The Weewoo Who Couldn’t Write

      All Weewoo’s write or draw for the Neopian Times. That is just how it is, how it has always been. Except for Lucian.

      Lucian couldn’t write articles, he couldn’t draw, and he didn’t know the first thing about researching article topics. It’s not that he hadn’t tried, he’d taken all the classes the others had. His hands shook, his letters coming out illegibly and all in the wrong order. He’d always felt like a failure his whole life, having to repeat every academy course. No matter how organized he was, he never managed to do anything other than just scrape by. And he was always so organized! All his friends were graduating from The Neopian Times Academy in a few months, except for him. He was at a loss for what to do, he’d disappointed everyone he knew. How would he make it in a world where his only options were to write or draw when he could do neither?

      The collection booth was chaos again. He was one Weewoo, and thousands of Neopians were clambering over each other to get their copy. Lucian was always posted here instead of with the writers during training, it's the only thing he didn’t mess up at. The system hadn’t worked well for a while, but demand for papers was spiking and the crowds were growing. Everyone wanted the weekly news so badly.

      “Line up in an orderly fashion please, we’re going as fast as I can!” he called for the third time.

      As they went through each transaction, he wondered if there could be a better what to deal with this, everyone having to confirm their subscription meant it took ages, was there a way to bypass that?

      Name, address, subscription, paper. Repeat. The faces blurred together, the work was unbelievably monotonous. Lucian grew antsy, he wanted to move. He ruffled his wings in impatiently.

      He slogged on, working as quickly as he could. He’d been here since 8 am, and 5 hours later he still couldn’t see the end of the line. Why did they have to come to us? What if we came to them? An idea was beginning to form. What if people could read the news from the comfort of their own homes, never having to step outside to go to the packed collection booth again?

      “Hey Jane, can I run an idea by you?” Lucian looked away nervously, Jane was the best writer in their class, her feathers always pearly white and perfect. And she was the most likely to dash his idea. But if it got past her, it would get past anyone.

      Jane looked over, confused, they rarely interacted. “…uh…sure?”

      “I was thinking about how to make collections more efficient,” he took a deep breath, readying himself. “What if we deliver them to the readers, instead of having them collect it?”

      Jane scoffed “Sounds like that is a lot more work for us…”

      “But if we have an ordered route, if we know where to drop every paper off beforehand we can get through the entire list quicker than when we have to check every single subscription! You just follow a route and drop one off at every house with a subscription!”

      Jane paused, looking annoyed. “I don’t know, that might work?” She turned on her heel and left. Well, that wasn’t a no? Lucian decided to continue working on the idea.

      Lucian took a deep breath. He went over the paperwork in his hands, weeks in the making. He double-checked he had everything: courier costs, routes, schedules, comparisons to current metrics and costs. Just talk numbers! he reminded himself. Time to go up to the big boss. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves.

      Lucian knocked on the door.

      “So,” Lucian took a deep breath after going through all the paperwork, “basically if we started hiring couriers - I, of course, volunteer for the trial period - we can deliver papers cheaper and more efficiently. One courier can get what the collection booth does in one entire day done in a two to three-hour route!”

      “You’ve made a convincing argument here Lucian, I’ll give you your trial period. Get the announcements out, you have this week to prove it works”

      Lucian nodded, gathering his paperwork and leaving. He squealed as he got in the elevator, he had a chance to prove himself. His idea might just work after all!!

      The trial period had been going well, except for today. The wind blustered down the streets and the rain was torrential. Flooding was causing horrific traffic, blocking off half his typical route - Lucian had to replan everything. He crouched in a doorway to get out of the rain, shaking his feathers to dry off, even if only temporarily. He reached into his satchel, hunting down his map and pencil. He held the map up to the wall, pencil hovering over it tracing possible routes and marking where would likely be flooded.

      He jumped up. “Ah hah! That's it! Take Pembroke!” He promptly put everything back in his satchel and flew off like his life depended on it. Perhaps it did. This was the only thing he’d ever tried that he was good at, planning deliveries and doing them.

      Lucian ran in, gasping for breath and shivering. He shook off the water, spraying it everywhere “I’m so sorry, the weather was horrible, and there was so much traffic today. I’m sorry I’m late.”

      ”You’re only 5 minutes late, impressive with all the stories I’ve seen of how it is impossible to get anywhere with the construction and traffic going on today. I’m well impressed, we will hire you as Chief of Delivery and if it continues to go well we can build a new department for you. Go dry off and warm up!” Lucian's mouth dropped, the big boss was promoting him? His own department? Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined this. He thought they’d find other people to run the department if his idea worked out. He hurried home to get warm, overjoyed that his idea was working so well, that he had this new opportunity to save him from his long, drawn-out stint at the Academy. He’d finally found something he was good at!

      Two months later, the new courier system was officially opening and he was in charge. His future no longer relied on being able to write or draw, he didn’t need to graduate from the Academy - he was serving the Neopian Times in a different way: he was delivering the papers! Finally, he had found something he was good at, finally, Lucian was among his peers.

      From here on out, weewoo’s began delivering the Neopian Times as well as writing it.

      And this is the story of how weewoo’s started delivering the news right to Neopian’s doors; the beginning of the postal service.

     The End.