Living in the Shadows

CHAPTER 2 GRANDMA'S PANCAKES

My grandmother's cottage is in the woods between my school and the mansion. It's hard to find if you don't know where you're going. But I've been coming since I was eight. I don't live with my grandmother because she said the isolated woods was no way for me to grow up. But I think it's because she doesn't want my grandfather to be alone.

(Yeah, I know, if she didn't want him to be lonely, why didn't she stay with him? Don't ask me why they separated. Neither one of them would tell me when I asked.)

When I got to my grandma's house, I noticed some Combee and a Roserade in her garden. "Good morning, Grandma!" I called out, startling the Pokemon.

"Good morning, Jenna!" she answered back. "I'll just be a minute. Let yourself in." My grandma is a local medicine woman. Trainers take their Pokemon to Nurse Joy at the Pokemon Center, but wild Pokemon go to my grandmother for treatment.

(Everybody in town calls Grandma the Old Woods Woman, with the standard variety of rumors that come with the title. When I asked her why she didn't become a Pokemon doctor, she said that she didn't like the hours and she already has her medical license, so a doctorate would be a waste for her.)

After I let myself in, I went to the sink to wash my hands. I put my bag on an unoccupied chair, took off my coat, and pushed up my sleeves. I was about to turn on the faucet when the sunlight caught my bracelet.

(Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that since my parents disappeared, I've had this pitch-black glass marble in my possession. Not long after I started living with my grandfather, my grandma helped me fashion a bracelet with the marble in the center. I've never taken it off since then. It's the only link I have to what happened to my parents. I was there when they disappeared, but I would rather not get into the details. What I will say is that the incident involved some people in black uniforms and Dark-type Pokemon. There was an explosion and the next thing I know, I was in a hospital bed being questioned by Officer Jenny.)

"Thinking about your parents again?" Grandma asks as she comes into the kitchen.

"Huh?" I said stupidly, snapping out of my trance.

"I think about them too," she continued as she took off her gardener's gloves and left them on the counter as she washed her hands in the second sink. "But no matter how much we wish otherwise," she added. "We can't change the past." She dried her hands before she made her way to the table and divided the pancakes between the two of us.

I finished washing my hands and then helped myself to pancakes and syrup.

Grandma makes the best pancakes anywhere. She tried to teach me how to make them, but while mine are edible, they're not delicious. While I do well at singing and dancing, my only outstanding talents are drawing plus any arts and crafts stuff, and puzzles; oh and fighting. I can also take a machine apart and put it back together, no problem.

"So, what was the emergency this time?" I asked, gesturing to the Combee and Roserade that were leaving while I poured syrup on my pancakes. We were both eating outside on the terrace at the back of the cottage.

"Oh, that time of year again," she said as I passed her the syrup bottle. "The Combee, Beedrill, and other Grass and Bug Pokemon fighting over the flower meadows. This time they've upset some Water Pokemon and a few Trainers with Fire Pokemon."

"Do you need me to pick up anything on my way home?" I asked her as I ate my pancakes.

"No, I'm fully stocked," she replied as she ate her own. "I have so much that I'm donating some of it to the Pokemon Center. By the way, it would be best for you to take the scenic route home. With all the fighting going on, you could get hurt."

"But don't the Forest Pokemon know who I am by now?" I've been using the forest route ever since I started school three years ago.

"Yes, most of them know who you are," she nodded. "But that doesn't stop a stray Poison Sting or Razor Leaf from hitting the forest path. If you got hit, you know what your grandfather will do."

"Organize all the Trainers and have every single Pokemon in the woods captured and taken away." We both said together. That hasn't happened, but there have been more than a few times when he came close to doing that.

Just then, there was a knock at the front door. Grandma got up to answer it and a strange man came in holding a hurt Smurgle.

"Riki! Can you help my Smurgle!?" he exclaimed in a fairly panicked voice. "He got caught in the crossfire between some Beedrill and a Meganium!" Then he noticed me standing in the kitchen; I had followed my grandmother when she went inside. "Hello."

"Hello, Mike. This is my granddaughter. Jenn, this is Mike. He's a traveling artist who has recently come to town." Grandma said as she introduced us.

I simply waved in response.

"Don't talk much, does she?" Mike commented. 

"My granddaughter is a shy young lady. Unless you're a Pokemon, it takes a while for her to open up to strangers. Now let's have a look at your Smurgle." As she set the Smurgle down on her couch, she turned to me and added; "Jenna, you'd best get yourself to school."

I put the dishes in the sink before I grabbed my satchel and jacket, got on my bike, and headed out.

"And don't forget what I said about what route to take home!" she called from inside her house.

I waved my hand in acknowledgment and picked up the pace. My school is a ten-minute bike ride from home to there and vice versa.

And just to be clear, the time of year here on the Four Region Islands, it's almost the end of the school year. But this year, because of so many emergencies in all four regions, the last day of school won't happen until halfway through June. If I had a phone, I'd be typing the word 'yippy' with a sad or sarcastic emoji and posting it. But my grandfather won't allow me to have one.

(To be fair, I don't have any friends to call or text; much less have anything to call or text about.)