Of Muffin Outfits and Hired Entertainers

     “Well, what do you want to do?” Cappilus, Romy’s older sister and a blue Poogle, asked. She wasn’t really paying attention; her careless remark paid tribute to that.

     “If I knew what I wanted to do,” Romy said, glaring at her sister, “I wouldn’t be bored.”

     “Well, how about you… um… go play with Rusty?” Cappilus suggested half-heartedly, barely glancing up from her book.

     “No, Rusty’s boring.”

     “Well, he is your petpet. You, like, picked him out,” Cappilus said dully. She was lying on the leather armchair next to the sofa. Strangely, the sofa was pink. Their owner had gotten it “under special circumstances” before they were born, and Cappilus assumed that meant it was stolen merchandise. Whatever it was, at least it was comfy, and pink was a nice color, really, although it sort of clashed with the lime-green color scheme in the living room, and the bright-blue plastic sofa.

     “Well, I was young and unknowing then…” Romy began pacing. Then suddenly she stopped, then started again. Then she stopped, for the last time. “Wait! I have a great idea!”

     “That’s nice…” Cappilus didn’t bother to ask what it was. It didn’t interest her. Romy had always been overdramatic, to say the least. Her idea was probably going to be something stupid, like knitting orange-and-purple-striped mufflers.

     “Let’s blow up Faerieland!” Romy waited for Cappilus’s reaction. This was, by far, her best plan yet!

     “That’s… nice…” Cappilus began, before sitting bolt upright. “Wait. WHAT?! Blow up FAERIELAND? You must be off your dung!”

     “Not really,” Romy said coolly, mentally giggling at her sister’s stunned face. “But I think it’d be fun, don’t you?”

     “Let me think… NO!” Cappilus exclaimed, her eyes almost bugging out of her head.

     “Well, I’m going to do it, and I need your help.” Romy was eagerly prancing around the lime green room, and occasionally licking the wallpaper, which had special paint that tasted like asparagus.

     “You do know that’s, like, disgusting, don’t you?” Cappilus asked prissily, before starting in again. “No, I will certainly NOT help you blow up Faerieland! We could get in trouble… or… or…”

     “Or what?” Romy asked, broadly grinning. “It’ll be a learning experience.”

     “How so?” Cappilus demanded. “If you want to go, fine, but don’t take ME with you!”

     “Of course I’m taking you with me,” Romy said, smiling slyly. “Like it or not.”

     “You can’t force me!” Cappilus said strongly. She began to read her book again. “Now, you just go on… without me…”

     “You’re supposed to be babysitting me,” Romy insisted. “And that means going with me, wherever I want you to. If you don’t come along, I’ll tell Mom. And Mom is way worse than any policefaeries in Faerieland.”

     “Well… yeah… but…” Cappilus stopped reading, and looked torn. “But, Romy, this is just, just, irresponsible. That’s what it is! I’ll get in trouble if I let you go.”

     “No one will find out we did it,” Romy said. “If we do it smoothly.”

     “I just don’t see the logic in this!”

     “Hmmm, you know what, me neither! So let’s just go! Come on, Cappy, you know you want to!”

     And in that moment, ‘Cappy’ decided that she really did want to go. Why not? She thought. It’ll be fun.

     “Okay,” she conceded, beginning to catch some of her sister’s excitement. “Where do we start?”

     “I cannot believe I am doing this,” Cappilus muttered. She and Romy were just outside the Hidden Tower. Romy was dressed up as a muffin, and Cappilus a leek. The costumes were left over from the previous year’s Halloween, when the sisters had decided to go for the “half-masticated breakfast” look. Each costume was made of thick, coarse felt and it was very itchy and hot inside.

     Cappilus fanned herself with a paw protruding from the leek’s side; only her face and front paws were visible. As for Romy, only her head was showing, and barely. This was part of the plan.

     “I still don’t understand where you’re coming from,” Cappilus said. The initial excitement had, needless to say, long since worn off, and had been replaced with confusion.

     “You will soon. I hear faeries are suckers for food.” And with that, Romy boldly rolled up—after all, her legs were tucked inside the muffin outfit—and banged herself against the door. Cappilus cringed.

     Slowly the door opened, sending Romy rolling away. A tall, rather ugly Fire Faerie proceeded to throw open the threshold, amid Romy’s cries of “Help! Don’t you have any room in your heart for a distressed muffin?”

     “Yessssss?” the Faerie asked Cappilus stiffly. She was old, probably in her mid-fifties, and showed signs of wrinkles.

     “Um…” Cappilus looked torn between helping her sister, who was now rolling down a convenient glacier, or talking to the faerie. The latter won. “Um. Right. My name is Cappilus, and I’m a leek, and that’s my sister, over there… yeah, the one rolling off the glacier in the muffin outfit.”

     “I see,” the Faerie said crossly. “And what the heck do you want?” She seemed really very crabby. It could have been because she hadn’t had her morning coffee, but as it was already noon, she should have had time to make some, Cappilus reasoned.

     “We…erm… want to talk to Fyora,” Cappilus said innocently. “Because, we’re, like, um, hired entertainers and we come from the planet Kreludor the Zillionth-and-First. And we need to, to find, like, a job, or something.” She thought for a moment before continuing, “Or, or really anything where we can get friendly with Fyora and, like, make a plan to blow up Faerieland.”

     The Faerie blinked. She wasn’t expecting this, and really, who could blame her?

     “Ohh-kayyyy,” she reasoned slowly, her brain desperately trying to process all this. “Well, I assume that means you want an audience with Fyora?”

     “I guess,” Cappilus shrugged. “Is an audience sort of like a job?”

     The Faerie banged her head with a rock she found. It was a big rock.

     Cappilus remembered something. “Oh yeah, could you, like, save my sister too?” Romy was currently rolling down Terror Mountain in a jet-ski.

     “Um…” Completely taken off her guard, the Faerie snapped her fingers. A minute later, Romy came whizzing into the room, landing in a heap just next to the Fire Faerie. Slowly she got up.

     “Wow! That was fun!” She dusted herself off, shedding large clumps of wet snow onto the carpet. “Cappilus, can we go sledding-off-a-glacier-and-down-Terror-Mountain-in-a-jet-ski sometime, together? I have a feeling it’ll be much more fun that way!”

     The poor Faerie was so confused, she banged herself with her rock an additional ten times. Cappilus shook her head.

     “Could you, like, show us to Fyora’s little roomy thingy?” she asked. The Faerie stopped banging herself and shook her head to clear it. Then she focused her gaze on the two Neopets in nonsensical costumes. Drat! They were still there! WHAT HAD SHE DONE TO DESERVE THIS?!

     “Um. Okay.” She snapped her fingers, and Cappilus and a strange thing-in-a-muffin-outfit zoomed up the grand staircase, down another one, up another, and then up another. And another and another and another and another. They were all in alternating colors, Romy noticed. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. Kinda reminded her of something. She wondered what it was. So she asked.

     “Cappilus, these staircases are all in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple, in that order. What’s that called again…?”

     “A rainbow?”

     “Exactly! A rainbow! We’re two hired entertainers from Kreludor the Zillionth-and-First, who hope to go sledding-off-a-glacier-and-down-Terror-Mountain-in-a-jet-ski sometime, and we’re zooming up a rainbow staircase in muffin outfits!”

     Cappilus decided not to complicate the situation by pointing out that she was a leek, thus making it two hired entertainers from Kreludor the Zillionth-and-First, who hope to go sledding-off-a-glacier-and-down-Terror-Mountain-in-a-jet-ski sometime, and zooming-up-a-rainbow-staircase-while-one-is-in-a-leek-outfit- and-the-other-is-in-a-muffin-outfit-that-looks-incredibly-stupid.

     She didn’t question how Romy knew about them being two hired entertainers from Kreludor the Zillionth-and-First, even though she’d been sliding off a glacier at the time. She was wiser than her sister, and knew of the term ‘plot reasons.’

     They zoomed right through a door, leaving two holes in it, one shaped like a hired entertainer from Kreludor the Zillionth-and-First, who hoped to go sledding-off-a-glacier-and-down-Terror-Mountain-in-a-jet-ski sometime, and who had just zoomed-up-a-rainbow-staircase-wearing-a-leek-outfit, and the other shaped like a different hired entertainer from Kreludor the Zillionth-and-First, who hoped to go sledding-off-a-glacier-and-down-Terror-Mountain-in-a-jet-ski sometime, and who had just zoomed-up-a-rainbow-staircase-wearing-a-muffin-outfit.

     Cappilus decided not to think about it.

     Eventually, they slammed into another door, leaving two holes shaped like… well, forget it… and found themselves in “Fyora’s little room thingy.”

     It was a nice little room thingy, painted lavender, with a little throne thingy in the middle of it and little faerie queen thingy sitting in it. But there were no little window thingies, and it was extremely small, with no other little faerie thingies in it.

     Romy rolled up, and bumped Fyora’s little throne thingy. She kept going, however, but since there was no way she could begin sliding down a glacier, as there were no windows to escape out of, she had to roll down a steep slant in Fyora’s little room thingy. She ended up with her nose in this little corner thingy.

     “Erm. Hi. I’m Cappilus, and this is my sister Romy, who is a muffin,” Cappilus said, looking concernedly at her sister. It looked quite dusty in that corner. Why the heck was Fyora’s little room thingy built on a slant? It just didn’t make sense!

     “Um.” Fyora looked a little miffed at the sight of these two… well… these two things who had just left two enormous holes in her door. “And what do you want?”

     “I want, like, a job. Because I’m, like, a hired entertainers from Kreludor the Zillionth-and-First, and we want to, like, entertain you.”

     Romy nodded to herself as she listened. So far, it was going perfectly. But so far, Fyora hadn’t had a chance to respond yet.

     “And exactly how will you entertain me?” Fyora, although she probably had the benefit of having as much coffee as she liked, looked as crabby as the previous Fire Faerie.

     Romy winced. She hadn’t thought of this.

     “Well, um, I… I roll down glaciers on jet-skis?” Cappilus stammered.

     Fyora stared at her.

     “But, but see, this muffin, look,” Cappilus continued, pointing at her sister. “See, back when we were on Kreludor the Zillionth-and-First, we were full-fledged Neopets. But one day a terrible plague visited us, and I became a half-leek. As for Romy, well, she became… full-muffin.” Romy pulled her head completely inside the muffin outfit. “And now we’re afraid someone will eat her… so I wanted to get a job here. If I earn enough money, someday I can, like, find a cure.”

     Fyora suddenly looked very interested. “Did you say that your sister can be eaten?”

     Although this is what they’d planned for, Cappilus struggled not to laugh as she said, “Certainly, majesty. A bit of butter makes them taste, like, excellent.”

     Fyora licked her lips and looked at Romy. “I haven’t had breakfast today…” she murmured to herself.

     “Shall I get you some butter, your Highness?” Cappilus asked, half-curtseying. It was a difficult maneuver for even a regular Poogle to make, but her costume made it nearly impossible. She struggled not to topple over.

     “Yes, please.” Fyora was staring at Romy with utmost concentration.

     “Oh, before I leave,” Cappilus added slyly, “Are there any buttons I can push around here that’ll blow up Faerieland?” Perfect! She’d never guess their plan.

     “Second door on your right,” Fyora muttered, continuing to stare at her newfound breakfast.

     Yes! Cappilus thought. I’ll just push the button, grab Romy, and run!

     She quickly exited, and found the door Fyora had mentioned. However, it was locked, and didn’t have a convenient hole thingy for her to jump through.

     Hmm. Cappilus tried snapping her fingers, as the Fire Faerie had done. She stared at the door.

     Slowly, slowly, she began to rise, then she was rudely hurtled through the really quite solid wooden door. Ow.

     Inside, after she’d finished rubbing her left paw, which had a darkening bruise on it, she looked around at her surroundings.

     Huh. She was in some sort of… bank? Yes, a bank! Cappilus felt a slow smile spreading across her face, as she looked at a nearby Pirate Captain’s Cutlass, which had a “sold” sticker attached to it. She began to drool, then lazily sauntered over to a pile of Faerie Queen Dolls.

     Meanwhile, Fyora was closing in on the unfortunate Romy. She had the poor muffin-Uni on a plate, her silverware was set, and a glass of fat-free milk was present. Yum!

     From inside the muffin, Romy whimpered, hoping Cappilus would hurry up.

     Cappilus really wasn’t hurrying up. She looked at at least ten more stashes of multi-million neopoint goods, before deciding to look for a button. She reasoned that she could always take one with her.

     Smack in the center of the room was a long table. Smack in the middle of the table was, lo and behold, a big, red button, labeled “Instant Self Destruct.”

     Instant? She didn’t want instant. She needed to have time to get Romy and escape. But there were no other buttons marked “Self-Destruct in the time it takes for a Poogle in a leek outfit and a Uni in a muffin outfit to escape from a hungry faerie queen’s clutches,” so she had to take the risk.

     Slowly, Cappilus brought her paw down on the button, trembling.

     Nothing appeared to happen at first. Then the ground began to quiver, then more, and more. Then little things around her started to blow up. For example, a Clockwork Grundo popped up in a cloud of dust and broke a hole in the roof.

     She didn’t dare try to move, let alone save Romy!

     This plan had some PITFALLS!

     Fyora had stopped her onslaught as soon as the blow-up began. Now she was the one trembling.

     “No! Someone’s triggered the self-destruct!” she moaned. “If I get my hands on them…!”

     She didn’t seem to know what would happen if she got her hands on them, however, so her voice trailed off menacingly.

     They could hear things—and faeries—popping up quite often now. Fyora started to get worried. She didn’t want to pop.

     A minute later, the ground directly underneath Cappilus started to shake. She knew it was her turn to pop. She braced herself.

     And suddenly, she was flying up into the air, flying northeast at approximately 100 miles per hour. Whee! As she flew over Faerieland, she saw the whole city popping up into the air and beginning to fly with her at approximately 100 miles an hour, going northeast.

     This was kinda fun!

     At the same instant, Fyora and Romy were popped up too, and began flying northeast at approximately 100 miles per hour.

     Towards Tyrannia.

     Finally they arrived, Faeries and Poogles and Unis and muffins. Everything in Faerieland had made the trip to Tyrannia with them. Cappilus immediately scrambled over to Romy and hugged her.

     “Well.” Fyora looked stunned. “Who did it? Come forward! No one knows about that button but me!” She paused, and surveyed her people. “No, wait! I did tell someone! Who was it? You! It was you, wasn’t it, Kirby?” she looked accusingly at the Fire Faerie that had been at the front door.

     “No! I would never do anything like that, and besides, I don’t know how!” Kirby retorted, looking older than ever.

     “Did too, did too, did too!” Fyora’s face was as red as a tomato. “And you’re going to pay for what you did! Hey! What--?” She turned around.

     Two natives, each Lupes in traditional Tyrannian attire, were examining Fyora closely. One of them held up a dress, made completely out of spotted fur. Apparently he wanted Fyora to try it on.

     “You our leader,” he barked, incoherently. “Uggh, you came to be our leader. Try dress… uggh… on.”

     “What? No, wait, I didn’t!” Fyora was thoroughly panicked. “I don’t want to be your leader! No!”

     The Lupes dragged her off into their little village.

     There was an instant uproar. Former Faerieland residents shrieked and stamped their feet. No one could tell if they were angry or joyous, though Romy and Cappilus suspected the latter. Kirby would make a fine Queen, indeed.

     No one noticed as they snuck off, prepared to catch a ferry bound for home. Yet, as they began to leave, Fyora was dragged back into view. This time she was wearing the ugly dress, though it was much to big for her, and making strange grunting sounds.

     “What did you do to her?” Cappilus couldn’t help calling.

     “We brainwash her. She our leader,” one of the Lupes said, grinning.

     “Good for you,” Cappilus called sincerely. “She’ll be a good one!”

     Flushed from their success, Romy and Cappilus made for home.

The End