Orange: Part Two

by dragonmagic1313

Orange sat there, thinking. He wondered if he'd ever get to apologize to his mother. As he thought, Dr_Death's assistant, a little blue Zafara hopped in with food. She tossed a Bitten Apple inside Orange's cage. Orange wondered who had bit it. The part where it had been bitten had turned brown and icky. Orange took his claw and sliced the bitten part away in disgust.

He was about to throw it out of his cage when he saw a shivering, terribly thin little silver Shoyru with patches of hair missing in the cage next to his. It had already eaten all of the Ant-Eaten Ham it had received and was still dying. Orange felt a surge of anger rush through him at Dr_Death, then offered the Shoyru the part of his apple. The Shoyru squeaked a tiny thank you and wolfed the tiny piece of apple down with no hesitation.

"My name is Orange, who are you?" Orange asked the silver Shoyru.

"Squeak!" squeaked the Shoyru.

"Oh, um, uh, cool name," said Orange, "How long have you been here?"

"All of my five-month life," Squeak said sadly.

"I've been here since I was eight weeks old," said Orange.

"Well, I hope we get 'dopted," said Squeak.

"Me too," sighed Orange, "Me too."

Orange opened his eyes and yawned. It was 6:45 in the morning. Already around 2 or 3 Neopians were at the pound, scanning the cages for their perfect pet. Suddenly, Orange's eyes met with a young girl of about 11 years old. A Lupe and a Cybunny were in a backpack on her back. She walked quickly over to Orange and Squeak.

"Wow, two odd colored NeoPets!" she exclaimed. Her Lupe was hot pink and her Cybunny was lilac.

"Yup, and I wasn't painted silver neithers!"

"Neat!" the girl smiled. Orange liked the girl.

"I'm Orange and that's Squeak," said Orange, "what's your name?"

"You can call me Vanessa, my Lupe is Pink_Paw, and my Cybunny is Lila," said the girl.

"Hey, I like them, mommy!" said Lila the Cybunny.

"Well, are you going to adopt us or not?" Orange thundered.

"Um, YES!" Vanessa cried back.

"YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Squeak and Orange cried.

***

Vanessa was a pretty poor Neopian. She had only a few hundred Neopoints and all of her pets had to share a room. Lila and Pink_Paw had once each had half the room, now all of the pets had a quarter of the room. Orange sat on his bed, clutching the gift Vanessa had given him, the thing he had wanted all his life, a book. He had never read in his life but ever since he saw an Aisha sitting in a chair in the pound reading 'All about Air Faeries', and saw how much fun she was having, he had wanted a book, any book. Vanessa had given him a tattered copy of Billy Blue Hat.

Pink_Paw was lounging on her bed, playing with a dusty blue yo-yo, Lila was taking a nap on her bed, being a very young Cybunny, who was only 1 week old, and Squeak was playing with a reject Poogle toy. She didn't care, the Poogle, uh, Pooka, as Squeak called it, was her best friend.

"Vanessa, you promised you would teach me how to read Buh-buh-billy buh-loo huh-huh aaaaat," struggled Orange.

"Coming, Orange...and you can call me Mom if you want," said Vanessa.

"Okay, mom," Orange answered.

"Orange is gonna READ?" cried Squeak.

She forgot all about Pooka the Poogle toy and ran over to Orange's bed. Pink_Paw looked a bit interested. She put away her yo-yo and jumped onto Orange's bed next to him. Lila snored loudly.

Vanessa came in and sat down with Orange. "B-billy Buh-loo Huh-huh aaaat wuh-zzzz..." Orange read proudly. He read the book over and over and over, then jumped up and shouted, "I CAN READ!" And so he could.

To be continued...