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Sebastian, Harriet, Rosie, and Albert, the core of the League
of Super Authors, and a rock named Spot, made their way slowly to "Jelly World".
All five of them were beginning to have their doubts.
"How can we get to a place that doesn't exist?"
Rosie grumbled for the 3,496th time. "It's impossible!"
"Nothing's impossible, Rosie! It's just very,
very sketchy," Harriet chirped.
Rosie groaned.
Sebastian looked around. "That tree looks familiar,"
he said, looking at a tall pine tree that they were passing.
"That's because we've passed it before! We're
going in circles!" cried Spot, tears leaking down his igneous face. "WE'RE LOST!
We're going to end up eating grubs and tree bark in the last hours of our lives,
and then-"
"Spot? Have you ever been hit with a welding
mallet?" Sebastian interrupted.
Albert sat down, looking at his computer, with
a slightly confused expression on his face. "I don't understand! My coordinates
were right, everything is right, Jelly World should be right here!" he yelled,
pointing at the ground beneath his feet.
"Well, for a world made out of gelatin, it looks
incredibly solid to me," Rosie glowered.
"Maybe you're just going about this in the wrong,
erm..." Harriet searched her mind for the right word. "Direction?" she finished.
A light bulb flashed in Albert's head. "YOU'VE
GIVEN ME AN IDEA!"
Sebastian and Rosie turned to Harriet. "Harriet..."
they whined.
Harriet shrugged.
For another half-hour, the rest of the League
of Super Authors waited patiently as Albert typed furiously away on his computer.
"I've got it!" he yelled suddenly. "Stand up!"
They stood up.
"Now, walk this way!" Albert said, putting his
computer away in his knapsack. He stood up, and began to walk backwards, humming
a little tune in his head as he went.
"You get the welding mallet, I'll hold him down,"
muttered Sebastian to Rosie.
Rosie shook her head. "Let's just trust him,
he is pretty smart... under most circumstances."
The four followed Albert, tracing their previous
footsteps, only this time, backwards. They walked, and walked, and walked...
...and all of a sudden, the scenery began to
change. The trees grew less and less, and the grass became slightly stickier.
What little trees were left were now bright colors, and seemed to be made of
jelly rather than leaves and bark. There were buildings, and they were made
of jelly. The Super Authors had successfully entered Jelly World.
"Hurrah! Albert is a genius!" cried Rosie, still
walking backwards.
"How did you figure it out?" asked Sebastian.
"Harriet gave me the idea. If you can't enter
a place by a certain, scientific direction, try a new approach. It's all in
the mind, y'know," Albert said, a little smugly.
"Yay! I gave Albert an idea -- whooah!" Harriet
cried, falling backwards into a jelly. And not just any jelly, a GIANT JELLY.
Almost 30 feet high, it looked like it could comfortably accommodate the population
of Neopia Avenue.
"HELP!" cried the Faerie Aisha. Harriet was
suspended in the bright-colored goo of the jelly, unable to move.
"HARRIET!" cried the Spot. He lunged at the
giant jelly, but simply bounced off of the surface, and proceeded to knock the
rest of the Super Authors to the ground.
"Who dares disturb the Giant Jelly?" said a
booming voice.
Sebastian, Albert, and Rosie sat up immediately.
Harriet attempted to look in the direction of the voice, but the jelly was to
thick. Spot didn't know what to do, so he resorted to bawling.
"Spot! Sshh!" hissed Rosie, but it was no use.
Over the gelatin hill came a Wocky. But not just any Wocky, a jelly Wocky. A
giant jelly Wocky. Red and glowing, it stomped over the hill and stopped in
front of the Super Authors.
"What are you doing here?" he roared.
"Erm... we, were just leaving, actually," Rosie
stuttered.
"I am the Keeper of the Jelly! Only one jelly
per person! Or else..." the jelly Wocky said.
"We'll remember that, thanks..." Sebastian said.
"WHAT IN THE...!? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THE
GIANT JELLY?" The Jelly Keeper had finally noticed a Faerie Aisha floating around
aimlessly in his giant jelly. "You have contaminated the food of a nation!"
he roared again.
"Yeah, could you help us get her out?" Albert
asked nicely, while Harriet smiled as sweetly as she possibly could.
"YOU HAVE CONTAMINATED THE FOOD OF A NATION!
FOOLS!"
"Oh, yeah?" Sebastian said, huffily. "And what's
a giant jelly keeper like you going to do about it?"
"I SHALL POUND YOU UNTIL SPACE AND TIME HAVE
NO MEANING!"
"Fair enough. LEG IT!" Sebastian yelled.
Spot gave another lunge at the giant jelly,
and managed to crack the surface. Harriet fell out onto the streets of Jelly
World, and the five began to run as fast as they could.
"We're not going anywhere!" yelled Rosie, in
exasperation.
"Back... wards!" Albert yelled back. The five
turned around, and watched in horror as the jelly keeper bounded towards them,
while they ran backwards out of Jelly World. Ever so slightly, the jelly streets
began to become grass again, and the trees of Jelly World became normal-looking
trees again. Finally, they were out of the vicinity of the jelly keeper, and
out of Jelly World in its entirety.
"Whew! That was close!" Rosie said, flopping
back onto the grass.
"Yeah, but where does it take us?" Albert growled.
"We still don't have any clues to where Jay has gone!"
Harriet, who had been quiet until now, spoke
up. "Is that a clue?" she asked, pointing at a large brick wall in the distance.
A dark, hooded figure was painting it, but not the normal way you associate
with painting walls. It was writing... words, characters, anyway...
"CATCH HIM!" yelled Sebastian, and the five
bounded after the hooded figure. The hooded figure was far ahead of them, however,
and had taken flight before and was soon out of their reach.
The Super Authors fell back onto the grass.
"Great! He got away!" grumbled Sebastian.
"Yeah, but at least we have another note, or
at least part of a note," Albert said. He walked up to the wall and read what
the unknown person had written. "leeg uv supr athrs- HAHA! u still culdt find
uz in jellie wurld. u will nver find uz! u fuls! u al r rilly rilly stoopid!
Nd u smell! HAHAH-" finished Albert.
"They're all the same," whined Rosie. "And it's
starting to get old! You can only tell a person that they smell bad so many
times," she muttered.
"Yeah, but at least we saw where he was heading,
right?" Harriet said.
With some difficulty on Spot's part, they all
hopped over the wall and looked in the general direction of where the shadowy
figure had flown. The sky was darkening, but the bright lights of Neopia Central
illuminated the horizon line.
"Excellent," murmured Albert.
To be continued...
So there IS a Jelly World... sort of... What wonders and dangers will the
League of Super Authors find in streets of Neopia Central? Will they catch that
sketchy, shadowy figure who was responsible for the graffiti of the walls of
the city? Shame on them, anyway! Kids, graffiti is... not very nice. Anyway,
not to mention Bill, find out what happens next and more in the next thrilling
chapter of... Jay and the Super Authors Strike Back!
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