|
"Oh no you don't, you can't make me go in there!" Natalie
protested as her friend Kai tried to pull her through the doorway of an old, rickety
mansion by her paw. "Don't you watch horror movies you stupid Kacheek? Lightning
plus thunder plus old spooky house equals t-r-o-u-b-l-e! You can absolutely not
make me go in there!"
"Oh yes I can!" Kai shouted back, and with a
final tug pulled Natalie through the doorway. This sent them both hurtling to
the dusty wooden floor.
"Alright," Natalie sputtered, picking herself
up off the floor and banging her Pink Kacheek tail with her paw to get out the
dust, "Maybe you can."
"Wow," Kai whispered, ignoring Natalie, "This
place has got to hundreds, no, thousands of years old!"
"Don't be silly!" Natalie scoffed, "There aren't
any buildings that old left in Neopia Central, they've all been torn down to
make room for housing and shops! I'll bet this is just some haunted house used
for a Halloween carnival! In fact, now that I see everything closer, I can tell
it's all completely fake! Just look at this mechanical Spyder!" She then reached
down and picked up a Spyder scuttling over her left foot. "So obviously fake!"
Then, the Spyder blinked.
"Kai!" Natalie screamed, "It's real! Get it
off me, hurry, before it bites me with its deadly venom and I die a slow, horrible
death!"
Sighing, Kai gently took the Spyder from her
hand with a mint green paw. "Hey there little guy, is this your home? Nice place
you've got here!"
"Kai," Natalie muttered, "You're talking to
a Spyder. It can't understand what you're saying!"
"Yes it can," Kai stated. "Goggles," he ordered
the Spyder, "Get on top of my head, you can stay there as long as you'd like."
To his great happiness, the Spyder happily scuttled over his shoulder, up his
neck, then rested on the top of his head.
Rolling her eyes, Natalie sighed, "You claim
you can talk to the thing, and now you've actually named it? You are such an
idiot! Just so you remember, you didn't drag me here for "Goggles", we came
here to explore this mansion."
"For once," Kai admitted, "You're actually right
about something! Let's explore this old house!" He then pointed his finger at
a narrow corridor in front of the two Kacheeks. "First, we'll go that way, since
that's the only way there is to go!" Kai set off down the hall, which had an
eerie feeling to it.
Shaking her head in disbelief that she knew
this freak, Natalie followed. She didn't want to, but she had to make sure Kai
didn't kill himself or anything. Her watch on him had been much closer after
a certain expedition of Kais, which she'd refused to go on, to find out if Edna
would melt if he poured water on her. He ended up a Mortog for six weeks until
Natalie finally found a cure for him, though he was still that nasty greenish
color for another week.
Anyway, as she stepped into the corridor, she
immediately knew there was something odd about this house. By the look she saw
on Kai's usually confident face, she knew he felt it too. An icy wind suddenly
blew past them. "Must've just been a random event," she assured herself silently,
"It has absolutely nothing to do with this house."
After what seemed like ages, the hall ended,
opening to a large room.
"Amazing," Natalie and Kai both whispered aloud
in unison as they got their first glimpse of the room. On its walls were, simply,
pictures. Thousands and thousands of them. Some were made from charcoal, others
made from watercolors, and many more were made out of many different types of
art materials. They all, though, had one thing in common.
Unlike everything else in this house, they were
sparkling clean. Not a speck of dust could be seen on them. Natalie, the more
logical of the two, was the first to realize something was odd.
"Kai," she said slowly, afraid of what her words
would bring in reply, "If this house is empty, how can all these paintings be
dust free?"
"Someone must still be here," Kai whispered,
his eyes growing wide.
"You bet there's still somebody here, you little
thieves!" the angry voice of an old woman screeched from behind them. "Out,
out, out, you'll never steal my collection, not one painting of it!" A broom
then delivered a blow to the back of Kai's head.
"Ow!" Kai exclaimed as he turned around to see
who had walloped him, "What was tha-" He stopped in mid word as he saw what
had hit him. In front of his very eyes stood, well, hovered, the ghost of an
old Aisha holding a broom in her paws.
"Out!" the Aisha screamed again at the Kacheeks,
"Be gone with you, thieves!" She then hit Natalie, who was staring at the ghost
in both shock and terror.
Natalie and Kai both had the exact same idea
at the exact same time. Run! The companions set off down the hall behind them,
Goggles hanging on for dear life.
The woman still trailed behind them, hitting
one or the other of them with her broom.
"You will be gone, never return again!" the
Aisha hollered as they ran out the door, "Or my name's not Mrs. Prenderghast!"
Natalie and Kai ran all the way until they reached
the nearest neighborhood, Bracknell Road.
"Who the heck was that crazy old ghost of an
Aisha, and why the heck did she keep hitting us with her broom!" Kai panted,
collapsing on a bench next to Natalie. Goggles eyes were still wide open from
the fright that came when he thought he was going to be smashed with that broom.
"Weren't you listening?" Natalie scoffed, her
breath already recovered.
"Well," Kai replied with a defiant swish of
his tail, "I was slightly busy trying not to get hit with that broom!" His voice
had risen to a loud yell by the end of his statement.
Rolling her eyes, Natalie informed, "Her name
is Mrs. Prenderghast. I remember reading about her on a trading card or in the
Neopedia or somewhere. She passed away long ago, was killed by robbers coming
to take her art. To their surprise, she rose right out of her body and started
hitting them with her broom just as she had before she'd died. To this day,
she still haunts that place, making sure no one will able be able to steal her
collection. She can only rest in peace once she is sure nobody can steal her
dear art."
"Why on earth didn't you tell me that before?"
Kai questioned angrily as he got up off the bench.
"Because I didn't realize it was her house,
dummy! Nothing said anything about where she lived!" Natalie grumbled, she too
getting up.
Kai, still upset, pointed out, "That still doesn't
answer my other question! Why did she keep hitting us with that broom? I'm going
to have a nasty bump on the back of the head in the morning because of her."
"Simple," Natalie figured, "She must've thought
we were robbers trying to steal her art! She was just trying to protect her
collection. That, by the way, is yet another thing you would have known if you'd
been listening!"
"Whatever," Kai responded with a roll of his
eyes. Natalie could be so critical sometimes. "See you tomorrow at school."
He then trudged off down the street.
"Bye!" Natalie called after him as she went
down the street in the opposite direction.
The next morning, everything went as usual.
They got up, went to school, were bored out of their minds, had lunch together,
went to recess, and then nearly died from boredom before school was over. You
know, the usual routine. It wasn't until the dismissal bell rang did the usual
routine came to a halt.
"Kai," Natalie protested seriously, "We're going
back to Mrs. Prenderghast's house right now!"
"Why? All she did was give me a bump on the
back of my head!" Kai argued, rubbing his head, where there was indeed a bump,
a rather large one in fact.
Goggles nodded, who was still perched on the
top of his head.
"I won't take no for an answer. Come on, we're
going, whether you like it or not!" After stating this, Natalie took Kai's paw
and dragged him all the way to the spooky, old mansion.
Unlike like the last time they'd visited this
residence, Natalie marched in confidently with no doubt in what she was about
to do. She strode through the corridor bravely, not even minding when a Spyder
crawled over her foot. This continued until they got to the gallery room.
"Mrs. Prenderghast!" Natalie called out into
the air, "If you're there, I'd just like to say that we're sorry for coming
in yesterday, we didn't know you lived here. Also, we weren't coming to steal
your art, just to explore a little."
In front of her, the mysterious ghostly form
of the old Aisha had soon appeared. "Oh, child!" she exclaimed, "How wonderful
of you to come back here to apologize! You are truly a pair of kind young Kacheeks!"
"If we're so kind," Kai grumbled, "Why did you
have to whack us like that yesterday?"
"Oh, I'm sorry about that! I didn't know you
weren't here to steal!" the old Aisha chuckled mischievously.
"I hope you don't mind me asking," Natalie butted
in, "but I was wondering why you stay here? I mean couldn't you move onto the
next world if you wanted?"
"Well," Mrs. Prenderghast sighed, "If I left,
who would take care of my art? It's been in my family for centuries, I couldn't
let it be stolen!"
"Why don't you donate it to the Neopia Museum
of Art?" Kai suggested, "They'd be glad to have it, and it'd be kept safe."
"There's just one problem with that." Mrs. Prenderghast
said with a shake of her head, "People aren't exactly used to seeing the ghost
of an Aisha walk down the middle of Neopia Central with thousands of paintings."
A grin then spread over Natalie's face. "We
could take them for you!"
"Would you really do that?" the old Aisha gasped,
tears of happiness in her eyes.
The Kacheeks both nodded eagerly.
"Thank you very much dears!" Mrs. Prenderghast
cried happily, "You truly are great friends!"
Kai and Natalie both smiled brilliantly.
Soon, all of the art had been shipped to the
museum, and the art collection was a hit display there.
Now, it was a sunny, spring Saturday afternoon,
and Natalie and Kai were riding bikes.
"Stop for a sec!" Natalie called out to Kai
as they passed the Prenderghast mansion.
Kai obediently halted, nearly sending Goggles
flying off the top of his helmet. Goggles had become Kai's official petpet,
and to this very day he sits on Kai's head wherever they go.
"This is Mrs. Prenderghast's house, right?"
Kai asked.
Natalie nodded. "Let's go inside, for old time's
sake."
"Alright," Kai agreed as the two Kacheeks stepped
through the open doorway.
The house's chill now felt homely to the two
Kacheeks, not dark and foreboding as it had once felt to them. They crept down
the corridor silently, even though they knew no one was there. They soon reached
the room which had once been the gallery.
The gallery should have been empty, but there
was a large, golden frame, in the center of the wall they faced. In scribbled
cursive writing, it read,
"Dear Natalie and Kai,
Thank you for all you have done for me. Even
though I have moved on, I still watch this house. I trust you to keep it safe.
Natalie, use that mind of yours to do great
things! And Kai, let your spirit of adventure take you far!
But remember most, my friends, be kind, and
all the world will be open to you. Also, I'll be watching, so be good or I'll
have to come back here and whack you with my broom!
Love,
Mrs. Prenderghast"
"Mrs. Prenderghast sure has a way with words!"
Kai joked as the friends walked happily out of the mansion, all laughing merrily.
The End
Author's Note: All characters are figments of my imagination, except Mrs.
Prenderghast. Look for more about her in the Neopedia and on her trading card!
If you have any comments, feel free to Neomail me!
| 
