Spoiler! :
Faithful (0) Readers,
My name is Miles. I am a seventeen year-old Jewish accident from the Orre region. My father is a fifth-generation gym leader. My entire life, I’ve lived around Pokemon, but mother has strictly—and by that I mean lawfully—forbade me from following in my father’s footsteps. When I heard we were moving to the Hoenn Region, my hopes perked up a bit. Not really for a huge future in Pokemon, but just for a future in general. I always felt like I was dying in Orre, like the flower planted closest to the highway, always coming closer to vanishing each and every day.
So when Dad came home late for dinner one night with huge—I mean it guys, huge—news, I got excited.
And then came, as is its nature, the disappointment.
To size up our new and exciting life in Hoenn, a fact:
Littleroot Town, population: 12.
Littleroot town isn’t even technically a town. It’s a hybrid camp of research and log milling. Professor Birch, my new neighbor, has a family of four. My family takes up three other spots in the 12 residents. That leaves five loggers in Littleroot, all of which have bucked, yellow teeth and the body odor of a rancid Snorlax.
Dad works in Petalburg now, and it seems to be going okay for him. Mom’s kept me inside so far, but I have a feeling that today might be the day I finally get to breathe in some fresh sawdust.
-Miles
__ __ __ __
I close my laptop and stare at the clock, unset and unmoving. It’s the kind of dollar-store clock that makes ticking sounds louder or softer depending on what second it is. After a week, I’ve learned to hate the twenty-seven second mark. The walls are pale plaster white, and nothing breaks up the tundra pattern except for a picture of an Azurill I hung up when I first got here. Mom didn’t approve, but I made that face she can’t say no to, and she left it alone. I think it’d be nice to own an Azurill one day, but there’s really no reason to get my hopes up.
Footsteps. Seven. Twelve. Fourteen. “Miiiiles.” Mom sings Soprano and likes to flaunt it. She’s such a soft woman with her high cheekbones and brown hair—it’s like she could never refuse anything from anyone, but she’s misleading like quicksand. She smiles at me and pinches my cheek, just taking in the view of the same thing she’s been staring at for seventeen-and-six-nineteenths years. I love her and all, but she smells too much like Lemon Pledge for me to want her here. She presses a finger to the unset clock and frowns, looking down to me. “Now why did you stop this poor thing?” She clicks it into gear and I try to come up with an appropriate response.
My mind comes up with the fantasy word, “Kurblagh.” Yes. That fits well enough.
“There,” she says, and the clock ticks down. “Now you have no excuse to be late anywhere.”
“Not that I go anywhere, mother.” My voice is more defiant than I want it to be, but probably just right without my knowing.
Her nice little housewife smile takes a nosedive, and suddenly she’s heartbroken. “Well! I suppose you don’t want to take my errand list for me after all, then.”
Don’t say yes don’t say yes anything but”O-Of course I do!” It’s like the defiance was never there, just a stray thought on a cloudy day.
“Good,” she replies, and gingerly hands me a list of three things. It, too, smells of Lemon Pledge, and I wonder if mother cleans with the stuff or makes martinis with it. “Go along, then. I’ll be here readying dinner for you and your faaaaather.”
__ __ __ __
The air, as predicted, tastes of sawdust. It reminds me of days back in Orre when my family would go to the sawmills for sand for my sandbox in the backyard. Mother would always cover my nose and keep a tissue handy in case anything needed to be pried out of me.
Item One: Give cobbler recipe to Angel Birch like I promised Tuesday.
Item Two: Give Professor Birch the Petalburg Gym address for your father.
Item Three: Have a wonderful time, sweetheart.
Item Two: Give Professor Birch the Petalburg Gym address for your father.
Item Three: Have a wonderful time, sweetheart.
Really, Mom? Really?
I knock on the door of the Birch house; it wasn’t too far, just a block down the dirt road. There are footsteps inside, but they’re slow. I start to wonder about how many natural birds there are in the sky versus Pokemon like Tailow and Pidgey. The door opens and a woman with heavy, dark eyes looks at me cautiously. “Are you a robber?” she asks. Her breath smells like Hamburger Helper and Diet Rite. Suddenly, I miss the Lemon Pledge of home.
“I’m Miles Cohen, Miriam and Norman’s son.” I smile a tiny bit and her eyes lighten gradually.
“Oh, you’re our new neighbors’ boy, then…” I nod slowly and she takes out a cigarette and lights up with a smile. “Come on in, kid.”
I walk into the house and wonder why Mom had made friends with this poor family. If anything, it would be one of her charity projects. The dishes at the sink are piled high and the lights are off, save the glow of the TV on Lilycove’s own Deal-or-Drapion
“What brings you here, Miley?”
“It’s Miles,” I assure her, a bit annoyed, “and I’m here to give you Mom’s recipe for her Maple Cobbler.” I try another smile, and it comes out half-baked and crooked. In the reflection of the grimy windows, I can see myself with black hair and a slanted smile.
“Oh, that syrupy stuff. Yeah, that’s some pretty good cobbler.” She reaches out and takes the slip of paper Mom gave me with the to-do list and smiles. “You’re alright, kid.” She nods towards the stairs and a bobby pin falls from her mess of hair. “I have a daughter who’s probably about your age. She’s upstairs if you wanna meet her.”
She returns to the couch and lays back, stuffing the recipe into her shirt. I look at the stairs and swallow any rude pride keeping me planted on the floor—no, wait; that’s bubblegum. I twist my shoe off of the pink blob on the floor and inch to the stairs, taking all thirteen strides with a breath.
And she’s there, sitting at her desk, watching a video about juggling Pokeballs.
That apple, it fell so far from the tree that it must have been adopted by another vineyard. She’s gorgeous, and she sees me.
And we stare at each other.
Silence.
Awkward silence.
“Miles.”
“May.”
Compliment her, doofus. “Uh, y---uh, nice balls.”
Ohgod.
Her eyes are flat, but auburn and stunning like sundown over the ocean. A knot swells in my throat and I clench my fists. “You’re a P-Pokemon trainer?”
“Yeah,” she says, and grins. “Wanna battle?”
My eyes grow wide and I shake my head before I can even think about her question. “I, uh, I don’t have a Pokemon.”
“Too bad,” she says, tossing a ball into the air. “Because trainer boys are hot.”
And it’s stuck in my head, this freaked image of the two of us riding a dragon, her arms wrapped around my chiseled abs. Her hair is flowing in the breeze and I flex my biceps and make the dragon move just on my sheer awesome power alone.
“But yeah, it’s too bad you’re not a trainer.” She shrugs and winks. “We could’ve been friends.” Something beeps and she launches from her desk to grab her PokeNav off of her bed. “Gotta go, Miles. Dad wants me to check out some swarm sightings up near Oldale.”
“B-Bye,” I say, and watch her leave. She strides out with the hip sway of a Burlesque harlot. The way she grips her Pokeballs is like the force of Orion’s shoulders, gently cradling the Earth, and ohYaweh.
__ __ __ __
Downstairs, I watch the game show over Mrs. Birch’s slumping shoulder. It’s been ten minutes since I asked her where her husband is, but she watches on with dedication, as though the host would be swarmed by Dustox if she couldn’t see him. At commercial break, she turns her head to me, sitting on a barstool with my arms around my knees, and shrugs. “I guess he went out to the Route to study.”
I frown, but it’s registering. Slowly, gradually, I realize that she’s given me my first inch out the door.
“I guess you’ll have to go find him.” She turns back to the TV as a Drapion slams his tail through a piñata on-screen. Rare Candies fly everywhere, and children run to pick them up. Before they can eat, I’m out the door and running full-speed-ahead to the town gate.
Here comes freedom. Here comes adventure. Here comes my life!
“Miiiiiiiles!”
Like a man on fire, I duck behind a tower of logs and hide, chest heaving with heavy breath. Sweet seeps out to my forehead and I close my eyes, listening for her voice. Her soaring melody flies away, and I poke my head over the logs to see nothing but a clear pasture between me and the house. I fall back onto my butt and sigh in relief, dropping my hands to the grass. The left hand lands on something cotton-y and soft. I look down and arch an eyebrow at the hat now in my grasp. I stow it through a belt loop and stand up, brushing the grass off of my legs seven times before walking for the town gate.
Suddenly, the anxiety of leaving home swells up like a wave after a quake, like the clouds just before a storm. Slowly, hesitantly, I take my first step, right-foot first, out of the town, and hear violent shouting from the forest.
Hesitantly, I run, stumbling over twigs the size of a spaghetti noodle, and find a man in a lab coat, back to a tree and a brown raccoon Pokemon, a Zigzagoon, biting at his feet as he kicks. With eyes wide, I stagger back, ready to run for help. “Help me!” he shouts, and points to his bag, kicking the Zigzagoon’s face away. “In my bag are three Pokemon! G-Grab one and help!”
Famous words rush to my mind as I crouch by the brown satchel. Of all men, I have become one whom has greatness thrust upon him. This, I feel, is the beginning of freedom, the spark of adventu—
“HELP!”
I grab a Pokeball without looking and throw it onto the ground, releasing a blue mud fish—Mudkip!—into the grass. The little Pokemon growls softly and glares at the Zigzagoon. “Mudkip, uh…Uh, tackle it!”
The Pokemon complies without hesitation, and Zigzagoon rolled backwards, catching a face full of pollen from nearby flowers. Sneezing violently, the poor thing ran off, yelping.
Professor Birch, he slowly rises from the grass and stares at me and Mudkip, grinning. He’s a tall, lanky man with sandals and shorts on with his lab coat. Nothing about him is as I predicted, but nothing really ever is. “You, you should come to my lab later.”
In the lab, Professor Birch is completely different. I think it's because of his Aides, how they all seem to respect him more than they should. He stands by this huge white machine and grins to me as I fidget with my new hat on my head. "The way you battled earlier reminded me of seeing your Father's battling on TV years ago." He chuckled, putting a hand on my shoulder. "And I think that it's high time you try your hand at it."
"But I--"
"I know you've not been allowed yet, Miles!" He laughed, his beer gut shaking. "But! You're about to be a man! There's no stopping destiny, son, and you have a helluva destiny ahead of you!"
I smile softly, genuinely, and look to my shoes. It's moments like these that I can't look people in the eyes, or else I feel like I'll cry or hug them or something else ridiculous. But Professor Birch just nods and hands me the Pokeball from before. "Give him a nickname. He's yours."
There's a flood of ideas again, anything from old Greek gods to old friends from the playground. But one sticks like mud on the skin after a rainy day in the park. "Peter. I'll name him Peter."
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STATS
Team:
>Peter | Lv5 Mudkip | Tackle, Growl
Body Count: 0
Gender:
Points: 1626
Reviews: 745