The Shamrock

     "What did Uncle Rowan send you this year, Kate?" Mom asked me. She was curiously looking at the little box.

     I shook my head, unable to answer her question. Looking at Max and Sally, and then glancing around the room to see if my annoying little cousin was nearby, I opened the box. It didn't contain anything except a lot of packing foam and some soft cotton. Digging through the little mystery box, I found my prize and gently pulled it out.

     "That's really pretty, Kate," Sally said in amazement. Even Max looked impressed by the little trinket.

     Uncle Rowan had sent me a necklace. A thin, but very strong looking silver chain; the charm on the necklace was a four leaf clover. It was a real honest to goodness four leaf clover. It has been encased is some glass like plastic to preserve it, kind of like the glassy plastic you see small bugs encased in at science fairs and art galleries. The plastic was in the shape of a kidney, it was a bizarre shape to consider. The whole charm was small enough to fit in between the knuckles of my thumb.

     "Let's try it on you!" Sally said. The Pink Aisha dragged me over to the bathroom to use the mirror.

     Looking in the mirror, I noticed I had some cake in my fur. It really stood out too; chocolate cake on Striped Xweetok fur was very noticeable. I washed it off and let Sally put the necklace around my neck. It didn't look half bad, if I do say so myself. The necklace wasn't very long, the charm stopped in between my collar bones, which to me seemed very nice. Though if I wanted to look at it, I'd have to either use a mirror or go cross-eyed. Wearing my new necklace, I paraded around the house with my two friends and cleaned up the mess of gifts I had received. Before long it was bed time, which meant a new day of mysteries would come.

      * * *

     It was a bright, beautiful day. The sun came roaring through my window, disturbing a wonderful dream I was having. In the dream, I had been given the chance to meet my favourite two yooyuball teams; the Haunted Woods and the Lost Desert. After a few minutes of the sun's bright light poking at my closed eyes, I finally got out of bed and got dressed. Max, Sally and I were going shopping today, I was eager to use the gift cards. Today was also half price day, which meant everything was on sale; I love nothing more than a good deal.

     I chose my favourite shirt, a nice pair of pants and my favourite silver coloured belt. Today felt like it was going to be a great day. I hastily ate the pancakes Mom had set on the table, I was eager to meet up with my friends. After eating my pancakes and rinsing my plate, I made for the door in a hurry, but not before grabbing my favourite shoulder bag. I love that thing; it holds many more things than those silly girly purses ever will.

      * * *

     I met Max and Sally at the terminal; we were heading to shop on Roo Island first. After that we had planned on checking all the sales around Neopia Central. Today we got a ride on a long Uni drawn buggy. I actually enjoyed this, because since it was a nice day the tops on the buggies were drawn back, so I got to see the scenery clearly.

     It took an hour to reach Roo Island, the cool breeze coming off the ocean felt so nice, it seemed nothing could go wrong. Max said that he wanted to ride the merry-go-round, when we stepped off the buggy. Max was a big kid at heart; the Speckled Scorchio had always been fond of Roo Island. After we had ridden the merry-go-round, we rushed straight to the mall to get a start on bargain hunting. The mall was full of people; I had little hope that I would find anything today. I was wrong, of course; I had been looking for a rare plushie for months, and the plushie store in Neopia Central never had it. A small store in the mall had it, though. It was the Mirsha Grelinek plushie. This store offered it at a fair price, even for half price day, I took the chance and snatched it up. Sally also found the Shadow Korbat Plushie she had been looking for.

     "Wow, we got really lucky!" Sally said as we walked through crowds of people, on our way to meet up with Max, who had been checking out a candy store.

     "Yeah, maybe my new necklace is lucky," I said. We both started laughing.

     After we had found Max, we all decided to take a peek at the Roo Island practice stadium; Max was hoping to catch a glimpse of his hero, Lilo Blumario. I told him not to get his hopes up, as seeing the team on an average day like this was very rare. We went anyway; the spectating bleachers were all completely empty, save for the three of us and our stuff. We sat there for a few minutes enjoying the weather, yooyuball season was just around the corner.

     We got up and turned to leave when we heard voices coming from down on the pitch. The Roo Island team had just entered the practice stadium; they were also in the company of the Lost Desert team. We quickly sat back down, staring in shock at our good fortune. They were oblivious to us, almost as if we were ghosts.

     "How lucky are we?" Max said in a quiet voice, the excitement welling up inside of him was very easy to see.

     "I know!" Sally said. "We've had nothing but luck all day. This is totally amazing."

     We sat there and watched the two teams practice. The new girl on the desert team, Rhee Solters, was a tough player. Even though she was the new girl, she was extraordinarily talented, and had quickly become a fan favourite, much like 'Brains' Mortigan of the Haunted Woods team. Watching the Zombie Usul play was intriguing. He was also pretty funny; he had a friendly habit of teasing Elon during their matches with Maraqua. Watching the Roos' and the desert players practice together was amazing, Lilo would snatch the ball from Derbi, only to have it snatched back by Vonde. Eventually they decided to take a break, which is when we got spotted.

     "Hey kids, how'd we do today?" Leera Heggle asked us, his voice booming over the pitch up into the bleachers we were sitting in.

     We all exchanged looks of shock; not only did the captain of the Lost Desert team just address us, but he asked us what we thought. We continued to sit there in shock which only made the two teams laugh.

     "You both were amazing!" Max shouted. He couldn't believe what was going on.

     "Aw, that's nice of you to say," Lilo Blumario said with huge smile.

     "Why don't you three come down here?" Leera suggested much to our shock and delight. The three of us slowly nodded and quickly made our way down onto the pitch.

     Down on the pitch was different than being in the stands; there wasn't too much of a breeze. It was actually pretty warm. We were standing no more than a foot away from two previous winners of the Altador cup. Derbi Azar approached us; she carried herself with confidence and pride. She was really pretty; her Altador cup trading card did her no justice.

     "How would you kids like to learn some yooyuball moves?" she said. "I've been seeing a lot of promising kids playing in the streets."

     "R-really, you mean it?" I stumbled over the words.

     She nodded. So we spent the rest of the afternoon learning to play Yooyuball with our heroes. It really was a fun and amazing day. We never got to check out the sales in Neopia Central, but missing out on those was worth it. We returned home that night with autographs and some yooyuball skills. It is always great when celebrities make time for their fans.

     Perhaps the four leaf clover my uncle Rowan sent me really is lucky. All I know is that the necklace now holds a lot of good memories.

The End