I first found the Notebook on a cool, rainy night. It must have been sometime
in April when it started thundering during the movie, and they made us leave early.
I was walking home with EverWild and ReginaKoneko, my two bestest friends.
On the way home we were laughing and giggling and, every once and a while, splashing
in puddles. I lifted my face to the rain and all the sudden I tripped on something
and went flying flat on my face.
"Ohmigosh, Po, are you okay?" Ev asked worriedly.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," I grunted in reply, getting up and brushing dirt off
my faerie Aisha knees. "But what's this?" I queried holding up the object I
had tripped over. It was a brown notebook, soaking wet from the rain. Its metal
rings were large and held together the few papers in it. When I opened the front
cover and leafed through the pages, I found the ink runny and un-readable. Clipped
to the rings was a fountain pen, it's silver tip sparkling eerily in the moonlight.
"Either of you lose a notebook?" I asked distractedly as I examined it.
"Nah,"
"Nuh-uh," Reggie and Ev each replied respectively.
I smirked. "Finders keepers!" I cried into the lonesome night, which was bucketing
down rain like a hurricane, and stuffed the old, soggy notebook into my purse.
Laying on the couch and holding the notebook above my head, I let myself look
at each of the pages carefully. After careful examination, I saw that each page
was completely unreadable except for a few common words like 'and', 'the', and
'a'.
When I finally reached a blank page, a story idea had swum into my head-I'm
a writer. So, unclipping the fountain pen, I scribbled the beginning of the
story onto the sopping pages.
The earthquake took Neopia completely by surprise, hitting Neopia Central
the hardest. No one was severely hurt, and, luckily, the few injuries were minor.
Or so they sa-
I never had a chance to finish that sentence as I was thrown from the couch
in a sudden toss of the earth. It lasted only a few moments, but it seemed to
last forever. It was an earthquake.
When it finally stopped, the world still seemed to swirl a little bit in front
of my eyes, but soon I was back to normal.
I touched my stinging knee to find bright red blood smeared onto my blue fur.
Carefully I made my way to the medicine cabinet and cared for it-Neosporin and
a Band-Aid. Eventually, I ended up back at the couch with the remote control
in hand.
The TV clicked on and I switched over to the news channel. The red Buzz that
managed the evening news was there, looking grim and frazzled.
"The earthquake that just hit took Neopia completely by surprise, hitting Neopia
Central the hardest. No one was severely hurt, and, luckily, the few injuries
are minor. More news shortly, please stay tuned.
Without ever taking my eyes off the screen, I reached for the brown book. I
let it fall open on my lap and gasped in amazement at the sight I saw when I
looked down.
All the writing was gone-except what I'd written about the earthquake-and
that was on the first page.
I reread what I had written-that short, little passage-and my eyes widened.
It was almost exactly what she had said on TV.
It didn't take me too long to put two and two together. What I had written
in the notebook as a simple, playtime story had happened in real life.
Wow.
And I was pretty sure this was no coincidence.
As a test, I opened to a blank page in the notebook and described a luscious,
strawberry-icing cake sitting on our kitchen table. When I was finished describing
it, I shut the book and walked slowly into the kitchen.
There, sitting on the polka-dot tablecloth was the cake-exactly as I'd
described it.
Stock still, I stared at the mouth-watering concoction. How...? What...? It
didn't make any sense... except that it was magical.
But it couldn't really be magical... could it?
After eating one slice of the cake-well, I had to make sure it was real, didn't
I?-I scrambled up the stairs, tossed the notebook in my closet, and flopped
onto the bed.
I didn't want to be seeing it anytime soon.
"I need paper to write my story on!" I screeched to myself as I tore up my
room looking for a blank notebook and finding none.
Finally, my hand rested upon the brown notebook. If I rip out the pages
and write on them, nothing will happen, I thought as I ripped out a clump
of pages from the book. And even if it does, I won't write anything horrible...
Finally content, I flopped down on my bed and began to pour my feelings of
the story onto the paper.
Soon, being the writer that I can be, I was lost in the story and made whatever
came to my mind happen. My promise not to write anything horrible was lost in
the writer's urge as I scribbled messily onto the paper. Finally, exhausted
and having just nearly ended the story, I collapsed onto the bed, and fell into
a fitful sleep.
The world shook again just like it had the first night with the Notebook.
But this time it was much, much worse. Panes fell out of windows, screams filled
the once-still night air, and the rumbling of the earth was so loud and menacing,
it sounded just like Dr. Sloth's laugh. Suddenly, in my window-I was still on
the bed-a large, green face filled the window. "You shall pay!" It screeched
as I screamed... I woke up, sitting straight up in bed, screaming and breathing
roughly. Wiping my forehead I found my hand sticky from sweat. What was that?
I thought to myself, taking a deep breath and falling back onto my pillow.
That was the scariest dream I've ever had in my entire life.
After lying in bed for 20 minutes or so, I shrugged off the covers and flipped
my feet over the side of the bed. I walked down the stairs, past Omni's(my owner)
room and down to the kitchen. I poured myself a glass of fresh Kau-Kau farm
milk and chugged it down. Sitting down at the table, I noticed something in
my hand. I had brought the Notebook down with me.
I flipped open to the page where I had written about the first earthquake and
shuddered. Then, flipping the page and expecting to see a blank one, I found
exactly what I had written this afternoon-but it was back in the Notebook as
if it had never been ripped out.
I knew what was coming next, so I just held on tight.
The toss of the earth came hard, harder and, of course, more realistic than
it had in the dream. No matter how hard I hung on, I was still thrown to the
ground and against the wall. Panes of glass fell out of windows and screams
filled the once-still night air.
I screamed, too, and felt the earth rolling, tossing, lurching underneath me.
It wasn't so much an earthquake as the first one had been, it was more as if
the world was being split open. Suddenly-very suddenly-it all stopped, and I
heard the slimy, greasy voice trumpeting behind me.
"Where is the maker of this disturbance?" It bellowed. I could smell the rotten
breath already, rolling through the kitchen window. Omni walked out of her room.
"What's going on, PO? I felt this jerk, and..."
"Be quiet, Omni!" I shouted and grabbed her hand, dashing into my room. "I'll
explain it later, but right now I just need you to be quiet and-well,
just be quiet, OK?" She nodded, almost looking scared.
"Come here, Dr. Sloth, I'm ready for you!" I shouted, acting a lot more confident
then I felt.
I heard a crash, and then saw the great green face looming in the window. "Is
this the one who's caused all this trouble? And how?" Avoiding his questions,
I looked him straight in his rotting eyes. "I'm not afraid of you," I said,
swallowing hard.
"Really?" He laughed, his nasty breath filling the room. "Well I'm terrified
of you."
I narrowed my eyes, not taking this mockery. "Get out," I hissed. "Get out
now. Don't hurt Neopia or my friends. Go back to where you came from, and leave
Neopia alone. You don't belong here, and," I took a breath, "you know it." He
had stopped laughing now, and he was looking straight toward me. "I am not going
to let a small, unneeded faerie Aisha ruin my fun. Out of my way, you little
maggot. I said: out of my way. "
"No."
"What was that?" He asked, turning back to me. "Did you say no?"
"Yes, I did say no." I said, paws on hips and staring him straight in the eye.
"I said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm not letting you ruin Neopia."
"I can do whatever I want." Suddenly, it hit me of what I had to do.
"Fine," I replied, sounding very conceded. "Go ruin Neopia. You have my permission."
I hoped I said it snottily, but her smirked as he walked away.
Dashing down to the kitchen, I took the fountain pen and flipped open the front
cover of the Notebook. There were the crisp, black words I had written just
that afternoon. Flipping past all the pages I had written on and found one last
page. "I only have one chance," I whispered to myself as I lifted the pen.
Suddenly, everything that had happened disappeared. No one except Polayo
had any memory of what happened, and everyone was back where he or she were
before everything had happened.
I hoped this would be enough, and then, skipping a few lines, I took up my
pen again.
This Notebook is only to be used again for good purposes. Anything written
in here will be used for good purposes and no other way. If it could never work
again that would be even better-but I have a feeling that isn't possible.
Finally satisfied, I closed the book and set it on the table. Crawling toward
me room and slid under the warm covers and fell asleep surprisingly quickly.
I couldn't believe what I had done. Although I had saved Neopia-in a sense-if
I hadn't used the Notebook in the beginning none of this would've happened.
I swore to myself that I would never use it again unless there was something
I wanted desperately... and even then, maybe not.
I have warned you of the Notebook, reader. The manuscript enclosed tells
how I used the Notebook and what came out of it. The ending of this is that
I threw the Notebook into a lake, hoping to rid Neopia of it. I hope that no
one else ever has to come across it, and use it. I don't know what would happen
then-if Neopia would end up the way it came out this time... a very close call.
Of course, before I abandoned it I did ask one last favour. In small handwriting
at the bottom of the last page I scribbled: Polayo gets into the Neopian
Times. Who knows? Maybe it will still work-or maybe not... Let's hope it
does.
The End | 
