| MARCH 04 | PLUSHZETTE VOL 1 ISSUE 1 |
Have you as an active Neopian also noticed the Tiki Man hasn't been giving out a lot of booby prizes lately? Personally I can say that if I didn’t win gross food, then I got nothing at all. After having noticed this for quite a while now I have grabbed all my courage and bought a ticket to Mystery Island. Time to find out! After a long journey I arrived at Mystery Island by boat. At first, I thought that it may have been that the Island just ran out of booby prizes to give to the people who didn’t win at the tombola. To be sure about that and to not draw any false conclusions I went to the Tiki Tack shop and the shored of mystery Island where the Tiki Man would be selling Island Merchandise when he was on a break from the Tombola. After looking around in the shop, and seeing about 100 items that could be used as booby prizes I knew that it wasn’t the case that they ran out of booby prizes, something else must have been going on… I tried to find the Tiki Man, but he wasn’t at the Tiki Shop. That was pretty normal, if he wasn’t there I’d be sure to find him at the Tombola… or at least that’s what I thought was the case. There I went, on my way to the Tombola. Normally a very cheery lottery ticket game with great prizes.. and booby prizes for the people that don’t win. When I got there I was very surprised, a sign hang on the booth. The Tiki man was on a break. That was weird! When the Tiki Man is on a break he is in his shop! If he wasn’t there, nor at the tombola booth, then were was he? I decided to go to the Island Mystic, the Island Mystic is a very wise man. I was positive he knew everything that was happing at the island. When I walked into his shack he said to me: “You will not find what you had expected to find, strange things are going on! Watch your back!” Then I said: “But what do you mean, almighty Island Mystic? What things are going on? Why do I need to watch my back?” The Island Mystic responded: “I’ve said to much already, please go! Leave this island!” The Island mystic spoke to me in such an intriguing way that I ran out of the shack and hid myself behind a tree. Then I realise what a chicken I had been, while I stood there blaming myself for running away I heard some voices talking to each other. I decided to listen to their conversation, even though that was very rude. But something weird was going on and I had to find out what. “What do we do with this man in the ugliest t-shirt ever?” said one shady person to another. “I have no idea, maybe we can ditch him somewhere.” Said the other person. “Good idea” said the first person who I had heard speaking. “Why don’t you do that while I go to the tombola, I’ve been away way too long already. We don’t want anyone to find out what’s going on, do we?.” Continued the man. “But boss…” said the second person. “No but’s you lazy bum, get moving!” grumbled the first man to the other. The second man disappeared. And the first man walked out of the bushes they had been standing in. I couldn’t believe what I saw that very moment… It was a man looking EXACTELY like the Tiki Man. Unbelievable! What were these two up to? What had they done to the Tiki Man? I followed the Tiki Man imitator, and as he had said in his conversation he walked to the Tombola booth. I decided to wait a while and see what he would do when a customer came. After sitting there for about 15 minutes a young kougra walked to the booth. The little fellow drew a ticked from a big box and showed it to the imitator. The imitator said. “Well that’s not a winning ticket, see ya!”. The young kougra stood there, filled with surprise waiting for his booby prize. Then the imitator said: “What are you waiting for? Bye!”. The kougra was too shy to answer and he left again. ‘Hmm’ I thought. ‘So it’s the imitator not giving out the booby prizes… I wonder why’. Then about ten minutes later the imitator put up a sign that said that the tombola had ran out of money and that donations were needed. Generous people donated money until there was collected about 60,000nps. Then he put away the sign. Some new people came to draw tickets. They all didn’t get anything, not ever a booby prize. ‘Strange…But if nobody ever wins, wouldn’t people notice that?’ At that very minute I heared someone yell. “I won! I won”. The imitator said: “here is your prize little girl.” And he handed her two smelly fishpops. The girl looked up to the man and said: “Huh? What’s this?”. “That’s your prize” said the man. “You go now, have fun with them!”. So that’s what he had been doing, he had covered up his fraud by giving out gross food! Now there were only two things left to find out. Why had they been doing this and what happened to the Tiki Man? I decided to go and look for the other man who has supposed to hide the Tiki Man somewhere. After two hours of searching I finally found a trace of him. I saw a part of the Tiki Man’s shirt hanging on a tree branch. I stood on the same place they had been earlier that day. Good, I was on their track. I decided to go and look for some more clues to find the Tiki Man and his kidnapper. Then I looked closely to the sand on the floor and I saw a weird trace in it. As if someone had been dragging something heavy through the sand. I was quite confused at first, but then I got it! The second man had been dragging the Tiki man there! Quite exited I started following the trail. After about half an hour the trail stopped because there was no sand anymore. The sand turned into grass. I could heard the sea, so I knew that the Tiki Man couldn’t be far away. I started searching trough the area. And after about half an hour I heard someone say “Help me, someone! Help!”. The first thing that crossed my mind was the Tiki Man! That was him! I was near him! I followed the sound of the voice and got closer and closer because the sound became louder and louder. After a while I had finally found him, the poor man, tied up to a tree. The first thing I did was untie him. He thanked me for that and asked me if I has some water, all the yelling for help and the hot sun had pretty much dried him out. So I gave him some water. Then he started telling me what had happened. “…So this one day I was standing at my Tiki Tack shop and these two man came by. They seemed very interested in the merchandise I was selling. So I brought them some tea. Then one of the man said: ‘Do you happen to have these sandals in size 8?’ I went to the back to see if I still had those left. Meanwhile The man had put something in my tea. Because next thing I know I am tied up to this tree, all covered with sand. I think they put sleeping powder in my tree and then dragged me here.” I told the Tiki Man what I had seen: that there was a man looking exactly like him and that he was running the tombola. That he asked for donations but he didn’t give any codestones or faeries when someone won, and he didn’t even give out booby prizes. Then the Tiki Man said: “He asked for donations? Oh boy! Then I know what they’re doing! They using my tombola booth to scam generous people into giving them money. They are using it to become rich! I only ask for donations to be able to provide the prizes, but they’re putting them into their own pocket! We must stop them!” We decided it was best to hold a Island meeting, We secretly invited all islanders and told them what was happening. Someone must have an idea on what we could do to stop these thieves. “Well” said a friendly flotsam woman: “If we could get both the thieves together inside the Tiki Tack shop we could pull the same trick they pulled on you, put sleeping powder into their tea, then tie them up with a rope and call the chia police.” That was a wonderful idea, I started thinking of a plan on how we could get them together in the shop. After a while I thought of something. “What if we pretend a large shipment of new goods has arrived at the harbour and at least three men are needed to carry it all to the shop. Then both two thieves and the captain would have to carry the things from the ship to the shop. After all the work is done the captain could ask for a drink and then he could put the powder into the tea while he had send the imitator and the second man back to the ship because he had forgotten a box. They would both drink it as they would be very tired from all the carrying!” I said. Everyone agreed that was a great idea. So we decided to get all of that done the next day. Next day the techo from the tropical foods shop dressed up as a captain of the ship that was anchored in the harbour and sailed away with it. At the nearby Krawk Island some of the islanders stood with island merchandise. They all carried it into the boat and the ship sailed back to Mystery Island. When it got there someone had notified the Tiki Man imitatora new shipment of goods had arrived and that he had to ask some help to carry all the stuff to his shop. And as I had predicted he asked the second man to help. The imitator, second man and the techo dragged everything inside the shop. The techo asked for a drink when they were all done and the Imitator made tea for the three of them. Then the techo did as agreed and he said he thought he had forgotten a box in the ship. The two man went back to the ship and meanwhile he put the sleeping powder into their tea. A bit later the two men came back saying they couldn’t find anything. The techo apologised for making such a mistake. Then the two drank their tea’s and fell asleep. Then we tied them up and called the chia police who took the two thieves to prison. The Tiki Man returned to his tombola booth and gave codestones and faeries to everyone to celebrate the good ending. |
