Best Friends... Anymore?

     “Oh, yes, I will!” I laughed.

     I’m Pouncer, by the way, and I’m a red Kougra. At that very moment, I was chasing my little blue Kougra sister, Bibi, and she was also my best friend.

     “Stop it, you two, or you might fall and hurt yourself, and then we’ll be extremely late for school,” warned Ruby.

     Ruby’s my posh, mother-like sister, and she’s a red Uni, and also the oldest in my family. Well, apart from Caz, but I’ll tell you more about her later. I also have a big brother, who’s a red Lupe, and he wouldn’t have a care in the world the way we played, unless we were rolling about on the edge of Terror Mountain, that is.

     “Don’t be so worried, they’re fine,” said Buster. (See what I mean!)

     Ruby sighed and rolled her eyes, and Buster copied at the exact same time, but also had his tongue out, which made it funnier, and it made me and Bibi giggle, and then continued our game of chase.

     As we reached the school, Ruby’s friend, Emerald (who was, in fact, a green Uni,) came galloping up to us.

     “Hey, Emerald!” greeted Ruby.

     “Hi Ruby, and you guys.” Emerald smiled.

     She always calls us “you guys” for some strange reason. Most probably because there are so many of us. Well, it would sound weird if she said, “Hi Ruby, hi Pouncer, hi Buster, hi Bibi.” But I don’t mind; neither does Bibi, but Buster does. But Ruby has given him a very harsh warning if he says anything about it in front of Emerald, so he keeps his mouth zipped.

     “Have you heard about the new Kougra?” asked Emerald.

     “What new Kougra!?” asked Bibi excitedly.

     “There’s a new Kougra in school, but a lot of neopets have seen her and says that she’s all tomboy and acts as if she’s all cool, but really she’s mean, and luckily leaving next year.”

     “I bet she’s just lonely,” I said, joining in.

     “Yeah right,” said Emerald.

     “So what’s her name?” asked Ruby.

     “I don’t have a clue. I only know that she’s a moody Kougra,” said Emerald, shrugging.

     Ruby gave me, Buster and Bibi a glance to go away, and we obediently walked off. Suddenly, we saw a fire-painted Kougra, whose fur on her head had been ruffled up to make herself look cool, and also she had gold eye shadow on, which made her stand out. She had two neopets beside her, a faerie Wocky and a starry Cybunny. The Wocky’s name was Princess and the Cybunny’s name was Star. Everyone in school knew these neopets, since they were so fashionable and snooty. Bibi tried making friends with them when she first joined school, and I took her to the other side of the playground (which is extremely large) and shoved her in a bush before she got hurt. Honestly, just being smiled at by someone who hadn’t been painted by an expensive paint brush before they thought was an insult, and, of course, Bibi has never been painted by a cheap paint brush before, let alone an expensive one!

     “Looks like she has some friends already, and seeing that Princess and Star are them, I already know she’s stupid!” said Buster, frowning.

     “Yeah, but we should at least say hello,” said Bibi.

     “Don’t you dare! You know what happened last time!” I reminded.

     “Yeah, Bibs, those two are creeps, I’m telling you, and that Kougra looks as if she’ll punch you in the chops!” warned Buster.

     “Oh, please! I really want to meet her!” begged Bibi.

     I looked at Buster. Buster looked at me, and we gave in. We walked up to the gang of neopets. Princess and Star saw us instantly and got ready to insult. But before the words came out of their mouths, the Kougra said:

     “Hey, look! Two Kougras. They look cool. Tell them to come over here.”

     Her voice was full of attitude and no emotion. We walked cautiously up to her.

     “I don’t like Lupes. Get rid of him. I’m only interested in Kougras,” she said, after noticing Buster was following me and Bibi. He growled slightly, but walked off with a twitch of a tail and his nose in the air.

     “My name’s Izzy. What’s yours?” she asked.

     “My name’s Bibi, and this is my big brother, Pouncer,” answered Bibi, giving me no time at all to say my own name.

     “Brother and sister, eh? I like your attitude, Bibi. Since you’re both Kougras, you're allowed to hang out with me any time.”

      Bibi’s eyes sparkled with excitement and a large smile grew on her face. But then the school bell rang, and while me and Bibi were walking down the corridor, she said:

     “Izzy’s so cool, isn’t she? I mean, she said I’m cool, and nobody’s called me that before, apart from you, Pouncer.”

     “Yeah, yeah, but I have this feeling you shouldn’t be getting too attached to her now,” I mumbled.

     “Why’s that then?”

     “I don’t know, I just think you should stay away from her.”

     And she should have. At lunchtime, I was waiting on the grass for her. I waited and waited. We always ate our lunch on the grass. It was fun, and we enjoyed it so much. We’d roll around, play, and even chase the odd petpetpet. Still waiting. In the end, I just sat down and ate my lunch on my own. When I’d finished, I started looking all around the school for Bibi. I couldn’t find her anywhere, so then I decided to look in the last place she’d be. The cafeteria is where all of the snooty neopets eat. But when I looked inside my jaw dropped. I’m surprised it didn’t drop and crush my paws, really. There, on the table in front of me, sat Bibi, on her left side was Izzy, and on her right side was Princess and Star.

     But that wasn’t the only thing that was different. The fur on her head was ruffled like Izzy’s, she had her claws painted red with nail varnish, and she had purple eye shadow on. She had changed so much, and she was chatting away at her new friends and didn’t even notice me when I walked out of the cafeteria, with my head and tail sunk low to the ground.

     Buster tapped his foot impatiently. We had been waiting outside the girls bathroom for ten minutes for Bibi to come out. Ruby had decided to go in and see why she was taking so long five minutes ago, leaving me and Buster waiting impatiently outside. Then we suddenly saw Ruby come out.

     “Bravo! You’ve finally found your way to the door!” said Buster, clapping his paws.

     “Tell me, was it such an impossible mission, or did you just have a bad stomach?”

     I noticed no one else was coming out.

     “Where’s Bibi?” I asked.

     “She said we should go and she’ll come home later on,” said Ruby, worriedly.

     “She’ll be fine now that she hangs out with that snorkle of a Kougra,” said Buster heartlessly.

     I’d told them about what had happened in the cafeteria. That afternoon, I sat anxiously in the garden, waiting for Bibi to come home. Meanwhile, Ruby was sunbathing and Buster was playing with his Puppyblew, Toby. I just couldn’t get that picture of Bibi out of my head. She looked so different, with that ruffled fur, makeup and who knows what else. I tried to tell myself not to worry, that she’d just made a new friend, and she’ll come home now all fine and dandy and she’ll apologize for abandoning me at lunch and I’ll forgive her and we’ll play until sunset.

     But that was obviously not to be. Suddenly, I heard footsteps and Bibi came out of the house. She still had the makeup and the ruffled fur, but there was a very big difference. She’d been painted by a mutant paint brush!

     Everyone was stunned. Even Toby stopped playing and stared.

     “WHAT ON EARTH HAVE YOU DONE TO YOURSELF!!” shrieked Ruby.

     “You look hideous!! What’s Caz going to say when she-”

     “What am I going to say?” asked our owner. Then she suddenly saw Bibi.

     “Bibi, what have you done? Look at yourself! You said you wanted to be painted by a striped paintbrush!”

     “Yeah well, stripes are out of fashion, and mutant is in. So there!” said Bibi, snapping her fingers.

     “Izzy had a spare one, and took me to the Rainbow Pool and all that stuff.”

     Even her voice had changed. Instead of that cute, high pitched baby voice that everyone loved and knew, she now had a tone that was full of attitude.

     “Wait. You mean you went to the Rainbow Pool without your owner's permission!?” said Ruby, astonished.

     “Yeah, yeah. So what? I’d be able to live without her,” said Bibi, waving her paw as if to say she wasn’t bothered.

     Ruby and Caz opened their mouths in astonishment, while Buster and Toby growled fiercely. I suddenly felt tears in my eyes. I suddenly noticed that it wasn’t Bibi standing in front of me, but a stranger. I felt a fire inside me made of anger and sadness rage out of control.

     “You shouldn’t ever have hung out with Izzy. She’s changed you, and I don’t like the new you at all!” I shouted as I burst into tears and ran up to my bedroom.

     On the way to school the next day, I said nothing. I didn’t feel like talking, not after the day before. Bibi did look a bit upset, but I guess I was even more upset and didn’t notice. It felt weird going to school without playing with her, but it would be even stranger playing with a mutant Kougra I hardly knew.

      That afternoon, while I was wandering around the playground, I saw something in the corner of my eye. It was Bibi, and her mouth was wide open, her fur prickled and eyes full of fury. These were the signs that she was having an argument with someone- and that someone was Izzy.

     “You’ve changed me, and because of that I’ve lost my best friend,” said Bibi, right in Izzy’s face. So close that I saw some spit go into her eye, and then she walked off.

     I didn’t exactly hear this, I just found out that she’d said that later on. Anyway, I didn’t make much of it, they were most probably playing or something. So, I carried on wandering around. I missed Bibi more than ever at that point, but I couldn’t be friends with someone who doesn’t respect caz’ s work.

     Bibi was late AGAIN coming home from school that day. But I wasn’t sitting anxiously in the back garden though. I was lying on the grass, fiddling with grass blades. I twiddled them, making them wrap around my fingers. I was obviously bored, but I really had nothing to do, now I wasn’t friends with Bibi. I sighed and rolled on to my back.

     Suddenly, I saw a blue Kougra with a wide smile block my view of the sky. I sat up. I’d know that smile a mile off. It was Bibi! With no makeup or scruffy fur whatsoever!

     “I’m sorry, Pouncer. I had turned mean, but I borrowed a blue paint brush from a friend of mine that they had out of a newbie pack and I’ve fallen out with Izzy. So, are we still friends?” she apologised.

     “No we’re not friends,” I said. Bibi frowned, and I smiled.

     “We’re best friends.”

The End

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