Rainstorm and a Wibreth

     'If my house was somewhere other than the Haunted Woods, this would be less scary,' the Lupe thought.

      Her door creaked open, and a semi-familiar green glow was behind it.

     "Mini? Are you awake still?" the figure whispered. It was Dometaltaei, the glowing Kougra that was babysitting her. The Kougra opened the door a little more. Now Mini could see the black ''Wock 'Till You Drop'' shirt she was wearing.

     "Yeah. I couldn't sleep when the storm started and-" Her reply was cut short when another rumble rolled through the house, making Mini jump.

     "Are you scared of the thunder?" Dometaltaei asked, coming into the room. A Kepru and and a Wibreth followed her in, and hopped up on the bed.

     "Kinda... it makes me feel even more small and useless..." She dropped off at the end.

     Dometaltaei's green glow filled most of the room, making it a bit more comforting, even as the storm continued full tilt.

     "Even more useless?" The Kougra sat on the end of the bed. "Are other pets making fun of you?"

     "They always call me 'Mini the complete disaster' or 'Disaster' instead of my full name of Miniature Disasters. And they say I'm not good at anything.

     Dom looked around the room, and saw tons of hand drawn pictures. "You can definitely draw though," she said, impressed. "You are almost better than Tivohk, my sister the Eyrie."

     "I can do math really well too! And I can write some really good poems. But no one ever looks at that because they think I'm weak because I'm small." Mini looked ashamed at this.

     "Don't think that because of what they say! I used to be bullied when I was little too." Dom seemed to chuckle at this.

     "They made fun of my name because it was really long and really hard to say. Some pets avoided me because of that. They called me 'Dummie-turn-tail' because I wasn't the battle pet, I wasn't the smart one, and I always seemed to be running. But I got better at sprinting so that whenever anyone made fun of me, I challenged them to a race. I had said that if they win, they can call me names. If I won, they couldn't anymore. So I raced them and won. After that, pets realized that I couldn't be pushed around anymore."

     "Really?" the Lupe said. "But I can't do that." Mini's voice was downcast.

     Looking at Mini's petpet snuggling up to the little Lupe, Dom looked at the petpet and had an idea.

     "How about I tell you a story that my owner used to tell me? We have to wait a while while until the storm passes and I can get Krashen to come fix the fuse box anyways," she said, sitting up crosslegged on the bed. Her Kepru ran over to sit on her lap.

     "Okay..." Mini replied, holding Wibreth close.

     "It's the story of a sick Shoyru's petpet, and the rest of her family's petpets."

     "This is gonna be good," Mini said to her Wibreth. Wibbi cheeped back.

     Dometaltaei started the story.

      "One day, a Shoyru named Cara got very sick. She couldn't leave the house, and had to stay in bed. Cara loved to read, though, and she soon ran out of books in the house. None of her siblings could get to the book store to get her new ones, because the sickness might spread. All of the petpets saw how sad their owners were, and wanted to do something about it.

      "One petpet, a Gruslen, decided that they should all go into Neopia Central with some Neopoints and buy a book. A Bika and Niptor who belonged to Cara's siblings agreed with the Gruslen. So the Bika went inside and came out with three thousand neopoints.

      "While the Bika went inside, Cara's Wibreth came over and said that he wanted to go too. All the other petpets were much bigger than he was, and had been in the petpet Battledome so they were really strong. The Wibreth wasn't good at fighting, as he liked to keep the garden nice instead.

     The other petpets didn't want Wibreth to come, because they thought that he wouldn't be of any help. If he could not carry a heavy book, it would be useless for him to come.

      "When the Bika came out with the Neopoints on his saddle, he told the others to let Wibreth come along. They grudgingly let him come along.

      "So all four petpets started making their way towards the bookstore in Neopia Central. The Niptor protected the Bika when pets tried to take the Neopoints, and the Gruslen made sure that none were dropped. The Wibreth walked along the side, picking some flowers that he thought Cara would like. Eventually, the Wibreth got tired, so the Gruslen let him ride on her back. The Niptor grew tired, and rode on the Bika as well. Soon, they all arrived outside of the shop.

      "All the petpets got on the ground, and tried to decide on who should go in and buy the book. 'I am the strongest, I will buy the book,' said the Gruslen. No one had any objections, and they let him go inside with the neopoints.

      "When he made his way to the counter, the Gruslen said 'I want a book'. Unfortunately, the Nimmo store owner did not speak petpet, and only heard 'Growrl!'. The Nimmo asked the petpet to please repeat that, but only heard 'Growrl!' in response. The store owner had to tell Gruslen to please leave as he couldn't understand, and the petpet went back outside with the sack of neopoints.

      "Next, the Bika tried. She was just as unsuccessful, the owner only able to hear 'Whinny!' from the little horse. The same happened with Niptor, only the Nimmo was a bit scared from Niptor's angry cries of 'Roawr!' when he was turned away.

      "After all three were unable to buy a book, they had decided to go home."

     "Wait! What about Wibreth?!" Mini yelled, interrupting the story. She covered her mouth with both paws when she realized that she had actually said that out loud.

      "Exactly what I was going to say next. Right as the petpets turned to go home, Wibreth chirped and said that he was going to try. The others saw no harm in this, seeing that it was pointless anyways.

      "Wibreth went into the store with the sack, and hopped up on the counter. The blue Nimmo scooted back in his chair from his last encounter with a petpet. However, he still asked the little bird-like creature if he could help him.

      "The Wibreth responded with a very loud 'Bawk!'. Somehow, this came out sounding more like the bird had yelled 'Book!'. He repeated this several times, until the Nimmo picked out a copy of 'Nerkmid Mania'. When he showed it to Wibreth, the petpet jumped up and down happily, saying 'Book! Book! Book!'. He nudged the neopoints over to the owner, and dragged the novel out the door.

      "When he got out the door and showed it to the other petpets, they were very surprised. All four cheered happily, and they all took turns carrying the book in their mouths, save Wibreth who was holding five flowers.

      "They all made it home to their owner's house, where they ran inside and presented it to the sick Shoyru. Cara thanked them and gave them all a hug for going so far to make her happy. And for the next few weeks that she was sick, several trips to the bookstore were made. And another petpet always went with Wibreth, who would order another story with the chirp-like 'Book!' ".

     Mini was smiling as Dom finished her story.

     "That's so nice! Wibreth really could help!" she said as Dom stood up and got off the bed.

     "And the lesson here is that everyone can do something, and even if it's not that big it can still make someone happy." The Kougra smoothed out the quilt, and pulled the covers up around Mini again.

      " I guess you're right. You know what? I'm going to work really hard to be good at math and be really good at drawing!" Dom smiled at this.

     "I Bet you will." She paused and listened, hearing nothing but a light rain. " I think the storm has passed. Sleep well, okay?" she said as she stepped out the door, still leaning in.

      "Okay. Good night Dometaltaei!" Mini said as she snuggled into her meowclops pillow.

      Dom smirked as she quietly shut the door, her kepru sitting on top of her head.

     As she went back to sit in the living room, the sudden whirring noise of the refrigerator announced the end of the power outage. As she flicked the light on, Dometaltaei smiled and spoke to her kepru.

     "Well, Spice, I guess now everything's right again."

The End