Second Chance Sanctuary: Another Chance

      The Uni sighed; she loved to just stare at the sky and lose herself, to just become totally carefree. She did this a lot with Amy. Amy was the best owner ever. Seriously.

      "Amy, why did you never take me back to the pound like all of the other pets you help?" The Uni turned her head slightly to look at her owner.

      Amy was slim and tall with glossy black hair and azure colored eyes. To Aleena, Amy looked like a goddess, and she was almost one too. Amy took abused and abandoned pets from the pound and made them happy again, so they would have a better chance of being adopted. But somehow, Aleena was still with her.

      Amy smiled, "I remember going to the pound that day, and taking one look at you. I almost cried. The adoption agent told me your story. Chained to a stake like some sort of monster with no food or water, being abused. My heart cracked…" Amy paused as they both remembered.

      Aleena's old owner had just thought of her as a thing, some toy to kick and yell at and to starve and to tie up like she wasn't a living being. She didn't even have a name.

      "I knew it was you who would come home with me, and you did. I think we both remember how long it took to gain your trust." Aleena shifted her gaze back to the sky and Amy continued.

      "Then came the day to take you back to the pound, but I couldn't bear it, so I told you the pound was too crowded and I postponed the event by saying just that for a few more weeks." Amy laughed a little at the memory; she almost never lied.

      "And then after a while, you just stopped lying to me, but you never quite said I was going to be staying with you forever." Aleena looked anxiously at Amy, just to make sure she would be staying with her forever.

      Amy smiled and Aleena returned the smile. "I wasn't sure for a while. I couldn't see myself having a permanent pet, but I couldn't imagine someone else caring for you."

      "But you never had that problem before." Aleena looked concerned. Why was she so special?

      As if Amy could read Aleena's thoughts, she replied, "I didn't think anyone but me could understand how fragile you are, and I didn't want you to be hurt again, so you're here to stay."

      Aleena smiled and continued to gaze silently at the beautiful sky. Amy had given her a second chance at life; Aleena was content with that.

      ***

      Aleena trotted along the deserted street, heading towards home as the sun set over Neopia. Amy was still at their shop, but Aleena always came home early to make dinner for the two of them. She flared her nostrils and took in the scent of early spring. Flowers, fresh cut grass, and dinner cooking mingled together. Aleena smiled and kept on trotting.

      As Aleena passed a bunch of overgrown shrubs, something white out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She stopped and peered into the dark, bushy foliage. A dirty, ragged looking, skinny, timid Ukali huddled under the leaves. Aleena gasped; surely a petpet this rare and expensive would not be carelessly left outside!

      "What are you doing in there?" Aleena murmured softly to the Ukali as she tried to coax it out of its hiding spot. The white winged petpet cringed away from Aleena's hoof, its eyes shining bright with fear.

      Aleena looked around at her surroundings. Her neohome was less than a block away, and nobody was outside. Aleena stood thinking for just a second more before looking back at the terrified Ukali.

      "I'll be right back, please don't go anywhere!" Aleena exclaimed as she broke into a trot down the street.

      When she reached her neohome, she unlocked the bright blue door with the brassy doorknob and the winged shaped-knocker. Aleena went into the kitchen and looked around. She opened the white refrigerator and shifted food around until she found a piece of plain omelette. She grabbed the omelette and ran into the laundry room for a towel.

      Omelette and towel in hand, Aleena trotted quickly back down the street to the overgrown shrubs. She bent down to the Ukali's level and held out a piece of the omelette. The Ukali shrunk away at first, but the smell of food was just too much for the starving petpet. The Ukali inched forward cautiously and took a tiny bite of the omelette. Aleena didn't even breathe as the petpet took another bigger bite.

      The starving Ukali finished the omelette in a few mouthfuls. This time, it didn't cringe or shrink back as Aleena moved her hoof. Aleena laid the towel on the ground and reached into the shrub. She grabbed the Ukali before it could run away and wrapped it up into the warm towel. Aleena took the towel-wrapped Ukali and headed home.

      The sun had set now as Aleena brought the Ukali into the neohome. She took it into the bathroom and set it in the bathtub.

      "I'm going to put you into here so you can't go hide somewhere," she whispered gently as she unwrapped the Ukali.

      The Ukali's snowy white fur was plastered with mud and a few red scratches. You could literally count the poor petpet's bones. Its huge brown eyes looked fearfully up at Aleena. Aleena smiled softly at the miserable creature to comfort it before heading back into the kitchen to get more food.

      Down in the kitchen, Aleena grabbed a yellow plate and warmed up some more omelette and a bit of leftover grackle stuffed turkey. After the food was warm, she went back into the bathroom and set the plate down in the bathtub.

      The Ukali was hesitant at first, but hunger overcame it. It cleaned the plate free of food in a matter of minutes. Aleena took the plate over to the sink and filled it with a little warmed water from the faucet. The Ukali lapped the water up, filling its skinny body with warmth.

      "I wonder who your owner is. You must belong to someone, rare petpets like you just don't wander around in your condition…"Aleena trailed off thoughtfully.

      "Aleena, I'm home!" Amy called from downstairs.

      Aleena gasped; she had completely forgotten about making dinner! She turned to the little Ukali and wrapped it back up in the towel. She took both the Ukali and the plate into her arms and headed back downstairs.

      "Um…Amy…I-uh…um…found something…"Aleena entered the kitchen awkwardly, partly due to her full arms and partly due to her nervousness. What was Amy going to say? Aleena had never had a petpet, let alone asked for one. It's not that Amy didn't like petpets; she just never brought the subject up.

      "Oh my!" Amy gasped as Aleena showed her the tattered Ukali. "Who would abandon such a sweet little thing?" Amy scooped up the Ukali and held it gingerly in her loving arms.

      "Maybe it got lost?" Aleena set the towel and plate down on the cherry wood kitchen table.

      "That's one idea, but I don't know. Usually when someone loses a petpet, they hang up posters all over. I haven't seen any posters lately." Amy looked thoughtful as she sat down, still holding the Ukali as it slid into a deep sleep.

      Aleena smiled at the cute petpet. "I haven't seen any posters either. What are we going to do?" Aleena was hesitant to ask the question. What if Amy said they couldn't keep it?

      Amy thought for a moment. "We'll put up posters saying that we found a petpet and to neomail us describing the petpet. That way, we can make sure we have the right owner, not just someone who wants a free way to make some extra neopoints." Amy always made sure to cut out any loopholes in just about everything she did.

      "What will we do with it until we can find its owner?" Aleena again hesitated to ask the question. She really didn't want to have to give up the sweet little Ukali.

      "Well, it's pretty obvious," Amy began.

      "It is?" Amy laughed gently at the quizzical look on Aleena's face.

      "We'll keep it and make it better, but after two weeks, I think we might just have a new petpet." Amy and Aleena smiled widely at each other. Just two weeks. Two weeks.

      ***

      Two weeks came and went with many neomails from people who actually lost a petpet and opportunists alike. Aleena was laying on her belly on the lavender living room carpet, rubbing the wiggling Ukali's belly. The Ukali looked so much different from just two weeks ago. Its coat and wings were once again snowy white and its body had filled out to cover the bones. The Ukali's brown eyes were no longer full of fear, but they held happiness and energy.

      "Well, that's the last of our posters." Amy threw some tattered white signs with black letters into the garbage can.

      Aleena pushed herself up into a sitting position. "What are we going to name him?" She had been pondering the question a lot lately.

      Amy looked thoughtfully at the Ukali for a moment, who was now gnawing on a squeaky toy. "How about Blizzard?"

      Aleena looked at Amy and both of them laughed. The Ukali looked up at the two of them excitedly. They both laughed harder. "Blizzard is a little too common, how about Razen?"

      "That's more original…ok!" Amy bent down and hugged Aleena and Razen.

      ***

      Word seemed to travel fast that Amy and Aleena had helped an abandoned petpet. Soon petpets were carelessly being dumped off at their neohome. Aleena was getting worried that Amy would get angry soon.

      "This is getting to be ridiculous!" Amy said as she carried in a bedraggled Warf from outside.

      "What are we going to do?" Aleena stared at Amy worriedly. Was Amy going to blame Aleena for all this trouble just because she had helped Razen?

      "I don't know," Amy answered, clearly exasperated. It was costing her a lot of neopoints to take care of all these petpets. They had 15 to care for now.

      Aleena thought about their situation a lot over the next few days. She had to come up with a solution soon. Amy really wanted to foster another pet; she had mentioned it to Aleena only briefly, but Aleena knew how much she wanted to. A new foster pet meant more neopoints were needed and Aleena couldn't help Amy too much at the shop anymore because of all the petpets.

      Oh, what to do! Aleena flopped down on her bed, almost in tears. What if Amy decided to sell ALL of the petpets, even Razen? Aleena loved all of the petpets, but Razen held a special place in her heart.

      Suddenly a light bulb clicked on inside of Aleena's mind. She sat bolt upright and thought for a few more minutes before galloping down the steps two at a time. She bolted into the kitchen and almost crashed into Amy, who was washing dishes.

      "Whoa! Where's the fire?" Amy giggled.

      Aleena sucked in a big breath and began, not wanting to stop, "I have an idea about what we can do with all of these drop off petpets. We could open an adoption center and care for the petpets until they are well enough to be adopted. We could charge 1,000 neopoints, or something like that to pay for the cost of food, and we could build another room just for the petpets." Aleena looked at Amy both anxiously and hesitantly.

      Amy mulled the idea over for a minute. "There's just one problem…"

      Aleena's hopes plummeted through the floor.

      "What are we going to call our little adoption center?" Aleena looked up and smiled back at Amy.

      "How about Second Chance Sanctuary?"

      "Sounds great, I'll go call the building company now." Amy smiled wider, and Aleena grinned back, knowing that Amy truly was the most caring owner a pet could wish for.

The End