450 Reasons Never to Trust a Weewoo

      A crash from the kitchen pulled him away from his fantasies of seeing his name in print. Dashing to the doorway, he was just in time to see a very large mess of flowers and shards of vase, as well as the flick of a disappearing pink gruslen’s tail.

      “Not again, Mitzy! I’m getting tired of always replacing my furniture.” When he’d decided on a gruslen for his petpet, he’d been told there were few better companions to be had in Tyrannia. “This is what I get for listening to a Scorchio who talks in grunts,” he muttered to himself. Grabbing a mop and broom, he cleaned up the mess as quickly as he could. “Where did you run off to now, Mitzy? There’s no way I’m letting you run free in the house while I’m away. I may not have a house to come back to. You’ll have to wait in the petpet cage until I return.”

      Hearing a scuffle from his study, Zeke rushed in to find Mitzy glaring at a white weewoo who sat on the windowsill. Her teeth were bared in a snarl, and a low rumbling growl escaped her.

      “You’re far from home, little fellow. Where’s your owner?”

      The weewoo chirped loudly, and cocked his head to the side.

      “Well, they must be nearby. I don’t have time to help you look right now. I’m on my way to submit my greatest story.”

      As if in answer, the weewoo pecked at the corner of the packet lying on his desk. In his rush to discover what trouble Mitzy had found, he had left his story on its surface.

      “Here, now. You’ll damage it. Give that here.”

      The weewoo once again cocked his head to the side. He stood very still as Zeke approached, staring forward with his beady eyes. Just as the Gelert was coming up to the desk, he lunged forward and took the papers in his beak. Before Zeke could react, the weewoo hopped nimbly to the ground outside, somehow managing to carry all six pages easily.

      “Come back here with that, you little thief!” Zeke called in a panicked tone. With the story he had worked so hard on in peril, he did not stop to think. Dashing to the door, he was just in time to see the weewoo headed for the heart of Tyrannia. He flung himself forward, and the chase was on.

      Mitzy was stopped by the door which had slammed shut behind her owner. With a fretful bark, she began to pace before the door, sure her owner would soon remember her. But like most petpets, her thoughts soon occupied themselves with a more interesting game.

     * * * * *

      “How can such a small petpet move so fast?” Zeke complained as he ran on the weewoo’s trail. Many a traveler of Tyrannia gave him a strange look as he continued to dash along the outskirts of the Tyrannian Plateau. He was relieved when he realized what must be the weewoo’s destination. It was a small cave along the side of a cliff, and Zeke was confident the weewoo would find nowhere to hide.

      “There’s even a torch here. Tyrannians think of everything.” he commented, as he began to move into the dark space. A dark wall soon came up to stop his progress. Peeking over the edge of an upper ledge, the weewoo tweeted through the thick bundle in his mouth.

      “I don’t know how it is you can climb a rope, but moving up there won’t help you. I will get that story back.”

      He pulled himself upward with the help of the frayed rope. A sighing sound came from a gaping dark hole, bordered with what looked suspiciously like teeth. The weewoo, unconcerned by these ominous warnings, continued onward.

      “You think just because this place is creepy I’ll give up? Ha! I used to live in the Haunted Woods, little weewoo. It takes quite a bit to scare me.”

      He walked forward slowly, his sense of danger screaming at him to turn away. Then he saw the weewoo, slipping out a crack in the very back wall of the cave. But that’s not who he saw first.

      “SCREEEEECH!” screamed the cave beast, taking a lunge at the terrified Gelert. After a struggle in which he was very much disadvantaged, Zeke finally managed to crawl out of the cave’s secret exit, getting some satisfaction when the cave beast, much too big to follow, smashed his nose hard into the stone wall, and fell back with a whimper. Luckily for Zeke, he had earlier that day purchased a healing potion while he was browsing some shops.

      “That was a nasty little trick, weewoo, but you haven’t stopped me yet.”

      The weewoo bobbed his head, as if he agreed that he had more work to do. As he had done before, he waited until Zeke was nearly close enough to catch him, and then dashed off. This time he made a straight for the Giant Omelette. With a mighty leap, he landed right on top of the giant egg-coated goodness that was Tyrannia’s main food source. His small size allowed him to easily bounce across its surface and land safely on the other side.

      Zeke was not so lucky. He landed with a giant splat right at the omelette’s center. Bits of egg and omelette topping flew in every direction, splattering the many pets who were gathered there to collect their breakfast.

      Shaking bits of egg off his ears, Zeke looked up into the angry faces of a group of large, hungry grarrls.

      “Err... I must be going! Try the Tyrannian Food Shop; I’ve heard they make a fantastic stew.”

      Zeke dashed off, followed by an angry mob of hungry Tyrannians. He rounded a corner, to find a small crack in one of the cliff faces. Too hurried to check if it was safe, he slipped inside. The crowd ran past without ever thinking to look for him there.

      An angry hiss brought his attention to a more present danger. This was the home to a nest of wild reptilliors, and they did not like trespassers.

      “This day just keeps going from bad to worse,” he groaned. He backed up quickly as the place’s three occupants slithered in his direction. A chirp from above brought his head up to the cliff top. There was the naughty weewoo, looking down on him as if to mock him.

      “You’ve caused me nothing but trouble all day, little weewoo, and I’ve had enough.” Luck was with him. This part of the cliff had many handholds, and was not hard to climb. The nearest reptillior just missed a strike aimed at his paw as he began his ascent.

      He knew if he approached, the weewoo would run and he would likely suffer further misadventure. Instead, he dug a handful of sandwich crumbs, left over from Mitzy’s lunch, from the pocket of his coat.

      If there was one thing the weewoo was greedy for, it was food. Zeke dropped the crumbs very nearby, waiting until the first possible moment that the feathered nuisance let go of his story to snatch it up. The weewoo looked at him curiously.

      “That’s quite enough adventure for me. As for you, little weewoo, next time I’ll have to remember to keep my window closed while I’m writing.”

      * * * * *

      “Thank you for submitting your story to the Neopian Times!” the pink Lenny behind the desk of the NT office exclaimed in a happy voice. “You should hear back in a couple of weeks.”

      Zeke returned home smiling. Wouldn’t his friends love to hear the tale of all he went through to make it into this monumental issue? He knew he would be published in issue 450, for no story could be better than his. No other Neopian had gone through half as much as he had for that matter.

      He could not wait to get home and curl up in his cozy Writers Arm Chair. He opened his door to find the entire house in chaos. Climbing over the piles of stuffing that had been pulled from the couch; he entered his kitchen to find a very content Mitzy munching down an entire box of biscuits.

      “Mitzy! The entire house is a mess! How could you--no, it’s not your fault. I didn’t put you in your cage, like I should have. That weewoo wins yet another round, it would seem. Come here, Mitzy.”

      She crept forward nervously, and entered her sturdy petpet cage without any sort of fight. Zeke continued to mutter about mischievous white weewoos as he slowly got to work cleaning the disaster that was his home.

      “It doesn’t matter, Mitzy. When that story gets published, we’ll be able to redo this house in gold furniture and get you a roomful of new toys.”

      Picking up on her owner’s happy mood, Mitzy wagged her tail. She curled up in the shreds of paper she had taken from Zeke’s study and turned into a cozy nest. Soon, the gruslen was sleeping comfortably.

     * * * * *

      “I can’t believe it, Mitzy! Look at this, I made the front page!” Zeke twirled around in a circle, holding the paper high above his head. “All of Neopia will read my story now. Oh, Mitzy. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so happy!”

      Curious to see what article had taken up the topmost line, he flipped the folded paper over to receive a very unpleasant surprise.

      The heading to that week’s Neopian Times read:

      The Neopian Times

      teh 1337est n00zpaper

      Issue: 451

The End