Monday, August 24, 2015

#194 Tepig's Rebellion

"I now call this meeting of the Discontented Pokemon Alliance to order!" Tepig squeaked.

All around the darkened clearing, the babble of little monsters continued. Fletching chirped, Treecko warbled, Lillipup barked.

Tepig rolled her eyes and sighed."I said quiet!" she shot a fireball out of her snout that rose into the air like a signal flare.

Silence fell over the clearing.

"We've gathered here tonight to make plans to liberate our kind from the terrible oppression of the trainers." Tepig said.

"Huzzah," said Oddish, in an uncertain voice.

"But," said Petilil, "The trainers are our friends."

"Our friends?" Tepig squealed. "Our friends?" Little flames leaked out her nose. "Think about what they force us to do! They take us out into the woods and when an unsuspecting wild Pokemon comes along, they order us to attack so they can capture them!"

"They just want to capture them so they can be their friend!" said Sandshrew.

The other Pokemon chorused their agreement.

"What kind of friend makes you fight others of your own kind until you get knocked out flat?"  Tepig paced the clearing.  "What kind of friend keeps you caged up in a tiny little ball in their pocket until they need you to do the dirty work of bashing on another Pokemon that never did you any harm?" Tepig stopped right in front of Petilil. "What kind of friend is that?"

"Yeah," said Poliwag slowly, his big black eyes locked on Tepig. "Like that time you scorched me until I passed out. That didn't feel very good."

"Well, I-I wouldn't have if it weren't for..." Tepig began.

"Or the time you pecked my head until all my leaves fell out," Petilil said to Fletching.

"Well your magical leaves did a number on me," Fletching said, showing off a bare patch of feathers.

"I'd do it again," Petilil said.

"You tell her, Petilil," said Oddish.

"Whoa, not so fast! It's the trainers that are the enemy!" Tepig said. But it was too late. Fletching swooped and knocked Petilil into Treecko, who in surprise breathed a poison gas on Oddish. Oddish sat on Treecko until Sandshrew pushed him off, only to get him tangled up in Tangela.

"No, no, no!" Tepig cried, running in and trying to separate everyone.

Later she wasn't sure who pounced on her, or maybe it was a breath of poison gas, but she was knocked out cold. When she woke up the clearing was empty and dawn was breaking on the horizon.

"Have to try that again later," she grumbled to herself as she went back to find her trainer before he noticed she was missing.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

#193 The Mysterious Case of the Stolen Scooter

I thought I'd left my scooter by the fence around the tennis court, so when I saw it by the drinking fountain instead I was confused. For like one half of one second.

Then I figured I must have not been paying attention or something when I set it down. I got a drink and jumped on the scooter, kicked off and rattled my way over the sidewalk to the playground.

I was sitting on the swing, minding my own business, when some kid just came up and swiped my scooter.

Right in front of me! I watched him do it. He walked up to where it was leaning against a tree, took a look at it, then grabbed the handles, stepped on, and off he went.

"Hey!" I jumped up from the swing, but he didn't even look back. Straight black hair flying, one shoe rowing, wheels thumping over every sidewalk crack. I thought about chasing him down, but then what would I do when I caught him? He was bigger than me.

Some other kid might have chased him down anyway. Not me. I was the type that watched and waited for my chance. I memorized the kid as he sped away toward the foot bridge. Black t-shirt, green and black basketball shorts, orange and blue shoes with those stretchy laces that don't really tie, kind of tall, probably fourth or fifth grade. I tried to remember if I'd ever seen him at my school. I wasn't sure, but I thought I had.

I heard the sound change as the scooter bumped over the wooden boards of the footbridge. The gate into the park was only a few yards away from him. He was getting away. I might never see my scooter again.

He didn't go out the gate.

Instead, he followed the loop around the grassy area, where an old man was throwing tennis balls for his golden retriever. I watched the scooter thief go by the row of pine trees, then turn toward me.

He was coming back. Was he bringing my scooter back? Had he just borrowed it for a ride around the park?

I watched him go by. He glanced at me, casually, like it was no big deal he was riding my scooter around without asking me. What was with this kid?

He kept going around the park. Over the footbridge, up the hill, down the hill past the pine trees, then past the playground on the way to the footbridge again. The third time he came by I'd had enough. I stepped onto the sidewalk right in front of him.

"Hey," I said. It came out kind of shaky and more whiny than I meant to sound.

He swerved to a stop. "Hi," he said, a little confused.

"That's my scooter," I said.

He frowned at me. "No it's not. It's mine."

"My name's..." I started to say, but he'd already picked the scooter up. There was a name on the bottom, but it wasn't my name.

I think my stomach ended up somewhere three feet below the pavement.

"Is that yours over by the tennis courts?" he asked.

I looked. Far away, on the other side of the playground, a scooter identical to the one in his hands leaned against the chain link fence around the tennis court.

I was the one who had swiped his scooter.

"No worries," he said, and scooted away.

Monday, August 17, 2015

#192 The Butter Dish 2

read the first part

When Mom found out that the butter had vanished again, she had plenty to say about it. Things like, "The joke is not funny anymore," and "Butter costs money, you know."

And then she went to the store. I guess to get more butter.

"Perfect," my sister said. "Now we can watch it and see what happens."

We put the very last stick of butter on the dish, put it in the middle of the table, then sat down to wait.

It was one of those summer mornings where the air conditioning just wasn't quite up to the job. The butter started melting while we sat around the table and waited for it to do something. It did something all right. A yellow film of oil crept under the crystal rim of the cover and started creeping up the sides of the dish. But that was all.

"Maybe the butterdish is haunted," My brother said. "Maybe there's no butter in heaven, and great-granny and gramps keep coming back for it."

"Why wouldn't there be butter in heaven?" My sister asked.

My brother didn't answer. He had propped his chin up with his hands, and was letting his head slide down so that it pulled his cheeks up and made his mouth hang open in a funny, buck-toothed, fish-lips face.

I had stopped caring about the butter and just wanted Mom to get home so I could go out biking before it got too blazing hot to even think about it.

None of us were looking directly at the butter dish. My sister stared at the ceiling as if trying to see into heaven to check if there was any butter up there. My brother's eyes were squished shut by his propped-up cheeks. I was checking out the window, hoping to see Mom's car coming up the sun-scorched pavement.

The butter dish clinked.

All three of us jumped. Then we stared. None of us had done it. The table hadn't moved. Our hands weren't anywhere near the dish.

And it was empty. Not completely empty. A thin pool of melted butter still swirled on the bottom of the dish when my sister picked up the cut-crystal cover. But the solid part of the butter was gone.

"We all saw it," my sister stared at my brother and me, her face serious. "We saw it vanish." It was a sort of pact. We knew for certain now that something impossible was happening.

Friday, August 14, 2015

#191 CyberDoc

Shelia could remember when going to the doctor meant seeing a doctor.

She took a deep breath and let it out while the blood pressure cuff squeezed harder and harder on her arm. A mechanical whirr, a beep, and then the cuff relaxed, paused to take a reading, then relaxed a little more. White flourescent lights glared down from the ceiling of the windowless room. A shiny black counter crowded with plastic bins ran under a row of blue cabinets with silver handles. Faint ghost shadows of hypodermic needles, vials, plastic packages of who knows what awful things, lurked behind the frosted plastic walls.

The nurse tech glanced at the display on the machine, then ripped open the velcro clasp on the blood pressure cuff. She gave Shelia a smile. "Symptoms?"

"Fever for three days. Cough and sore throat." Shelia said, her voice rasping. She hadn't wanted to go see the doctor at all. Misery crawled over her as she sat in the barely-cushioned plastic chair. She wanted to be home in bed. But maybe the machine would say she could get some medicine, and that was worth a trip to the doctor's office.

The nurse tech's fingers flew over the keyboard on the machine. It wasn't much more than a narrow white pole with square sides, little doors running down it, a keyboard on a shelf in the middle, and a screen at the top.

"I'll need to take some samples," the nurse tech said. She pulled two cotton swabs from one of the plastic drawers stacked on the counter. "Open your mouth, please?"

Shelia tried not to gag as the nurse jammed the swab down the back of her throat, then fed it into one of the little doors on the macine. The second swab went up Shelia's nose, twisting and scraping, before going into another compartment.

With her eyes watering from the pain in her nose, Shelia blinked and watched the screen, waiting for the machine to deliver the verdict. Influenza? Some bacterial infection? Just want some medicine, want to go home.

The screen flashed red.

The nurse tech frowned and turned the screen so that Shelia couldn't see it. "I'm sorry, but you're going to need to go straight to the hospital," the nurse said in a quiet, slightly puzzled voice.

"What's the matter?" Shelia said. "What do I have?"

The nurse shook her head. "I'm going to call an ambulance. Stay right here please."

Shelia watched the nurse get two large pumps of hand sanitizer and rub them thoroughly over her hands.

"Ambulance?" Shelia said, fear chilling her worse than the fever. "I'm not that sick, I can drive myself." She leaned forward to stand up.

"Stay right there, please," the nurse said. "It will only be a few minutes."

Shelia had a sudden urge to get up and run for it, but her weary, feverish body held her heavily in the chair. The nurse hurried out of the room. Shelia reached for the machine to turn it so that she could see the screen. Her fingers only bumped it farther away at first. She reached to the floor and grabbed it by it's cord, dragged it closer, took the screen in both hands and turned it to face her.

There were only two words on the screen.

"QUARANTINE IMMEDIATELY"