Wish for Authority

      The ten-year-old Purple Kougra groaned and trudged upstairs, away from the delicious breakfast she had been about to have.

      "And RoyGBiv! You have to do the dishes when everyone's finished!"

      The eleven-year-old Rainbow Wocky groaned as well, and began taking the dishes of everyone who had finished their Tigerbuggle Fruit Pancakes. He dumped them in the sink and waited for his hungry sister to come back and finish eating.

      "Oh, I just remembered!" the third pet at the table, a Faerie Meerca in her early teen years named Emiliya, squealed. "I must fold and put away the laundry so we will have more clothes!" She happily bounced off.

      RoyGBiv, or Roy as most called him, groaned. How could his Meerca sister love doing chores? It seemed it seemed as if that was all he and Zeppy did. It seemed to the two that Emiliya had the same chores, but was let off easy because they took less time, and so she actually had a social life.

      Their owner made them juggle school, chores, homework, friends, and chilling out all in a single day. Five things. Why couldn't the blonde, green-eyed boy named Seamus that was their owner give them a break? It seemed like they did all the work while he did the cooking and shopping.

      "Well, I have to go buy some more things for lunch, dinner, and the rest of the week," Seamus said. "Today we don't have much left, so like I said, I want to get some more." He grabbed his jacket, a bunch of Neopoints, and ran off.

      Zeppy slowly came back downstairs to finish her breakfast. It didn't seem so good, due to the tyranny of their owner, who had made it. It was always like this, but the tyranny had increased from making the beds once more.

      "I wish we would be the owners..." Roy sighed.

      "...and that we were in charge..." Zeppy continued.

      "...and that humans were our pets and we could give them a taste of their own medicine..."

      "...making them do all the chores while we sat back and did what we wanted..."

      Before Roy could continue the sentence, Fyora appeared before them. She smiled, her face showing that she knew something they didn't. "You two have been quite good, kind, and obedient children, listening to your owner against your will, and so I will grant your wish. If you ever have second thoughts on it, just come to Faerieland and find me. I'll be at the Hidden Tower." She raised her staff, the orb at the top glowing a light purple, and the Faerie Queen's magic took effect.

     ***

     Zeppy sleepily opened her yellow eyes. Wha? She just woke up? But she had just woken up from her bed less than an hour ago, and try as she might, did not remember going back to sleep. And then she remembered! The wish! She was in charge now!

      Zeppy quickly got out of bed and ran to the living room. She would have danced around, rejoicing in her new authority, had it not been for the three humans in front of her. There were two girls, both who appeared to be fifteen, and a boy. The girls appeared to be twins, both looking exactly alike with their long black hair and green eyes. The only noticeable difference was a scar going diagonally up one's forearm. The boy was about two, and had short red hair and brown eyes. "Who are you?"

      The girls looked confused, but the boy had preoccupied himself with a Bear.

      "Don't you remember us, Zeppy? We're your humans," one girl said, the one with the scar said.

      "Yeah... I'm Gabriella, she's Gina, and he's Bobby," the other, apparently Gabriella, said.

      Zeppy quickly made sense of all of this and nodded. "Oh... yeah. I was... a little confused for a moment. Yeah, confused. Anyway, could you jog my memory a little and tell me what our life is like? Specifically responsibilities?"

      "Uh... I have to make the beds..." Gina began.

      "...Except for Bobby's, he's learning to do that himself..." Gabriella continued.

      "...And you cook..."

      "...And I do the laundry with my sis..."

      "...ter! I've been telling you, sister! Ter! Let it stick in your head, and actually say the two-syllable word with two syllables! Oh right... " Gina said and waited for her glaring sister to continue their sentences.

      "...And Gabriella sets the table and does the dishes..."

      "...And of course, Bobby helps us clear the table before and after dinner..."

      "...And I clean my own room!" Bobby finished proudly.

      "Yeah, yeah, whatever, Bobs," Gabriella said. "We all do. Anyway, did you get that cool shiny silver jacket I saw in the window yesterday?"

      "Um... " Zeppy pulled herself out of her traded responsibilities celebration long enough to think. "...I just woke up."

      "Get me the jacket!" Gabriella screamed.

      "I will, I will!" the Kougra said quickly. "I just need to take a small morning rest, go for a walk, and then I'll come home with the jacket! Okay?"

      "No! Get me that jacket now!"

      "And I want to go to the Merry-Go-Round!" Bobby squealed.

      "But that's far away! This is Neopia Central!" Zeppy cried, beginning to panic a little. She looked out the window to check. Sure enough, it was Neopia Central. "Besides, I don't even know... remember what the jacket costs!"

      "Only 10,000 NP!" Gabriella yelled. "And Bobby, Gina, and I always get what we want! You're not the boss of us!"

      That's what the wish was supposed to make me, Zeppy thought. "I'll get it! I just need to go play games, borrow some Neopoints, and-"

      "Borrowing is hard; if you don't have the money, it's hard to pay back," Gina said. "Neopets should know that. They're like, the most dominant species... es." She ignored the last part of what she had said and rolled her eyes. "And when's breakfast? You're cooking it as always, remember?"

      "Uh-huh... " Zeppy tried to think of what to do now. She had just realized -she had no clue how to cook! "How about we just eat some already cooked stuff or things that don't need cooking?"

      "No," Gina said. "That stuff never tastes fresh."

      But if I cook, it won't taste good, Zeppy thought. And it probably won't probably not healthy or even edible. "Yeah... I'll go do what I said I would." She grabbed 200 Neopoints lying on the table. "And I'll come back with the jacket. And enough tickets to Roo Island." Before any of her humans could respond, she was out the door.

      She hoped this was as bad as the nagging, begging, and greed would get, and that it would be over by next week.

     ***

     But it didn't. And since she hadn't done what she said she would, having no clue how to shop or buy travel tickets, her humans still nagged her every five seconds or so. And all three humans kept insisting the cheap omelettes they were eating were beginning to not taste as good, and so they were eating less food, while the whole time complaining of hunger and Gina was threatening to call a "responsible authority figure who can get in touch with the Neopets who deal with human neglect." Even without this, Zeppy felt extremely strange about being in charge of people older than her, and a toddler who thought he was older.

      Desperately wanting to get away from them merely a week after this has started, Zeppy quickly decided to find Roy. "I have to go visit a friend."

      "Neopets don't have friends!" Gabriella yelled. "They're too busy tending to our every need to socialize!"

      At Gina's word "have," Zeppy had grabbed the address book and was out the door. She quickly searched through the book for "RoyGBiv." She quickly memorized her brother's address and ran off to it.

      When she reached the Neohome, there was the same yelling she had left. "Roy!" she yelled, banging on the door.

      "Zeppy."

      Zeppy stopped banging and turned around. It was Emiliya.

      "Do you know what's going on? Oh, wait, don't answer. I know."

      "You do?" Zeppy squeaked. Would her sister tell on her? Wait, who would she tell? Zeppy decided not to worry, but she still wondered how Emiliya could know about this. The door opened, but she ignored it.

      "Yes. You and Roy wished we were the owners and humans were pets. After I went to do the laundry before you made the wish, I heard what you were wishing, and I was in the kitchen doorway, trying to stop you when Fyora granted the wish."

      Zeppy finally turned to face the door to find an already tired Roy. "What's the matter? I thought you were a morning pet."

      "I am. It's them. I'm the owner of four very annoying, greedy, toddlers. And Emiliya, why would you try to stop us? It was the chores, and the lack of free time, and not being in charge. You know all about this, apparently."

      "First, it seems everyone who saw the wish being granted remembers. Second of all, don't you ever see things from Seamus's point of view?" Emiliya asked, as though it had been the obvious thing to do. "He cooks, we do the other things. He has responsibilities, too, you know. And he tries to make us happy, but you know, we have to do our share of work, too. If you didn't make the beds, well... okay, we can live without making the beds, but it looks nice. And I'd prefer to have clean, neat, put away clothes. And the dishes will pile up in the sink, creating a lack of clean and possibly usable dishes and an unusable sink. How do you think we came to be Rainbow, Purple, and Faerie? How do you think we've had all those liberties? How do you think we've come to love the good food we eat? I think I've made my point." She pondered for a moment, and then said, "And I have yet another point to make. If you replace the Fire Koi Plushie my eight-year-old human boy wants with the Faellie Zeppy wanted last year, does it sound at all like her? For reference, he's been saying, 'I wanna Fire Koi Plushie, please, please, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease? I'll be good, I promise! And I'll love it and take good care of it, pleeeease get me one!'"

      "...yeah, I guess," her siblings said in unison.

      "So what are we going to do about our humans and the wish and stuff?" Zeppy asked.

      Before Roy or Emiliya could answer, a girl with straight black hair that just reached her shoulders and blue eyes, who appeared to be about five, came up to Roy.

      Roy tried to keep his face calm and his voice stern, but it was obvious he was panicking. "No, Sally, you can't have a Faerie Paint Brush."

      "I don't care if they're too expensive!" Sally said, jumping up and down and stamping her feet repeatedly. "I want to fly! I want to have wings! I want to be the prettiest human in all of Neopia!"

      "Not only is it too expensive, but it doesn't work on humans!" Roy said. "It only works on Neopets! Now, bye!" He took Zeppy and Emiliya by their paws and ran off to the mostly empty park nearby.

      "So what are we going to do about our humans and the wish and stuff?" Zeppy repeated.

      Emiliya seemed to have an answer already. "Fyora said that if you ever had second thoughts on it, just go to the Hidden Tower. She'll fix it. Let's go. We have to take a Uni. I can fly there myself, and I'll meet you at the landing, but I can't carry one of you, let alone both." She spread her dark wings. "By the way, I'm only doing this to help you. My other human, Talia, is a sweet, innocent, loveable, obedient, mature teenager. My eight-year-old is pretty obedient, he just always wants toys. You got some of the worst, based on who I have and the neighboring humans I've met." She took off.

      "Let's go." Zeppy remembered the Neopoints clutched in her paw. "We'll use these. I hope none of our humans followed us." They ran, each got on a Uni, and flew to Faerieland.

     ***

     When they reached Faerieland, they quickly found Emiliya, and were about to go to the Hidden Tower when Emiliya pointed out a problem.

      "Do either of you even know where the Hidden Tower is?" she asked. "I don't. Seamus never found it. Why do you think he gave up?"

      "Well, we all heard the stuff in there is expensive..." Roy suggested.

      "Let's just ask someone," Emiliya said.

      Zeppy nodded in agreement and walked over to a Faerie Blumaroo hovering over a row of Faerie Petpets in the Faerieland Petpets Shop. "Excuse me, but do you know where the Hidden Tower is?"

      The Blumaroo nodded and whispered it into the Kougra's ear.

      Zeppy thanked the Blumaroo and led Emiliya and Roy to the Hidden Tower. But they didn't know until Roy crashed into it. They then felt around the walls, found the entrance, and ran to the top, where they found the Faerie Queen.

     ***

     "So you two have learned your lesson?" Fyora asked. "I know what you came here for." She knew they would do it; after all they would never have come to undo the wish had they not had the greediest humans known to Neopia.

      "I wish that everything was..."

      "...back to normal before we made the wish."

      Fyora smiled, and raised her staff, which glowed a light purple once more, and Roy, Emiliya, and Zeppy closed their eyes, awaiting the return home.

     ***

     When Roy opened his eyes, he expected himself to be lying down in bed as he had been last time, but instead found himself leaning on the kitchen counter Seamus left. He grinned as Zeppy came happily back down the stairs.

      "Emiliya, it's back to normal!" Zeppy cried.

      The Meerca looked very confused. "What are you talking about? There's been no big change just now, and nothing interesting happened in our lives recently!"

      Zeppy looked and Roy.

      "Um, we're just... kidding around, right, Zeppy?"

      'Yeah... what Roy said." Zeppy and Roy both smiled inwardly, happy that they knew this was the way it should be. It was nice to have someone else to throw their troubles on every single time.

The End