Bones & Birthday Cake: A Lenny Curator Tale

     The Curator, a mutant Lenny whose name was actually Tiberius, was not a very well-known figure in Neopian history, as his name did not spark as much awe or admiration as those more revered icons such as Jeran or Queen Fyora. However, his work was just as important as the most fabled Neopians' achievements – the Lenny Curator was in charge of the natural history of Neopia, which was no small feat. For a world so inhabited by diverse life forms as Neopia, Tiberius' job of recording and studying was extensive and never-ending. Despite this complexity, you would never find another Neopian who loved their job as much as the Lenny Curator loved his.

     Tiberius adjusted the thick glasses set on top of his beak with one dusty wing as he pulled out yet another map from the tall file cabinet.

     "Yes, I think this is the one," he stated, pointing out a large mud flat on the map of the Tyrannian plateau. Other Neopets whose jobs focused on digging up fossils surrounded Tiberius in one of the large back offices of the Tyrannian Natural History Museum. They were interested in conducting an excavation of a few ancestral Elephante and Grarrl bones in the region, and turned to Tiberius' expertise to determine the best places that would hold such fossils. Using his years of knowledge, Tiberius pointed out a few prime locations that were most likely to hold large bones. Although he didn't spend much time in the field nowadays, today he would be joining on the expedition as resident expert of the fauna and flora of the region.

     Once satisfied, everyone packed up their gear and maps to head to the prime location.

     "We really appreciate your expertise in the field, sir. Thanks for giving us access to the maps," spoke one Lutari researcher, who bundled up a large volume of maps and prepared to head out the door.

     "Ah, of course, of course. Always glad to help," Tiberius replied, a bit flustered as he nervously adjusted his glasses.

     Tiberius gathered up the remaining unused maps to place them carefully back in the file cabinets, preparing to leave with the others. As he was finishing, a young Techo assistant for the museum walked in.

     "Hello, Mr. Tiberius. I was told by the Museum President that your birthday is next week – will you be celebrating in any way?" the Techo asked carefully, not wanting to interrupt.

     "O-oh, I don't really celebrate birthdays anymore," the Mutant Lenny chuckled, waving the Techo's concern away. "Besides, I don't have much time to think about things like that with all the work to be done in the museum. Since you're here, could you please put these maps back in their correct places? Thank you, young Neopian!"

     Tiberius left in a flourish, ready to join the expedition without thinking much of the Techo's comment. He had not thought about or celebrated his own birthday in quite a long time.

     At the dig site, Tiberius was in his element, completely covered in dust and wearing a wide-brim hat, helping to scrape away fine dirt from enormous fossils. Despite his extensive time spent in museum organisation, he was also skilled in outdoor work, even with his bookish appearance.

     "Over here, sir!"

     Tiberius flapped over to where the assistant palaeontologist was calling, scattering dusk in his wake and adjusting his dirtied glasses. It was a beautifully preserved ancient Grarrl jawbone, half carved out of the hard dirt of the Tyrannian plateau. The bone could hardly be distinguished from the hard packed dirt around it, but it had a distinct smooth texture and was the colour of dark brown chocolate, just like you could buy from the Chocolate Factory. But this was no edible delicacy - it was the remnant of an ancient Grarrl, a bit bigger than today's modern toothy pet. The teeth of this specimen were especially impressive. Tiberius could only marvel at this clue to past ancient Neopia – and just waiting for discovery in his home of Tyrannia!

     The Mutant Lenny took meticulous notes and measurement with callipers while other workers carefully continued excavating the precious specimen. It took many hours, but eventually the piece was fully removed from its place in the rock. While the impressive jawbone wasn't too big, it did require careful transport. A crane was employed to carefully lift the delicate piece across the nearby tar pit and onto safer land.

     Tiberius watched the crane slowly cross the wrapped jawbone in its supports, as black tar bubbled beneath it in the pit. The crane mysteriously came to a jerky stop, causing many Neopets to nearly choke as the fossil rocked precariously in its rope cradle. Tiberius edged his way to the edge of the tar pit, curved talons gripping the edge.

     Then it happened – there was a large SNAP! as one of the rope supports broke from the crane. Everyone held their breath as the wrapped jawbone fossil seemed to hold for a moment, and then completely slid out of the remaining ropes and neatly plopped into the pit of black tar, where it very slowly began sinking.

     "You've got to be kidding me!" groaned the Lutari researcher, as he flung his clawed paw across his face, unable to even watch the ensuing destruction.

     The Lenny Curator didn't hesitate – he flapped his broad wings and soared to the middle of the pit where the fossil was sinking, and gripped hard onto the still-wrapped specimen with large claws, straining upward to lift it out of the tar. It wasn't so heavy – but the thick tar tried to suck its prize back into the depths. Tiberius beat his wings hard, and in the process sank into the muck a bit, black tar covering his legs and part of his wings. His tail feathers were a lost cause, covered in the inky stuff. It seemed for a moment that he might misstep and sink into the tar himself, but one final push upward with broad wings lifted the fossil out of the murk with a POP!

     Half-covered in tar, the out-of-breath mutant Lenny struggled to lift his package back to safe land, and barely made it, dropping the fossil with a gentle skid on the dirt as he collapsed into a messy, feathered heap.

     "By Jhudora, Tiberius – you saved the expedition!" exclaimed the Lutari Researcher, slapping a weary Tiberius on the back. "I've never seen you move so fast in my life! What would we even do without our Lenny Curator?"

     Other Neopets crowded and cheered around the Mutant Lenny, patting him on the back and thanking him for his brave act – everyone else was too shocked to even react when the crane dropped their important specimen.

     "Oh, it's nothing, really", Tiberius tried to deflect, while he unsuccessfully attempted to clean the tar specks from his glasses. "I'm just glad we didn't lose that important piece of history!"

     Later that week, a now-mostly-cleaned Tiberius was wrapping up another day in the Tyrannian Natural History Museum by organising some files into one of the near-infinite file cabinets that took up the majority of the facility. Finishing up for the day, he placed some papers into the nearly overflowing file cabinet nearest to him – the flight feathers of both wings still had tar remnants at their tips from the fossil debacle.

     "And that's the last one for today," Tiberius spoke out loud to himself as he closed the dusty file cabinet. As he was about to sit back down in a worn wooden chair, a young Blue Kacheek came rushing into the office, scattering papers as she came.

     "Mr. Curator! I need some assistance before you close up, please! I have a paper due tomorrow night and I'm missing critical references. Can you help me find them? I'm sure it will only take a minute," the Kacheek blustered as she intermittently picked up dropped papers in between gasping out sentences.

     Tiberius raised his eyebrows and adjusted his thick glasses. "Of course I can help, I keep track of most of the historical records in Neopia. What is it you're looking for?" Even though other professionals might be annoyed at sudden requests such as these, Tiberius was secretly thrilled when Neopian students came to him for guidance.

     The Kacheek let out a deep sigh of relief. "Oh, thank Faerieland! I thought I would never get through this."

     As he observed the flustered Kacheek, he noticed one of her ears had a notch in it – some scar from a fight in the past, he supposed. Her paws were covered with ink stains.

     "What kind of documents are you looking for, then?" Tiberius inquired with interest.

     "I have a report on the founding of Faerieland – I'm looking for documents written by Queen Fyora establishing the Faerie Council," stammered the young Kacheek student.

     "No problem at all!" Tiberius whisked away to a file cabinet a dozen or so rows back and opened it with a flourish, paging through the individual files with one wing. Mostly by memory, he found the correct file labelled "Faerieland Documents, Y1" and handed it proudly to the student.

     "Just make sure you cite that document correctly – it’s a primary source, you know!" Tiberius added, expecting to be done after this easy task.

     The Kacheek added the file to her pile carefully. "That was so fast, Mister Curator! Er, I'm also looking for something else...I need Hannah the Usul's reports from the Ice Caves when she first discovered them. I'm writing multiple reports, you see."

     "Yes, we can find that – the Ice Caves are a popular topic for young Neopians to write about! Something about exploring new areas is always exciting, isn't it? I'm glad Hannah is such a good role model to Neopian University students," Tiberius exclaimed as he quickly moved through the labyrinth of records, deeper into the recesses of the huge collection. His long stride meant the short Kacheek had to nearly jog to keep up.

     The Lenny Curator moved in seemingly random directions, but the student assumed he knew where he was going. Quite a ways back, Tiberius stopped at another towering file cabinet, marked with "T" for Terror Mountain, and opened a rack near the top before flipping through the documents within.

     "Ah, here we are!" Tiberius handed the files to the student with a flourish. "These are the first few journals Hannah wrote during her travels through the Caves! Fascinating stuff. She kept detailed records of the daily snowfall in that area, you know. Hannah even has published data on the behaviour patterns of the Snowager - I can pull those out too if you're interested!"

     Panting with some exertion, the Kacheek replied "Oh, this is plenty, thank you Mr. Tiberius! Now I'll only need some information on yearly crop yield in Meridell to finish my report for Meridell and Darigan History!"

     "Quite the studious Neopet, aren't we? Well, I also took a multitude of classes at once when I was in NeoSchool! Never fear, we'll find those records for you, young Neopet!" Tiberius exclaimed before trotting deeper into the records room, unfazed by the additional requests.

     As the two Neopets traversed through more rows of records, Tiberius took more and more time to carefully check where they were. The Kacheek was carrying a tower of papers nearly taller than she was, and struggled to not trip over her tail while following the tall Lenny.

     "I need records of pumpkin, potato, and marrow yields from the time of Darigan War – during Jeran's time," the Kacheek added, to help the process.

     "Oh dear, those would be quite old records indeed. Hmm, now where did I place those? No one has requested information like that in quite some time," mused the Curator to himself while he mentally tried to place the particular row of cabinets he was searching for. As the two travelled deeper into Neopian history, an accumulation of dust could be seen on the cabinets they were now passing. The Kacheek was only slightly spooked at the Curator's ability to navigate in such a maze.

     Quite a bit of time passed, and the Kacheek completely lost track of direction – they could be anywhere in the building and she couldn't have guessed. Tiberius had already stopped a few times to page through documents, hemming and hawing to himself, before closing the file and moving on, clearly not finding what he was looking for. "Hmm, there are annual Mortog censuses, gold costs of King Skarl's feasts, discovery notes of Draiks and Ixi...where are those pesky crop numbers?" Tiberius spoke to himself as he adjusted his glasses.

     "Ah! Here we have number of cheese wheels that completed their course for the year of the Darigan War. Could this be what you're looking for?" Tiberius asked the student.

     "Er...I was looking more for pumpkin yearly numbers?" stammered the Kacheek.

     "What about bowls of gruel sold per year?"

     "That may be useful, but I still need some of the crop yields also."

     "Ratio of rotten berries to fresh ones from Meridell Acres?"

     "I think we're getting close, sir."

     The Lenny Curator was sorting through documents at a high speed now – getting close to the information you are seeking was exciting. Finally, he parsed a folder labelled "Meridell Crop Yields", and extracted the rather thick volumes. Paging through, the two Neopets found documents labelled "pumpkins", "potatoes", and "marrows".

     "This is it, Mr. Curator! The documents I need for my report!" exclaimed the Kacheek with a grin.

     The two gathered the needed documents between the two of them, each balancing a tall load of papers, before beginning the long trek back to the front of the building. When they finally reached the main office again, Tiberius helped the student organise her extensive documents before sinking into his well-worn chair. It was quite late and already dark outside.

     "Well, best of luck on your Neopian history reports – please stop in if you need any additional help. I'm always willing to help interested students," stated Tiberius, as he began gathering his things for the day, feeling satisfied that he helped another Neopian with their search for knowledge.

     However, the young Kacheek stood there wringing her hands, even with the thick piles of documents under one arm, as her tail thrashed with nervousness behind her.

     "Mr. Tiberius, could you help me calculate the proportion of the total yield for these Meridell crops, please?" The Kacheek asked nervously, already knowing she was asking a lot from the wise Curator but still excited to be gaining the knowledge.

     Tiberius sighed outwardly but smiled inwardly, grabbing an abacus and a notebook before settling down to a long night in the Museum.

     The following day, museum workers walked into the office to find their Curator asleep at his desk, surrounded by a huge pile of scattered documents and scribbled notes. He seemed to be sleeping in a nest of research materials after helping the Neopian student last night. Other workers and researchers were respectful enough to not wake Tiberius from his deep sleep.

     However, the entire Museum was planning something special for Tiberius that entire week. Many Neopians had noticed their Museum Curator had been working especially hard this year at the museum – taking extra care to help young Neopians and assist in many types of academic endeavours. While Tiberius spent quite a lot of time in the background – organising things behind the scenes was his specialty – many Neopets wanted to applaud his lifelong dedication to natural history.

     So, the Neopets working at the Tyrannian Natural History Museum had organised a special get-together for the Lenny Curator. Tiberius, who was sleeping peacefully at his desk, had no idea until fellow researchers corralled him into a special museum exhibit room.

     Still bleary-eyed, the tired Mutant Lenny paced into the darkened room, trying to dismiss those worrying him about his health.

     "Oh dear, I seemed to have slept through another night at work again. I need to ready the museum for visitors, and I have those documents to return to their proper place..."

     "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

     As the lights turned on in the exhibit, a huge group of Neopians greeted the Lenny Curator with an explosion of balloons, streamers, and confetti, welcoming the Lenny to his own birthday celebration. The huge Monoceraptor skeleton exhibit dominating the room had been decorated with massive colourful banners, stating "Happy Birthday to Our Curator".

     In the middle of the room sat a huge multi-tiered birthday cake decorated with pink and blue icing. Fondant bones and fossils decorated the edges of the cake, and cookie crumbles simulated a dirt topping.

     "We couldn't let our esteemed Curator forget his own birthday, could we? Happy Birthday, Tiberius! Everyone is so thankful for your hard work," exclaimed a Lutari researcher, throwing an arm about Tiberius while other Neopets handed the Lenny a huge slice of cake.

     The Curator stammered, "Oh my, I never expected this. I never celebrate my own birthday. Thank you, everyone." He nearly wiped a tear from his eye, touched that so many Neopians felt it necessary to honour something as silly as his own birthday.

     To the demand of others, although it took a lot of coaxing, the Lenny Curator took the day off while other Neopets scurried to place his important records back in their original places. Tiberius took the day in stride for once, throwing his talons up on his desk while enjoying a huge slice of birthday cake, an unmovable smile upon his beak.

     The End.