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The spring blossoms bloomed everywhere in the
beautiful garden, surrounding the shy girl Cybunny and the handsome boy Lupe.
The two of them made a fantastic pair, sitting together, laughing and talking
in the sunshine. The world was absolutely perfect. Nothing else mattered. The
Cybunny smiled, not wanting this bliss to ever end--
But it did.
"Tia!" Mrs. Owens shouted angrily. She took
her ruler and rapped it so hard on Tia's desk that the ruler snapped in half.
Tia flinched. "Sorry." As she slid down in her
chair, the Blue Cybunny's face became ruby red.
"It won't happen again," Mrs. Owens hissed menacingly.
It was a command, not a request.
"Right." Tia wished she had the ability to turn
invisible. Glancing at her best friend, Holly, the Christmas Wocky was a mistake.
Holly scribbled a note, and when Mrs. Owens had turned to the chalk board to
write the difference between adjectives and adverbs, Holly folded the note into
a paper airplane and threw it expertly across the room, as she had done so many
times already. Air mail was the only way for the two friends to communicate
during Mrs. Owens' class.
Hastily, Tia unfolded the note. Holly's neat,
easily readable cursive penmanship said: You were daydreaming about Nick again,
weren't you! You've got to stop that! You're going to get detention soon!
Tia rolled her eyes. Holly was always so practical
and realistic. It was rather exasperating sometimes. Snatching a pen from inside
her cluttered desk, Tia scrawled below Holly's handwriting: So what if I was?
It's more interesting than this. What's an adverb anyway?
As soon as Mrs. Owens spun around to write more
notes on the board for the class to copy, Tia refolded the note and sailed it
into Holly's open paws.
Now it was Holly's turn to roll her eyes. She
replied: Stop using that Wobbly Pen. I can hardly read your writing! And by
the way, you'd know what an adverb was if you'd stop daydreaming.
Catching this note as it flew her way, Tia opened
it and scowled. Her frown deepened when Mrs. Owens asked them to compose a list
of two hundred adverbs and two hundred adjectives. What was an adjective? As
she raised her hand to ask, the paper airplane slid to the floor -- right at
Mrs. Owens' feet.
She grabbed it and, glaring at Tia, scanned the
paper.
Detention.
***
Later in detention, while she was writing a 300-word essay about passing notes
in class, Tia's mind drifted back to the spring garden. Oh, if only it were
real, she thought wistfully.
Holly, also in detention, gave her friend a
stern look, and went back to her essay.
When the bell finally rang, the two of them
scampered to their lockers, strategically avoiding Mrs. Owens.
"Last bell, finally!" Tia hollered ecstatically.
She lowered her voice when several classmates turned to stare.
"Calm yourself," Holly said, stacking her books
neatly and putting them one by one into her backpack.
Tia grabbed her books and jammed them into her
patched and frayed pack. "Mrs. Owens is such an old hag," she remarked. "I'd
be surprised if she's not related to Edna, that hideous witch in the Haunted
Woods."
"I beg your pardon, Tia?"
Tia whirled around and found herself facing
Mrs. Owens. She suddenly became extremely pale.
Detention. Again.
"So what IS an adjective?" Tia asked Holly.
The two of them where sprawled on Tia's bedroom floor, doing their homework
together, as usual.
"It's a word that describes a noun," Holly replied
evenly. She was half finished with her list already.
Tia was confused. "But what's a noun?"
Holly sighed.
"Hey, don't sigh!" Tia moaned. "I'm not completely
hopeless."
"Well, maybe not completely."
"Holly!" Tia rapped her friend playfully on
the head with her English textbook.
"Well, you wouldn't be at all hopeless if you'd
listen in class! Were you daydreaming about you and Nick again?"
Tia blushed slightly and replied, "Yes. We were
in a garden. It was beautiful. I just wish - IwishthatNickwouldaskmetothedance,"
she finished without pausing for breath.
"Come again?" Holly questioned. "Could you repeat
yourself, and in Neopian this time?"
"I said I wish that Nick would ask me to the
dance. You know, the dance coming up on Friday. I can't wait!"
Holly raised her eyebrows. "Well, why not ask
him yourself?"
"No! I'd be SO embarrassed. He knows what an
awful babysitting job I did with Tommy and Tamara."
Tommy and Tamara, twin pets, were (or used to
be), a Baby Gelert and also a Baby Usul, owned by Tia's neighbor, Christine.
Tia had agreed to babysit them one Sunday and regretted it. Tommy and Tamara
were an enormous handful, always getting into mischief. That day had ended with
Tia accidentally adding Chia Flour to the cookies she made them - resulting
in two twin Chias and one furious Christine.
"Well, so what if he knows?" Holly responded,
jolting Tia out of her reverie. "He did smile at you, yesterday in Simple Spelling,
remember?"
Tia flushed at the thought. Nick -- the good-looking
Lupe from her class, the one that was plastered on every tiny piece of Tia's
walls -- had actually smiled at her. She had treasured that moment. Beaming
at her favorite poster in her bedroom, the one that featured her in a wedding
gown and Nick in a tuxedo beside her, she said, "Maybe I could be Mrs. Nick
Lupe for a night. If I ask him."
Holly rolled her eyes at the Mrs. Nick Lupe
poster. "Any normal pet would have Usukicon posters in their room, or maybe
one of their favorite band, but not my friend. She's so obsessed with Nick that
there are approximately fifty of him looking at me right now."
"I'm not obsessed!" Tia said indignantly. Then,
glancing around her room, she admitted, "Okay, I'm obsessed. But I can't ask
him! It'd turn bright red, and I wouldn't be able to speak properly. I'd melt
into the floor and then ask it to swallow me."
"Fine, but don't moan about it to me when someone
else asks him first."
***
To her total astonishment, the next day at Neoschool, Nick strolled over to
her locker. Tia was so surprised that she dropped all her books, and stooped
to pick them up. Mentally she scolded herself. That was exactly what she'd done
at her last encounter with him.
"H-hi," she stammered breathlessly.
"What's up?" he said.
"N-nothing," Tia stuttered. Say something! she
ordered herself. Anything! Better yet, ask him to the dance! Ask him! Ask him!
ASK!
Tia didn't ask -- but Nick did.
"Yo, Tia, how wouldja like to come to the dance
with me this Friday?"
Tia opened her mouth to answer, but all that
came out was a squeak.
Holly, who was busy gathering her books came
to Tia's rescue by saying, "She'd be honored."
Tia nodded vigorously. "Y-yes, I would," she
managed to say.
"Awesome!" Nick said, giving Tia an enthusiastic
high 5.
Tia rejoiced silently as he sauntered away.
***
"I'm going to the dance, with the coolest Lupe in school!" Tia sang gleefully
to Holly on their way home after school.
"That's good news," Holly answered briskly, then muttered, "too bad he's all
looks and no brains."
Tia didn't hear her. She pictured herself and
Nick dancing together, perfectly in sync. Tapping her foot and humming to the
imaginary music caused Holly to stare at her. Then Tia thought of something.
"But what will I wear?"
"Something nice."
"Obviously!
Holly pondered the question. "Well, I'm going
with Louis, that nice Kougra that sits in front of me in Early Neopian History."
Holly's eyes became brighter and her voice had a dreamy quality, much unlike
the practical, efficient way she usually spoke. "Louis is so smart, and he's
funny, too. He's-" She caught herself. "I think I'll wear the red dress that
I wore for the choir concert last year."
Tia gazed out the window, lost in thought. Then,
as if her mental light bulb had suddenly been flicked on, she had an idea. "There's
a really great navy blue dress that has sparkly sequins at the Clothing Store
in Neopia Central. I'd love to have it."
"How much is it?"
"Oh, not that much. It's only 15,000 NP," Tia
said casually with an easy grin.
"15,000 NP?!?!?" Holly exclaimed. Sensibly she
said, "Tia, there's no way your owner is going to buy you a 15,000 NP dress."
Tia's smile faded. "You're right. I do have 8000
NP saved up though, from helping out at Funshine Farm."
Funshine Farm was the Day Care locally owned
and operated by Tia and her owner. It had been established a few years ago for
young pets whose owners worked in their shops and older siblings went to Neoschool
all day. Because Tia's family was quite poor, Funshine Farm was their best source
- and usually only source - of Neopoints.
Holly glanced at her friend. "Okay, then you
need 7000 NP more, in case you didn't know that because you where daydreaming
in Basic Mathematics today. More to the point, how are you going to earn all
that?"
"Well… I could babysit again."
"Babysit?" Holly repeated incredulously. "After
the reputation you earned yourself around your neighborhood, I doubt anyone
will ask you to babysit."
Tia didn't retort, and she couldn't deny it.
It was true. "Well… I'll think of something," she finished lamely.
To be continued....
AUTHOR'S NOTE: If you never read my first series, The Terrible Two, then
you may want to, because this is the sequel. The first series, The Terrible
Two, can be found under New Series in the 87th Issue of The Neopian Times, or,
simply click here.
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