The Daring Dish Dash

Seeing what was happening, Tippy the Snowbunny did the only thing a Snowbunny of his height, weight, personal emotions, social standings, income, fur color and ear length would do. He screeched at the top of his lungs.

     In this case, I do not mean his screech was directed at the top of his lungs, but rather that he screeched as loudly as he could. If you are wondering what a Snowbunny screeching as loudly as he can sounds like, here is as close a representation of the sound as can possibly be recorded with mere words:

     'EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!'

     His owner, Mo the blue Gelert, paused in the act of throwing Tippy's food dish in the trash.

     "Tippy," Mo said, raising the paw that was holding the dish, and, in extension, the dish, "this dish is worn out, dirty, and just plain yucky-"

     "Squeak squeakin' squeak squeeeak!" Tippy interrupted.

     In case you don't speak Snowbunny, here is a translation: "But I am rather partial to that dish, and I do not think it is worn out, dirty, or yucky. I find it quite nice, refined, and delicate, actually. Please do not throw it away."

     Of course, Mo did not understand that. All he heard was, 'Squeak squeakin' squeak squeeeak!'

     "Oh, really? Well, I'm afraid I out-rule you in this matter, Tip ol' chum," Mo said cordially, releasing the bowl from his grasp. It fell down into the trash can, as is to be expected, and thumped dully when it hit the garbage.

     Tippy gasped, and his eyes grew wide (not literally, of course. His eyes did, at one point in his life, actually grow in diameter, but that is a totally different story related to an unfortunate meeting with a tank of helium) as he heard his faithful dish thump. Never, in his wildest dreams, had he ever imagined he would hear his faithful dish thump.

     Mo, not hearing or noticing Tippy's shock, made a 'Hmmm' sort of noise in his throat as he looked at the clock.

     "Well, I need to go to guard duty, Tippy. When I come home, we'll go buy you a nice new dish."

     "SQU-eak squeakin' squeakin' squeakin'!" squeaked Tippy defiantly, which means, in Human, "But I don't WANT a new dish! I want my old dish! Why must I continue to explain this?"

     Of course, Mo did not know this, since he doesn't speak Snowbunny, but the italic squeakin' and the capitalized SQU- caused him to consider that Tippy was not happy with him. Mo shrugged, since he really couldn't change things now, patted the irate Tippy on the head, and walked down the hall and out of the house.

     Tippy's eyes, and most likely the rest of his body, if it could, glared after him. When he heard the door slam, he shifted his gaze towards the trash can. He had to save his dish! But how?

      He glanced around the kitchen and hummed the theme for Ice Cream Machine. The cutting board could be useful, as could the kitchen string and the rolling pin… But…

      (Note that this is an improper, capitalized But! That means it is an important 'but', not just your every day 'but'! This means that Tippy is going to think something important next, so don't say I didn't tell you to pay attention. Anyway, where did we leave off? Oh yes…)

     …he would need the help of a lot of his friends for this one.

     Let's see… he'd need Matthew and Jewel… Ani and Thomas, definitely… and probably Mufasa and Macky, too. Ah, but how was he to bring his friends together on such short notice? Simple: they had planned an emergency call for just such a Neopia-shaking crisis. Prepping his vocal cords with a few imperial-sounding coughs and 'ahems', Tippy opened his mouth, and this exited his maw. "EEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeEeEeEeEeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

     Or something very close to it.

     Within minutes, his friends dashed, hopped, flew and generally made their way down the Great Stairs and towards their friend-in-need.

     They gathered around him and cocked their collective heads in curiosity.

     "Squeak! Squeak! Squeakin' squeak squeakin' squeak!" said Tippy definitively.

     "ARRrrrf arf arf, arfie arfin'!" Mufasa the Puppyblew barked sympathetically.

     "Narf narfin' NARFin'!" Ani agreed in an Anubis accent.

     Macky made Magaral noises.

     ~~~~~

A few hours later

     Tippy glanced at what Jewel, the Wadjet, was doing. He was cutting ear-holes in half of a tomato. Next to him sat two more halves, one with no ear-holes, and one with them. These were for himself and Matthew, the Warf. The one he was working on was for the leader of the operation, Tippy.

     Now, you may be wondering how Jewel is cutting anything if he doesn't have paws, or even arms, and why he is cutting up tomatoes.

     (I mean, they never did anything to him, did they? They had led happy lives on the plant, chatting with friends, helping their younger siblings with their homework, and reading novels on Saturday. Until an evil tomato-picker plucked the afore-mentioned tomatoes from their families, friends, and homes. They had been sent to the Health Food Store, a horrible place where all the unlucky fruits and vegetables were sent to be 'nutritious' and 'good for you'. In the end, most were eaten by ungrateful young Neopets, who had no idea what suffering had been endured so they could be healthy. But, I stray off the track.)

      Jewel is using his tail to hold the knife. Admittedly, that's hard to imagine, but to explain, I would need complex diagrams, life-size, fully posable models of Wadjets, and several hours, none of which I have. So you'll have to take my word.

      He is cutting the tomatoes so they can be worn as rather squishy helmets. They had originally considered using measuring spoons as helmets, but that idea had been scrapped when they realized they would have to cut off the handles.

     Tippy squeaked encouragingly to Jewel, and moved on.

     "Rarf rarf! Rarfin'!" Matthew the Warf called to Tippy. In other words, "Hey Tippy, I believe I am finished with the catapult, so if you could please tell Jewel to hurry, we shall be able to lift off shortly."

     Tippy nodded, relayed the message (Squeakin'! Squeak!), and then looked at the rest of his compatriots, who were lined up in front of him.

     As Jewel slithered up to him, Tippy cast his eye over his team and gestured to Matthew to stand next to him.

     "Squeak. Squeak-squeakin' squeak," he said, which equates to, "Alright, good. Now, everyone knows what they need to do, correct?"

     Everyone nodded.

      Jewel handed - -er, well, I can't really say handed since he doesn't have hands… hmm -- alright, Jewel tailed Matthew and Tippy their helmet. Matthew cringed slightly, since he didn't, doesn't, and never will like tomatoes. However, he likes cutting up measuring spoons less, so there we are.

     With helmets on, they stepped onto their catapult.

     This catapult, in case you didn't know, and you probably didn't, was a cutting board on top of a rolling pin. They had properly secured the rolling pin, and tested the catapult multiple times with the unfortunate remains of the tomatoes, so everyone felt confident it would work.

     Tippy, Matthew, and Jewel stood on the catapult, their helmets dripping tomato juice majestically onto their shoulders (except in Jewel's case, since he didn't have shoulders). Mufasa, Ani, and Thomas stood on a bag of flour next to the higher end of the cutting board catapult.

     "Squeak!"

     Those on the flour bag got in position to jump onto the catapult, and those on the catapult prepared to go flying off it.

     "Squeak!"

     Everyone did exactly what they did after the first squeak, only this time they did it more dramatically.

     "SQUEAK!"

     Those off the catapult jumped on it, and those on the catapult flew off it.

     I can't really describe what they said as they flew along, but it sounded rather like this:

     "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

     Followed by a 'Squish' 'Eeeeeck' and then a rather loud 'Thump', though if you had actually been there, it would have sounded more like "SquiEeeshckTHUMP!"

     Since he rather felt that the last 'Eeeeeck' wasn't strong enough, Matthew added, as he stood up and picked off bits of tomato, "Eeeeeeeeech!" Tippy and Jewel agreed, and donated their 'Eeeeechs' to his attempt.

     Well, they had made it into the trash can, and it wasn't a pleasant place. They were surrounded by trash. Tippy looked across the vast expanse of garbage, trying to spot his precious dish, while Matthew and Jewel looked across the vast expanse of garbage with disgust.

     Finally, in the distance, Tippy saw his priceless dish.

     "Squeak! Squeakish Squeak!" he said excitedly, looking back at his thoroughly disgusted friends. They looked up half-heartedly, by now wishing that someone else had been chosen to go with him. However, they trudged after him as he hopped hopefully towards his dish. Soon, happilly for everyone, since it stank STANK stank in the trash can, they reached the object they had all labored for hours to rescue. Tippy dashed the last few hops, and threw himself on the dish, while the other two glanced at each other, and then at the enormous wall that surrounded them.

     "Urm… Arf?" said Matthew meekly.

     "H'hiss hiss. HISS!" Jewel added, more confidently.

     Tippy looked up, startled, and saw the look of utter revulsion on his pals' faces.

     "Squeak. Squeak squeakish. Squeakin'," he said, which means, "Oh, yes, I am sorry. It does stink STINK stink in here. I will now call for the rope to be thrown over."

     With that, he screeched at the top of his lungs (see the beginning of the story). Soon, a large knife attached to a very thick string came hurtling over the edge of the trash can and buried itself (the knife, not the edge of the trash can) in the trash.

     Jewel slithered forward enthusiastically, while Matthew and Tippy followed with the dish. Once they reached the knife Jewel used his tail to pull the rope (which was multiple pieces of kitchen string wound together) off of the knife hilt. The three petpets worked together to tie the rope around Tippy's dish, and then yanked on the rope two times.

     If you're wondering how they tied string around a very-close-to-perfectly-round object, the answer is this: they tied it in a very secret way that is known only to petpets and is passed down from generation to generation by a ritual that is unpronounceable in Human, so I won't even bother to write it down.

     But I digress.

     They tied the string to the dish, yanked twice on the rope, and up went the dish. Up, up, up it went, until it reach the edge of the trash can, at which point it went "CLANK".

     After the "CLANK", came the very quiet 'whish'-ing sort of sound that happens when a Snowbunny's dish goes "CLANK" at the edge of a trash can and then falls through the air towards the ground. After a moment or two of 'whish'-ing, there came a mixture of "THUMP" and "WHOOSH" that sounded rather like "THUMOOOSH!" if you listened carefully.

     As soon as the three inside the trash can heard the "CLANK", they ran towards the opposite side of the trash can, since they knew another knife would be arriving shortly. Just as they were 75/169ths of the way across the plain of garbage, they heard a dull "THUNK" as another knife buried itself into the trash. All three petpets inside the trash can spun about and returned to their original position near the knives.

     While I must admit that this way of exiting the trash can seems rather awkward, it did, does, and probably will even in the future, work.

     Once the threesome reached the knife, they once again removed the rope from the knife hilt. This time, it was tied about Tippy in a complex way, so that it more resembled the harnesses mountain-climbers wear than it did ordinary string. The rope harness was tugged twice, and up Tippy went, though when he reached the edge of the trash can, he didn't go "CLANK" and when he fell through the air towards the ground, he didn't make 'whish'-ing sounds, either. Instead, he said, very calmly, of course, "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!", followed by a "OOOOOF!" when he hit the flour bag situated at the bottom of the trash can. The flour bag made the same "THUMOOOSH!" noise, causing the total effect to sound something like "EEEEEEEEEEEEETHUMOOOOSHOOOF!"

     Tippy hopped off the flour bag and retreated a safe distance. He watched as the knife-hurtling-over-the-edge bit was repeated for Matthew and Jewel. However, when Jewel reached the clanking part of the trash can, he hissed at them to stop pulling. He was wrapped around the rope, and once they stopped pulling, he slithered his way down to the flour bag. Once he had slid over to Tippy and Matthew, and the flour bag had been moved, he hissed again and the pulling continued. Four very sharp, but rather stinky, knives appeared over the edge, and proceeded to fall, very dangerously, towards the floor. There was a large "CRASH!" followed by a metallic sort of vibration that one hears when four very sharp but rather stinky knives attached to multiple pieces of kitchen string wound together fall through the air and hit the ground.

     ~~~~~

     Several hours later, Mo arrived back home.

     "I say, Tippy ol' chap, I'm sorry I threw away your food dish," he said as he walked down the hall towards the kitchen. He walked over to the trash can and looked in it, saying as he did, "I'll just pull it - … out?" He glanced down at Tippy's food mat, and found him sleeping happily inside his precious dish. Mo scratched his head and said, "I could've sworn I threw that out."

     He shrugged and reached for the knife block on the kitchen counter. "Huh. I guess I'll just fix dinner - oh gosh, these knives stink! What did you do while I was gone?!"

     A very small smile appeared on Tippy's lips.

The End