The Thing That Makes Us Brave

     “Hey there!” Jonah said, making his way toward the kid Aisha. “Do you happen to know Tiffany the Pilot, by any chance?”

     The Aisha lifted her head from her toy and raised an eyebrow at Jonah. “Happen to know her?” she said, with a high-pitched but decidedly serious voice. “I happen to be her, sonny. What’s it to you?”

     Jonah bobbed his head back and widened his eyes. “You’re Tiffany the Pilot?” he said. He scratched his head. “I’m sorry, it’s just…” He waved a hand in the air, emphasising the Aisha’s height and youth. “You look a little too young to be the pilot King Hagan was referring me to.”

     “Yeah?” the Aisha said with a grimace. “And you look a little too winged to be needing the help of a pilot for travelling.”

     Jonah sighed. “Just because I’m winged doesn’t mean I can travel extremely long distances,” he said, throwing his hands up. “Flying still wears me out as walking does. Non-winged Neopians, I swear.”

     “Whatever,” the Aisha said. She rolled her eyes and placed her toy in her overall front pocket. “Your money is just as good as any Neopian’s.” She stood up and extended an open palm in Jonah’s direction. “That’ll be 10,000 neopoints for the trip, please. A Cloud Paint Brush will also do.”

     Jonah’s jaw dropped. “But I haven’t even told you where I want to go yet!”

     “Doesn’t matter, I’m telepathic,” the Aisha said. She placed her fingers near her temples and circled the air between them slowly with closed eyes. “Through the powers of my mind, I sense that you want to go…” She opened an eye and looked at Jonah. “To Roo Island to play Deadly Dice, is that right?”

     Jonah scoffed. “No!” he said. “That’s not even close!”

     “I’m sorry, Sir, is this little girl bothering you?” a female voice said from behind Jonah. The Shoyru turned around and saw a Kyrii dressed in a pilot uniform, her hands on her hips and a backpack hanging from her left shoulder as she stared at the Aisha. “Sally, what did we say about pranking the visitors?”

     “Your name is Sally?” Jonah said, turning his gaze back towards the Aisha again. “I thought you were Tiffany.”

     “No, I’m Tiffany,” the pilot said. She threw her head back and sighed. “Sally, were you tricking this poor passenger into giving you free Neopoints again?”

     “I wasn’t actually going to take it!” Sally said with a chuckle. “I just wanted to play with him a little.”

     “Alright, you little rascal, I think you’ve done enough playing for one day,” Tiffany said, ruffling the Aisha’s fur and patting her shoulder. “Doesn’t your mom need you for the Aisha Day party this weekend?”

     Sally groaned and did a few stomps on the ground. “Ughh, fine,” she said. She began running away from the docks and into the city, and as she did, she looked back and waved at both the adults behind her. “Bye, Tiffany! Bye, blue Shoyru!”

     Jonah and Tiffany both waved back, and once Sally was no longer in sight, Jonah turned to Tiffany. “Well, that was strange.”

     Tiffany shrugged. “She’s a strange kid.” She folded her arms and leaned her hip against the piling Sally had just been sitting on. “So what are you looking for me for, stranger? A trip to Faerieland? Shenkuu? Jelly World? Because I’m telling you right now, only one of those lands exists.” She chuckled. “I kid, I kid.”

     “No, none of those places,” Jonah said. “And I’m Jonah, by the way. King Hagan sent me here. He… told me you’d understand what that meant when I told you.”

     Tiffany smiled as she unzipped her backpack and pulled out a tumbler from inside it. “Well, I do owe King Hagan a favour, so I guess it’s this one,” she said, opening the lid of her tumbler. “What’s your problem?”

     “I need to head to the Haunted Woods.”

     Tiffany spat her drink out.

     Jonah stared at her with rounded eyes. “Was it what I just said?”

     “No, it’s because this drink tastes disgusting,” Tiffany said, wiping her lips with her jacket sleeve. “Yes, it’s because of what you just said! Nobody willingly goes to the Haunted Woods unless they’re desperate or enjoy being scarred for life. You must have some problem that you’ve got in your hands if you want me to fly you there.”

     “I do,” Jonah said with a shrug. “I need to know something that only the Brain Tree knows. And yeah, trust me, the name Brain Tree is enough to give me the goosebumps, but… it’s for my best friend.”

     Tiffany tilted her head back. She looked confused at first, but then understanding grew on her face as she nodded and smiled at Jonah. “Well, I can respect a good friend,” she said. She put both her backpack sleeves on and began walking toward the plane, and Jonah began following her.

     “Alright, Jonah the Shoyru, you’re on,” she continued. “Just gotta prep the plane up for a few minutes, and after that, we’re good to go.” She crouched down and pulled a toolbox from underneath the plane, and after she did so, she turned to look at Jonah. “Maybe grab a snack first while I do so.”

     “Oh, I already did,” Jonah said. “The King gave me a voucher for Brightvale Fruits.”

     “He did?!” Tiffany said with an ear-to-ear smile on her face. “Tell me you had the Frubix Cube on Toast!”

     “Yeah, I did,” Jonah said, furrowing his eyebrows. He laughed. “Wow, Brightvale citizens really like Frubix Cube on Toast.”

     ******

     “So, how’d you become a pilot?”

     The question came less from Jonah’s curiosity about Tiffany and more from his need to fill in the awkward silence between them, but Tiffany didn’t need to know that. The two had been in the air for ten minutes now, and while Jonah was first amazed and a little frightened at how high up they were, higher than his own wings had ever taken him, the appeal was fading by the minute, and he didn’t know how long it would take to reach their destination.

     “Oh, my dad was a pilot,” Tiffany said, her hands gripped on the steering wheel, and her gaze never leaving the front of the plane. “When I was growing up, he would take me on rides around Neopia. Faerieland was always my favourite place to go, which is why I’ve got a Feloreena as a Petpet.”

     “Oh, that’s cool,” Jonah said with a smile. “Did you get one at Faerieland Petpets?”

     “I sure did,” Tiffany said. “What about you, Jonah? You’ve got a Petpet?”

     “No,” Jonah said. “But Alex and I used to always hang out at Ye Olde Petpets when we were younger. I’ve been thinking about getting one now that I’m older, but I don’t even have a source of income yet.”

     “Well, you know what they say. If you want a true friend as an adult, you get a Petpet.” For a quick second, she turned to face Jonah and smiled at him, then she returned her gaze to the sky in front of them. As Jonah faced that way as well, both of them saw that the Haunted Woods were in clear view now, though the buildings of the city itself were barely visible through the dark clouds that covered the place. Still, what little Jonah saw of it — its frightening trees and menacing aura — gave the Shoyru the heebie-jeebies.

     “Hey, here’s an aeroplane joke for you,” Tiffany said. “What happens when you wear a watch on a plane?”

     “What happens?”

     “Time flies!” Tiffany said with a cackle. Jonah laughed along politely, and Tiffany snickered at him, not buying his laugh at all. “Corny joke, I know, but I’m just trying to lighten the mood. We’re flying to the Haunted Woods, after all.”

     “Right, the Haunted Woods,” Jonah said. He looked back at the Woods that they were flying nearer and nearer towards, then back at Tiffany. “That’s just, like… branding, right? Like how Roo Island isn’t just populated by Blumaroos? The place isn’t actually as scary as it sounds, right?”

     “I wouldn’t know,” Tiffany said with a shrug. “I’ve never been.”

     Jonah bobbed his head back. “You haven’t?”

     “I mean, I’ve flown there from time to time for passengers,” Tiffany said. “But I’ve yet to actually step foot on the place. I’ve heard a lot of stories from my passengers, though. Specifically, about the Brain Tree.”

     Jonah gritted his teeth. “Are they stories about how the Brain Tree isn’t scary at all and is actually super nice?”

     “Yeah, and the Snowager would also actually make a good petpet,” Tiffany said with a chuckle. “No, the Brain Tree rewards you if you give it knowledge. I guess he and King Hagan have that in common.”

     “Ugh, again?” Jonah leaned back into his seat and groaned. “I’m not going to know anything the Brain Tree wants to know.”

     “That’s where the Esophagor comes in,” Tiffany said. “When the Brain Tree asks his question, he’ll give you time to find out the right answer. Apparently, the Esophagor usually knows what this answer is, so I’d go looking for him first after the Brain Tree asks me something I don’t know.”

     “The Esophagor?” Jonah said with a scoff. “Wonderful, sounds like another friendly name.”

     Tiffany laughed. “Well, better suck up all that fear for now,” she said. “It’s time for us to enter the dreaded forest. Ready for us to make a landing?”

     Jonah took a deep breath. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

     “Here we go!” Tiffany pressed a pedal down and twisted the steering wheel, and the plane tilted and started heading downwards. The closer they got to the Haunted Woods, the darker and darker the sky got, even though the two of them had been flying in the clearest blue just a few seconds ago.

     As the plane went further down, the faster it went, shaking and shaking until finally Jonah felt the the wheels hitting the ground and the plane slowing down, until it finally came to a halt.

     “Phew,” Jonah said. Tiffany gave him a look, and Jonah added, “Not like, I was worried, phew. More like, we finally made it, phew.”

     “Whatever you say, Jonah.” Tiffany chuckled.

     Jonah looked around. The Haunted Woods lived up to its name, alright. While he could see in the distance a city filled with towers, castles, and graveyards, where Tiffany actually landed was in the middle of a chilling forest, where the dark clouds above made the place seem like it was permanently at night.

     As Jonah flew out of the plane and unto the soil of the Haunted Woods, he noticed Tiffany had stayed glued to the pilot’s seat. “Still no plans to step foot in this place, huh?”

     “Nope,” Tiffany said, shaking her head. She winked at Jonah. “I’ll be back here at exactly 7 pm. That should be enough time for you to complete your mission, right?”

     ” Yeah, sure.” ‘If I complete it, Jonah said in his head.

     “And Jonah,” Tiffany said, looking at him with the same sympathetic eyes King Hagan had given him just this morning. “Good luck, alright? You’re a good friend for doing this.”

     Jonah nodded. “Thank you.”

     “If you get scared,” Tiffany said, “always remember: The thing that makes us brave is a reason to be. And I think you have a pretty good reason to be brave.”

     Jonah smiled back in response, and then watched as Tiffany turned up the plane’s engine and flew up, up, and away, up the clouds and into the sky of Neopia.

     Once she was fully gone, Jonah took a good look around at his surroundings.

     He was in the Haunted Woods, alright.

     And he could waste no time. He stared straight ahead and began walking down the road that led to the city. No matter how scared he was, he had to start finding where the Brain Tree was.

To be continued…