Adventures in Meridell

      "There's a Baked Rye Loaf for you for breakfast," her older brother called from across their tiny Neohome. "And there's some fruit, but could you please save most of it for Jack?"

      "Sure thing, Malcolm," she reassured him. Their other brother, the youngest out of all three of them, had just caught a nasty case of Neezles the other day. The poor Brown Shoyru didn't want to do anything except play with his Angelpuss, Pebbles.

      Malcolm, who was a Shadow Xweetok, sat and read. Ansley ate her bread and berries, waiting for the rain to pass.

      By the time she finished eating, it had.

      Flapping her wings in excitement, she stood up and turned to her brother. "Malcolm! It stopped raining! We have to go exploring today, I already asked Jack about it yesterday and he said he'd be fine staying home alone. What do you think?"

      "I think the rain could come back anytime," he answered, curling his tails around his paws, "and I don't want to get my fur soaked. And maybe Jack would be okay with it, but I'd rather stay and make sure he's safe."

      "He knows to stay here and rest," argued Ansley, "and even if he wanted to leave and go somewhere, Pebbles wouldn't let him. Come on!"

      Malcolm put down his copy of Slorg Care. "You can explore, I just don't want to this time. Take the Snot Umbrella."

      Their Snot Umbrella was Ansley's least favourite thing they owned. And with the Dung Bed she had to sleep on, that was saying something.

      "I hate that thing," Ansley muttered. "It always drips on me. What's the point of a dripping umbrella?"

      "Okay, you'd rather get wet than snotty. I really can't blame you." He went back to reading Slorg Care, to his sister's frustration. "Hope you have fun exploring!"

      Ansley honestly couldn't believe that her brother didn't want to go with her. Yes, it was nice of him to stay and keep Jack company, but she still felt rejected.

      When they were younger, there wasn't a day they weren't out all over Meridell! What about trekking through the forest and spying on Illusen? What about telling their awesomely terrible jokes to Kayla at Meridell Castle? Or bringing Jack and Pebbles to see the Turmaculus?

      Well, maybe those days were over. Neopia had changed in the past several years, and apparently, her family had too.

      She said goodbye to Malcolm, Jack, and Pebbles, before grabbing a Dewy Apple and heading out the door.

           "Well yes, I could have flown the whole way here, but I prefer to walk," Ansley chatted to a wild Crokabek she had met, deep in the forest. "Because, really, I don't see the point of exploring if you just fly! It's sort of like cheating."

      For the fifth time, she scanned the woods around her to check that nobody was watching her talk to a petpet.

      "And I guess some people would say that me talking to you means that I'm lonely for company on my little adventure," she confided, tilting her head at the Crokabek. "I dunno, it would have been nice if Malcolm came with me, but whoever said I'm afraid of being alone with my thoughts? Not me."

      The Crokabek squawked really loudly, and Ansley smiled at it. Feeling content, she kept walking along the trail.

      Okay, where would she be going today?

      To Meri Acres Farms, just in case she could finally find some Aquaberries after years of trying? Or maybe to see Kayla at the castle? They hadn't caught up in forever. But then again, Ansley felt like enjoying nature. So she would keep walking towards the mountains, and wherever that took her, that's where she would be.

      She ate her Dewy Apple thoughtfully.

           A little ways later, Ansley emerged from the trees and happened to find a pile of books and toys right next to this huge boulder. Ye Olde Petpets and the Food Shoppe were in view, but nobody was around to claim the items as theirs. It was peculiar.

      "Why would somebody just leave all this stuff here?" she wondered, running over to get a closer look at it.

      Included in the pile were books like Lutari Totems, Playing with Snow and Fire, How to Build a Snowball, and 1001 Types of Cheese. None of them were books she or Malcolm had ever bought for themselves, so it was possible that they were worth a good amount of Neopoints. And there was a Darigan Sock Puppet, too! Ansley and her brothers had been to the toy shop in Darigan Citadel before, and she knew that one was expensive.

      Why had some random Neopet left all this stuff out in the open? It made no sense.

      "Could it be a weird form of charity?" wondered Ansley, knowing that was too good to be true and that she was just playing with her imagination. "Wow, imagine if nobody claimed them and we could take it all to the Auction House in Neopia Central..."

      But before she could think more pleasant thoughts like that, a couple of Ixis appeared and sped down the hill towards her.

      And then everything happened very quickly.

      "Who are you?" one Ixi yelled. "Are you trying to steal our things?"

      "No!" she yelled. "I was on a walk, and I saw them--"

      The Ixis were almost to the boulder now, and the other one interrupted her: "King Skarl doesn't like thieves!"

      Ansley didn't know why these angry Ixis didn't believe her, but she did know that they were getting awfully close and even angrier. If they really thought she was a thief, they might try to capture her.

      Her first instinct was to be distracting, and since she was an excellent chatter on any and all topics, she tried that.

      "It's an interesting topic, actually, that I found your guys' books and toys. Because I'm an explorer, and, um, I always want to find stuff." Stepping to the side, just to get a little farther away from them, Ansley cleared her throat. "But obviously stuff that doesn't belong to anyone."

      The Ixis looked more than a little confused.

      Ansley forced her wings to stop flapping nervously, and she went on. "One time me and my brother found a whole stash of Dubloons, and we were so happy about it! I wanted to spend it on stamps, because I've always wanted to collect something, and I think stamps are a cool thing to collect. He wanted us all to go to that summer's Altador Cup, for the first time ever."

      This made Ansley dip her head and take her eyes off of the Ixis for a moment. "We ended up only buying food and medicine and stuff… but you can never have too much food, I hear. Oh!"

      The "oh!" came from looking up again at her opponents, who had apparently remembered to keep looking really angry and getting closer to her. This was bad.

      So she did the second thing she could think of, which was to run up to a book and kick it at the two of them.

      (Ansley thought to herself that maybe it would have been a good idea to bring the Snot Umbrella--that would've been even better to throw!)

      1001 Types of Cheese went flying at the Ixis, but they ducked. And then they seemed to calm down, surprisingly.

           For a whole minute, Ansley glared at the Ixis, who glanced at her, at each other, and at their pile of random items.

      This was becoming a very strange morning.

      "Okay, what's going on?" she demanded. "I told you two I wasn't trying to steal all of this. So then you guys don't listen to that and keep looking like you're going to capture me or something, and then I try to throw a book at you and you're two completely different Ixis! What's up with that?"

      They still didn't offer any explanation at first. The only thing Ansley could hear was a Crokabek's squawk, maybe from the same Crokabek she had been talking to earlier.

      Finally the first Ixi started talking.

      "We're really sorry," he began. "I guess I should start with that. This was a plan that we basically only spent one day coming up with."

      "What plan? What were you trying to do?"

      Together, the Ixis explained their incredibly flimsy plan to accuse someone of stealing these items and guilt them into visiting King Skarl, under the guise of confessing to thievery but really in order to tell him a great joke.

      Everyone in Meridell knew about King Skarl's perpetual grumpiness, and his request for any Neopian who felt like it to try and make him laugh with a joke. Well, these two Ixis (whose names were Flynn and Parminder) thought they were hilarious, so they wanted to make their fortune by telling King Skarl jokes. But it had never worked.

      "How many times have you tried?" Ansley asked, with almost all of her fear gone, and only curiosity remaining. She couldn't wait until she could tell Malcolm and Jack about this!

      "Oh, we went pretty much every day for the last few years," said Parminder. "That's when King Skarl finally banned us from telling him any more jokes."

      This was all starting to make sense, albeit in a way that was crazy and strange. Ansley didn't know what to think, not yet.

      Flynn concluded their explanation: "So because we're banned, we've asked all our friends if they would do it for us, and they refused. And… that's why we did this."

      Again, the two Ixis and Ansley just looked at each other.

      "It was a really bad plan," Flynn admitted sheepishly. "We would have split the prizes--you know, if King Skarl had loved our joke told by someone else--and everything. But planting items for somebody to steal and then accusing them of doing so even when they clearly didn't, all to make them tell a joke for us, is just…"

      "Wrong?" supplied Ansley. "Weird? Extremely strange?"

      When Flynn and Parminder nodded, clearly regretting this plan of theirs, Ansley couldn't help laughing. Yeah, what they had been trying to do was mean, but at least they had the decency to look ashamed about it now. And Ansley had come up with her fair share of half-baked, ridiculous plans over the years, too. She could sort of understand.

      It was weird, but she felt herself warming up to these Ixis and wanting to put all of this aside.

      "I think you guys should start coming up with different plans to earn Neopoints," she suggested. "And if you ever figure out a plan that actually works, give me some advice! Those Dubloons were our one time ever finding anything worth something."

      Flynn and Parminder looked at each other. "Are you and your brother in trouble, or something?" asked Flynn.

      Ansley shook her head, embarrassed. "It's me and my two brothers, and no, not really! Just because we live in a super tiny Neohome and I have a Dung Bed… um, well. It's not like we don't have enough Neopoints for food and stuff!"

      After a moment, Parminder offered Ansley their pile of books and toys. "They're all worth a good amount," he said, "so you could sell them in your shop or at the Auction House."

      "What? That's crazy, it's your guys' stuff!"

      "We've read all the books." Flynn shrugged. "And those toys aren't even fun anymore. Come on, we tried to accuse you of stealing to make you tell a joke for us! We ruined your day, or at least your morning."

      Ansley couldn't believe this, and she wondered what Malcolm would think of the offer. He probably wouldn't trust Flynn and Parminder, but then again, he wasn't here. That's what he got for staying home while an adventure was happening! And this had really turned out to be quite the adventure.

      Her instincts told her that the Ixis were being honest, so she decided to accept their gift.

      "Okay, I guess you're right about that," she admitted. They nodded and smiled. It was peculiar how quickly this whole situation had changed; one minute, they were accusing her of stealing the pile, and the next, they were giving it to her!

      Well, something weird was always happening in Meridell. Despite the trouble it sometimes caused her, Ansley actually didn't mind.

           Back at home, Malcolm and Jack almost didn't believe her story. But they couldn't argue with the pile of items she showed them.

      "It's amazing," Ansley chatted. "Stuff like this never happens to us!"

      Her brothers definitely agreed with that.

      "When you get over those Neezles, we'll take a trip to Neopia Central and sell everything," she told Jack, whose face lit up in delight. He flew up and somersaulted in the air, laughing.

      Ansley and Malcolm laughed too, and then all three siblings brainstormed about what they would spend their Neopoints on:

      "A whole collection of stamps and a new, non-dung bed!"

      "Tickets to the next Altador Cup! Or a Gormball tournament!"

      "No, we have to get Pebbles a new friend! What about a Slorg?"

      Even though not every idea would happen, certainly, Ansley and her brothers sure had fun thinking about it. She looked forward to figuring it out with them--that would be an adventure they couldn't opt out of!