aussiejewel, a Brown Uni, and her Angelpuss Kaiulani watched only with slight interest the football match she was sitting in front of. Her brothers and sisters and their guest, Alexa, were squabbling over some pass. aussiejewel sighed and inspected her hoof, as she was one of those Unis who would sooner die before allowing herself to chip her hoof.

The football playing pets & petpets involved were:

BeatofSaint01. Aussiejewel's big brother and old, old opponent. The constant rivalry between them provided a constant boredom cure. BeatofSaint01 was two weeks older than aussiejewel and much wiser. He believed in 'innocent til proven guilty' and therefore also believed that Jhudora wasn't evil! Unacceptable in aussiejewel's opinion... and that's where it all started. BeatofSaint01 was also a Christmas Scorchio... a right little Santa Claus.

Tigger2002guy. He was younger than aussiejewel and loved battledoming, practical jokes, and pretty much everything that aussiejewel hated. Well, you know the saying 'opposites attract'? They practically invented it. Tigger2002guy was fiercely loyal to both his sisters. He was also a Baby Kougra and had been for ages, thanks to Boochi. But tigger2002guy had grown used to it and even used it to his advantage... when plotting to give Jhudora a bad hair day, who would suspect that coot, wittle Kougwa Cub?

Blanche. She was very brainy and polite, although she had a good sense of humour and a hot temper, much like her owner, Jess. She was a Silver Lupe, but she also didn't like her colour very much and she wanted to be White. Although she certainly wasn't vain! Once, last August, aussiejewel had really envied her little sister, because Blanche seemed to get all the luck that, in aussiejewel's opinion, should have gone to her!

Kaiulani the Angelpuss was aussiejewel's well-groomed, perfect-looking, white Angelpuss. She was very polite to aussiejewel and all that, but really much preferred playing in the mud.

Thomas the Warf was BeatofSaint01's petpet, and he had been for four months. He had a rather weird sense of humour and sometimes pretended his name was Robert, because he thought that was funny. See what I mean...

Lilly the Snowbunny was good friends with Kaiulani and Christie. She was tigger2002guy's Snowbunny – the only petpet he had ever owned. Lilly also loved water puddles and jumping in them.

Christie was Blanche's Puppyblew, and was very cheerful and noisy! She loved yapping (and waking up Blanche, hehehe). She was part of a group of four with the other petpets, which they called the "Awesome Foursome".

Alexa was their guest, and her family was a little different. She had no brothers or sisters, but instead three petpets! Alexa had a higher IQ than Blanche's, although you can only be so intelligent and they were really quite similar. She was a Blue Uni, soon to be painted Brown (and months later, White!). She was a budding scientist and liked inventing walkie-talkies and robots... not many of which worked, because Alexa had to use whatever materials she could find, which was hard whenever she was not at the Space Station.

Lucky was her first petpet, who was a Puppyblew. Lucky was obedient and did what Alexa told him to do, but when there were no instructions Lucky was as mischievious as he wanted.

Hubbo was her Hopso. He liked boinging all over the place, but was usually very careful and he didn't knock over many vases and decorative ornaments.

FeiFei was Alexa's budding journalist Feepit. With her eyes and ears open, she was prepared for whatever story came her way. Unfortunately, life as an average Feepit didn't have many.

And then there were the owners of the two families: Jess, aussiejewel's owner, Australian, occasional Neopian Times writer and hot tempered funny person, and Zoe, American, who was Alexa's owner, who admired the Neopian Times very much but was still quite similar to Jess.

Alexa suddenly stopped and halted right where she was, and fell to the ground. The crowd, which now included Jess & Zoe, stopped and milled around her. aussiejewel trotted over to where Alexa had collapsed, and came just in time to hear Alexa start mumbling.

"Ugga... ugg ugg ugga..." Alexa groaned uncomftably, struck down with a very, very sore throat.

Zoe shrieked hysterically at the noise, like any caring owner should.

"Oh no!" aussiejewel cried, having run over to the action like I told you already. "Alexa dearie, the cure to Ugga Ugga is an unbuyable! We need to go on an emergency crusade to Faerieland!"

"Yeah, but there are no wars," Jess said, which merely confused everyone. But then again, Jess was weird like that.

In the high skies of clouds that we Neopians like to call Faerieland, the Healing Faerie was practising some of her ancient, and useful magic. Unfortunately, this didn't help her practicee very much.

"All of your Neopets gain 15 hit points! Wow, I'm getting better at this!" the Water Faerie at the Healing Springs cheerfully announced.

"Ugga ug ga ugga!" Alexa – the practicee - protested.

"Stupid Water Faerie..." Zoe muttered. "Who would call that better, exactly?"

aussiejewel's gasp and yell pierced the air. "Quiet, quiet, quiet... I see Jhudora..."

I don't think we've mentioned yet aussiejewel's phobia of Jhudora. Let me explain. Once upon a time, Illusen's Glade got trashed by some really evil saboteurs called 'Draconians'. Jess decided to do Jhudora's quests in the meantime, but wasn't prepared for Jhudora's opinions on mortals. So, Jhudora blew a fuse and threatened to curse aussiejewel. For aussiejewel, the threat hasn't expired yet, even though that was well over a year ago.

"Oh no," Jess said.

"I so need to hide..." aussiejewel finished.

"You do not need to hide," BeatofSaint01 countered. "Where's the proof she's evil, I ask you?"

"In her face!" aussiejewel replied. "Gosh, anyone with such a minimal amount of makeup on their face must be evil, for crimes against fashion for a start!"

"Hey!" cried Jess... who never wore makeup.

"aussiejewel! Haven't you realised that that means approximately 90% of the Neopian population?"

"Nope. But anyway... I so do need to hide."

"Nuh-uh."

"Yah-huh."

"Nuh-uh."

"Yah-huh."

"Oh shush up!" Zoe yelled. "Just both of you hide or else I'm going to draw Jhudora nearer by screaming!"

"Ugga ug!" Alexa agreed.

"But Jhudora doesn't walk closer when someone screams," Jess pointed out. "She has to stay away, for fear of damage to her reputation!"

"What?" asked BeatofSaint01.

"I don't believe you!" aussiejewel cried, darting off in the direction of Faerie City. Hopefully, aussiejewel thought, she could do some shopping there, without the worry of Jhudora clouding her mind.

"Oi, aussiejewel!" Jess went after her... aussiejewel always charged to her bank account.

"C'mon everybody, off to Jhudora's Cloud!" BeatofSaint01 called cheerfully to the remaining group.

"Hey!" came the Illusen-loving Blanche's indignant response.

"That doesn't me I like Jhudora that much!" Zoe said.

"What?" Blanche asked, confused by Zoe's choice of words.

"Alexa and I want to go and find the others!" Zoe declared.

"Ugga!" agreed the still-sore-throated Alexa.

So, Zoe and Alexa went off to find their good friends.

"aussiejewel, where are we?" a bored Jess asked her pet.

"I don't know. A castle of some sort," aussiejewel answered crossly.

"Faerie Castle? You ran us to Faerie Castle? You're going to make me buy from the Hidden Tower?" Jess yelled.

"No way," aussiejewel replied. "I already have my cheapbies. They were only 5,000 each."

"Oh, that's a re- wait, five thousand? How many did you buy?"

"Ummm... six things?"

"aussiejewel! But anyway, what were they?"

"This cool-o Fyora doll, and this crystal ball! It looks like a Jhudora's Crystal Ball, but the salesman assured me that it was just using the latest fashionable colours. Come to think of it, though, the latest NeoFashion magazine said hot pink was in... oh well! And then we have this lovely Mask of Coltzan replica. The real one's supposed to contain the power of King Coltzan himself, along with his crown! And then, there's..."

Jess looked on worriedly as aussiejewel kept pulling supposed Hidden Tower replicas from her brown sack. 30,000NP gone down the drain, and Jess had a nagging suspicion that there was something bad about the replicas of the Fyora doll, the Snow Faerie doll, the Mask of Coltzan, the Jhudora's Crystal Ball, the Fyora's Looking Glass and the Sunshine Shield.

"aussiejewel," Jess asked cautiously, "You don't think – you don't think that these might not actually be replicas, do you?"

"What idiot would make such a huge profit loss?" aussiejewel, the ever-conscious shopper asked.

"I don't know, it's just that... well... you're only allowed one Hidden Tower item per day, and he got six? And after spending an odd thirteen million neopoints, he sells everything for only thirty thousand? Aussiejewel, I think you've been scammed."

"Nonsense," aussiejewel smiled. "Everyone knows the Hidden Tower has – goodness, is! - the greatest security system in Neopia. How could a scammer possibly get in? I'm sure he was just a really, really nice billionaire."

"A really, really nice billionaire?" Jess shook her head. Aussiejewel was so naïve.

aussiejewel realised she was fighting a losing battle. The other things she could care less about, but she had to keep her mirror.

"Let's leave," was aussiejewel's suggestion. "Except for the mirror – that is such a cool mirror!"

That seemed like a half-good plan – until they noticed that behind them there were two angry Grundo guards.

"You're under arrest," began one.

"Oh no!" cried Jess.