An Odd Campaign

     Her ecstasy continued all throughout the morning; brushing her teeth to get ready for the big event, straight past breakfast (which was considerably shorter due to the rate she was performing her everyday activities) and up until the point when she was gathering all her equipment and setting out on the town.

     Neopia Central had never seemed so beautiful; the delightful scent of Hubert’s Hot Dogs enriched her senses; she bid a good morning to whatever other Neopet passed her by, especially the Aishas of her own species... yes, Nichole was ready for the event of her life.

     After a while of wandering around in search, she finally found a proper Eyrie cab; a large, muscular green Eyrie attached to a small, four-seat cart with wheels for passengers to ride in. She approached him and told him that she was on her way to Faerieland. After a few moments, the cart flew away and she was on her way to Faerieland for the first time – her cause would finally be fulfilled and Neopia would finally meet justice.

     And her way there, she double-checked her suitcase to make sure she had all the supplies she needed: poster boards, forms, bullhorns... check, check, check! Everything was absolutely perfect, and the time flew by as she soared her way to Faerieland...

     A few hours later, the cab had landed on soft, fluffy cloud. She paid the Eyrie a few hundred Neopoints and trotted along on her way to the Faerie Festival. “This is it,” she said to herself repeatedly. “This is the time that I make a difference.”

     Her pre-campaign pep-talk commenced after that moment. She had wanted to do this ever since she had read the horrid, horrid news that day a little over a month ago – knew that something had to be done, and since Neopia’s concerns were centered around something else, she figured she would have to be the one to execute this plan and bring order to this world.

     She arrived at the Faerie Festival, and saw before her eyes the very horrible thing that had brought her here in the first place – stone. How could someone do such a thing to something so innocent?! So it was true; even though many people considered it a joke, Nichole had still been in denial that the predicament had even happened – but it was true, and she saw it right in front of her eyes: stone. Hard, solid, granite, as opposed to light, soft, and delicate.

     “What inhuman monster...?” Nichol started to herself. The words could not even come to her, she was so enraged and shocked... but no. She had to push it away from herself, or else the idea could not be carried out, and things would be like this forever...

     Slowly she pulled out posters, billboards, signs, and sign-holders; she nailed flyers to nearby trees and propped up the giant, cardboard signs she had made for herself all around the perimeters of the Faerie Festival; she grabbed a sign on a stick herself, as well as a bullhorn, stood directly in front of the spot where it had all happened, and took everything in.

     She couldn’t believe she was here. She couldn’t believe that she could finally bring Neopia’s attention to this awful, awful catastrophe... how nobody had realized it before... but now, with one swift stroke, she would bring down the blinding barrier and reveal the horrific situation to the citizens of Neopia.

     With a deep, calm, steadying breath, she raised the bullhorn to her mouth as she saw a few Neopians in the distance passing by, and called out what was for her, a battle cry to all of Neopia:

     “SAVE THE PIE!”

     The few heads in the distance turned abruptly, and their gaze met the Aisha whom they instantly deemed insane, this ridiculous Neopet who had decided to disturb the peaceful Faerieland landscape by calling out random notices. What would be next? “Preserve the zucchini?” Slowly, the light crowd of Neopets began laughing hysterically, pointing fingers and making faces at this stupid little campaigner, who was clearly just wasting her time in standing in front of the Faerie Festival, when she could be having fun elsewhere in Neopia, playing with friends or competing in different worldwide challenges. But of course not: there was pie to be saved here.

     (AUTHOR’S NOTE: This brief encounter with the Aisha became an ongoing running joke in Frederick Bruce’s family after hearing her shout out “Save the Pie” on the 12th. In fact, Frederick himself was immediately stricken with such a severe case of giggles that he had to be briskly taken away to the Neopian Hospital and left in solitude for a full week before he could bear to look at anyone.)

     Nichole, of course, was immediately dispirited, but she regained her composure quickly enough. Why should she care about what other people thought? It would only be a matter of time before her first supporter heard her call and joined her group. She began to envision an entire legion of Neopets by her side, marching around the Faerie Festival gates, all holding signs and bullhorns, until Neopia Central down below would be able to hear the famous battle cry that would soon be remembered long after the Faeries were restored to their regular state...

     “SAVE THE PIE!” she echoed again, upon noticing another crowd of Neopets down below in Faerie City. Judging by the rarity of the items that they were holding, they had likely just been from the Hidden Tower. Slightly jealous of the Ghostkerbomb one of them was holding, she called even louder:

     “SAVE THE PIE! PLEASE, SAVE THE PIE!”

     It was this second battle cry that finally got the attention of one of the Neopets, and they were so surprised they began looking frantically around for the source of the noise. After all, it was well known now that the Faeries were petrified that Hubrid Nox could potentially be in the area. Everyone was learning to be quite wary of their surroundings.

     But once the group realized what was happening, who the call had been echoed from, they began stifling laughs and muttering to each other. One of the youngest Neopets, who was carrying the Ghostkerbomb, noticed the signposts next to Nichole and laughed so hard that the rare Battledome item dropped right out of his hands and fell straight through the misty clouds, and far down to the ground below. It would eventually be completely destroyed upon impact of some poor Neohome down below.

     The family instantly turned on the youngest Neopet and began shouting about the carelessness, the butterfingers-ness, and the millions of Neopoints that had just been wasted, that any hope of alerting them to the situation of the pie had pretty much vanished by now.

     The sorrowful Aisha took up the call again, hoping to alert somebody down in the city below; maybe it was that she was not close enough. After all, the Faerie Festival was on a higher cloud, overlooking the city beneath. Nichole rushed up to the edge of the cloud and screamed down below, bullhorn raised:

     “SAVE THE PIE! JOIN THE CAMPAIGN! SAVE THIS PIE!”

     Finally, she thought to herself, it actually worked! For now many Neopets had curiously turned their heads, and were genuinely interested in the presence of this young Aisha. A few families, of course, were immediately brought to their knees in laughter, and ran away quickly so as not to disturb the others, who were now ascending the clouds in deep interest.

     A huge smile lit up Nichole’s entire face, and she rushed back to the gates of the Festival, straightened up her signs, and prepared herself to give the speech she has been editing and memorizing for the last fortnight.

     Finally, the first Neopet in the huge group poked his head over the edge of the clouds, and soon every Neopet in the large crowd had settled themselves in front of the gates of the Faerie Festival. They took a few moments to observe their surroundings. A few exchanged uneasy glances. More than one pair immediately descended back down into the city beneath.

     But nothing now could faze Nichole, for her goal was halfway to being accomplished: finally, FINALLY her vision could be completed: soon all of Faerieland would be marching through all the Neopian worlds, from the Haunted Woods to Mystery Island, begging every family in sight to come join the endless campaign to restore this pie to its natural state...

     Finally she would be able to attract enough attention to speed up the process of finding a cure for the Faeries, but more importantly the pie, and having peace and justice restored to this cruel Neopia...

     But first she had to give her speech. Now, the speech was the clincher, for if she could build up enough interest, she would have them. Everything was slowly falling into place, the giant mechanism she was picturing in her mind was almost ready to be turned on at last: there were only a few more gears left to screw in... she picked up a screwdriver in her mind’s eye and began turning, and she opened her mouth and raised the bullhorn again.

     “Greetings, fellow Neopians!” she called, addressing the crowd. “I am very pleased to have you here before me today. Now, we all know why we’re here: we’re finally going to put an end to this dramatic situation and once and for all, save the pie. All we need is to...”

     But at this point, Nichole stopped, and observed the crowd. Everyone was slowly realizing what this campaign was for, and were beginning to chuckle at the ridiculousness of it all. Before long, the entire crowd was guffawing with delight, tumbling around the clouds and squealing, belly laughing and weak at the knees. One young Lupe turned to his mother in confusion and stated, “I thought she was advertising a bake sale...”

     Eventually the hilarity of it all grew, and people were choking out the phrases they had heard from Nichole amidst their laughing. Distinctly phrases like “save the pie” and “dramatic situation” could be discerned among the hubbub. Two middle-aged Neopians near the edge of a cloud were laughing so hard that they tumbled backwards and slipped straight off of Faerieland and down to the sea below.

     One poor Neopian suffered from a cracked rib, he had been laughing so hard.

     (AUTHOR'S NOTE: It was on that day that it was scientifically proved that the phrase “cracking up” DOES indeed have a logical meaning.)

     After a while all the Neopians rushed of the cloud in hysterics, still shouting those memorable phrases they had heard Nichole echo. In a few brief moments, every Neopian that had interestedly come up the cloud was gone...

     Save one.

     A miniscule, Baby Scorchio was left, standing all by himself in the middle of the vast cloud. Nichole looked at him curiously, for he was just staring at her with large eyes. She spoke softly:

     “Save the pie?”

     Instantly the Scorchio’s eyes watered up. He put his hands in front of his mouth and began shaking his head back and forth – in a moment his whole body was shaking, and he dropped to his knees, tears in his eyes. Nichole was awestruck. She had no idea that, after all she had experienced, there might still be someone out there as emotionally involved as she was in the pie campa –

     However, when the Scorchio removed his hands from his mouth, Nichole saw that her observations were not exactly altogether correct; the Scorchio WAS indeed quite emotional about her save the pie campaign, although not in the way Nichole had been expecting. The Scorchio, now lying on the floor, was completely immersed in fits of silent laughter.

     Nichole grew quite stony-faced, and it was a full seven minutes before a Neopian family climbed back up the cloud, having just remembered that they left their child sitting in front of the delusional pie-campaigner. They picked up the young Neopet and whisked him away quickly, giggling all the way down the stairs.

     Nichole dropped her arm limply to her side. Was her campaign truly for nothing? Did she just waste an entire day... no, make that a week due to pre-campaign planning... attempting to save the poor stoned pie? Was it truly a worthless cause? It appeared that way; not a single Neopet in Faerieland would jump on board...

     But maybe that was it... maybe Faerieland wasn’t the proper place to campaign? She could go to the Gourmet Club, and make the proposal for a more sophisticated, understanding group of civilians...

     Well, but... if these everyday Neopians were already ridiculing her, there was no way a higher-class group of Neopets would ever take her seriously. She sighed dejectedly. Her whole idea, everything she had been working for, dreaming for – had all gone to waste. In her mind’s eye, she saw her grand machine slowly faltering – the gears were tumbling out, and the machine split in two, clattered, and tumbled off a table straight into the abyss.

     There went her bold idea.

     Slowly, she packed up all her possessions, loaded them back up into a suitcase, and prepared to climb back down the clouds into Faerie City. As she jumped back down the fluffy terrain, she realized how stupid the idea really had been. For truly, who would care about stone pie when you had powerful, living beings to deal with?

     On her way down, she had to stop and sidle out of the way of the path momentarily, for a yellow Yurble with a large suitcase was making her way up. Nichole took no notice of the Neopet, other then moving out of her way.

     Nichole finally made it back down to the surface. She was heading back toward the Eyrie Cabs when she heard a noise, clearly ringing through a bullhorn in the clouds above:

     “SAVE THE PIE!!!”

     Nichole stopped right in her tracks. She could not believe her long ears. Was she really hearing what she just did? All around her, Neopians had begun to chuckle again. “That stupid Aisha,” they muttered to each other. As she looked around at the guffawing Neopians, her perception of the entire campaign changed, as if she had never been the one up there advertising an organization to bring back the pie.

     The call was sung out again from the tips of those Faerieland clouds. She could still hear it, loud and clear, as she got into her Eyrie cab and sped back down toward Neopia Central. She almost thought she could see a spherical, yellow bulb deep within the sea below as they hovered over Maraqua.

     She tipped the Eyrie as she got off the cab, and dragged her suitcase all the way back to her Neohome. She opened the door, through the luggage into her closet, and reclined back on her comfortable sofa.

     The memories of the day replayed in her mind. She could still hear her fabled battle cry: “Save the pie...”

     Slowly, a change was wrought upon Nichole. She realized how truly stupid she had been in her endeavors.

     Nichole couldn’t help it. She started to chuckle. Before long, she was utterly howling, rolling on the floor and crying, cracking up so hard at those ridiculous words. After about five minutes, Nichole composed herself and trotted happily back into her bedroom. It had been a long day, and she was ready for a good night’s sleep.

     She tucked herself in and turned off the light. All was dark, calm, and quiet, the perfect ending to a perfect day. After all, what could be better than laughing, than having a good time, then genuinely smiling for the first time in a while? For that was what had happened to Nichole that day.

     “Save the pie,” she muttered to herself with a grin, then slowly closed her eyes and fell asleep.

The End