Perfection
"Man, Caressa always gets everything right! Doesn't she ever make mistakes?" Whined a Neopet to her friends.
Caressa, the island Bori they were discussing, twitched one of her large ears at the comment. Her shell was perfectly polished, the white marks standing out starkly against it. Her tan colored fur was flawless and shimmering. Her eyes a bright perfect shade of blue. Everything about her was perfect. It made pets admire, envy, and hate her.
Caressa's grades were perfect 100s in all of her classes. Her homework scores were perfect, her test grades phenomenal. She was graceful in gymnastics though other Boris were hopeless at it. She was the fastest runner, the strongest in weight lifting, and the best strategist for games.
At first pets scrambled to be on her teams, to be her partner for class projects, but they began to resent her for how she did everything perfectly. She tried not to stand out, didn't raise her paw to answer questions, but this made teachers called on her often.
"Caressa, you need to participate more in classes." They'd say.
Caressa would only nod her head and say. "Yes, I'll try harder."
"You need to draw light to these remarkable talents of yours."
"Yes, I'll try harder."
"Caressa, I don't understand why you aren't involved in any school activities. They could open up so many possibilities!"
"Yes, I'll try harder."
'Yes, I'll try harder' was her only answer, but she never did try harder to be more involved. It flabbergasted and exasperated her teachers. They couldn't understand why she never tried to excel past what she had achieved, even if what she already had done was totally amazing.
Thinking about how her teachers were irritatingly persistent in their crusade to make her already flawless schoolwork even better, Caressa swung a tattered back pack over her shoulder and walked from the class. Malicious whispers followed her wherever she went. Barbs and jibes and open hostility was all she experienced from her classmates these days.
As she walked through Neopia Central toward her home, a blue Kacheek in a crisp striped suit hurried up to her with a tape measure in his paws. "Wait a moment girl, let me get a look at you." He circled around Caressa, sizing her up and measuring her. "Oh, yes, you'll do quite nicely." He stood back and gave the Bori a huge fake grin. "How would you like to be a model for the Bori craze that's sweeping Neopia?" He asked brightly. "You would get to tour the world and see all sorts of wondrous places and people and, of course, you would be highly paid."
Caressa shook her head. "No, thank you, but I'll pass."
His grin wavered a little. "My dear girl, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity! How could you waste a chance to be famous?"
"Quite easily," Caressa retorted, growing angry. This Kacheek, whom she didn't even know, was acting exactly like her teachers. She couldn't stand it, why wouldn't these people just let her be? "Thank you for your offer, but I refuse." The Bori said icily and began to walk away. The Kacheek wasn't going to give up that easily. He followed her, berating Caressa and trying with all his might to get her to accept his offer.
Caressa's voice carried over to some tables outside of café as she argued with her follower. The beautiful tones, present even when she was angry, were picked up by the sensitive ears of a starry Aisha. "Oh my goodness gracious," she said to herself in delighted shock. "I simply must have her voice."
"How many times do I have to tell you?" Caressa shouted at the Kacheek. "No! I will not become a model!"
"Of course not," said a syrupy voice behind Caressa, the Bori whirled around. Standing behind her, holding a purse delicately with one paw, was a tall, slim, starry Aisha. A cascade of blond ringlets framed her beaming face which had an excessive amount of makeup plastered to it. The Aisha's eyes glittered darkly as she smiled sweetly at the Bori. "You're going to come with me and become part of my quire." She waved a manicured paw.
Caressa ground her teeth in exasperation. "Oh for crying out loud!" She cried, "if Dr. Sloth can't convince me to work for him then I doubt you will!"
Hearing this a red Nimmo wearing a headband rushed over. "You fought off Dr. Sloth?" He asked excitedly, "I challenge you to a fight! I'm pretty good, if I don't say so myself." He grinned, "if I pound you, I'll show everyone that I'm the best!"
"Augh!" Caressa screamed, clutching her head with her large claws. "Go away! Leave me alone!"
"Not an option." The Kacheek said firmly.
"And miss out on the most beautiful voice in Neopia? Never!"
"No way am I gonna pass up the opportunity to make myself number one!"
"Hey," said a cold voice behind Caressa's tormentors. A shadow fell across the three Neopets and they looked up to find themselves facing a gigantic, and very mean-looking, darigan Grarrl. "You know," the Grarrl said lazily, "most of the time when people say no, they mean i no /i . Why don't you guys lay off a bit hm?"
"Yessir," the three pets squeaked in unison and edged away, looking back reluctantly at Caressa.
The Grarrl picked up Caressa's battered, and now dirty, backpack, dusted it off and handed it to her. "Pets like that must be really annoying." He commented.
Blushing slightly, Caressa took the bag. "I'm sorry it made such a racket, I hope it didn't disturb anything you were doing."
The Grarrl grinned, showing and alarming number of teeth. "Oh, not at all, I found it rather fun actually." He frowned suddenly, "hey don't you go to Winding Wood High?"
Caressa dropped her head, she'd hoped he wouldn't know her. "Yes, my name's Caressa."
"I'm Rath," the Grarrl said brightly. "I just started at Winding Wood, do you like it there?"
Caressa shrugged, still not looking at him. "It's as good as any other school I guess."
"Caressa..." Rath said thoughtfully. "Yeah, I hear other pets talking about you." He frowned, "but you don't seem as stuck up as everybody says."
"Really?" Caressa asked looking up. "Stuck up? That's the best they could come up with?" Shaking her head, she shouldered her backpack and turned her back on Rath. "They've been insulting me for years, and stuck up is still what they're calling me? After all this time, you'd think they'd have gotten a little more creative." She started walking away.
"Hey wait!" Rath caught up to her, "do you wanna come over for lunch? My owner will be glad to have you, he loves company. So does my sister and one of her specialties is cooking, I'm sure she'll fix up something great."
Caressa turned, this was something that no one had offered in a long time. It took all the strength she had not to cry. "That'd be really nice." She smiled a dazzling, perfect, smile. "Thank you."
As Rath had said his owner, Mike, had been overly pleased to receive a guest. So had his sister, Hallie. The striped Krawk had worked hard to churn out a great meal in record time.
Hallie, who went to Winding Wood as well but in a higher year than Caressa and Rath, commented, "Hey Caressa, aren't you in some of the honor classes?"
Caressa nodded. "Yes, English and Math."
"Yeah," Hallie said as she cleared away the dishes. "One of my friends is in your class, I've heard her talk about you."
"Oh," Caressa said softly, Rath glanced sideways at her anxiously. "What did your friend say about me?"
"Oh, just that you were the best student in the class and she wished she could solve quadratic equations as well as you could." Hallie said, putting the dishes in the sink where they would sit until Mike and Rath argued about which one of them would wash them.
Caressa gazed out the window. "It's getting kinda late, I should be getting home."
Rath got up, "I'll walk you home and fend off anyone else intent on hiring you." He said, winking cheekily at Caressa. The Bori flushed with embarrassment.
"Also," Mike said, with a knowing grin, "you get out of doing the dishes."
Rath smiled. "Hit the nail on the head buddy."
When the two of them had left the house, Caressa turned to Rath. "You don't have to walk me home."
"It's okay, really, I don't mind."
"But I do," Caressa snapped, she turned her back on the Grarrl. "I – I don't want you to see where I live. I don't think you would like it."
"Why wouldn't I?' Rath laughed nervously, "do you live in Count Von Roo's castle or something?"
"No," Caressa said sadly, "come on." The Bori led her new friend to the Market Square, where she turned onto a side alley. Rath grew increasingly confused as he and Caressa made their way through the maze of back alleys. Finally Caressa stopped at a dead end and turned to face Rath.
"Well, this is it." She said sadly.
"This is what?" Rath asked, looking around at the dirty brick walls and dingy corners.
Caressa jerked her head at the wall behind her. There was a pipe coming down one side that connected to the gutter on the roof of the building it was attached to. The pipe ended about a foot off the ground. Underneath it was a chipped and stained bowl that was filled with water. In the other corner was an old crate that had once held organic apples. A tattered blue tarp was thrown over it to keep the rain from coming in between the slats. Inside the crate were several canvas bags and an old moth eaten blanked wrapped into a Bori sized nest. Scattered among the folds of the blanket were various school items and books.
Rath was stunned. "Th – this is where you live?" He asked, horrified.
"Yes," Caressa said quietly, "this is my home."
"B – but I don't understand it! You're painted!" The Grarrl stammered.
"My owner painted me before she abandoned me." Caressa replied, looking evenly at Rath.
"B – but I'm sure you could find another home! I bet others would gladly take you in."
Caressa shrugged. "Sure they would, at first, but that wouldn't last, believe me, I know." She gazed back at her crate. "For a while I had hopes of finding a new home. But each one kept landing me back in the Pound. So... I gave up, and now I'm alone. It's better that way, I can't hurt people."
"How would you hurt people?" Rath demanded.
Caressa looked at him with stony eyes. "Rath, what exactly do other pets say about me?"
"They... they, what has that got to do with anything?" Caressa just looked at him, and he pondered on the rumors he'd heard. "They say you're a stuck up, rich, snotty, and you don't care about other people." He said, "that you're a goody-two-shoes and that you're too, too..." he trailed off.
"Perfect?" Caressa whispered, "is perfect the word you're looking for?"
"Perfect is kind of an arrogant word to use don't you think?" Rath asked her, raising an eyebrow.
"Maybe," Caressa murmured, "but it's not an exaggeration." She sighed. "A few years ago, when I was really young, Dr. Sloth offered my owner a very large sum of Neopoints if he could use me in an experiment. He'd hadn't ever tried to use Boris before so I would be the first. My owner accepted without telling me anything and handed me over to Sloth.
"He had me for about half a month before he decided the Boris were useless to experiment on and gave me back to my owner. She used the NP he'd given her to buy me an Island Paint Brush as an apology. After I came home from Sloth's laboratories, I began noticing the changes.
"You see, one of Sloth's experiments was a potion that would find my body's flaws and fix them. In a sense, to make me perfect. He thought it hadn't worked, but it had, it was just a matter of time before my body changed.
"By body is now flawless, it can't be scratched or changed or broken. Making me a perfect battle dome fighter. But my brain has been changed too, I'm as smart as the greatest geniuses of Neopia and I didn't even have to try. I can do really complicated problems in the blink of an eye." Caressa's eyes glistened and her voice rose in ragged tones as she tried to portray what had happened to her.
"I became so perfect that my owner resented it and she got rid of me. All my owners got rid of me. So I gave up on trying to find a new family and made my home here. Away from other people, so they aren't so readily reminded of their own flaws by my perfection. That's why I don't get a job and I just live off the few Neopoints I can scrounge from the Money Tree."
Tears formed in Caressa's eyes. "I am perfect in every way, it is physically impossible for me to make mistakes, I can't trip, or run into someone." She covered her face with her large paws. "I can't even consciously do it on purpose, the perfection in my veins won't allow it. I just can't live the way you do. Everyone always strives for perfection, the perfect grades, the perfect beauty. Well I have all of it, and you know what? It's a curse, my perfection is my curse, my never ending torture. I would not wish complete perfection on my worst enemy." The Bori lowered her paws and Rath watched as crystalline tears flowed down her cheeks. Deep in her eyes burned a kind of emptiness, a fathomless lonliness that made the Grarrl's heart ache.
Rath reached forward and hugged Caressa. "I'm sorry Caressa, I had no idea what it was like, I still don't. I know I never will know what you go through."
Caressa drew away. "Don't feel sorry for me." She whispered wiping tears from her eyes. "I don't want pity." She mastered herself and looked at Rath with her perfect eyes. "You should go home now, Mike will be wondering where you are."
Rath bit his lip. "Isn't there anything I can do?" He asked quietly.
Caressa shook her head so hard that tears flung in all directions. "No, this is my fate," she paused. "Just, please don't become conceited like so many other Rath." She looked up at him, smiling tremulously. "Meeting you, eating a meal with your owner and your sister like a real family, it made me happier than I have been in a long time. I can't thank you enough. Just go now, go home, don't trouble yourself with my hardships."
Rath swallowed and his shoulders sagged. Even if something could have been done to help her, he sensed that it was far too late. Caressa's heart was broken, her spirit shattered like fragile glass. He turned, eyes stinging, and walked away from her.
Caressa wasn't at school the next day Rath frowned but decided not to worry about it. He didn't really begin to worry until she had been gone for three weeks. Hallie had said that maybe she was just sick. But, according to Caressa, that was impossible.
The Grarrl felt cold fear sink into his chest, what had happened to Caressa? The next chance he got, Rath ran to the Market Square, trying desperately to remember his way through the back alleys. When he finally reached Caressa's home, all the Grarrl found were some pieces of splintered wood and the remains of a tarp.
Fluttering in the wind, was a grubby piece of paper tacked to the wooden fence. Int the loopy hand that Rath recognized as Caressa's read the message. i 'Those who think only of perfection will lose themselves in their reflections and look up to find themselves alone.' /i
Rath pulled the message of the fence, it was her last message to him, her last warning. He knew that he would probably never see Caressa again. i 'Don't get conceited like so many others do,' /i She'd told him, clutching the paper in shaking claws Rath murmured.
"I won't Caressa, I promise." He knew now what she meant, the ultimate perfection would be the ultimate curse. The curse of being alone forever.