The Discards

      Fishy hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but he'd been in the next room when he heard his owner talking, and he'd heard his name. "Yeah," Jake said, "I mean I like FISHY_WENT_MADD and everything, but I'd rather have the Kyrii except I don't have a room for her. I'm going to have to take the mutant Tuskaninny back to the pound. I'm sure someone will want him."

      Fishy had heard that before, and it had never ended up with a forever home. Before Jake there had been Phoebe, and before Phoebe there was Evelyn, and before Evelyn was Mindy. Mindy had been his owner the longest, but eventually, she had sadly told him that she'd "outgrown" him. That was his first trip to the pound. The staff there tried, they really did, but it wasn't home and everyone knew it.

      When Fishy had heard Jake planning to take him back to the pound, he had crept quietly down the hallway into the room he shared with a bossy speckled Xweetok Jake had found at the pound a week prior. He filled up his backpack with everything he owned, which wasn't much, and set out to make it on his own. He left a note on the hall table. "Dear Jake," it read, "I will save you the trouble of taking me to the pound. I will be fine don't worry about me." He signed it "Fishy" even though Jake had always called him by his full name, FISHY_WENT_MADD. He wondered if Jake would even realize who the note was from.

      Fishy walked briskly through Neopia Central for what seemed like ages. By the time he slowed down a bit and thought about where he could stay, he was almost to the soup kitchen. Fishy knew and liked the Soup Faerie. She brought soup to the pets in the pound. He liked most of the flavors, but the one with the lump of dung floating in was his favorite. Most of the other pets in the pound hated it, so on dung soup day he usually got several extra bowls that his friends couldn't bear to finish. Fishy wished he could stop in and see if there was a pot of dung soup today, but not having an owner made things tricky. He decided to keep going.

      Just past the soup kitchen was the rubbish dump. It was surrounded by a wooden fence, but the mutant Tuskaninny saw a place where two boards were missing and he could just squeeze through. The dump wouldn't be such a bad place to hide out for a day or two until he had a better plan, he figured. The mounds of garbage would give him somewhere to hide, and he might even find something valuable.

      Fishy crept around the piles of trash for a while, trying to get a feel for the place. He saw some workers throwing sacks of garbage onto piles in one corner of the dump, so he stayed on the other edge. It was almost sundown when the workers finally left, and Fishy was alone. He thought the piles the workers had been adding to would probably have the freshest food, so he made his way over to find something for dinner. He ripped open one of the sacks, and to his surprise, a tapira skittered out of it.

      "Aww, buddy, did someone throw you away by mistake?" Fishy asked. "Come on, let's find you something to eat." He rifled through the bag of trash until he found some slightly slimy salad greens. He offered them to the tapira, who ate them ravenously. Fishy kept digging through the bag and came across a piece of mail that had been thrown away. It had an address on. "Great," Fishy told the tapira, "we'll take you back in the morning. I bet they're frantic, worrying about you."

      After they'd finished eating, Fishy took the tapira back to the far corner of the dump, where they wouldn't be spotted by workers. They curled up together and slept.

      The next morning, the pair slipped out through the broken boards and made their way to the address on the discarded letter. "I'm going to miss you, little guy," Fishy said as he rang the doorbell.

      The door was answered by a girl with short brown hair. "What do you want?" she asked, recoiling a little. Fishy was used to that. He barely even noticed any more, the way people reacted when they saw a mutant Tuskaninny unexpectedly.

      "I found this at the dump, and I believe he belongs to you," Fishy said, holding out the tapira. "I bet you were worried sick!"

      Instead of the joyous reaction he had expected, the girl sneered. "Idiot, I threw that away," she said. "They're worthless. They hand them out for Key Quest prizes, but nobody wants them, so you can get ten of them for a single neopoint at the Trading Post." She slammed the door in Fishy's face.

      Fishy looked at the petpet, who was trembling. "Well, little guy," he said, "I guess it's just you and me now. I think I'll call you Gideon."

      Fishy didn't want to risk going to the dump in the middle of the day, in case it was busier then and he was spotted. After a bit of thought, he decided to go see the faerie in charge of the Key Quest prizes. He and Gideon lined up behind several owners and pets who were waiting to use their winning keys at the prize vault. When he got to the front of the line, the faerie frowned at him. "Key, please," she said. "And where's your owner?"

      "I don't have a key," Fishy began.

      "Well, then, you wasted ten minutes in line," the faerie replied. "NEXT!"

      "No, see, I need to talk with you about the prizes," Fishy said. "It'll only take a minute."

      The faerie frowned at him. "I go on break in an hour," she said. "You can wait if you want. NEXT!"

      Fishy reluctantly stepped aside so the next person could get their prize. He didn't really want to wait, but he had nowhere else to go, so he waited outside the vault. He drew pictures on the ground with a stick to amuse Gideon, and watched people exit the building. Some of them seemed happy, letting their pets carry home prizes. Others seemed a bit annoyed. Fishy saw a few books dashed to the ground, and one owner casually tossed a bed aside. Eventually, the faerie emerged from the vault, carrying a sack lunch. "You're still here?" she asked.

      "Yes," Fishy said. "I need to talk with you about the prizes. You can't give out petpets as prizes. They're living things, and people aren't taking care of them."

      "Look, kid," the faerie said, "I don't like it either. I just help people use the keys. I see people just toss the prizes aside the second they leave. We employ three pets just to clean up the grounds. They toss the broken prizes and, well, recycle the rest back into the vaults. But the prizes we give out are determined by manufacturing costs. These decisions are made at headquarters, which is located in Terror Mountain. We've got people who can make furniture for almost nothing, and we source the petpets from a breeder who has a big supply."

      Fishy sighed. "But it's not fair to the petpets," he said.

      "You're not going to change the prize structure," the faerie said. "The best you can hope is that you can save a few more of them." Fishy sighed deeply and the faerie patted him gently on the head. "You seem like a sweet kid. I bet you can convince your owner to let you have a dozen of those little guys in your room."

      Fishy thought about his former owner, Jake, and sighed again. "Thanks anyway," he said. He and Gideon walked the long way back to the dump and squeezed in through the fence. They hid in the older section of the dump until the workers left, then crept over to see what was new. Fishy saw a bed like the one he'd seen thrown away at the Key Quest vault. It took some doing, but he pulled it over to his hiding place, which was starting to feel like home. Then he went back and started ripping open bags of trash, until he had found eleven more petpets. He carried them over, one by one, and set them on his bed. Then he brought them food. It took some doing to figure out which petpets liked which foods, but eventually everyone had had enough to eat. It was almost dawn by the time Fishy had found himself some food and settled down in bed with the petpets all around him.

      Fishy slept until afternoon. He woke up and saw that most of the rescued petpets were playing hide-and-seek in the trash heap, but Gideon was still curled up on the bed by Fishy's feet. He sat and watched the petpets play and listened to the distant sound of the workers tossing trash onto the far heap. Late in the afternoon, he heard the workers leave, and he slipped out to go find food for his petpets and rescue any others he could find. As he ripped into the fourth bag of the day, he heard a voice behind him.

      "FISHY_WENT_MADD? You'll need to come with me."

      Fishy turned around, his heart racing, and saw a brown Elephante. He recognized her as one of the workers who assisted at the Pound.

      "I can't go," Fishy said. "They need me."

      "They?" the Elephante asked.

      Fishy gestured at the two petpets he'd found so far, an altachuck and a quetzal. They were dirty and scared, but Gideon had taken it upon himself to try to soothe them. He was chirping at them in tapira language and trying to wash them off with a discarded old rag. "People throw them away," Fishy said. "I can't leave them. They need me."

      "You can't save them all," the Elephante said.

      "I can try," Fishy shot back.

      "It's out of my control. Your owner reported you as a runaway. We have to find you, and bring you to the pound where you'll be safe."

      "I'm safe enough. I don't need to be locked up like a criminal. You tell them I'll turn myself in after I've rescued every single petpet in this dump."

      The Elephante sighed. "We are not trying to be your jailors. It is simply our duty to ensure that all pets are cared for. If something happened to you, we'd be responsible."

      "Please," Fishy said, holding out another altachuck that he had found almost in the bottom of the bag of trash. "Please tell them you couldn't find me. He needs me. They all need me."

      The Elephante looked at the dirty petpets, and then at Fishy. Fishy knew he probably smelled terrible after being at the dump for three days. He probably looked like he needed someone to take care of him, but he couldn't go back to the pound. Finally the Elephante said, "I'll tell them I couldn't find you, but just so you know, they'll send others. You can't stay here forever."

      "I'll take my chances," Fishy said, turning back to the bags of trash. "Thank you."

      Fishy worked through the night, digging eighteen total petpets out of the trash bags, feeding the now thirty petpets that he had, and then, close to sunrise, when he was too tired to continue, he let them have the bed, and he slept on the trash heap.

      It was only two hours later that Fishy was awakened by a girl shaking his shoulder. "Hullo," she said, "are you Fishy?"

      "I am," he said. "And I'm not going back to the pound, so you can go tell them that."

      "Good," she said, "that's not where pets with owners go."

      Fishy frowned suspiciously. "What do you mean?" he asked.

      "Funny story," the girl said. "I went to the pound this morning hoping to find just the right pet. I needed an independent sort, because I'm not home all the time. I wanted a pet who wouldn't want all the best toys and training, because I'm not made of Neopoints. And I needed a pet who needed me. The pink Uni at the desk thought there were a lot of pets who would meet my qualifications, but the brown Elephante who was assisting her told me there was really just one pet who would be perfect for me. So, I filled out some paperwork, and I'm here to introduce myself to you. Hi, I'm Emily, and I'm your new owner."

      Fishy looked at her. "I don't really want to go through the new owner thing," he said. "I've done it before. It's never worked."

      "I'll help you save your friends," Emily said, gesturing at the petpets who were watching from the bed.

      "We can't save them all," Fishy said tiredly.

      "Maybe not," said Emily, "but with my help, we can save more of them. I got a job coupon for you. Your job will be to get the petpets out of the trash, and then at the end of the day, you bring them home with you. I'll set up a whole room for them with petpet beds and food, and I'll advertise for homes for them."

      Fishy looked at Emily. "I want to believe you," he said, "but I've had a lot of owners before."

      Emily nodded. "Here's the thing," she said. "You don't have to believe me right away. I'm not asking you to trust me instantly. I'm just asking if you'll let me help you help them."

      Emily held out her hand, and after a moment, Fishy took it. "Let's get started," he said. "We've got a lot of petpets to save."

The End