Chaos

      "Tina!" my Yurble, Jay, cried. "You weren't supposed to catch them!"

      "We need law and punishment around here," a snotty voice said from behind me. "I am royalty, and I should be treated like so!" It was Queenie, my teenage royal Zafara.

      "Oh please," Jay said. "You're just painted royal, not a queen!"

      "Well, I am painted with an expensive color, and therefore I should be considered a princess!" Queenie walked up to my ten-year-old Yurble. "Deal with it, peasant!" she said scornfully.

      "Oh please," Jay repeated. "Yesterday you were a queen, most of the days after today and later today you'll be a queen; make up your mind! And I'm not a peasant; we have the same owner and wealth!"

      "But I have more than both of you," a sad voice said from behind them. I recognized the speaker, without looking, to be Greyis, my accurately named grey Wocky. "Life will be such a drag for me, not having to work when I'm rich… never getting out… never experiencing hard work in life…"

      "Can you ever find something positive?" Jay asked, as he pulled a hastily-made-from-a-stick-lever that, despite my lack of attention to it, had actually not been there yesterday, or ten minutes ago. A moment after he had pulled the lever, a mud pie in one of my apparently "borrowed" pie pans hit Queenie in the face.

      Her face dripping with mud, the angry Zafara stormed off, into the hallway, from which the sound of a minor explosion and a cascade of green smoke coming down from the staircase.

      "Dyren!" I shouted. "I told you not to conduct experiments in your room!"

      A blue Shoyru in a lab coat emerged from the smoke. "I told you, my name is Doctor Insanity! And I need to conduct experiments if I'm going to take over Neopia!" He cackled madly.

      Jay rolled his eyes.

      If you don't know me, I'll inform you that this is a normal day for me.

     ***

     I sat on the front porch and sighed. My life was horrible. It wasn't a bore at all. It was pure chaos. I would have much preferred a bore. Or at least hint of normality. And sanity. I would really have enjoyed sanity.

      "Whatchya doin'?" The yellow Ixi sat down next to me. It was Lids, my neighbor's pet.

      "Nothing," I replied glumly.

      "Pets again, huh?"

      "Yes."

      "Well then… why don't ya do somethin' 'bout it?"

      "Like what?"

      "I don't remember you being so harsh last time we had this conversation."

      "That's what you say every time. Like what?"

      "You don't want this conversation to be monotonous? Fine. Purple Blumaroo. Yellow Elephante. Words of uber longness. Ya happy now?"

      "Whatever. Like what?"

      "Um… disown them."

      "That would be mean. You wouldn't want that to happen to you, would you?"

      "Uh… no. It was the first suggestion I thought of. Hm… create more normal pets?"

      "That would mean I had to disown the annoying ones."

      "Well, what don't you like about your pets?"

      "This is a random question. Let's see. Oh, I don't know. Dyren is insane, Jay creates havoc, Queenie is prissy, and Greyis is… weird. She's sensible, but no matter what happens to her, there's always something she views as a downside. I mean, really, who doesn't want to be rich, even if it means you'll never do any physical work and stuff?"

      "Okay, I've got one more idea: send them away."

      "To where?" I asked. "And that would be like disowning them. And I don't know if they'd be okay with that."

      "But they'll never be in the Pound! They'll have an owner, and they'll be fine, and someone else's problem! Besides-"

      "That's enough!" I interrupted. "I can see for myself whether or not they want to be sent away at all. They're going to the Neolodge for a week!" I went inside to find the usual bedlam going around.

      "Stop!" I screamed, pulling Dyren away from Queenie as he tried to steal her tea cups.

      "But I need exactly one cup of Faerieland tea for my teleportation mix!" he screamed. "And Queenie is the only one I know with either of those, let alone both, already put together! And she won't give it to me, even after I promised her a throne next to me when I take over Neopi-"

      "I'm already a queen!" Queenie interrupted, pulling the round pink table in front of her, loaded with everything needed for a one-person tea party, towards her as she repeatedly backed away.

      "Jay, get away from Greyis's savings! Greyis, stop complaining Jay never got your savings so you wouldn't suffer 'the dreaded fate of being rich and with good security'! Everyone, I need peace -okay, maybe not peace, maybe only a little, and complete silence!"

      Everyone fell silent and stayed still, looking at me, except for Jay, who was creeping towards Greyis's savings in what could be described as "a little peaceful" and quiet.

      "Jay, stop," I said. "I have an announcement. You're all going to the Neolodge for a week!"

      "Which one?" Queenie asked, crossing her arms. "It had better not be Luxury or lower in stars, or else I will-"

      "Don't worry," I said quickly. "You are all going to Faerie Castle!"

      "There we go," Greyis said in her usual dejected tone. "I'll have to wait longer to find out what it's like to be alone and away from my family… I'll never get to see the Economy or Luxury hotel-types, because when I'm rich no one will let me go to them…"

      "Okay!" I screeched. "You'll all go separately and you'll all choose your own hotels!"

      Three of my pets erupted into joyful cheers, except the Grey Wocky on the left, who began moaning on and on about how she would make a wrong choice, and find out she would feel lonely, and her one-on-self conversation continued to a point where I suggested she tally how many wrong choices she had ever made, which brought the topic to how she'd remind herself of her thrown-away bad penmanship when she miserably wrote a list.

      "Okay," I yelled, "We are going to check into the Neolodge today! Pack your stuff and tell me where you want to go!"

      All of them either excitedly and hastily or miserably and slowly ra- or rather, traveled at some speed to their rooms to pack, and eventually came back to tell me where they wanted to stay. Greyis wanted to find out how cheap the Fleapit Motel was, but when I said fine, Greyis went on about how it might be too cheap or not cheap enough. Dyren wanted a place that had insurance and popularity among the wealthy and middle-class, so he went to Faerie Castle. Of course, Queenie was going to the AstroVilla, and Jay was going to Ye Olde Ship Inn. Once they were all ready to leave, we went, they checked in, and I went to sleep at home that night, unable to imagine the peace and quiet of tomorrow.

     ***

     I woke up, and at first braced myself for one of Jay's morning pranks. But after five minutes of inspecting the room from my bed, I remembered: Jay was gone! I had the house to myself! I nearly cheered at the top of my lungs, but stopped myself at the last minute. I instead ran through the house to do anything I wanted.

      I ran shouting happily throughout the entire house… until I realized I was acting like a Baby Grundo who had just gotten a new plushie it had greatly anticipated receiving. I half-expected to see Queenie in the kitchen, trying to find some kind of breakfast cake, because cereal, bagels, doughnuts, and most other breakfast foods we knew about "were for commoners." But I reminded myself that she was at the AstroVilla.

      An hour later, with my belly full of cereal, I went to the living room to comfort Greyis in whatever new "sad" thing she had thought up since yesterday, but once again, I had to remind myself she was at the Fleapit Motel.

      By lunch, I was wondering where Dyren was doing his experiments and potion-making; he hadn't added a single drop of whichever ingredient caused the explosions. I kept seeing smoke of orange, green, purple, or blue shades for an instant, and after I blinked, it was gone.

      This went on for the rest of the week my pets would be gone. But the feeling of loss for my usual chaotic life wasn't the only feeling I constantly felt. I felt boredom. I had nothing to do. I realized that my life was filled with the chaos that gave me something to do. I needed it to have a life of… something other than boredom and crazy expectancies involving the time before my pets went away.

     ***

     And then the day came - the day my pets came back and the chaos resumed. I watched and began formulating a plan to get Jay to stop knocking Queenie's things in a box of the already stolen and possibly broken objects, brainstorming for ideas on how to stop Queenie from attempting to literally destroy both Dyren and Jay, thinking of a way to stop Dyren from making a capture of all of Queenie's tea set so he could use them for measuring cups, and working up some comforting words for Greyis. It was my chaotic life, and I loved it.

The End