Jess Smith of 168353 Magical Road felt that, had she lived in the northern hemisphere of her own planet, she would love May. As it was, on her own planet it was currently extremely windy, but it hadn't rained because it was in a drought.
It was seven-thirty Saturday morning. Three of Jess's pets – the vain Brown Uni aussiejewel, the cynical Mutant Techo Saint and the active Baby Kougra Tigger – hadn't yet stumbled out of bed to appreciate the beautiful morning. The fourth, a mostly quiet and rather intelligent Faerie Uni called Blanche, had, but she was eagerly reading the weekly edition of the Neopian Times – Neopia's best, not forgetting only, newspaper.
"I don't believe it!" Blanche declared suddenly. Jess peered over her shoulder.
"I don't get it," Jess replied. "What's so interesting about a bunch of Flotsams fighting over a cake?"
"Not the comics," Blanche stated witheringly. She pointed at the other page. "They discovered a girl floating in outer space."
"Oh," Jess replied, strolling away and reaching up into a cupboard for cereal. "That's not incredibly interesting either, you know. Girls go missing all the time. As," she added hastily, "do boys. If not more so because they're dumber."
Blanche rolled her eyes. "That's not the interesting part," she complained. "They identified her as a Neopian Times reporter, Diana Wattle. With the user name of dianaw150291."
"So?" asked Jess defiantly.
Blanche flipped the page to another article. "Read the by-line."
Jess obliged. "By dianaw150291," she read. "That can't be right."
"Told you it was interesting," Blanche gloated. "So, I was thinking, maybe we should take a trip up to the..."
NO! Jess was not going up to the space station. She wouldn't waste a perfectly beautiful May day with a trip to the space station. In space. Where there's not beautiful weather.
"No," Jess told her pet. "It's gorgeous."
"But don't you want to know what happened?" Blanche enquired sweetly.
"I'm not a detective," replied Jess. "I'm not a reporter, any more, either."
Blanche wondered if Jess was ever going to realise that the Neopian system didn't work like that.
"You could do something!" Blanche protested.
"Why should I?" Jess shot back. "All I ever do is get into trouble. I got arrested for stealing some stuff I didn't, I got trapped in a cave with a cave-sealing maniac, I was zapped into a simulation thanks to someone who can't even spell simulator..."
Blanche pulled a face. "You don't have to go," Blanche said. "I will. With... with Saint."
A sleepy yawn was heard from the doorway. Jess turned her head to see an aussiejewel who had perfectly combed her mane already.
"What'sis about Saint?" aussiejewel asked, merging words together. "Where's he going?"
"I was going to take Saint to the Space Station with me," explained Blanche.
"Only she's not," added Jess, "because I'm not having my pets in orbit around an alien planet when I'm not there."
"Then you come with us," said aussiejewel. "You're such an idiot, Mum."
"I am not!" Jess declared angrily.
"Are too," argued aussiejewel. "The Space Station can be fun. Sloth was expelled from there years ago. Now there's just gross food and weird robot things that follow you everywhere."
"That's your idea of fun?" asked Jess incredulously.
"Mum!" aussiejewel yelled exasperatedly. "You don't have to go there if you're too chicken."
"I'm not chicken!" Jess yelled back. One of Jess's character flaws was that reverse psychology worked on her without fail.
"No, it's all right," aussiejewel assured her. "I won't tell anyone."
"There's nothing to not tell!" Jess exclaimed. "I'm not scared of the Space Station."
"No no no, it really is all right," said aussiejewel, holding up a hoof.
"But – but -" spluttered Jess. "I'll prove I'm not chicken!" she declared. "I'm going to go to the Space Station with you guys!"
aussiejewel grinned at Blanche. Jess's angry face disappeared, to be replaced by a sullen one.
"That," said Jess, "was a very good piece of acting."
aussiejewel smiled at her too. Despite what every one of the 243 million Neopians thought, she wasn't stupid at all. "So it's settled then," she said triumphantly.
"I suppose," Jess grumbled. There went her plan of enjoying the beautiful day.
Jess thought it somewhat ridiculous to wear warm clothes on the wonderfully warm spring day, but the Space Station was very, very cold, so she'd brought a long a jacket and scarf.
"Don't worry," she'd told aussiejewel when putting it on. "There are no jelly babies in Neopia, remember?"
"Just like there's no TV in Neopia," aussiejewel had replied. Well, that was true. And it was also true that the Smiths had a TV – but it only worked half the time.
Jess and her motley gang hopped off the shuttle onto the Space Station.
"Where do we begin?" Blanche asked eagerly. "The airlocks?"
"Of course not!" Jess replied. "The café."
"Why?"
"Because I'm hungry," Jess answered truthfully. "aussiejewel, you have a magnetic attraction for trouble, where do you say we should go? After the café."
aussiejewel hesitated and pointed to her left.
"Excellent," decided Jess. "We'll go the other way."
"But if she a magnetic attraction that won't work," Blanche protested. "The trouble would just follow us in the new direction."
Jess sighed. "Couldn't you use some of that intelligence to fix the TV?" she asked.
Blanche clomped a hoof on the steel flooring. "I told you already!" she cried. "Connecting to a TV station in another universe is a highly risky endeavour."
"Which means it's impossible that it even works at all, I know," Jess replied miserably.
"Doctor!" yet another twitchy Techo, yellow this time, exclaimed. "Doctor! Sir!" He started to run around the room in circles and flap his arms, even though it couldn't possibly help him communicate with Sloth any faster.
This room happened to be a surveillance room, and the twitchy Techo in question had sighted five of the people on Doctor Sloth's list of 62635 Enemies That Are Not To Live If I Can Possibly Help It.
"Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiir!" the Techo exclaimed, flapping his arms around.
Sloth's face appeared on a nearby communication device. "Good heavens, Dickens!" he exclaimed. "What are you, a madman?"
"Sorry, sir," the Techo stated, immediately calming down. "I have detected five persons on your hit list."
"Ah!" Sloth grinned. "Who?"
"Uhhh..." Dickens checked the list. "Smiths."
"All 886 of them?" Sloth enquired incredulously.
"Of course not, sir," was the response.
"Then who?"
"Ummm..." Dickens consulted his list again. "Jessica Smith, aussiejewel Smith, BeatofSaint01 Smith, tigger2002guy Smith, bubbles2003neo Smith."
"Is that it?"
"I did say five persons, sir," was Dickens' reply.
"Bite your tongue!" Sloth barked angrily. Dickens obliged and got a load of blood in his mouth from biting his tongue too hard.
"Thorry, thir," he apologised. Sloth held his hand to his head.
"Any idea what they're here for?" he spat at his servant.
"Yeth," Dickens replied. "We put audio thurveillance on them."
"Well, what are they here for?"
Dickens paused. "To invethtigate the murder of Diana Wattle, thir."
"But that was..." Sloth paused. "A year ago, wasn't it?"
"Only becauthe you time-travelled for four month, thir," was the dutiful response.
"Oh, of course," Sloth's cold reply came. "Bring the Uni to me."
"Which?"
"Either. Both. It doesn't matter." Sloth sighed as he realised his assistant would assume the 'it doesn't matter' to forget to give the order. "Try the Brown one." He paused. "aussiejewel."
"Yeth, thir," Dickens' replied. He switched Sloth's face away and replaced it with a Mutant Grundo Commander.
"Order your men to kidnap a female Brown Uni," he instructed, pleased at his so far having avoided the letter 's'. "But do it thecretly."
"Any particular Brown Uni?" the Grundo Commander demanded, his voice as tough as his muscles.
"Yeth, yeth," Dickens replied. "Her name ith authiejewel Thmith."
The Grundo Commander nodded. "Orders understood." His picture faded away.
Dickens celebrated by spitting the blood in his mouth into a nearby bin and then proceeding to do the chicken dance.