Cheri's Worst Birthday

As the sun rose in the east, Cheri, a starry Lupe, blinked her eyes sleepily. After a moment, she remembered what day it was. It's my birthday, she groaned to herself.

     Cheri wished she could enjoy her birthday, like the other Neopets that went to her Neoschool. But she couldn't. It was always a miserable day. Her owner and siblings thought it was funny and they enjoyed pulling pranks on her. Though she hated it, Cheri thought that because they were having fun, she should let them, and not stop them because she didn't like it. Why the pranks? Cheri's birthday was always on April 1st.

     Her day would start as each April Fool's Day did. But what came next, Cheri had no idea. Here came the never-changing part, Self-Check.

     Cheri opened her eyes, tried to focus. She glanced at the mirror, and breathed a sigh of relief. She was still a starry Lupe. For now. Cheri reached for the book beneath her pillow that contained her statistics. Everything was the same. Maybe her family had forgotten? Cheri hoped so.

     Tentatively she stuck a paw out of the bed and felt around. A skateboard was perched beneath her bed. Of course they didn't forget. Suppressing a growl, Cheri pushed the skateboard-trap away and got out of bed. The floor was slippery with some sort of goo, and she fell down. Great, now she'd have to take a bath.

     Cheri retrieved the Oak Wish Stick she kept for this occasion and slowly prodded the door open. A bucket of water splashed down from the other side of the door, and Cheri smiled. She made it past that one. As she walked out the door, she tripped over a thin wire stretched only an inch above the ground. She leapt back, but it was to late. Water balloons pelted her fur.

     She crawled into the bath with no further incidents, but was hesitant to touch the soap. Cheri sniffed the pale blue bar, and smelled an unfamiliar scent. So- she'd stick with water. But someone had tampered with the taps. The cold tap turned on hot water, and the hot tap turned on cold water. After struggling with them, Cheri felt it was safe to relax.

     Her normal towel was sopping wet, so when Cheri emerged, she used her sister's towel. After brushing her fur and teeth, she decided to brave the way downstairs.

     "Happy birthday!" her family shouted as Cheri entered the kitchen. Cheri plastered on a fake smile, but kept a wary eye on the pink-frosted cake.

     "Have a slice of cake, Cheri," Cheri's oldest sister, Kyrana, said. Kyrana was a rainbow Lupe, and not too smart. Her expression was see-through- there was something wrong with the cake or the utensils with which to eat it.

     Cautiously, Cheri reached for her fork and knife. Fuego, her second oldest sibling, a yellow Kougra whose IQ was about seven, smiled, his eyes lighting up. Cheri jerked her paw away and grabbed his silverware. She saw his face fall- a plan had been foiled.

     Cheri ducked low, then poked the cake experimentally with the fork. When nothing happened, she took a slice. She sniffed it, smelled nothing wrong. She used her fork for a tiny bit.

     "Aaargh!" Cheri yelped. "What is that?" She spat the horrible-tasting stuff onto the floor.

     Her siblings began laughing. Laina, the youngest of the siblings save Cheri and an ice boar, looked apologetic, but that didn't keep her from giggling.

     Angrily, Cheri threw the fork to the floor. It clattered on the linoleum, silencing her family. Glaring at them all, Cheri sped out the door, ignoring the traps that sprung at her as she ran.

     ***

     "I'll show them," Cheri muttered as she paced through the bazaar. The sun was glaringly hot, without a cloud. She'd been away from home for two hours.

     A fat red tomato whizzed past her nose, and she took refuge behind a bush. From here, she could see three "Kick me" signs on unaware Neopets' backs. A tiny toddler Techo bit into a hot dog, only to loose two baby teeth on the hard plastic.

     "I despise April Fool's Day. It's a day designed to make people miserable. And I'm always the miserable one. But not anymore. I'm going to show my so-called family, and they'll be sorry."

     A potato landed dangerously close to Cheri's tail, and she slunk to the safety of the area behind the Wishing Well. Here no one bothered her, and she began to draw a plan in the dirt.

     ***

     Cheri came out of the bank, squinting against the glaring light. In her mouth, she held a bulging sack of neopoints. It would be enough to carry out her plan. She made her way to the Marketplace, and waited patiently in line to talk to the Shop Wizard.

     "Alakazam! It's the Shop Wizard!" the yellow Jubjub said. "Your fly's down!"

     "I'm not wearing pants," Cheri snarled. "Tell me where I can find these items."

     She shoved a list of the stuff she needed at the Shop Wizard.

     "Are we going to prank someone, now?" Shop Wizard asked, scanning the list, eyebrows raised.

     "Just tell me where they are, you old, old, Jubjub!" Cheri bared her teeth. "I'm stronger and better drawn than you!"

     "All right, all right, sheesh!" Shop Wizard cried, scribbling words over the paper. "Here you go, Miss Angry-Pants."

     "I'm not wearing pants!" Cheri shouted, but the Shop Wizard was too busy with the other shoppers to listen.

     She glanced at the list. First item- Skunk Lipstick, 801 Smelly Avenue…

     ***

     "Best pranks ever?" Kyrana asked excitedly, peering at the letter they had mysteriously received.

     "We're being invited to a special high-class dinner?" Owner said incredulously.

     "We're going to win twenty thousand neopoints if we go to this remote location that will take forever to get to and forever to get back?" Laina exclaimed, but it was more of a statement than a question.

     "It says there will be DOUGHNUTS!" Fuego smiled happily. "Come on, let's go!"

     They rushed out the door, forgetting to lock it, every thought of April Fool's Day and Cheri disappearing. Cheri walked in, carrying a bulging sack of everything a prankster could ever wish for. The letter had worked all too well.

     ***

     "All's done!" the yellow Kacheek plumber announced.

     "Good!" Cheri shouted from Kyrana's room. Kyrana was very proud of her collection of Usukis, and now each one had been given mustaches, beards, and monocles using brightly colored lipstick. She walked into the bathroom, wiping multicolored paws on her fur. "You can go now." The plumber tipped his hat, and walked out.

     Every pipe in the Neohome had been opened. Cheri found the mixture of jelly and water she had created, and poured it into every opening until there was nothing left. She sealed the pipes again, then experimentally turned a tap in the bathroom. Pink water poured out, with chunks of bright green, yellow, purple-and-orange, and pink floating around inside. The baths had the dung jelly.

     When she was done, she traveled to Laina's room. Laina's room had been built before you could build ice rooms, so it was made of wood with an ice coating around it. Her furniture was made of snow. Mounds of snow were piled in the free space. All together, it was very fitting for an ice boar.

     She cleared some of the snow and dumped a bucket of sand on the floor. This should keep the fire from spreading. She arranged wood on top of this sand, then struck a match. The fire blazed instantly. Cheri withdrew one of the flaming pieces of wood and began melting the ice coating and the snow furniture. Within minutes, Cheri was sloshing around in frigid waters. The water lapped at the sides of the sand mound. What if the fire went out? That would never do. Cheri opened a window and used the bucket that used to contain the sand to toss it out. Now the fire would burn for a very long time.

     Fuego was stupid, so he would fall for anything. Cheri tied almost invisible string around a Lemon Sprinkle Doughnut, Fuego's favorite. She tied the other end to the ceiling, just out of Fuego's reach. But just in case he did reach it, Cheri wiped off the yellow icing. In place of it, she put mustard, with little pieces of pink crayon for sprinkles.

     Next, she examined the beds. She took off the blankets and pillows. The bottom blankets she twisted around and around, so that they would take a long time for them to be untied. Cheri then lay the top blanket over them and smoothed it out, so the bed looked normal. Hard-covered books from Laina's collection went into the pillowcases. But was Cheri satisfied?

     No.

     ***

     Cheri was busy stuffing fine Pteri feathers from the pillows she had mutilated into buckets when she sensed movement out the window. Her family was coming back! Hastily, she perched them above each door, along with a bucket full Sparkly Blue Paint. Then she scrabbled out the window, raced off her family's property, then turned sharply to intercept them. As she neared them, she slowed to a humble trot.

     "Mommy?" Cheri sniffled pathetically. "I'm sowwy I wan away. I want to come home."

     "Aww, sweetie," Cheri's owner replied in the voice that was triggered when Cheri used her baby voice. "You can always come home wiff mommy-wommy!"

     Cheri winced inwardly, hoping that no one from her school was watching. She hoped nobody in Neopia was watching. It doesn't matter, she reminded herself gleefully. They're about to get the ultimate payback!

The End