The Life and Times of Zauber_Chiara

      “So... what are you in for?” I asked the Lupe. He sadly turned to me and howled woefully.

      “My owner didn’t want me anymore! She already had four pets, but she wanted another one. She had always dreamed about getting a Cybunny. When Cybunnies were being released randomly, she quickly decided that she wanted that instead of any of her Neopets. She picked the oldest to be thrown into the pound. Me! It was like this. I was sitting in our Neohome’s living room, taking care of my little sister, a baby Xweetok, when I was suddenly put on a leash. I thought that we were going on a walk, so I was excited. I jumped up on her thanking her, but she quickly pushed me down and avoided making eye contact with me. So, I just kept skipping along, when I saw we were headed for the Pound. I fought to get back home, but she roughly scooped me up and handed me to that creepy Dr. Death!” he wailed. He sniffed and wiped his tears away. I shook my Yellow Acara head, feeling sorry for him. Suddenly, I heard footsteps approaching.

      “Oh, no! Dr. Death has come to put us to sleep!” the Lupe cried.

      “Shush!” I told him. We both darted to the edge of our cages and cowered, knowing that we couldn’t exactly hide very well in our tiny cages. I closed my eyes and waited for the worst.

      “Oh, poor Lupe!” a voice said. I peeked into the next cage and saw a boy looking at the Lupe I had just spoken to. He was poking his fingers through the bars and the Lupe cautiously edged forward and licked the fingers.

      “Uh, miss! I found my perfect pet!” the boy called to the pink Uni in charge of the Adoption Centre. I heard her hooves clop-clop against the tiled floor. She took a key from the desk next to her, and opened the cage the Lupe was in. The boy gently scooped him up.

      As they were walking down the hall past my cage, the Lupe panted happily and whispered to me, “Don’t worry! You’ll get adopted soon! Trust me!” When they closed the door, I felt so alone. I now had nobody to talk to about my woes. I sighed and lay down, exhausted from crying so much. I don’t know how I managed it, but I fell sound asleep.

      I woke up suddenly to what seemed like the wail of a siren. I leaped up and started to panic.

      “What is it?! What’s wrong?! Is that a fire siren? We have to get out of here!!!!” I yelled. An old Skeith turned to me and laughed at me.

      “Young Neopet. That is the Kadoatery. Those petpets wail at night all of the time!” he told me.

      “Why do they wail so horribly?” I asked, pulling my ears down so that I couldn’t hear them.

      “They’re afraid of the dark!” He laughed. He laughed so hard that he coughed and coughed.

      “Are you sick or something?” I asked.

      “A little. My owner couldn’t afford the Medicinal Soap for me, so she put me here. But that was long ago. You want to know why she was out of Neopoints? She had just bought the Secret Laboratory Map. In fact, I was once a Royal Aisha. Oooops! You better keep quiet, young Neopet. Someone is coming!” he told me. I once again braced myself for the worst. Then, a young girl (who was obviously a Newbie) crouched down in front of my cage to get a good look at me.

      “It’s going to be okay, little Neopet. It’s going to be okay,” she soothingly told me. She flipped back her long brown hair and dug out a few Neopoints.

      “My name is drama4ever_6. But you can call me Drama. Do you know why I’m here?” she asked me. I shook my head. “I’m here to adopt my first pet ever! I was going to create one, but then I realized that there were so many Neopets in the Pound that I didn’t have the heart to create one. I absolutely needed to adopt one! I didn’t start at the cages at the beginning at the alphabet. Enough of those get adopted every day. So, I came straight to the end! Do you want to come home with me?” she asked. I nodded my head eagerly. She called over the pink Uni, handed her a few Neopoints, and unlocked my cage and scooped me up.

      “Time to go home!” my new owner Drama said brightly. I skipped all of the way to my new home.

     “Zauber_Chiara! Look at what I bought!” my owner told me 3 weeks later. I looked up from my Neoflakes to see her holding a green potion bottle with wings coming off of it.

      “What IS that?” I asked, extremely curious.

      “Your new form!” she said.

      “I’m going to be a bottle?” I asked, extremely confused.

      “Not quite,” she told me. She popped the cork off of it, and I sniffed it. I immediately pictured a Green Uni flying through the clouds at a fast pace, giggling and brushing her mane.

      “I’m going to be a green Uni?!” I said.

      “Don’t you like it?” my owner asked, disappointed.

      “No, I don’t like it. I LOVE IT!!!!” I squealed. My owner perked up, filled with joy. She handed the bottle to me, which I grabbed greedily. I gulped it down with gusto. When I was finished, I didn’t feel any different. No tingly feeling or anything that I had imagined that I would feel after drinking a Green Uni Morphing Potion.

      “Maybe something went wrong. Maybe it was a dud,” I told Drama. She was grinning ear-to-ear with eyes sparkling.

      “A dud? Yeah, right. Zauber_Chiara, I think it is time that we went shopping to get you a mirror,” she told me, laughing. We went out to the Grooming Parlor to get one. When we returned with the new mirror, I looked into it. A green Uni with ocean blue eyes stared back at me. I happily leaped into the air. But instead of landing with a thump, I stayed in the air. I looked back to see my wings beating steadily. I landed awkwardly.

      “Wait, that’s not all!” Drama exclaimed. She held up a beginner’s Red Paint Brush. We rushed to the Rainbow Pool, and I jumped in, clutching the Paint Brush tightly in my hooves. I climbed out, looked into Drama’s mirror, and once again squealed with joy.

      That all happened long ago. I now feel as if I’ve been a Uni my whole life. And I’m perfectly happy with my life now, more than I’ve ever been.

The End