Submit your pet to the Pet Spotlight!

Pet Name: NevilleLongbottem
Owner: Rubeusbeaky
Breed: Chomby

NevilleLongbottem takes three teetering steps, lifts his front legs, and then falls spread-eagled onto the bamboo floor of his neohome. Trevor the Uggatrip comes and nuzzles his nose against Neville's. "UGH!" Neville exclaims. "And that wasn't a phrase in Tyrannian, I really mean an exasperated UGH!

You have no idea how hard it is to be a chomby. Every day it's the same: I wake up bright and early to travel into the ice cold caves of Terror Mountain. THERE'S A REASON they call it TERROR Mountain! It seems almost every time that Snowager either moves in his sleep and I have to bolt for it, or he freezes me! And the few times I scrape a prize, Beaky locks them away in the safety deposit box, or throws them in the store, I never get to play with my prizes.

Then I get to jump through a crack in the floor and fall so many miles to Tyrannia. I have to spend my hard earned neopoints on a gamble at that wheel of mediocrity where I almost always get bitten, and then climb all the way to the plateau to gain an omelette for breakfast with that creepy Sabre-X looking over my shoulder.

Then, if I live through that, I get to hop a ferry to Mystery Island. I spend two long, arduous hours training so I can gain one measly level of experience, and even then the Pant Devil beats me flat! I get one spin at tombola, where I rarely win a faerie or a codestone, but instead get sand with a few "sympathy neopoints". Then I get to take another ferry to the Lost Desert. I spin the fruit machine wheel, maybe win a petpet or a muffin, and if I'm lucky a paint brush, and what does Beaky do? She puts them in the shop, that's right! And she says "You're starry, what do you need a gold paint brush for?" Well maybe, just once, I'd like to stop being the center-of-attention, starry-chomby! Well if that's not humiliating enough, I get to walk up to Coltzan and ask if maybe he'd consider giving me food or something, and you know what he does? He raises my level, or gives me a dubloon, and that draws more attention to me!

Finally, I get to take a brisk hike through Spooky Woods, Neopian Central and Meridell, stopping only for games and neopoints, so I can take the cloudy stairway to Faerieland. Do you realize how much chombies weigh? I could fall right through those clouds! But Beaky just keeps pushing! I get to the top, spin the Wheel of Excitement, and either lose neopoints, or have something stolen from me- one of these days I will beat that Pant Devil- or have the Dark Faerie cackle at me, which is scary! I get a short break at the Healing Springs, and she revives my hit points, which is so relaxing I could stay there forever, but Beaky drags me home.

Once back at the neohome I get a gourmet club breakfast, today's was a stick of better, GROSS! I get to rearrange the furniture and the garden before I answer my neomails. When all my work is done, you'd think I could sit and doodle and get a break. Well Beaky loves doodling with me, so much in fact, she got overly confident and entered me in the beauty contest and started work on my pet page so I could be in the site spotlight. Well now I'm sending out ten times as many mails to encourage people to just look at my art work, but do they say "Gee, that's nice Neville, NO! They say BEAKY'S great! SHE must have worked hard on HER chomby! Then of course, sometimes, I'll get a neomail that says "You are so ugly, aishas are better" or something of the sort, and that just really burns me up, who asked them anyway?" Trevor gives Neville a hug. Neville sighs.

"I know, Beaky isn't all bad, I did win that trophy. Come to think of it, we've won a lot of trophies together, ever since Meridell came out. We made extra stops at the Lost Desert too, so we could play cards, she knows I love cards. I remember when I won pyramids for the first time, and then won a second time- TWO IN A ROW! I was so proud, but it was nothing to how I felt when they handed me over a shiny trophy. We really earned that one, we spent hours playing cards together.

And do you remember what we bought with our newly won Neopoints? That's right, YOU! You are one awesome uggatrip buddy! I was so upset when I found out I couldn't paint uggatrips, but Beaky said I'd have my hands full anyway. I didn't know what she meant, until I started taking you around. You always wanted to play hide and seek. Well one day you were seeking, and I was hiding, do you remember that? I was under a pile of starry objects, and you couldn't find me. Boy that was something, I was really proud of that hiding spot. I know you were upset, but think about it, I'm huge, and people are always picking on me and Beaky for it, and for once I could hide and play and not worry about people busying me with problems and work. Beaky did warn me it would be a lot of work upholding my title, and she gets her fair share of problems.

I remember that after we played hide and seek, I was putting the toys away, and a red chomby doll caught my eye. The color was different, it wasn't pink looking anymore, so I was intrigued. I picked it up to get a better look, and WHAM, suddenly I was as red as the day I was born. No stars, nowhere on me! I ran out to do my rounds, and no one said anything about my trophies, or my petpage drawings, or my "Ugly stars". I was just a regular neopian. But then I got worried, what if Beaky couldn't recognize me in a crowd? I got lost a couple of times, and went too deep into Meridell. I came out under the Darigan citadel, do you remember that? That was scary. I mean, I fought for them and all, but I don't think that orb did much, Meridell is still broken down, and I've been trying to steer clear of the mess and hope the Neopets Team arrives to fix things up. Well we didn't no where else to go, so we went inside to ask for help, and we kept receiving looks from everybody.

Luckily, Beaky was there to sign you up for the petpet battledome, and she found us! I guess you get your share of work too, guess you know what it's like too afterall. Anyway, Beaky had to spend a LOT of hard earned neopoints to get me starry again. There went all our savings from afternoons spent in Meridell playing games, neopoints we could never get back because Meridell was ransacked. Boy, Beaky must have gone through some hard times to get our savings up again. I mean, she never asked me to do any extra. And, come to think of it, even after spending a day as a face in the crowd, I didn't like it, I missed being NevilleLongbottem, starry chomby.

She works me hard, but she means well, she just wants me to be a healthy chomby," Neville puffs his chest up proudly. "I am a healthy chomby, and I am strong. I work hard, I earn my keep, I am a good pet! I love my owner, I love my friends, I love my life!" Trevor kisses Neville. "HA! And I love you too buddy," Trevor scampers away, pulls out a calendar, and points to March the 22nd.

"What's that? CHOMBY DAY!? You don't think- is that today's date?" Rubeusbeaky steps out from behind a door and holds up a tape recorder.

"Thank you for that inspiring speech Mr. Longbottem" says Beaky, waving the tape recorder. "Come on Nev, there's work to be done, it's chomby day, we have to enter the pet spotlight, and take you to the grooming parlor, and-"

Neville sighs. "UGH!"

Page 353

You are on Page 354

Page 355

Quick Jump

IMPORTANT - SUBMISSION POLICY! By uploading or otherwise submitting any materials to Neopets, you (and your parents) are automatically granting us permission to use those materials for free in any manner we can think of forever throughout the universe. These materials must be created ONLY by the person submitting them - you cannot submit someone else's work. Also, if you're under age 18, ALWAYS check with your parents before you submit anything to us!