Coal is a Girl's Best Friend

      At Christmas time, the family would always get really exited. Our Neohome was always the brightest of all with tons of lights and excitement everywhere. We would always get a big tree and fill it with ornaments and lights. Our family was the most joyful of Neopia. No wonder why my owner is named Joy.

      We always had a particular order when decorating. Ribbon, the Korbat was in charge of the lights outside and the garden; Berry, the Kougra is in charge of indoor decorations; Rainy, the Gelert was lazy and normally just put up the tree; and I, Holly the Kyrii, didn't do anything. I never got a real job because I was the youngest in the family. Maybe someday I will get a cool job like the others.

      It was Christmas morning. Rainy was the first to get up this morning. Traditionally, the first to wake up has to wake the others up. We all wouldn't mind. It was Christmas morning. Rainy got up right away and went to each room singing Christmas carols as she skipped to each room, singing loudly and out of tune to wake us up.

      Once we were all out of bed, we would all wake up Joy with a Christmas carol sung by us all. She would always be incredibly joyful when we would wake her up on that day.

      Then we would all run down stairs like rain. We would open our stockings and then the presents as quickly as we could. Then we would have cookies for breakfast and play with our gifts. Oh, how I love Christmas morning more than anything in the world, but this time was different.

      After we were done opening our stockings, I was already tearing off the peal of a tangerine that was inside. "Yum, they are so sweet!" I said.

      Berry nodded, "Yeah, I got one too." He stuck his sharp teeth into his tangerine and sucked it dry. "Let's move on to the presents!"

      We all couldn't have agreed more. We came to four presents. All of them were labeled with our name, and all of them had holes in them.

      "Interesting," Ribbon the Korbat said. "What's with the boxes?" He peeked inside. "It's pitch black. I can't see anything," he declared.

      "Well, then, let's just open it. Nothing's stopping us," Rainy said as she dug her teeth into one of the boxes. No, I'm serious. She really bit the box. She does that to open her presents. After ripping off the wrapping paper, she opened the box skillfully with her ears. She gasped. She couldn't describe what was in such a box. When no words came out everybody else immediately ripped open their presents who were soon in awe as well. I didn't open my present yet, though. I wanted to know what everybody else got.

      I gasped. "Rainy, your box is moving!" I shouted in disbelief as the box rattled around without being touched. Then a little adorable Christmas Puppyblew hopped out of the box. He was an adorable brown ball of fluff with sharp antlers and a glowing red nose. "Oh my. Rainy!" I said. "I love him!"

      Then another petpet hopped out of his box. This time it was a Christmas Gruslen. He was as white as the layers of snow outside and striped green and red so he wouldn't get lost if he ever stepped foot out into the whiteness of Terror Mountain. He was a truly handsome petpet. I could see that Berry was trying to hold himself back from screaming in delight.

      Then Ribbon's present came flying out of the box. It was a Christmas Kookith that was full of enthusiasm. He looked just like a Christmas present and danced around in joy. He squealed with such happiness. Nobody could help but to squeal themselves of how cute the little petpet was.

      Everybody's eyes were sparkling with such joy of their new petpets. Each one of them wanted to squeeze their own petpet to death, but still tore their eyes off of the best gift in Neopia and put them on me.

      "Hey, Holly," Ribbon said. "What did you get?"

      "Look." Berry pointed at my present. "She didn't even open it yet."

      Out of excitement, Rainy said, "Come on, just open it."

      With one deep breath I dug into my present, tearing it apart as fast as I could. I removed the lid full of holes to find what I thought would be the best gift in the world.

      A frown spread appeared on my face as I looked down at my gift. What I got was the most shocking. Joy watched closely as I removed the present myself from the box. To my surprise, it was an enormous lump of coal.

      I tried to convince myself it could've been worse. A red ribbon was wrapped around the rock tightly and it was very large and not too ugly. It was a nice lump of coal, I guess.

      "Oh," I said in disappointment. "It's very... nice." Joy looked at me in disappointment. She knew that I was not happy with my gift. Who would be? "I really like it, Mom, really." I still sounded disappointed, but I knew I wanted this to be a very happy Christmas for us all. Everybody was silent, even with the adorable petpets on each of my siblings' lap.

     "Mom, I love it," I said as if I was demanding something. Then I forcefully picked up the lump of coal and hugged it, causing my coat to turn black.

     Joy was mostly silent. All she could mumble was, "I'm sorry."

     ******************************************

     On the day after Christmas, everybody began cleaning up. A normal rule in our Neohome is "If you put it up, you take it down." Everybody would follow this rule. When taking down the decorations, I would deal with the tree, even though I didn't put it up by myself, so maybe the rule isn't completely followed.

     I was still pretending that I liked the stupid lump of coal, so I set it down next to me as I put away the Christmas ornaments. As I was reaching for one from the step stool, I looked outside into the white snow where Ribbon, the Korbat was happily zooming around, gathering the lights he had put up. The Christmas Kookith would watch with a smile as she followed Ribbon everywhere he went. The Kookith, Ribbon decided to name Surprise, but calls him Prize for short.

     I sighed. I loved that little Kookith. He was one of the most adorable petpets I had ever seen. He was so full of energy.

     "Are you done yet?" I heard Rainy call. Then right after that I heard a high pitched bark. I turned around to see Rainy and her Puppyblew. She decided to name him Ralph. "I need to take the star down," Rainy told me.

     "Of course," I said as I hopped off of the step stool for her to use. She got on to take the shining star.

     Ralph stood below, mouth open, wagging his tail. Any careless pet could drool over such an adorable pet. Once again he let out a high pitched bark when he figured he waited too long for Rainy to take the star off of the tree. Then the two of them disappeared into the kitchen.

     I was getting quite frustrated. I just wanted to take down the tree and be over with Christmas. That was surprising, though, because I love Christmas more than anything.

     Berry finally was trailing the Christmas lights into the living room with the Gruslen running to keep up. The Gruslen had a strong figure and was the least cute of all of the petpets but was cute still. His name was Mint. He stood up tall and he seemed to have the look of a king as he walked into the living room. Berry held the Christmas lights with his teeth as he knocked down the lights hooked onto the walls with his paws. I watched as the Gruslen saw the lights dangle. He swiped at it with his muscular paw every once in awhile in an attempt to play, but Berry was too busy to notice.

     All of the pets were so incredibly cute except for I had my ugly lump of coal, which I did a poor job of pretending was a petpet. I hated it, but the others were so cute. I looked down at the lump of coal next to me. It was lifeless, ugly, and black. All of the pets were so cute. I would have been the happiest pet in the world if I was to have one of them. They are so... so cute, and then after another look at my coal I couldn't stand it anymore.

     "I hate you!" I shouted in anger. "I hate you! I hate you!" The whole house was filled with my anger. I breathed deeply in hatred of my lump of coal. I was a naughty girl, I was afraid to admit. I deserved a lump of coal for all I knew. I haven't been good like I thought I was. I was nothing. Coal was what I had to prove of my naughtiness. It had been mocking me for long enough.

     Joy came running into the room. "Holly, what's wrong?"

     I pointed at the coal. I had to tell my owner then before I died of hatred. "It's the coal. I hate it! I love all of the other petpets so much, but..." I couldn't finish my sentence. I had to ask what I have been afraid to ask since yesterday. "Mommy, am I bad?" Without another word I leapt into my owner's arms and soaked her shirt sleeve with tears.

     "No dear. You don't understand. You are good," my owner said, pushing me away. "Look." She picked the coal off of the ground. "This is a Christmas Rock. He's a petpet."

     I stared at Joy in complete shock. "You mean, this was a petpet the whole time?"

     Joy nodded. "Yes, he is a pet rock painted Christmas, and I bet you really hurt his feelings."

     Suddenly I felt even more angry before. "What?! My Christmas was ruined because of him. I- are you sure?"

     Joy nodded again.

     More tears filled my eyes and I came storming up into my red and green room full of holly. I leaped onto my bed with the Christmas Rock in my arms. "I can't believe it," I said to myself.

     "I'm sorry," I said to my rock, though I still disliked it. It was a stupid excuse for a petpet.

     Then on the Christmas Rock I found a tear running down the ribbon tightly wrapped around his body. A tear.

     "Don't cry," I said. "Don't cry." My rock felt wet. It was strange. A rock that could cry. It was a rock that showed emotion. I couldn't believe it. Then, I really felt like my rock was a petpet.

     "I'm sorry. Uh... would a name make you feel better. I'll name you."

     Emotion, the rock. That was what I named him. Little did I know that in a year, that rock would become my best friend.

The End