Melodramatic Stories and Tales: The Final Chapter

     "Oh, very uber-schön, but let's see if the 8th can top the 7th."

     It was hot and humid at number 63994. A few feeble rays of sunshine had found their way through the thick leaves of the upper canopy of the rainforest, illuminating the ecosystem, which was positively bursting with excitement.

     "That one's got my vote."

     "I'm still partial to the 23rd."

     "But we all agreed on the 19th?"

     "I can't believe I'm wasting my life debating over which panoramic on a day-by-day calendar is the most emotionally stimulating."

     A red Eyrie flopped over on his side in front of a roaring fire and sighed loudly and genuinely. A mutant Kacheek and a white Aisha followed him over to the floor to offer their words of comfort.

     "Come now, Jon," said the white Aisha, whose name was Yoko.

     The mutant Kacheek, Gioacchino, cleared his throat. "Now Jon, it may seem a bit tedious, but once we find the perfect province, when can casually inform Erika that we have had our suitcases packed for three and a half months and we are not staying in this suburbian Gehenna anymore."

     "Did somebody say my name?"

     The three creatures looked up quickly. A young girl with brown hair had appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a cooking apron smeared with enough food to feed a family of four and carrying a large bowl filled with a gelatinous substance that should not, under any circumstances, have been the color that it was presently.

     "Trying to make peace with the neighbors again, I see?" Jon said huffily.

     "Trying?" Erika giggled. "They love me already. I'm just... erm..."

     "Bribing him to remove the restraint order, more likely..."

     Erika's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Let's change the subject." She walked into the den, setting her bowl down on an end table and picked up a thick forest green book. "How about a nice story from the Neopedia?"

     "Hooray!" cheered Jon and Yoko, rushing in behind her.

     "Wait! Hey!" Gioacchino cried. "What about the rainforest? Suburbia? Suitcases? Oh, forget it..." he grumbled, slouching in behind his siblings.

     "Sorry, Gee-Gee, we just can't break our classical conditioning as well as you can," Yoko admitted.

     "Yeah, I still salivate every time I hear Carol of the Bells," Jon said.

     Erika flipped through the book quickly with her eyes closed, stopping only when her finger was lodged (slightly painfully) between pages 798 and 799. "Jhuidah and the Cooking Pot," she announced.

     Yoko nudged Gioacchino in the ribcage. "Hey, at least it's kind of a warm-climated story. It'll take our minds off of that," she said, pointing outside. Heavy snowstorms had kept the family inside for the past three days.

     "I'll still be thinking of the 23rd," Gioacchino sighed.

     Erika cleared her throat and began to read. "The Jetsam emerged from the cool, blue water, out onto the sandy shore of Mystery Island. He was clutching a mound of spongy, pink... things."

     "Mmmm... unprocessed Usul meat..." Jon said, tipping his beak back and allowing himself to drool freely.

     "'I got some! I got some!' he shouted as he ran up the shore towards a red Zafara, who was lounging on a beach chair with a bag of oranges at her side. 'Look, Sheeli! I finally got some!'"

     "My little orphan Annie decoder pen finally came in the mail!"

     "Guess what Mr. Ha-Ha gave me!"

     Erika fixed Gioacchino and Jon with stern glares. They both chuckled. "It's only in the Christmas spirit, Erika."

     Sighing deeply, Erika continued her story. "Hearing the Jetsam's shouts, Sheeli rose up from her chair and looked in her friend's direction. As she saw the pounds of coral between his fins, a broad grin stretched over her face. 'That's great, Wilven!' she said, picking up her bag of oranges from the sand. 'Now that we've got all we need, we can finally get those orange coral shelves for our Neohome!' "

     "Bad feng shui alert! Bad feng shui alert!" cried Yoko.

     "Get some wind chimes and a hammer, Wilven, you're going to be building all night. Just hope and pray that she won't want those shelves facing a door, or else you might as well kiss your valuables and sense of self-worth goodbye."

     "'Let's go see the Island Faerie now!' Wilven said. Sheeli nodded in agreement. The two excited Neopets hurried through the dense Mystery Island trees, until they reached a clearing in the jungle. This was their destination: the home of Jhuidah, the famous Island Faerie."

     "Also the last frontier," Gioacchino said dramatically.

     "Previously their final destination, but Sheeli had a craving for waffles on the road," Yoko added.

     "As they approached, they saw her hunched over the enormous Cooking Pot, busily stirring the frothy, bubbling liquid inside."

     "Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn, and cauldron bubble," Gioacchino cackled.

     Yoko reached over Gioacchino's shoulders and gave him a hard thump on the top of the head. "That," she explained. "is for being cliché. The next time I hear an unnecessary cliché phrase pop out of your little Kacheek mouth, I'll be forced to... to... tie you to a stake and slowly dip you into a vat of acidic and radioactive liquid."

     "What a MARVELous cliché that was, Yoko," Jon commented, grinning. "I think you should thump yourself now, just to be fair."

     Erika rolled her eyes in annoyance. "No one is going to be thumped or dumped. Now may I continue?"

     Her three pets nodded meekly.

     "Good," she said. Flipping a page, she began to read again. "'Welcome, strangers!' she said, looking up from her work. 'Do you seek the use of my magical Cooking Pot, or have you come to rest in my quiet home?'"

     "Because fo' one Neopoint, joo get a cuppa 'ot chocolate, and FO five Neopoints, joo get a complimentary breakfast an' a toofbrush in the color of your choice," Gioacchino said.

      ""Yep!" Wilven said, nearly tripping over his own fins as he rushed towards the giant pot. He looked at the Zafara as they both held up the items they needed to create orange coral shelves: a bag of oranges and some coral."

     "You see... this is why I dislike Jhuidah so much... doesn't really follow the atomic theory much, does she? I mean the octet rule CLEARLY states that..."

     But Gioacchino's ramblings were drowned out by an annoyed, "Sssshh!" from Yoko.

     "'This is all we need, ri--'"

     "Oh, of course! Ignore this man behind the curtain who is going to casually slip me a finished orange coral shelf because even after five hundred some years on the job, I still have yet to come with the grips with the fact that the chemical composition of oranges and coral could never combine to make a fine set of shelves. Basically, if you have your carbon chain..."

     "Gioacchino," Jon interrupted, "the next time we visit the Alien Aisha Vending Machine, I do not want to feel obligated to tip it over on you and leave you there to slowly waste away unless the scorpions there take pity on you."

     "'Wilven, be quiet!' Sheeli whispered, nudging the Jetsam with her elbow. 'Yes, Miss Jhuidah, we're ready.'"

     "So if you're lonely, you know I'm here waiting for you... I'm just a crosshair, I'm just a short way from you... and if you leave me, you leave me broken, shattered alive..." sang Jon.

     "Jon?" Gioacchino said.

     "Yes?"

     "The obligation is mutual."

     "'Very well,' the faerie said, motioning towards the gigantic pot sitting in front of her. The Zafara threw all her oranges into the huge cauldron (each landing in the liquid with a considerably loud SPLOOSH!), followed by Wilven's pink coral."

     "It oxidizes easily...! Oh, never mind."

     "'Let us see if your gifts are suitable for the Great Pango Pango!'"

     "Let me guess, you picked out yet another colorful box with a crank that I'm expected to turn and turn until OH! Big shock, a jack pops out and you laugh and the kids laugh and the dog laughs and I die a little inside. " Jon said in his best Pango Pango impression.

     "'Erm... the Great Pango Pango?' Wilven asked, laughing uneasily. The two Neopets looked apprehensively at one another, and then at Jhuidah."

     "Dude, gimme some of your tots," Jon said, squinting his eyes.

     Yoko and Gioacchino stared at their brother.

     "What? The mood was getting a little too intense. You know how I hate apprehension. Almost as much as Yoko hates apathy," he explained.

     Yoko shuddered. "Apathy is scary."

     "But anyway," Gioacchino interrupted, "back to practicing my dance moves- I mean, back to the story..."

     "Suddenly, Jhudiah's eyes blazed red, and her body slowly lifted off the floor."

     "I think it is a sign that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images, and when we kiss they're perfectly aligned," sang Jon softly.

     "Wilven and Sheeli looked on in fear as the pot that they'd deposited their items in began to uncontrollably spew thick green liquid from its mouth, causing the entire area to be soaked in an emerald-coloured froth."

     "We're all sinking like stones, all that we've fought for, all these places we've grown, all of us are done for," Jon sang to himself.

     "The two looked up past the entranced Faerie, and noticed that a shadow was overtaking the clearing. Wilven pointed a trembling fin towards what looked to be like a mountain rising right behind Jhuidah. "

     "Grawp?" asked Yoko.

     "No, it's probably just the ending rolling in," Gioacchino yawned. "And taking into consideration some of the other endings we've heard, there will be some broken friendships, battered spirits, and some unanswered questions we'll be expected to ponder over. You know, Cormier all over."

     "It was no mountain -- it was the Great Pango Pango."

     "Gee-Gee was WRONG!" gasped Jon and Yoko in unison.

     "I... I... I think I'm going to have a cardiac arrest!" cried out Gioacchino.

     "The mammoth being rose slowly from a deeper part of the jungle, until he'd stood in all his glory..."

     "I am teh mighty Colossus! Ph34r me, mortal and my UBER-1337 skillz! And all that jazz that people with pasty skin and highly-dialated eyes exclaim when they reach level seven," Jon said.

     "...and roared. His thunderous bellow shook the mountains, making waves rumble on the waters and stirring the lava that boiled beneath the island... The Great One's roar also made the two Neopians more terrified than they'd ever been before. "

     "More terrified than when they realized who would decide who would replace Renquist?"

     "More terrified than the day that they accepted a ride from Billy Joel next door?"

     "More terrified than the day they tried Erika's chicken cordon bleu?"

     Erika growled. "There's a thin red line that you three love to tap dance on, occasionally put a toe over... but that was too far. And to think that I was going to let you experience my made-from-scratch apple crisp tonight."

     "Oh... darn," Gioacchino said, carefully avoiding his siblings' eyes.

     "'AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!' the two screamed, gazing up at the titanic figure. They turned towards the way they came, running away faster than you could say "Tigersquash"."

     "They bravely ran away, bravely ran away, away. When danger reared its ugly head, they bravely turned their tales and fled. Yes, bravely did they turn about, and gallantly did they chicken out, swiftly taking to their feet, they beat a very brave retreat..." sang the three in unison.

     "Nearby, in one of the native villages, two young Kougras sat playing with a Cybunny ball."

     "It can be yours if the price is right!" said Yoko in a singsong voice.

     "Their game, however, was soon interrupted by two ear-splittingly loud screams, which were then followed by two sprinting Neopians who, unsurprisingly enough, were screaming ear-splittingly loud."

     "It's unsurprising how obvious that little tidbit of information was," Jon grumbled.

     "I feel... insulted... and unclean..." Gioacchino grimaced.

     "'Cooking Pot?' one Kougra asked contentedly, glancing at the other.

     "Oh yeah.""

     "I suppose we're meant to giggle at that, but frankly, I miss the broken friendships, battered spirits, and the unanswered-questions-we'll-be-expected-to-ponder-over endings. This deadpan humor ending makes me twitch," Gioacchino said.

     "But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln," Erika said, shutting the book. "How was the show?"

     "I liked it," Yoko said. "It was funny and it was about faeries. Happy things. Pretty things. How could you not like it, Gee-Gee?"

     "Well, you've pretty much said it for me, Yoko," said the mutant Kacheek.

     Jon turned to face his brother. "You don't like happy things and pretty things, Gee-Gee? Why did you like the 23rd so much then?"

     "What?" Erika asked. "What are you talking about?"

     "Oh, you misunderstood me, Jon," Gioacchino explained. "I'm very partial to the 23rd, I'll admit, but the 19th was my favorite overall. I even told you that my top five were the 19th, the 31st, the 5th, the 9th, and then the 23rd."

     "Wait," Yoko interjected. "What was the 5th? I don't remember it!"

     "It was the prairie. You didn't like it. You said amber waves of grain made you nauseous."

     "Right."

     "What are you guys TALKING about?!"

     "Oh, if only we could have an eclectic mix of the 19th, 8th, and the 21st," Jon sighed. "Then we could all be happy."

     "Hold on," Erika said, putting her hand over Jon's beak. "What are you talking about?"

     "Oh, just life in general. Quantum physics. Entropy. The theory of relativity. You know, same old, same old," Gioacchino mentioned.

     "Cute," Erika remarked sarcastically. "Really, is this about the story?"

     Gioacchino licked his lips as he thought of a response. He smiled suddenly. "Just think of it as an ending."

     "What?"

     "Well, it's one of those unanswered-questions-we'll-be-expected-to-ponder-over endings, isn't it?" he said.

     Erika's mouth opened as if to retort back harshly, but suddenly her face broke out into a wide smile. "It kind of is," she mused, "and it's definitely Cormier all over."

THE END

Author's Notes: I hope you've enjoyed my little melodramas, because they're stopping for a while. Thanks to anybody who has taken time out of their lives to read, review, or respond to any of my stories; you kept me writing. Can you smell the love?