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Golden irises surveyed the green ixi in the mirror critically.
It wasn't a pretty Neopet, but instead had fur the color of sickly grass. The
ixi wasn't even right-sized, with bulbously large eyes housed within a small head,
and gangly legs making up more than half the body. Its name was Savanna.
Not too long ago, on a beautiful day, Savanna
laid in her room as she always did, spindly legs curled up beneath her slender
frame, and her head resting deathly still upon the soft mattress of her bed.
Sheets were the color of the open plains, bare walls were painted the same grass
green as her fur, and the dresser standing straight against the wall was a deep
oaken brown, the small area beneath providing the same shade that a tree within
the woods might give. But despite its woodland resemblance, it was not home;
the room she resided in was her prison, isolating her from the free world beyond.
She had never been a social Neopet, preferring
to remain alone except for the breeze upon the wind and the bird's song in the
air, nor had she been as solitary as she was now in her confinement. Only visitor
was her owner, Jessica, a young woman much too caught up in work to play leisurely
with Neopet, or have any free time at all. Savanna longed for the free woods
of Meridell, the only such areas within Neopia being the various parks that
had been built for Neopets such as her. The pair of them even lived on the edge
of the city, and she could have run free within the wild again occasionally
-- if owner had allowed.
Jessica was not heartless. Indeed, it was because
of her love that she could not allow Savanna to wander freely about when she
was not home, which was much too often for the Neopet to roam at all. Instead,
Savanna had taken to lying miserably, in a pathetic unmoving mass, upon her
bed, eyes open and staring in the mirror as if for a hidden route of escape.
Little did she know that this escape would find
her.
***
A scratching at the window roused Savanna from her slumber, having drifted
off to sleep sometime during the day. She lifted her head slightly, groggily
casting a look about to see what was causing the noise. Golden eyes automatically
looked toward the door, but it was closed; the light filtering through the single
window announced it was not quite evening, and Jessica would not be back from
work just yet.
Her head had just been laid down when it scratched
again. An aggravated sigh escaped as she lifted her head irritably, but now
that she was awake she located the source. The sight surprised her, and eyes
narrowed as they focused upon the creature outside her window, scrabbling desperately
at the sill it stood upon, but she could still not discern what the creature
was.
A couple cracks were heard as Savanna lifted
her body up upon her scrawny legs, tail flicking out behind as it too stretched.
A few steps brought the ixi to the edge of her bed, and she hopped down to cross
the rest of the distance to her window.
But whatever the creature was, it was not patient.
The closed, yet not locked, window was prodded open with its nose as it wormed
its way through the small crack it had opened up. As it finished squeezing its
way through the narrow opening the window shut behind it, popping the creature
on the rump and sending it spiraling to the floor of Savanna's room.
Savanna herself had watched the entire process,
utterly perplexed. Softly muttering about insanity but truly wondering if the
creature was okay, legs soon closed the rest of the gap between bed and floor
beside the window where the intruder lay.
But it seemed the animal was okay. Its stubby
tail wagged back and forth quickly, a miniscule sign of life, before its stumpy
legs thrust the creature to its feet. Body was lean and head was large. Its
eyes popped out at odd angles from its head, and its tongue was stuck out the
side of its mouth in a quite comical expression, as tail continued to wag back
and forth in complete friendliness.
"Well, how are you cutie?" she asked the Spardel,
voice wheezy with lack of use but soft with kindness. With the pleasant words
the Spardel replied by lunging forward, high enough to give Savanna a large,
sloppy kiss underneath the chin.
"Yuck!" she said loudly, extending one hoof
forward roughly to keep the Spardel down on the ground; it had already been
preparing itself for another spring.
The petpet responded by licking the bottom of
her hoof, quickly administering its doggy kiss to her entire lower leg. Its
tail wagged so fast it blurred together, and its rounded ears were flickering
back and forth in time with its frantic licks.
"Okay, cut it out!" she yelled, but giggles
were erupting out of her against her will; it tickled. "No really, stop!" she
tried again, laughing hysterically as she was chased about the room by the Spardel.
She hadn't had this much fun in so long. Wild
prancing about the room was followed by the tiny Spardel, its tail continuing
to fly back and forth in time with its canter. However, in mad excitement, Savanna
looked back over her shoulder to stick tongue out playfully toward the petpet,
and ran head-on into her dresser. Scream of pain erupted from her vocals, momentum
causing the impact to send her whole body into agony. The dresser wobbled uncertainly
but continued to stand.
The Spardel belatedly ran up to Savanna and
attempted to lick her face, believing her to have surrendered. Instead she threw
forward a hoof menacingly, one nick almost slicing the petpet in the side before
it dodged at the last minute. Her golden eyes were ablaze with anger, while
the Spardel's were questioning, hurt. It couldn't understand why she had tried
to injure it.
"Just get out, okay? I didn't invite you or
anything!" Her voice was harsh, and Spardel's fast wagging tail slowed down
as it tucked between its legs.
Savanna's head throbbed from the impact, and
world spun dizzily as she collected herself and stood upon her wobbly legs.
"Out!" she commanded again, voice no less angry
than before, and she even went as far as to take a fearsome step toward the
small creature.
The Spardel backed up, obviously fearing the
angry ixi, but it did not retreat back out the window it had come through. Instead,
it swallowed, collecting its courage, and blurted out in its simplistic petpet
language, "I'm hungry."
Whatever rage Savanna had been in before was
gone, and her entire body deflated as she sighed. "Come on, I'll get you something,"
she said wearily, scrawny legs bringing her fairly steadily out the door and
into the kitchen. She could hear the Spardel's heavy footsteps behind her as
it followed.
"So what do you want?" she inquired, but the
Spardel was far ahead of her. Seeing the cracker box and smelling the food,
it bounded into the room, tail wagging slightly back and forth. Its puppy-like
paws reached out for the chair as hindquarters slammed into the linoleum floor,
and its small size was thrown all the way up to the relatively high surface
of the table. Immediately, its nose hunted down the crackers, snuffling about
until it ran straight into the box, and upon their finding he knocked the whole
container over so that they spilled all across the wooden table. Savanna's golden
eyes were wide with shock as her head shook with amusement from side to side,
the pain from before subsided into soft chuckles as she plopped herself into
a chair to watch the Spardel with interest.
It was devouring every cracker it could find,
gobbling every crumb down, and even eating half the box in its mad search for
food. When it was done it raised its froglike eyes, licked about its mouth,
and said one word. "More."
The amusement that had been growing for the
last few minutes erupted into laughter, and the Spardel complied by moving its
tail back into the whiplash action from before.
"How about this?" she asked, eyes scanning for
food and settling upon a red apple. Before she could get up and get it, however,
Spardel had already taken the leap between table and counter so that it could
eat the apple. Savanna watched with the same intrigue as before as it ate the
entire apple, core and all. When it turned its eyes again upon her and announced
its continuing hunger, she just laughed and said, "You're wacko," before pointing
him over to the entire fruit bowl further down the counter. After the Spardel
had proceeded to eat an orange, a banana, two more apples, and the whole glass
fruit bowl, Savanna was just watching with her mouth slightly agape but her
face was shining with radiant joy.
It licked about its mouth again before bounding
back between counter and table, finally seeming to have satiated its hunger.
It strolled across the wooden surface of the table right into Savanna's face,
plopped itself back on its haunches, and stared with its comical innocence that
only it seemed to be able to achieve. "My name is Savanna," she said to make
conversation, not realizing that her own tail was thumping rhythmically against
her chair as the Spardel's was against the table.
"Wacko!" it cried out, using the term she had
just previously described him with, before his gargantuan tongue shot out like
a bolt and gave her a large lick across the entire face.
Savanna tumbled out of her chair, her rich laughter
filling the entire house, so that it was the first thing Jessica heard when
she tiredly opened the door and walked inside. The young woman's ears seemed
to flare with interest as she heard the giggles, and a smile lit her face before
it creased with worry.
"Don't eat me too!" Savanna was shouting, the
Spardel having just bit playfully at her button black nose. Jessica chose that
moment to run down the entrance hall quickly, whirling into the kitchen with
a look of wariness, before settling upon the pair with an expression of total
shock.
"What is this?" she asked with a gasp, her right
hand brushing aside her almond brown hair absently with worry.
"Oh, this is Wacko," Savanna said with a beaming
smile of pride. At the same time that Wacko shouted, again, "Wacko!"
Savanna burst into hysteric giggles again, and
Jessica too soon wore a smile, just to hear and see her Neopet so happy and
content. "Well hello Wacko," she said kindly. "Welcome to the family."
***
It was early morning, about time for Jessica to go off for work and for Savanna,
accompanied by Wacko, to stroll off to the park and play within the vastly free
woods all day long.
In Savanna's room, golden -- and beady black
-- eyes surveyed the green ixi and Spardel in the mirror. They weren't the prettiest
pets, both of them owners of overly large eyes, one with too long of legs and
the other with much too short and stubby ones. But they weren't ugly either.
They were just right.
And meanwhile, in the kitchen, Jessica was wondering,
"Where is the fruit bowl?"
The End
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