The Terrors of a Neohome

     "Be glad you have one," I grumbled. "Poofyoofyoofy used to have to sleep in the garden shed. And she didn't even have a bed. "

     "Wow, where is it! I wanna see where my big sis slept!" Tizenk's eyes widened in amazement. I wasn't feeling very well that day, being as it that a few days back I had taken jojo_jojo955 all the way to the Ice Caves on Terror Mountain and waited until the Snowager was asleep, only to have him fire a Massive Icy Blast and somehow, ALL of my pets had taken sick. Luckily, Tizenk had been visiting friends of hers in Faerieland and had been rushed to the Healing Springs. But Poofyoofyoofy, Blue_Beans_Boy, and jojo_jojo955 were all still sick in bed (or on floor... all those beds are expensive!)

     "No, I sold it. You KNOW... I've taken you into all those stores at the Marketplace, there's no way I could have afforded keeping both. As it were, poofy (abbr. for poofyoofyoofy) and I spent the whole day at the Money Tree! We finally pocketed a couple thousand Neopoints..." But Tizenk's mind had wandered off to other things.

     "When am I finally gonna get an allowance?! I want to buy a new petpet! I'm getting bored with my Frogler. Poofy already has a Plushie Buzzer! I want an Angelpuss, a Harris, or a Poppit! Zixryo the Blumaroo's mom is already saving up for a Baby Blu!"

     "Tizenk, if there were such a thing as a Baby Grundo, I would surely get one for you. But you know, Zixryo has been entered in the Beauty Contest and I haven't had time to draw you lately..."

     But Tizenk had run off to the door of our nice new Neohome. But within seconds she was back again. "Mom, where's the door?"

     I almost felt like laughing, but the look on Tizenk's face brought me back to reality.

     "Uh, I think it's where the bathroom used to be, no, wait, that's the living room! Hang on," I said, and scratched my head. The construction workers had told me that they had to move the door to... I took out the detailed map. It was so detailed, in fact, that it was near impossible to read.

     "It says we are here," said Tizenk brightly. But just in time I noticed that the construction workers had mistakenly put it there unknowing of the fact that I would be carrying it randomly around the grounds.

     "Well," I said, "I think that this little green patch with what looks like lollipops on it is the Neogarden Terrace. Which is where we are. But that would mean... wait. It says that... no, um, North is that way, right?"

     "My compass is in my room," said Tizenk mournfully, "and I would get it, if I actually knew where the DOOR was!"

     So we were back to where we started. Worse yet, I heard poor jojo_jojo955 crying. What time was it? I was supposed to give her the Healing Potion! Luckily for us, a worker came around the corner.

     "That way!" I cried, and sprang away quickly, Tizenk not far behind. We came in sight of a large pile of dirt, and that was all.

     "I believe that your front door is behind that pile of dirt. Sorry for the inconvenience... " said a voice behind me. It was the foreman.

     "How long before you're finished?" I was practically sobbing now. "My pet is sick upstairs!"

     The foreman scratched his head, and said slowly, "Huurrrm, well, I think that it originally said four hours but that was half an hour ago... hum, yes, that was it, haffa hour."

     Only! Well, Tizenk and I would just have to dig it out! What seemed like ages later, although it MUST have been only a few short hours, we were standing inside, blinking sunlight, sweat, dust, and grit out of our eyes. When my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, I noticed that we were standing in the kitchen.

     "But... but... but... that's impossible! We must have come in through the back door!" I stuttered. Tizenk raced off through the many rooms and a few moments later her voice echoed over.

     "Come and have a look!" Her voice sounded urgent. I set off in search of her, grabbing a Healing Potion from a cabinet as I slid by. I came to a stop right before the massive oaken front door. Outside was the road, and right nearby were cool shady trees. Off in the distance I saw the Money Tree. But that wasn't what Tizenk was staring at. Opposite that door, where the stairs once were, was a huge gaping hole, and above it, a small green Chia head peeping out.

     "Mom," moaned jojo_jojo955 piteously, "the workers are making such a racket. And they took our nice wooden stairs to work on the room above mine!"

     I stood still trying to orient myself to the situation. "Jojo," I called up, "how are you feeling? Can your medicine be put off for a couple of hours?"

     "I-I think so," she called down, and tottered off in the direction of her room. Seconds later, there was a thump, and Poofyoofyoofy's voice issued from the right. "Jojo, you walked into a wall..."

     Oh, dear, I thought. My poor pets, all alone up there!

     "Come on, Mom," said Tizenk, pulling gently at my arm. I sat down gingerly in the stone chair, and Tizenk drew up the other chair from the next room over.

     "Oh, what are we going to do?! I knew the new addition was an awful idea!" But Tizenk was no longer occupying the chair opposite me. As I sat, still wondering where she had got to, and if she had gotten lost, she came back, pulling a long length of rope and a grappling hook. She led me off into the front hall, and before I could get a word in edgewise, she had thrown the grappling hook. It fell rather short, and Tizenk looked ruefully at it. "I forget at times that there's gravity, unlike the Space Station..."

     "Here, let me try," I said, and hurled the hook up as far as it could go. It caught on a small piece of wood protruding from the wall. It had been one of the ones supporting the staircase. Tizenk volunteered to go up and move it to a sturdier location, as she was the lighter of the two of us. She nimbly pulled herself hand by hand up the rope, and swung herself onto the floor there. She unwedged the hook, stuck it out the open window, then jammed the window shut on it. "There, that should hold it."

     I wedged the bottle in my back pocket, then began to climb up, bracing my feet against the once-white wall of my Neohome. Just as my hands caught on to a beam, the rope parted from the hook with a loud twang. My feet were left waving wildly in the air. A sight it must have been, I would have stopped to think about it but Tizenk's voice urged me on. Slowly I pulled myself over the beam until I was spread across it like a wet blanket. My reaching hand grasped the edge of the floor and I pulled hard, until I was standing on the narrow beam.

     "One last jump," said Tizenk, and she was laughing. As my foot swung over the edge, and I opened my mouth to say, "How are we getting down," Poofyoofyoofy, jojo_jojo955, Blue_Beans_Boy, and a good deal of my other friends jumped out.

     "Happy Summer!" they were all shouting, and the construction workers streamed in, dragging the stairs.

     They explained it to me in the end. It hadn't REALLY been a Massive Icy Blast, only a faked one. "Didn't you even get sick?" I asked, but jojo_jojo955 held up a rare plushie with a smile on her face. "Nope!" she said, "Now you can sell this in your shop to buy more furniture and rooms and stuff!"

     "Oh, great, exactly what we need," I groaned, and we all burst into happy laughter. Now, as I look back on that day, Tizenk curls up happily in her green beanbag chair, and Poofyoofyoofy composes her birthday wishlist. We all get around the home now okay, don't worry...

The End