What REALLY Goes On Inside the NT Submission Form

"Hey, Rachel!" cried Matt the starry Eyrie after his sister. "Guess what I got?"

     Rachel the striped Eyrie turned around to face him. He was holding up a bottle of red ink.

     "Smell it!" he said, handing her the bottle.

     She pulled off the cap and sniffed it. "Smells like Juppie Juice."

     "Exactly! There's a small shop in the market it that selling them. It's real ink, but it smells like Juppie Juice!"

     Rachel rolled her eyes. Her brother was always doing something weird.

     "Now my Neopian Times submissions will even smell good!" And he ran up to his room.

     "You are aware that you're going to attract every Meepit in the city into your bedroom with that stuff?" shouted Rachel up the stairs, but Matt didn't yell back. His Twisted Roses Speaker thudded on.

     "I'm going down to the Beauty Parlor, and I better not come back and find this place full of Meepits!" yelled Rachel before slamming the door behind her.

     Rachel took the path through the marketplace to the beauty parlor. As she walked, she noticed a large crowd of people walking in and out of a small shop. She peaked inside to see what all the commotion was about. The salesman was a Darigan Zafara selling…Juppie Juice Ink. A blue Meepit was sitting on his shoulder.

     "Hello Miss," said the Zafara, waving at Rachel. "I'm Nigel Randonon. Would you like to buy some of my Juppie Juice Ink? It's not real juice, it just smells like it! All your friends will love receiving letters from you!"

     Rachel gave a sniff of disapproval and walked out the door.

* * *

     It rained that night. It pounded against the windows as Nigel Randonon placed more Ink into his shop stock before closing up. He didn't put a price on it yet, he'd wait till morning to do that.

     "Quackers!" yelled Nigel. "C'mon it's time to leave!"

     He waited for his Meepit to come running to him. Quackers was nowhere in sight.

     "QUACKERS!" yelled Nigel again. He started to search the shop. Then he heard a crash. He ran out into the front of his shop, where Quackers and three other Meepits were surrounded by broken glass and a shiny red liquid.

     "NO! NOT MY JUPPIE INK!" cried Nigel. "QUACKERS! BAD BOY!"

     "Meeeeeeeeep!" said Quackers.

     "MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!" said the other Meepits. They stared at Nigel, with their big, back hypnotizing eyes.

     "Nooooooooooooooooooo!" cried Nigel as he tried to not look at the Meepits.

      "MEEEEEEEEEP!"

      "Must…make…more…ink…for…Meepits…and…buy…fire and ice blades!" said Nigel. He had fallen for the Meepit stare.

     "MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!"

     * * *

     Matt had just finished his new piece for the Neopian Times. He was very proud of it. One thousand two hundred words exactly on how to care for Dung, written in red Juppie Ink. He placed all his papers into one stack and ran downstairs and placed them on the counter. Matt went back up to his room, which looked like the Kass War at the time when Kass decided to rear his ugly head. Toys were scattered all over the floor. Some were broken. His bed was unmade, and his closet was even worse then his floor, but he ignored all these things now.

     Matt looked over at his desk. His bottle of Juppie Ink was low. He dug through his piles of junk and found his money box. He pulled out five hundred Neopoints, enough for another bottle. With a shout to Rachel's room that he was going out, he walked out of his room and down the stairs.

     * * *

     The Neopian Times Submission Machine, or the Autoform, or the I'M GOING TO WHACK YOU BECAUSE YOU ATE MY STORY, form was a huge machine, made up of four bins and four long pipes that led to offices on the floors above. It was located in the first room in the Neopian Times office by the visitor's entrance. Each bin was labeled, Article, Comic, Series or Short Story. The pipes were connected to the bins. Matt placed his submission in the Article bin and hit the 'Submit' button. His article flew up into the pipe on out of sight.

      * * *

     Caroline the red Uni worked at the Neopian Times Office part time. Her job was simple, empty the article bin when it became full of submissions, remove and reject submissions that were not actual Times submissions, and make sure nothing got jammed in the pipe.

     It was a Monday afternoon, and Caroline was sent to retrieve some article submissions. She approached the bin and took out a large stack of papers. She quickly skimmed over them. She removed two of them, which were just gibberish. She was almost through the pile when a submission caught her eye.

     It had bite marks all over it and it had some edges torn off it. The ink was red and smeared. It smelled of Juppie Juice.

     "Eeewwww!" cried Caroline, who placed it on top of the other two submissions that she had rejected.

     * * *

     Matt heard a ping as a letter zoomed into the Neomail can. He opened it to find

     Dear Matt,

     Your Neopian Times submission (How to Care for Dung) was rejected because we found that your article had numerous bite marks and was illegible. We recommend that you try not to eat your submission in the future. Please try again next week.

     Yours Sincerely,

     The Neopets Team

     "WHAT THE HECK?" cried Matt. "BITE MARKS? I SENT THIS IN ON A THURSDAY, CHECKED JUST ABOUT EVERY WORD IN IT WITH A DICTIONARY, AND HIGHLIGHTED ALL MY PUNCTUATION MISTAKES UNTIL MY HIGHLIGHTER WENT DEAD, BUT IT GETS REJECTED BECAUSE OF BITES?"

     It took a bit for Matt to calm down. After he had a hot cup of Borovan, he went up to his room to re-write his article. His Juppie Ink was runny, Mr. Randonon didn't make it was good as it used to be.

      Next Thursday Matt resubmitted his article. After a week, he didn't get a reply. After two weeks, still no reply. He resubmitted again. He still got no reply.

     "That's it!" cried Matt. "First, I get rejected because of bite marks, then I get no reply for four weeks! I'm going to see if I can sort this out." And Matt stormed out of the house and marched all the way down to the Times office.

     "Excuse me," said Matt as he walked up to a security guard was in charge of watching over the Submission Form to make sure no one did any damage to it. "Um, I've been having a problem submitting. You see, the first time I submitted my article; it was rejected because it was bitten. And now I haven't gotten a reply for two weeks."

     The guard was about to reply, when a blue Yurble came up to Matt. "Did you say bite marks?" he asked.

     "Yeah," said Matt.

     "My submission was rejected because of bite marks!" he said, holding up a piece of paper with bites identical to Matt's. It was written in Juppie Juice Ink.

     "Mine too!" cried an ice Bori, who came running over with yet another bitten submission with identical bite marks. A Meepit was sitting on his shoulder. His paper had red spots on it. "I came here to resubmit my new piece. AHHHH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

     The Bori's Meepit had just sunk its teeth into the Yurble's Juppie Juice Ink written story. The bite mark was identical to the one's already on it, and the marks on Matt's.

     "It's attracted to the smell of the Ink," said Matt. "That's what's been biting our submissions. Meepits!"

     "But what about mine?" asked the Bori. "I didn't write mine in Juppie Juice Ink?"

     Matt looked at his story. "You see those red dots? The maker of Juppie Ink has been making it really runny lately. Some Ink must have leaked into yours while it was in the pipe. And I guess Meepits have sometimes eaten Juppie Juice submissions, which is why I haven't been getting replies."

     "So you're saying that we have Meepits crawling around in the Autoform eating and biting submissions?" said the security guard. "Yeah right."

     Screams were heard over by the Short Story bin. Poking its head out of the Pipe was a Meepit.

The End