Lucky Me: Part One

      “This is horrible, just simply horrible!” she said to herself as she started to try to remove cookie dough batter from her wings. This was a disaster, and it wasn’t the first either. She was already in trouble for nearly burning down the house last Friday after trying to make pancakes for breakfast, and she flooded the neogarden last week Wednesday when she forgot to turn off the water, which resulted in ruining almost all of the gnomes. This cookie dough explosion could be the last straw for Amanda, and Aura knew that then she would have a one way ticket to the pound.

      She sighed and gave up on getting the batter out of her purple wings because every time she tried to get it out, it somehow got even more stuck than it already was.

      “I don’t get what went wrong,” she sadly mumbled to herself as she got the cookbook from the counter and flipped to the recipe that she was trying to recreate. “It looks like I did everything right. One cup flour, two eggs, half a cup of sugar, chocolate chips, oven temperature set at 375 degrees. This is exactly what I did! How on Neopia did it go wrong!” She had followed the instructions perfectly, and yet she still managed to mess it up somehow.

      She sighed again and set the cookbook down on the counter, which was practically the only spot left in the kitchen that wasn’t covered in cookie dough as far as Aura could tell. Maybe she was just bad luck. Everything that she tried to do right always seemed to go wrong. Ever since Amanda’s ‘friend’ had come over for last Christmas, everything seemed to be going downhill for Aura.

      True, he had seemed very nice when she met him, and he even gave Amanda a Faerie Paint Brush. Plus he had given Aura a beautiful gold necklace with a purple gem in it to match her new Faerie Kougra look, but ever since he came everything went horribly wrong for Aura.

      Aura had wondered if the necklace was possibly cursed, but Amanda just laughed at the idea when she asked her. But Aura knew that the necklace was bad luck, but Amanda wouldn’t let her take it off because she said that it would be rude to take it off because he had spent so many neopoints on it.

      Thinking about how many things that necklace had caused her infuriated her. She had burned the turkey at Thanksgiving, broken her left wing twice, lost 5,781 neopoints, failed five tests at Neoschool (she had never before gotten lower than a B+), lost all of her battles in the Battledome (she was undefeated up till then), and she had gotten sick three times this month alone!

      That’s it! she angrily thought as she made her way to the bathroom, this necklace has got to go!

      She made her way around the cookie dough floor and passed through her room and stormed into the bathroom. She slammed the door shut behind her and was finally going to get rid of the necklace, and the curse, once and for all.

      As she walked into the bathroom the first thing she noticed was her reflection in the seashell mirror above the disco sink. It looked like the necklace was giving off a faint glow as though it knew what Aura was about to do and was trying to stop her from doing it. It’s just the trick of the lights, she thought and looked at the rest of her reflection.

      The left side of her face was completely covered in cookie dough, most likely because that’s the direction she was facing when it exploded, and her left wing looked like it actually was cookie dough. On the bright side, she thought as she looked at the rest of her reflection, only the left side really has cookie dough on it. I can easily take a bath afterward to get cleaned up. A frightening thought sent an icy shiver down her spine. That’s if I’m still here.

      As she looked at her reflection again, she thought that she saw something in the uppermost corner of the mirror. She whirled around, expecting to see Amanda, but no one was there. She convinced herself that she was only seeing things and then went over to the disco toilet and opened the lid.

      She took off the necklace and held it over the water ready to drop it, but something stopped her. It was as though some part of her didn’t want to let it go. Oh, come on! she thought as she stared at the necklace’s gem, just let it go. But the moment she released her grip, she tightened it just as fast.

      Aura sighed and placed the necklace on the black and white marble floor. Why am I so unsure? she thought as she gazed at the necklace. It’s caused me nothing but trouble ever since I got it. She picked it up again, this time determined to get rid of it once and for all.

      She held it over the water again and prepared to drop it, but again something was stopping her. Aura took a deep breath in and closed her eyes. She relaxed her muscles and felt the necklace slipping out of her paw, but this time she didn’t try to stop herself. She continued to loosen her grip until she heard it fall, and then flushed the toilet.

      All at once she felt like a heavy burden had been lifted off of her shoulders. All of the horrible things that that necklace had caused seemed so far away now, and everything seemed to be right in her world again, but she still had to clean up the kitchen.

      She went out of the bathroom and went to get a mop from the closet. Aura wasn’t sure if she could clean up the cookie dough mess in time, but she could try to clean up at least some of it.

      Aura came back into the kitchen armed with a mop and a bucket of soapy water and started to clean up the kitchen. She had just finished cleaning the floor when she heard the door open.

      “Aura!” she heard Amanda call, “we’re home!”

      “You’ll never guess what I bought!” Sage squealed from the front door. Aura heard his little paws scampering across the living room and coming towards the still cookie doughed kitchen. “It’s so cool, Aura! It’s almost exactly like...” Sage’s words stopped. He had just walked into the cookie dough covered mess.

      “Sage? Everything...” Amanda had just walked in behind Sage and lost her words. Aura instantly looked down at the floor. She couldn’t dare to look into Amanda’s eyes to see her emotion.

      “Sage,” she heard Amanda say after what seemed like hours to Aura, “please go to your room.” Aura heard him leave the room obediently and she knew that Amanda was now glaring at her.

      “Would you like to tell me what happened?” When Aura was silent, she continued, “I go out for not even thirty minutes and I have to come home to this!” Aura could hear her anger rising with each passing word. “What were you even thinking? You know that you shouldn’t be cooking without my supervision, and where is your necklace! I told you not to take it off! Do you know how many neopoints Anthony spent on that? I also signed our neohome up for the Neohome Spotlight. Do you think that we’ll win with a house like this? They’re coming in less than ten minutes! How do you expect me to get this cleaned up in time? I can tell you right now, Aura, this is the last straw!”

      She couldn’t take it anymore. Aura ran out of the kitchen and into the safety of her room with tears running down her face. She thumped onto her bed and started to sob all of her sadness into her pillow.

      Why is this happening to me? she thought as hot fresh tears streamed down her face. Why is it that I’m always so unlucky? Aura continued to cry until sleep took her, but there were no dreams to comfort her.

      Instead, she had nightmare after nightmare about what would happen to her now that Amanda hated her. She knew that Amanda would never trust her alone again, and she would probably hate her for the rest of the time that she was still hers. The only other option would be to send her to the pound, but that would most likely be better than living here.

      Aura knew that she would miss her silver room and furniture, but she knew that she would get over that eventually. She would have no trouble forgetting about Amanda, but Sage was another story. They had been through so much together since Sage was adopted three months ago. Aura helped him with school, protected him from anyone who would try to harm him, and helped him make a cake for Amanda’s birthday. Nothing would be the same without Sage there.

      When Aura woke up she saw that it was already dark. She had slept through the whole day, and she felt worse than ever. What had happened while she was asleep? Had Amanda been able to clean up the mess in time for the judge? What did Sage want to show her? Did Amanda decide if she would send Aura to the pound?

      Too many thoughts were racing through her head, and she was staring to get a massive headache. Then a strange thought hit her. What had happened to the necklace? She knew that she had gotten rid of it, but where was it now? Was it causing someone else as much pain and misery as it had caused her?

      Her thoughts were interrupted as Amanda walked into her room carrying a large suitcase and set it down on Aura’s bed. Then she left without a word because there was nothing left to be said.

      Amanda had decided to send her to the pound.

To be continued...