Shelf Life ❄️ Pokémon Short Story

1 ❄️ The Lay Of The Day

5:56 AM

Troy was not a morning person, so getting up every day when the sky and earth were still black was always more of a challenge for him than his sister or parents. Today, it was doubly difficult, because it was just three days before the winter holiday, three days before he could actually sleep in through six o'clock.

And it was triply difficult because he had a math test today: times tables. He'd studied for an hour with Pap last night, but the nines and twelves kept evading him.

So when Mam unearthed him from beneath his two layers of blankets, letting in the chill, he groaned. His head hurt, and the bed was so warm. Leaving it for the freezing air inside the tent seemed like lunacy.

"Twelve times five," Mam said as she rolled up the coverings. Troy scrunched up his face.

"Seventy-two," he decided.

"Sixty," she said.

"Sixty," he groaned. It felt cruel to be drilled fresh off the pillow, but he knew she only wanted to help. They all did — he'd been dreading this assessment all week. "Is there tea?" he asked.

"And biscuits," she said as she wedged the blankets between the foot of his bed and the head of hers. "And maybe jam. But only for boys that are dressed and know nine times nine."

"Eighty-one." She'd laid his things out for him on Ellen's bed — his six-year-old little sister was still fast asleep, and would remain that way another half hour. She didn't go to school yet, but Pap would have her out watering the Mareep with him when dawn warmed the horizon.

There were socks and several pairs of tights — those went on before his sweat pants, which went on under his uniform. Still, Troy didn't feel much warmer until he finally seated himself beside the cooking fire burning in the middle of the tent. There was tea and biscuits, but they were still heating up; he went to wash his face while he waited, using the canister packed between the storage compartments and the TV. It was on — Pap always turned it on before Troy and Ellen woke up, so that the news was playing as they ate.

Two minutes later, the biscuits were done, and Pap appeared, his face already crusted over with frost. "Eight times five," he said as Mam poured him a cup of tea.

"Forty-five."

"Twelve times eleven?"

"Ninety—" Pap raised a bushy red brow, and Troy reconsidered. "One...twenty?"

"One thirty-two." Pap stepped past Mam as she sat before the fire, and nudged Ellen, who was still cocooned in warm coverings. "Up, missy, else you'll go hungry."

Soon they were all up and more or less awake, mechanically consuming their hot breakfast while their bodies worked their way up to full consciousness. Troy helped Ellen spread jam on her biscuits — she didn't quite know how to handle a butter knife yet — and his parents watched the news. Snow, the newscaster said behind a curtain of grainy static, and a scraping wind, coming down from Snowpoint City and sweeping across the highlands. The news made Pap uneasy.

"What's wrong, Daddy?" Ellen asked at his rugged frown.

He began, "Where there's bad weather—"

"Worse than usual, you mean," Mam said around a sip of tea.

"There're Sneasels," he finished on a growl.

Ellen poked Troy, strawberry-flavored smears on her face. "Troy, who's Sneasel?"

"What," Troy corrected her. "Super-scary Pokémon, with giant fangs and long claws. Hssss!" He pretended to lunge at her, and she jumped, nearly falling out of her low seat.

"They're nothing to poke fun at, mister," Pap said sternly. "They're serious business. They don't generally hunt in packs, but they're known to gang up on travelers worn down by blizzards or sudden storms. You remember that trip we took into town last year, Troy, where you near broke your ankle?"

Troy remembered. They'd been going to stock up on non-perishables for their next long haul with the herd, and for a fresh set of shears for the Mareep. Something sinister had appeared behind them out of the snow, and Pap had turned them onto a treacherous, rocky path down to the Lower Shelf in an attempt to outpace it. Pap had never said what their pursuer had been, but... "Was that a Sneasel?"

"Worse," Pap said gravely. "A Weavile, their evolved form—brutality on steroids. They're no joke, Troy, Ellen, either kind — don't forget that."

"Okay, Pap." The warning chilled Troy a little, but it drained away quickly as he finished his breakfast and then packed his backpack. It would be one thing if he was traveling by himself down to school, a single boy in a primal, wintry, and perilous landscape.

But he wasn't. Merrick would be with him, and Merrick could take on anything, even a Weavile.

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