Jhudora's Weakness: Part Five

     "Correct," the faerie answered, and suddenly everything started unravelling.

     The glass slowly melted, the walls collapsed in on themselves and slowly disappeared. The faerie slowly got smaller and smaller, until she was so miniscule we couldn't see her, and then eventually she disappeared altogether. The floor cracked and kept cracking, until there was no floor, only cracks. Outside, the grass slowly flung itself, one blade at a time, into the air before vanishing. The colour on the trees slowly faded, the leaves relinquished themselves to the exact same fate as the grass, and the branches fell to the ground, joined the trunk and slowly faded away completely. The blue sky lost its colour, the clouds were gone, any wildlife that may have inhabited the place had disappeared, and little by little, we saw everything fade away from sight. The only thing originally from that awful place that survived was Kolta, Ro's new petpet, and we weren't even sure if Kolta originated from Jhudora's world.

     Then everything went black.

     In our heads, we heard an awful screaming, then Jhudora's voice.

     "How dare you destroy my land? You will pay dearly!" she screeched.

     "Yeah, whatever," KK thought, and tossed her head.

     "No, really," Jhudora said.

     The tone of her voice was enough to make even the bravest of Neopets shudder in terror.

     "Perhaps you don't understand…I can create another key. I have the power…and there is only one way to take it away. You will never know it."

     "Give us a hint." Ro spoke up boldly.

     "Fine. In a land that does not exist, there is a thing that makes you sick."

     Suddenly, we heard Jhudora gasp. It was clear she had just given away the whole thing.

     "So…KK, how about it?"

     KK must have read my mind, but unfortunately, she was still unable to use her magic.

     I sighed… "Ro? Night vision?"

     "Yo, right away."

     With help from Ro, KK was able to conjure up a poisonous jelly. Now we just had to figure out how to force it at Jhudora.

     "Huh." I thought out loud.

     Nina grinned happily.

     "I think I have an idea!" she exclaimed, and we immediately gave her our full attention.

     "What if we challenged her to some kind of competition? You know, if we win, she eats the jelly, and if she wins, then we promise to stay in her land forever."

     "I dunno, it, like, sounds totally risky…"

     "It's a risk we'll have to take," I said firmly. "Hey, Jhudora! We're about to make you an offer that you can't refuse."

     "Yo, wait! We dunno what type of competition!"

     "Why not a two out of three? You know, we each pick one and then we decide on one together. The person who wins two of the competitions wins." Blue could be quite smart sometimes.

     "Yeah, but who gets to choose first?" I asked, perplexed.

     "Um," Kakabusa piped up, "maybe Jhudora should, like, go first because she, like, is kind of the domination-domino-um, higher power here."

     "You mean 'dominating power'," Nina said smugly.

     "So, we're all agreed?"

     Everyone said yes, and we quickly explained the situation to Jhudora. She frowned grumpily, but at long last agreed to the plan.

     Her first challenge was quickly made obvious, but was an odd choice. There were two glasses of water on a table that had suddenly appeared. One of them, she explained, had poison in it. Our task was to try and find out which glass had poison in it, and then we would each drink one. Me the one I chose, and her, the one I did not.

     I started talking to myself quickly.

     "Well, she might have put it in her glass knowing that I might suspect that she would not put it in her own, so she would not risk having to drink it. But then again, she is pretty intelligent, so she might have put it in hers thinking that I would then do what I just thought, and not thought any further. Of course, if she had put it in her own, then-huh. There are only two logical answers to this puzzle: A) she poisoned both glasses or B) she poisoned neither. But which one should I choose? I would like to assume it's B, but what if it's A? And in that case, how would she be able to resist the effects of the poison? Maybe it's best if I choose A, for safety's sake. But if I did, how would I be able to make it look like I drank it when I actually did not? Maybe I could but it in my mouth, but not swallow it…no. What if…no, that wouldn't work. Maybe, I'll just lift it up but not open my lips. Yes, that is what I will do."

     After a whole lot of pure speculation, I moved swiftly towards the table. Lifting the glass closest to me, I put it up to my lips and made as if I had swallowed some. Jhudora cackled gleefully, lifted her glass and took a sip.

     She stared at me expectantly, and then frowned. "Why are you not growing extra arms?" she demanded.

     I smiled thinly at her. "I did not actually drink anything."

     "Cheater!" She screeched, "The whole idea was for you to drink one of them and mutate horribly! You have to drink! And after all that time building up an immunity to the poison!"

     "I don't think so," I said firmly, "I think you're the cheater. You were not allowed to poison both glasses-and having an immunity to the poison is also cheating."

     Hmm, I thought, in building up immunity to one type of poison that must have left her defenceless to another type, like the kind from a poisonous jelly.

     "Fine!" she screeched. "You win!"

     My pets and I all celebrated, and then began debating what the next contest would be.

     KK was the one who came up with the idea.

     "Like, what about a race? I could totally like, beat her!"

     "Good idea," I said.

     And so the next contest was to be a race in the sky. Jhudora and KK would both fly, and whoever reached the finish line first would win.

     It was very exciting watching.

     "Ooh! I think she's winning!" Blue cried.

     "Yo, go KK!" Ro cheered.

     "Oh, great, now she is failing to fly quicker than Jhudora." Nina said disappointedly.

     "Wait! She's pulling ahead!" I cried.

     "I think she's winning! She is!" Blue said excitedly.

     "Yo, not anymore, dude."

     We all watched anxiously as the race continued. KK was straining, her wings reaching and flapping as fast as they could. Jhudora was winning, but only by a bit. KK began galloping in midair, and slowly began closing the gap. Before too long, though, she was too tired. Eventually, the race was over.

     In the end, Jhudora had won by a wing length. KK was devastated.

     "I'm, like, totally sorry!" she sobbed.

     "It's okay, KK, remember, she had an advantage-she has much larger wings than you." I tried to comfort her.

     "I guess…" She sniffed.

     "Yeah, and remember, we still have one contest left!" put in Blue.

     "Yeah…" KK gave a tiny, quavering smile.

     I strode up to Jhudora, who was strutting proudly in front of us.

     "The next contest is to be a scavenger hunt," I stated boldly.

     "Fine." Jhudora grinned cruelly, "Here is a list of the items. You have 2 minutes to find them. If you come back within 2 minutes, you win. If you come back after 2 minutes, I win." She handed me a list.

     My Neopets and I studied the list. The items on it were a poisonous lollypop, a lime jelly, a dung chair, a sky blue lipstick and a pink Poogle toy.

     "The scavenger hunt starts…now!" she shouted.

     My Neopets and I scampered off in different directions, having memorized the list.

     I ran quickly, stumbling in the dark before tripping over a pink Poogle toy. I scooped it up and quickly ran back.

     Blue ran with amazing speed, her feet barely leaving the ground. At one point she stepped on a sky blue lipstick. Picking it up in her mouth, she scampered back to where I was waiting by Jhudora.

     KK flew through the air, her wings still aching. She smacked into the smelly back of a dung chair, and disgustedly began pushing it back.

     Nina wandered through the darkness systematically, and eventually her dragging tail fin ran over the poisonous lollypop. Flipping it onto the back of her tail, she turned around and headed towards us.

     Ro desperately ran as fast as she could, then the end of her ears touched something. Turning around, she saw it was a lime jelly. Carrying it in her mouth, she resisted the urge to eat it.

     We all raced towards Jhudora. When we all reached her, she snarled at us and said angrily, "1 minute, 59 seconds."

     We were all doubled over, panting, but grinning. We knew we had won.

     Jhudora sulkily reached for the poisonous jelly, and then began to nibble at it half-heartedly. As soon as she finished eating it, the darkness lit up, and we were returned to Neopia Central.

     * * * * *

     Back at the Neohome, we were just finishing the story we had began a long time ago.

     "And finally, Jhudora was defeated at last, and Stacie and I could go back to our imagination games. But they were never the same after the adventure we had shared together."

     I gently closed the book, and placed it back on the shelf. I looked at my Neopets, and saw that they were asleep. I smiled softly, and one by one, carried them up to their beds.

     The next day was sunny and beautiful.

     In the kitchen, I looked happily at my Neopets lists. They had many items on them. As I looked at them, I remembered our adventure that had ended only yesterday.

     Now all I could hope for would be that Nina's next brilliant idea, or the next big thing we did with food, or even the next story we read, would not lead us into an enormous adventure like the one we just had. Actually, that might not be such a bad thing.

     Just then, Nina burst into the kitchen where I was busy staring fondly at the lists my Neopets had put together.

     "Mom!" she shouted.

     I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand. It was about to happen again. Typical.

The End