A Yullie's Day Out

The sun was just setting in Neopia Central, casting golden rays on the homes of the humble Neopians who resided there (because all the rich ones had long since moved to Maraqua). A small group of Chia boys raced around the cobbled pavement of Bread Street, snickering as they played a rather loud game involving lots and lots of rotten fruit.

     Karina the Usul wrinkled her nose as she leaned out the window of the Neohome she shared with her owner's other pets. "Hooligans! How dare they run about mucking up an upscale neighborhood like this?!"

     Her 'brother' (in the adopted sense, naturally) SJ, a red Kyrii, sighed and wriggled uncomfortably on the straw couch he was occupying. After a moment of deliberation, he decided not to point out that the 'upscale neighborhood' was the second cheapest place to buy housing on the planet. No use irritating a pet with the Magic Torch ability. Especially in a room full of straw chairs. "Sheesh. They're just kids. They can play on the street if they want. If it bothers you that much, go out and tell them to be quiet."

     "Yergh! I'm not going to talk to the little boogers!" Usually, Karina was laid-back and relaxed, but their owner had left the house for a few days and frankly her siblings were driving her crazy. "Hmm... think we could persuade Ebil to adopt a Lupe?"

     "Karina! We want to hush them up, not get them eaten!"

     She shrugged. "What's the difference?"

     SJ groaned and put a paw over his eyes.

     "Hey, guys. How goes the vigil?" The pair glanced up to see the oldest of the trio, a Jetsam named Janichen. Karina had been Ebil's first pet, making her the head of the house whenever their owner was out; Janichen was older because she came from the pound. She didn't remember a thing about her old owner. "Whoa. Someone looks stressed." Janichen plopped a small, dense bundle of yellow fur into the Usul's lap. "I read somewhere that spending time with your petpet makes you more relaxed," she explained as she padded off to the kitchen for a cup of tea, because she wrote poetry, and everyone knows poets drink lots of tea.

     (Huh? No they don't!)

     Be quiet and read the story! Now then...

     "Meep," said the bundle, unrolling itself. Skweek the Yullie happily plodded around on its owner's lap before springing to the windowsill and peering out into the dusky (is that a word?) light.

     "Stupid thing. It can't even sit on my lap right," mumbled Karina. She picked up the Yullie and petted it angrily, nearly squashing it. It meeped loudly and jumped to the windowsill.

     The Chias had now rigged up a primitive catapult and were shooting piles of fruit up in the air, taking turns with a rainbow gun and trying to shoot down the fruit before it hit the ground.

     "If you can't play with your petpet without putting it in danger of being squashed, the PPL might confiscate it," warned SJ, reaching for Skweek.

     He got air instead.

     "Huh?!" The adventurous petpet had not stopped at the windowsill, but kept going straight out the window! Attracted by the glow of the children's rainbow gun, he was racing across the street towards where they were clustered!

     "AAAAH!" screeched Karina. "Those brats must have been secret PPL agents!"

     SJ rolled his eyes.

     Karina was now frantically running in circles looking for her coat. "Who knows what they'll do to him?"

     "Chop him up into little pieces and make Yullie casserole," said Janichen, appearing at the door.

     Thud.

     "JANICHEN! What did you have to go and do that for?! Now she's gone and fainted."

     "It was just a joke..."

     "Well, wake her up. I'll go save the casserole." The Kyrii made his way out of the house and across the street, where the Chias had taken notice of Skweek. The street was rather wide, though, so SJ had some way to go before he would reach them. As he watched from a rapidly shortening distance, one picked up Skweek and loaded it into the catapult.

     This was not looking good. SJ broke into a run. If by some chance those kids didn't turn Skweek into a Petpet pot roast with that rainbow gun, it'd SPLAT on the pavement.

     Skweek flew into the air, made a wide arc any archer would be proud of, and went careening towards the pavement at upwards of 70 mph.

     The Kyrii made a running dive and slid towards the rapidly growing, Yullie-shaped shadow on the ground and...

     "Oof!"

     He'd overestimated the sliding distance. Skweek had landed, rather heavily, on his back. And now it was a rapidly disappearing, yellow-and-green dot headed for the Neopia Central market square.

     SJ got up to pursue, but stopped when he felt a small tug on his tail. He turned to find one of the kids behind him. "Hey, mister! You ruined our game!"

     "Sorry about that, but you see, that was my sister's Petpet and I don't really think she'd like it if-"

     "Yeah! That's not allowed!" squealed another Chia, appearing behind him.

     "It's against the rules!" yelled one on his left. SJ looked around, confused. Where did they keep coming from? There were so many of them...

     An especially large and mean-looking Chia emerged from the group. He was almost as tall as SJ.

     He gestured to those around him.

     "You know what we do to rulebreakers... " he rumbled ominously.

     -------

     Janichen and Karina emerged from the house just in time to see a small speck of red fur disappear into a mob of young Chias. "Yeurgh. Think we should go help him?" said the Jetsam.

     "Nah," said Karina. "Skweek is more important."

     "Okay," said Janichen, following her sister without actually processing the sentence.

     Several minutes later, the two Neopets came to a stop at the edge of Neopia Central's main plaza, where the petpet was just vanishing into the thick grass. "Okay," said Karina, "obviously, blindly chasing him is not going to work. What we need is a definite plan - one that makes it so we won't have to go to it, but instead will cause it to come to us!"

     "Y-yeah. It to- to us," gasped Janichen, who was more suited to poetry than running, as she tried to catch her breath.

     The stress was once again beginning to catch up to Karina. She had a slightly maniacal look in her eyes. "But first, we should probably get help from someone else. And if they won't help us... um... nevermind."

     The Usul pointed to a group of Neopets over near the school supply shop. "Let's start with them." She put on her best innocent-little-squirrel-thingy smile and approached an elderly Kacheek. "Excuse me sir," she said sweetly, "have you seen a Yullie go by?"

     "Eh, whassat?" snuffled the Kacheek.

     "A Yullie. About a foot long, yellow fur, green spots... "

     "Go away, whatever yer sellin' I'm not buyin' it!"

     "No, mister, I'm looking for my petpet... "

     "Eh, whassat?"

     "A Yullie. I got it from Terror Mountain."

     "You kids these days, all rotten an' spoiled, with yer expensive exotic petpets... "

     "He ran away just a few minutes ago-"

     "An' once ya've got the costly little buggers, ya ain't got the brains ta keep 'em!"

     "If you could just tell me whether you've seen him," began Karina. Her patience was starting to wear thin again.

     "Speak up!" barked the old Kacheek. His breath smelled like fermented prune juice.

     "I SAID, IF YOU COULD JUST-"

     "You kids these days, so darn loud."

     "AAARGH!" screamed Karina, losing control. This was not a good thing.

     ------

     Bob the Techo, keeper of the school supply shop, led an incredibly boring life. As he haggled with a chubby Poogle over a pencil case, he wished something exciting would happen. Of course, the best thing of all would be if the Neoschool that had been in construction for ages would finally open its doors, but that was too much to hope for. At this point, anything out of the ordinary would amuse him. Like maybe a truckload of Meepits turning over right in the plaza. Or an explosion at the chocolate factory, and then lots of tasty free chocolate would come out. Or-

     Suddenly, an old Kacheek ran by the front of the shop screaming. His tail was on fire.

     Bob raised an eyebrow. That would work, too.

     ------

     "Well, I haven't had any luck," declared Janichen, meeting up with Karina at Hubert's Hot Dogs for a quick dinner. "What about you?"

     "Well, I didn't find Skweek, but I did set someone on fire."

     "Um... okay, I'm just going to assume that was a joke and make no further enquiries... "

     Karina sniffled. "I miss Skweek... " The emotionally unstable pet looked about ready to cry.

     An adorable baby Lupe came and sat down next to her. "Aww, it's okay miss. Why're ya cryin'?" it asked innocently.

     "M-my petpet is missing... "

     The baby pet smiled brightly. "That's okay, miss," he declared happily, pointing to his furry chest. "He'll always be inside here!"

     Karina leapt to her feet and shrieked, "YOU ATE HIM?!"

     At this point the Lupe's mother showed up and clobbered her with a large and heavy purse.

     ------

     Meanwhile, inside that creepy giant mushroom, a certain impossible-sweet-looking shopkeeper was becoming desperate. A restock was due in less than a minute, but no new Petpet shipments had arrived. Already, Neopians eager to buy petpets were piling up outside the door.

     Skweek wandered into the shop through an open back window and accidentally knocked over a large bottle of neonip. The potent powder coated its fur with a scent irresistible to Neopet and Petpet alike. The Yullie rubbed the powder out of its eyes with its small pink claws and settled down right on the countertop where the Petpets for sale where normally kept.

     The Usul Who Runs the Petpet Shop was relieved to see the first few Babaas, Hopsos and Buzzers begin to materialize on the counter as the shop restocked. She didn't even notice Skweek.

     Outside the shop, Karina and Janichen had resumed their search.

     Inside, Skweek spotted his owner and, still reeking of neonip, made a dash for the door. He almost made it, too, except someone stepped on him.

     ------

     Tired of looking, the girls had returned home to try out less strenuous forms of searching, like printing up 'Missing' posters.

     Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Janichen opened it and was greeted by a rather large and grubby Chia. "Delivery," it rumbled ominously, then plodded down the street and into the distance. On the doorstep, it had left a large box with air holes punched in it.

     "Get me out of this thing!" came a muffled voice from inside the package.

     Janichen hurriedly tore it open. Upon seeing her brother, she sighed. "What in Borovan's name did you do this time, tick off the entire Usuki Doll Fanclub?"

     "That's not funny," mumbled SJ. Thanks to a certain group of Chias, he was decked out in high heels, a pink dress with white spots, a flowery headband, a make-up job and a 'do that would make any hairdresser proud.

     "Hey, Kar, come look what those 'little boogers' did to SJ!"

     As soon as Karina got out the door, her face lit up and she clapped her paws together with joy.

     "You're happy about this?!" said the Kyrii.

     "Not that, stupid! Look behind you!"

     "Meep," came a familiar noise from the street.

     Overjoyed, his owner picked him up and snuggled her face in his fur.

     Then she looked up and screamed.

     A long line of petpets stretched down the street in the direction of Neopia Central Attracted by the smell of neonip, all the petpets in the shop had followed Skweek on his way to the house.

     "Oh man, how are we gonna get rid of all of these petpets?!"

     ------

     A few hours later, the doorbell rang again.

     "If you came to deliver another dressed-up brother, don't bother, we don't want two," hollered Janichen on the couch.

     Karina opened the door, admitting their owner. "Hi, guys," said Ebil. Sorry about being gone so long. But the important thing is, I'm back right now, and I brought you presents!" She handed out to each pet a milk chocolate version of themselves.

     SJ wrinkled his nose at his milk chocolate Kyrii. "Are you trying to encourage cannibalism or something?! Because I find it slightly creepy to eat something that looks like me... "

     Ebil sniffed the air for a second. "Ew. Something smells funny. It's coming from... that closet over there... " She made her way over to the lounge room's closet.

     "NO!" shouted all three pets at once.

     Ebil pulled open the door and was immediately buried under a tidal wave of meeping petpets and smelly petpet dung.

     SJ put a paw over his eyes.

     "Well," said Karina helpfully, "at least we got some chocolate."

The End

Author's Note: If you're reading this, it means my story got into the Times, yay for me! If you're not... wait... never mind. Anyway, I like getting comments about my stories and stuff (so long as they're not MEAN comments). Actually, I love comments. In fact, why are you still reading this and not writing me a comment?!