"Oh great," moaned the disheartened Nick. Keith had the same problem.

"Well," Keith suggested. "I guess we could go eat now and come back after lunch."

"Yeah," Nick answered. "But I really wanted to talk to my dad," he said as he and Keith walked toward the door of the pokémon center.

The restaurant they decided on had an all-you-can-eat bar at a low price, and the boys were glad to have some "real" food. Platefuls of melons, tacos, and pizza soon cheered Nick up.

"Man!" he commented to Keith in between mouthfuls. "I never realized how hungry I was!"

"Sure beats Pop-tarts!" Keith replied, biting into a taco.

"There aren’t many people here," Nick realized, looking around. "I wonder where all those other trainers are going to eat." Keith suddenly looked up and slapped his forehead.

"What?" asked Nick.

"The trainer’s card, Nick. We forgot to eat at a restaurant that gave discounts to people with trainer’s cards!"

"Oops," Nick replied. "Oh well, I don’t mind too much," he said, tucking away a bite of pizza. Both boys continued relishing their meal.

An hour and a half later the trainers were back at the pokécenter. The room was much less crowded, and there was only one young girl using the computer and no line.

"See?" said Keith. "Much better." The boys waited as the red-headed kid talked enthusiastically to an older looking lady, reassuring that she would be "all right." She was "just going into the forest for a while." When she eventually finished, Keith stepped up. He dialed his home number on the keyboard and watched the computer as images of old-fashioned telephones flashed by and the computer said,

"Ring, ring, ring! Ring, ring, ring!" The pictures on the screen were soon replaced with a moving image of a brown-haired woman who looked about forty years old.

"Hi, Mom!" Keith greeted.

"Keith?" asked his mother, seeming to peer towards Keith (though actually leaning forward, closer to her computer screen.) "Keith! How are you doing?"

"I’m doing great. Right now I’m in Clarkesville, Mom," Keith started. He was cut off as his Mom requested,

"Well, tell me everything. I’m missing you here."

"OK," Keith said. "First, though, how’s everything there?"

"Fine, your brother finally called home," she accented the "finally." "Susie’s not here right now. She’s at Carol’s house, and your Dad is at work. I’m in my lunch break right now."

"You are?" replied Keith. "Well I’m glad I caught you." Nick started to wonder if his dad would be home. It was what? About one o’ clock? His dad could still be at work.

"Anyway," continued Keith. "Can I tell you about the past few days now?"

"Of course! I’ve been waiting," Keith’s mom smiled.

"OK, well, when I left Monday I went to the pokecenter and met Nick," he pulled Nick in front of the computer screen.

"Um, hi, Mrs. ..." Nick started.

"Call me Sandra," she asked.

"OK, hi Mrs. Sandra," Nick continued.

"No, no, no," Mrs. Sandra laughed. "Just ‘Sandra’ ".

"OK," Nick replied, not knowing what to say. He stepped away from the computer screen, and Keith walked back up.

"So you’re friends now?" asked Keith’s mom.

"Yes," Keith replied. "Nick’s nice." Keith’s friend appreciated the compliment.

"Great, I’m glad you’re not lonely. What else has happened?"

"Well, we left Westwood together, and the next day I caught a Nidoran and Nick caught an Eevee. I tried to catch some other ones, but they both got away."

"Oh, I’m sorry," Sandra commented.

"It’s OK," Keith replied. "They were just Spearow."

"Oh, so they flew away?"

"Yep," Keith answered. "Oh, and I need to tell you about this. Earlier today, while we weren’t in Clarkesville yet, Nick had a good idea of telling his Staryu to shoot up at the branches of a tree."

"Why’d he do that?" asked Sandra.

"Because he knocked a Mankey out and caught it!" Keith answered.

"That’s good," his Mom replied.

"And then, when we got here, we went to a gym – do you remember me and Dad telling you about those? You have to beat eight gyms to go to the Indigo competition?"

"Yes, I remember."

"And I won the battle I had with the gym leader and got this Tornado Badge. It was fun but really hard. She used a Bulbasaur and Eddie beat it. It tried to hit Eddie with vines, but Eddie knocked them all out of the way. Then it used a Razor Leaf attack and shot out a bunch of leaves at Eddie -"

"A bunch of leaves?" Keith’s mother asked.

"Yes, but they were really hard and sharp, I think. Anyway, some hit Eddie, but then Eddie used Skull Bash on the Bulbasaur, then punched and kicked it ‘til he beat it."

"So you won the battle?"

"Hold on, Mom. I’m not done yet. We each used two pokémon," he explained.

"Oh, OK. What happened next?" Sandra asked, genuinely interested in her son’s battle.

"She sent out a Mankey like the one Nick caught and it used something I hadn’t seen before called Rage. At first it just sat there and let Eddie hit it with a Water Gun, but after that, it got up and beat up Eddie."

"Ou," Sandra commented.

"Yeah, I know. But then I sent out Nidoran and used Poison Sting and beat it in one hit," Keith finished.

"So you won?"

"Yes, and I was the first one to beat that gym leader too."

"Oh," Keith’s mom said, surprised. "He must have been really good."

"She was. Nick fought her too, and started off well, but she beat him with a Ditto," Keith continued.

"Too bad. I don’t think I’ve seen a Ditto before. What is it?" Sandra asked.

"It’s sort of a little pink blob, but it can turn into other pokemon," Keith explained. A doorbell sounded in Sandra’s house and she turned, saying,

"Hold on, Keith," she walked away for a moment. Nick asked Keith,

"Your mom knows what all those pokémon are? I mean, a bunch of them are common but Eevee’s harder to find."

"Yep, well, all but the Ditto. My dad used to be a pokémon trainer and –" he stopped as his mom returned.

"Keith," she said, hurriedly. "I need to go now. I wish I could talk longer, but there’s somebody at the door and my lunch break is running out. Thank you for calling."

"I love you, Mom," Keith said.

"I love you too; goodbye, Keith," she smiled. Sandra reached for something out of Keith’s computer’s view and the screen went black. Keith smiled.

"I’m glad she was there," he said to Nick. Nick smiled back,

"Your mom seems nice, but why did you have to introduce me like that?" he asked.

"Well, I wanted her to see you. I mean, if I just said that I had met somebody named Nick, she wouldn’t have known much," Keith replied.

"OK, well, if you say so. I would just rather have..." Nick broke off. Keith asked,

"Are you a little shy?"

"What? No," Nick quickly denied.

"OK then, well, it’s your turn," Keith reminded Nick. Nick looked around. There was no one else waiting for the phone.

"Good," he thought. "I can talk as long as I want!" He pressed the "dial" button on the keyboard and typed in his home number.

"Ring, ring, ring! Ring, ring, ring! Ring, ring, ring!" sounded the computer repeatedly. After several more rings the screen changed to an image of Nick saying,

"Hello, this is the Twilight residence. I’m afraid we can’t take your call right now, so please leave a message after the beep, and we’ll call you back as soon as we can. Thank you." Nick snapped his fingers.

"Phooey," he said. "Dad’s not there." The beep sounded and Nick said,

"Uh, hi, Dad!" he waved. "How are you doing? I’m in Clarkesville right now. I guess you’re not there right now, but I’ll try back later. I love you, Dad. Goodbye." Nick pressed the "end message" button. The screen went black then returned to the main pokémon center screen.

"Oh," Keith said. "I guess your parents weren’t there."

"No," Nick said. "He wasn’t," remembering that he had never told Keith that his mom had died. "Keith, my mom died," he said.

"Oh," Keith replied quietly. "I’m sorry. I didn’t know that..."

"Don’t worry about it," Nick smiled. Then changing the subject, "So what are we going to do now?" Keith thought about it for a moment then replied,

"Well, Nick, I don’t really know. Do you want to go back to the gym?"

"No, I can’t beat that gym leader," Nick replied. Keith grinned,

"Even with the new moves for Staryu?"

"Ohhh," Nick answered. "But we don’t even know if my Staryu can use them yet. I haven’t trained him to use them so far. Besides, my pokémon might not want to battle such a hard opponent twice in one day."

"Well, I know how we can find all that out. Just get somebody else to battle against, like maybe one of these trainers," Keith suggested, gesturing at the people milling around the pokémon center. "Or," he continued. "We could walk back out of the city a little way and try to catch another pokémon or two."

Nick thought about it. He didn’t really feel comfortable walking up to someone he didn’t know and asking him/her to battle, and it did feel really cool to have pokémon that looked to him as their trainer, but... it took a long time to find pokémon in the woods. Still, if they could find some, it would probably pay off. But what wild pokémon could Nick weaken enough to catch with his pokémon that would be strong enough to beat one of the gym leader’s pokémon? It just seemed like there would be no way to beat the Clarkesville gym leader. How had Keith ever managed to do it?

"I guess we can go back outside the city. Remember it’s your turn to catch a pokémon," Nick decided.