," Sienna
told her, removing a white jar from the shelf.
"You THINK?" Magnolia asked. "I'm sorry, but
as long as I'm in this chair, there's no 'I think'!"
"Be quiet!" Sienna replied in annoyance, wrapping
Magnolia in a sheet of plastic. "You know, you're not exactly the best client,
either."
"Am I supposed to not be able to move here?"
Magnolia asked, squirming around in her wrap. "B-Because...I can't."
"Well, I have to leave it on for ten minutes,
you know," said Sienna. "You'll feel like a new Aisha from here on in."
"Sure, whatever you say," Magnolia said in comply.
"Just ten minutes, though."
"Perhaps," replied Sienna, reaching for a lever.
"Or maybe a little bit longer!" As she pulled the lever, the aquarium's glass
drew back, and the chair began to sink.
"What on -" Magnolia started, pulling the towel
on her face back. "SWEET FAERIE MAMA!" she shrieked, desperately trying to squirm
free of the plastic wrap. "You--this was all just some sort of a sick plot!"
"Oh, I wouldn't say 'sick'."
"A--and that means--NOELLE SET ME UP!" Magnolia
cried. "I KNEW I couldn't trust that woman!"
"Noelle? You're kidding!" 'Sienna' averred. "THAT
goodie-two-shoes? Pull the other one! This was all my idea!"
"And YOU! Out with it! Who are you?"
"You haven't guessed?" 'Sienna' asked in disbelief.
"You don't remember me from your little zirconium
case? What a joke! Some spy you are!"
"Jeannie! I should have known!"
"Oh, yes, you should have. I can finally get
rid of you once and for all--for everything you did that day! But, that's all
over and done with, as are you. Have a great swim, Magnolia!" Magnolia had barely
noticed that the chair was almost fully submerged. In a panic, she began to
flail around helplessly, shrieking loudly.
"Hold it just a second!" a voice called.
"An obstacle?" Jeannie queried. "Talk about Deux
ex Machina."
"Tell me about it," Magnolia gurgled.
"What?" the voice asked. "This IS Chutes D'eau,
riiiiiight?"
"Right."
"And you two are Jeannie and Magnolia, riiiiiiiiight?"
"Right."
"So this is the right spot!" another voice called.
"Ha-ha! Your spa-patient conniving days are over, Jeannie!"
"I just started this morning," Jeannie replied.
"Well then, your DAY then! How's THAT?" the voice
retorted. Suddenly, a rainbow Acara and a starry Kyrii fell from the ceiling.
"Okay, Gabrielle," the Acara began, "I'll save that Aisha, you take Jeannie."
"Oh, you just take the easy work, why don't you?"
Gabrielle replied. "Okay, fine."
The Acara quickly ran to the aquarium and leapt
in, (Magnolia was long since sunken,) and dragged her back to the surface. Coughing
and gagging, Magnolia returned to the floor of the room.
Jeannie hid behind a desk while Gabrielle took
down a few jars and bottles from the shelf and threw them at her. One or two
crashed against the wall, and as a green mess of facial cream dripped from the
ceiling, Jeannie fled the scene.
Noelle, with a towel wrapped around her and a
white mask on her face, waddled down the hallway humming to herself. She had
just remembered that she had left her purse--with her wallet and identification
in it--in the lobby, and was returning to retrieve it. She was just entering
the lobby when a starry Kyrii in pursuit of a striped Wocky darted past.
"What the -" Noelle was nearly knocked back as
they passed her. "Alors! Well, THAT was rude!"
"Oh, sorry about that, miss!" cried Gabrielle,
turning around. "I'm kind of in a hurry, so I-"
WHACK!
Gabrielle, not watching where she was going,
ran into the lobby's eastern wall. "Ooh! Err - sorry!" Noelle cried.
"GABRIELLE!" cried the Acara as she and Magnolia
entered the lobby.
"G-goody...goody...gum-droppies," Gabrielle murmured
as she fainted.
"Oh, fine, then! I guess I'll have to handle
this myself!" the Acara mumbled, grabbing a wooden clipboard from the front
desk. "En Guarde!"
Jeannie reached for a flowerpot. "Touché!"
"Uh...I-don't-know-what-comes-after-that!"
"HEADS UP!" Jeannie cried as she tossed the flowerpot
at the Acara, who nimbly dodged and threw the clipboard at Jeannie. "Whoa!"
she cried, stepping aside.
"Oh, that was the only thing I had!" the Acara
murmured.
"SO sorry!" Jeannie cackled, picking up a picture
from the wall. "Say your prayers!"
THWACK!
Magnolia winced, but the sound was not from the
picture. Funame had hit Jeannie with the door as she swung it open abruptly.
"Oh, dear!" she squeaked, slowly closing it.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh," Jeannie murmured, flattened
against the wall behind the door.
"Good work, secretary!" the Acara cried.
Magnolia turned to the Acara. "And who might
you be?" she asked.
"Oh, sorry. The name's Charlie," she replied.
Magnolia couldn't help but notice that Charlie had a strong British accent,
and Gabrielle Australian. "I was sent out from the Neopian Organisation of Pet
Protection to stop Jeannie's little shindig. Ha! With all of this work Gabrielle
and I do, you'd think they'd pay us just a bit more. I've quit working at the
NOPP. I've heard it's been rivaling the Neopian Private Investigation Agency
for years. If I left the NOPP for the NPIA, maybe they'd appreciate me a little
more."
"I'm sure they would," Magnolia replied. "Hey,
you didn't say the NPIA, did you? I've been there for years."
"What a coincidence," Charlie told her. "And
you've never heard of any rivalry before?"
"No, never," Magnolia answered. She looked down
at Gabrielle on the floor. "I guess we should get her out of here, huh?"
"Affirmative. Nice meeting you, Magnolia."
And so, Magnolia, Charlie, Gabrielle, Noelle,
and Sys-op left Chutes D'eau unharmed...for the most part. Jeannie's in jail...again,
and Charlie and Gabrielle have now started work at the NPIA. Funame has now
returned to her normal work as a part-time librarian at every library. Magnolia
has decided that she will never...ever...go to a spa again, and for the first
time in her life, she's looking forward to returning to work.
The End
Note from the author: Thanks for viewing my story, dear readers! If you
have any questions to ask, any comments to give, or maybe a welcome note to
Charlie and Gabrielle to be sent, please be sure to Neomail
me! Au revoir! |