Secret Worries of the Tooth Faerie

      "Want to win 25,000 NPs? All you have to do is find the Tooth Faerie, ask her a few questions, take a picture, and bring it to us at the Neopian Times!"

     I could use the extra Neopoints to buy lab map pieces, I thought to myself. It was decided, well, actually I decided it. I was going to find the Tooth Faerie, take a picture, and have an interview.

     I walked home happily thinking of what happen if I collected all the lab map pieces. It could turn me into a rare neopet like a Poogle or Cybunny! As I opened the door to my two story NeoHome, my older brother Gruslen, a fire Kougra, ran to greet me.

     "Did you bring me my poison snowball?" Grulsen asked me.

     "Uh, I forgot. I'll bring it to you tomorrow," I quickly said as I flew up the stairs.

     "Why don't you fly quickly? Our owner didn't paint you a faerie Kougra just for nothing you know!" Gruslen yelled at me as I rushed into my room.

     "Older brothers," I muttered to myself. I grabbed my purple backpack from my room. I would need it for my adventure to find that swift faerie. I packed my fire faerie eraser, a notepad, a pen, some Neopoints in case, and my camera. I flew to my brother quickly. I didn't want to waste time so I told him that I was leaving for a special reason and that if anyone asks where I went, tell them I went to a friend's house.

     "What's in it for me?" Gruslen asked curiously.

     "How about 1,000 NPs, and a very cool present for next Christmas?" I asked hoping that it would be enough for my greedy brother.

     "Throw in two poison snowballs and you're at a friend's house," he said.

     "Greedyguts," I said and flew out the door.

     "Where should I start?" I muttered to myself as I walked in Neopia Central. Faerieland would be my first place to go since the Tooth Faerie was a faerie obviously, but I decided not to.

     "Where else could she be?" I asked myself. Since I was a very stubborn neopet, I decided to go with my first instinct.

     "Faerieland, here I come!" I cried as I jumped off the group and flew straight to my destination.

     After about 15 minutes of flying, I was lost.

     "You should have brought a map!" I criticized myself. I was flying over water, so I couldn't ask anyone for directions. My wings were aching because I flew long with a heavy load on my shoulders. I needed a place to stop and rest. After searching for two minutes, I finally found a large rock that I could rest on. As soon as my feet touched the ground, I collapsed.

     "Are you alright?" A voice behind my questioned.

     I turned around ready to fly away or attack if it was the pant devil or someone else evil. Instead of someone trying to steal my belongs, I was looking into the face of a kind water faerie trying to help me.

     "Oh, hi there," I said relaxing.

     "Are you alright?" The water faerie repeated her question.

     "I think so. My wings just hurt. I'm also lost. Could you help me?" I asked.

     "Sure. My name is Taya," Taya said.

     "Pouncer," I said my name to her.

     "You're looking for Faerieland right?" Taya questioned.

     I nodded.

     "Good thing you can fly or else you wouldn't reach it. Anyways, you go north for about five minutes until you're under Faerieland. Then you fly 10,000 feet up. But, I may warn you about the dangers in the water under Faerieland. There are some ferocious Jetsams. They will attack you for no purpose. Be ready for them. They are dangerous, very quick and smart. If they catch you, you'll never see daylight again," Taya explained before disappearing into the waves.

     "Oh great! I have to fly so much, and avoid Jetsams at the same time! If I knew better, I wouldn't have started searching for the Tooth Faerie, but now I have no choice," I said out loud my myself. I sighed before I started to fly again north.

     I seemed like I flew for hours until I reached the spot underneath Faerieland. Forgetting about the water faeries warning about the Jetsams, I dove into the water for a quick swim to wake me up. Then something grabbed my tail, and before I knew it, I was being pulled underneath the waves.

     I turned around and came face to face with a green jetsam accompanied by five or six other ones.

     Oh boy! I should have listened to the water faerie, I thought to myself. I had to escape before I ran out of air. I could tell my cheeks were turning blue. With a great push of my wings I tried to escape, but wet wings don't help a lot, but I did manage to break out of the jetsam's grasp. The jetsam turned around staring at me with evil eyes. I then realized I had run out of air. I swam as fast as I could up to the surface, my life depending on it. The Jetsams followed behind me swiftly. Since I was swimming for my life, I swam so fast I could have won a medal. Too bad no one would be here to give it to me. With a final push, I reached the surface and jumped out of the water into the air. Flying higher, I saw the Jetsams jumping out of the water, with their jaws open wide trying to bite me. Their teeth were huge! All gleaming white. I got scared stiff and flew as fast as I could higher and higher. As I flew higher, I realized I reached Faerieland at last! I landed on the soft cloud and wandered around looking for some help to where might the Tooth Faerie be located.

     "Excuse me," I said to a faerie Draik.

     "Yes?" she replied.

     "Do you know where the Tooth Faerie might be?" I asked.

     "Why dear, don't you know that no one can know where the Tooth Faerie is because she is always collecting teeth around Neopia," the Draik explained.

     "Doesn't she ever take a break?" I fired another question.

     "Only when there are no teeth to collect," the Draik said and went on her way.

     "Oh great! I came all the way to Faerieland for nothing!" I cried to myself. What could I do? I thought to myself. I kept remembering what the Draik said as I walked around Faerieland aimlessly:

     "…She is always collecting teeth around Neopia"

     "That's it!" I cried as I jumped into the air.

     That night, I was snuggling in bed at the faerie cloud racers palace. They offered me a place to stay. Also that night, I pulled out a tooth. It was very hard. I tried so many tricks. One trick, I tied one end of a string to a door handle, and the other end to my tooth and slammed the door, but it wouldn't come out. It was the oldest trick in the book. Walking back to the room I was sleeping in, I tripped over my own feet and my tooth came out.

     "Wow. Being a klutz surely can come in handy sometimes," I muttered to myself in amaze.

     I placed my tooth underneath my pillow, and decided to stay awake to wait for the Tooth Faerie to come.

     That night, it wasn't until 12:00 that something quickly flew into my room and landed on the floor. The site was breathtaking. She looked beautiful with blue hair, blue pants with fur at the bottom, a blue shirt, and a short see-through lavender purple dress over her shirt and pants. As she quietly tried to pull out the tooth from underneath the pillow I sat straight up. She was taken off guard and jumped back, flying into the air.

     "Sorry to bug you but can I take a picture of you?" I asked quickly as I got up and pulled out my camera from my backpack. Thankfully it was waterproof so my journey under water with the Jetsams didn't affect the camera. Without her answer, I quickly shot a photo of her.

     "Hi," she said shyly.

     "Hey, can I ask you a few questions?" I asked her.

     "Sure I guess but make it quick because I have to collect more teeth," she said quickly glancing at a nearby clock on the wall.

     "Okay. What's your name? Where do you get all the Neopoints from to put underneath the pillow? How can you travel so fast around Neopia? Where do you live?" I asked her breathlessly.

     "Okay slow down. My name is Maria. I get all the Neopoints from playing lots of games like everyone else, and some other faeries help me collect the Neopoints. I travel so fast because I have so magic dust to make me fly faster, and I live in the clouds, higher than Faerieland where everything is built out of teeth," Maria said calmly.

     "Okay great. Now I can give this to the Neopian Times, the photo, and I'm rich!" I cried quietly, but when I looked at Maria, she went pale.

     "What's wrong?" I asked her.

     "Well, if you give that to the Neopian Times, nothing would be a secret about me and everyone would lose their interest in me. People would come see the place I live, would like the buy the magic dust that I make and use, and I wouldn't be special anymore. Small neopet babies wouldn't think me as "magical" anymore, I would lose my touch, and that's mostly it," Maria said. By the time she finished saying everything, she was in tears. I felt so sorry for her. I ran up to her and hugged her.

     "I'm sorry. I never knew about anything. All I mostly cared about was earning money and I got caught up to it," I explained.

     "It's okay. You can keep the picture and information, but please don't publish it," Maria said.

     "Don't worry, I won't," I promised. And with that, the Tooth Faerie disappeared.

     The next time I meet her, I have to ask how she does that, I thought to myself and went to sleep.

     The next morning I woke up and found myself in my own bed in my Neohome.

     "Strange. I don't remember flying back," I quietly said to myself.

      I came downstairs into the kitchen where I found Gruslen.

     "Don't worry, I'll get all your stuff today," I said to him before he could open his mouth. I looked past Gruslen where I saw the Tooth Faerie winking at me, and then she again disappeared. My mouth dropped open.

     "What stuff? Why is your mouth hanging wide open? You don't want to swallow a fly, do you?" Gruslen asked me strangely.

     "What about the friend's house thing?" I asked curiously with my mouth still hanging open.

     "What house thing?" Gruslen asked me eyeing me suspiciously.

     "Never mind," I said.

     I went back upstairs into my room. I went to the desk, and I took a pencil and paper out of my backpack. I decided I would write a story about my adventure, and keep it a memory. I would also have to take out the part of finding the Tooth Faerie. I wanted to warn other Neopets and owners of what greed can do to you. I decided to begin the story like this:

     I was walking on a beautiful summer day trying to find a poison snowball for my older brother when I saw an ad taped to the front of a store.

     I guess some things are just supposed to be kept secret….

The End