new feathers for the old goose [1/1]
everything changes; nothing stays the same. these are truths we learn to live with. [maylene, her grandmother, candice]
pokemon; family/friendship; g; 3300 words
In her memories, there is always sunlight.
She supposes this was not always the case, because snow and rain and darkness are all very reliable things, coming about every winter or lazy weekend or even every day, in the case of nighttime. But all the same, her childhood recollections are lit by nothing but buttercup yellow sunlight, streaming through the windows and warm against her neck. In her world of memory, the skies are always cloudless, a neverending blue, and the faces she can’t remember are obscured oh-so-conveniently by the brilliant glare.
She remembers an evening - it had to be evening, though the room is lit so brightly in her mind - when she was five years old and tired from a day of summertime exploration. Her grandmother put her to bed right after supper (“supper” her grandmother called it, not “dinner”) despite her bleary-eyed protests. The old woman had sat at her bedside and read to her from an old book of poems with a faded green cover, its binding beginning to fray and break.
“Seven little rabbits, walkin’ down the road, walkin’ down the road, walkin’ down the road,” her grandmother read, in her thin, soothing voice. “Seven little rabbits, walkin’ down the road, to call on old friend toad…”
Maylene remembers falling asleep soon after, the rhyme lulling her into a peaceful slumber, and she’s positive she must have dreamt of rabbits.
-x-
She is exactly six and three quarters years old when her parents tell her they’re going to visit some acquaintances in Celestic Town, and would she like to come along, they have a little boy a year younger than her and maybe they could be friends.
Maylene crinkles up her nose in distaste. A year makes quite a difference in a child’s eyes, you see. A boy of five and three quarters wouldn’t be much fun at all - he wouldn’t be able to run as fast or to hide in any clever places. So she shakes her head and says that she’d rather to go to Grandma’s instead.
Maylene loves her grandmother more than she knows how to say. She’s a small woman with pepper-grey hair, slightly stooped and very thin, reminiscent of the beautiful old bird in the pet shop back home. Her glasses magnify her faded blue eyes to owlish proportions. She’s always laughing delightedly at this or that (small things that no one else seems to notice). She likes to cook, and often hums tunelessly as she chops vegetables in the kitchen. And best of all she has stories, hundreds of them, and is always willing to tell them to Maylene.
“You know,” she says, as she prepares dinner (supper) that evening. “I once went to France.”
Maylene slides her bare feet across the cool, uneven stone floor and smiles. “Really?” she says, though she’s already heard this story many, many times. It’s one of her favorites.
“Oh yes, oh yes. And it was beautiful there - beautiful people and places and wonderful food! Oh, the wonderful food… I do miss it, I do. But one day your grandfather and I decided to travel down to the beach - we could just barely see it from our hotel. It was tantalizing! And when we got there we were shocked to find that no one had any clothes on whatsoever! We had wandered on to a nude beach by mistake!” At this she laughs, a breezy sound like wind through the reeds.
Maylene laughs as well, just like she’s always done, though inside she’s wondering what other places her grandmother has visited. She finds things around the house sometimes - a cat totem from Egypt, a coin from Austria, a postcard from Wales - and tries to imagine these exotic locales so far away from Sinnoh. To think that there are so many places out there that she’s never seen! The distance between home and her grandmother’s house in Floaroma seems immense enough as it is.
“I’d love to see the world again,” her grandmother says. They’re settling down to watch a movie on the hard-backed leather couches, and Maylene’s toes are curled against the oriental rug. “I’d really love to, but I’m getting too old for things like that. And I suppose… I suppose I’ve seen enough already. Don’t you think, my dear?”
Six little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Six little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
To call on old friend toad.
The next morning they sit at the rickety wooden table, eating toast with butter and cinnamon sugar, and Maylene reads the comics while her grandmother reads the newspaper. And then they go for a walk down to the post office, and Maylene is the one who gets to open the mailbox, turning the key with a satisfying click. On the way home her grandmother points out the birds high up in the treetops, naming each one in turn (“that one is called a Pidgey, my dear, and that one is a Swellow, you can tell by their lovely plumage”).
They stop by the park and Maylene challenges an older boy to a pretend Pokemon battle, while her grandmother sits on the bench and watches, smiling bemusedly. She wins, of course (though the boy claims otherwise), and puffs out her chest in pride.
“I’m going to be the greatest Fighting Pokemon master someday, Grandma!” Maylene announces later. She shows off a few of her self-taught karate kicks and nearly loses her balance. “I’m going to be the Champion of all Sinnoh!”
“Oh really?” Her grandmother laughs; pats her on the back. “Well that’s just swell, my dear. That’s just swell.”
“Swell” is a word Maylene’s grandmother uses often, just like “supper” and “neat” and “keen”. No one else ever seems to use these words, at least not in the way her grandmother does, and the girl loves this unique characteristic, this usage of terms so outdated and antique. It makes her feel like she can see into the past, way back to the era of black and white, when everything could be summed up in a simple word like “swell”. The world’s just swell, isn’t it, says a voice in her mind. I’m real keen on the world.
Later she and Candice are playing in the garden, some fantasy game with Candice as the princess and her as the knight in shining armor.
“You’re really neat, Princess Candice,” the knight says, bowing down on one knee like knights are supposed to do. They’re on the little red bridge that leads to the castle, and the wood is warm beneath the knight’s bare feet.
“Ugh, Maylene!” The dark-haired girl crosses her arms and scowls. “No one says stuff like that anymore, especially not handsome knights! You’re so weird.”
Weird? Maylene doesn’t want to be weird. And so the next time her grandmother uses her antiquated terms, Maylene rolls her eyes and smiles indulgently.
“Grandma, nobody says stuff like that anymore!”
Her grandmother’s owlish eyes widen even further. “Really? Well, what do you young folks say these days?”
But Maylene’s not entirely sure. Is there any word in existence that could ever replace “swell”? To her, the very thought seems almost disrespectful.
Five little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Five little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
To call on old friend toad.
She is eight when her mother goes away.
Mom and Dad had been angry and tense for months, always fighting and disagreeing with one another (mostly, the girl thinks, for the sake of disagreeing), but somehow it is still a painful surprise when she comes into Maylene’s bedroom one morning to say goodbye. Maylene can still see the beat-up suitcase in her mind, can still envision her mother’s face, complete with phony smile, and the words, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“Grandma,” the girl says, as they sit out on the porch and sip homemade iced tea. “Is my Mom going to come back soon?”
Her grandmother looks at her sadly over the top of her crossword book. “Oh, I’m sure she will, my dear. She just needs some time to figure things out.”
“What sort of things?”
“Hmm… Well, I can’t really say. Everyone has their own troubles and insecurities, you know. I’m sure your mother will work out her problems soon enough.”
“And then she’ll come back?”
“Oh yes. Undoubtedly. Now would you like to pick some berries, perhaps? They should be ripe by now, and I don’t want the birds getting to them.”
(Maylene’s mother never does come back.)
They go down to the berry patch and pick a bowlful of raspberries and blackberries, and by the time they are done Maylene’s fingers are stained bright red. Her grandmother tells her not to eat them before they’re washed, but she steals a few anyway - fruit always tastes better with a healthy coating of earth. And then she sees Candice, waving to her by the fence, and they run off on another adventure in the endless summer sunshine.
“Your Grandma seems really nice,” Candice says. She’s kneeling in the grass, making a crown of daisies so that her performance as the Princess will seem that much more regal.
“Yeah, she is.” Maylene smiles and pumps her legs, willing the swing to go higher. She loves the feel of the rusty metal beneath her palms and the swift rush of wind in her ears. She loves feeling lighter than air when she reaches the zenith, loves the strain on her muscles as she forces herself up, up, up. Swinging is like an escape, somehow. Floaroma as a whole is an escape. Here, surrounded by flowers and friends and her grandmother’s love, she can almost forget the world.
But then Candice’s mother appears at the screen door, holding a tray of assorted treats, and all Maylene can think of is what she so desperately lacks.
Four little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Four little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
To call on old friend toad.
Her grandmother has two old Glameows named Missy and Marian, aloof little creatures that laze around outside and vehemently dislike Maylene. Her grandmother says they were once strays, abandoned and miserable in the rain, and that she had simply fed them and allowed them shelter. And thus they had “chosen” her as their caretaker (never their owner, though, they were too proud for that). In turn, she is the only one allowed the privilege of petting them. She can often be found stroking their soft fur, murmuring things like “pretty kitty” and “good puss”. (“Puss” is another Grandma Word, and Maylene grins every time she hears it.)
One day Maylene decides she will go searching for Missy and Marian, hoping to find their secret hiding places. She knows they like to lie under the shrubbery, and beneath the old car in the garage, and she knows they like to hunt for mice and voles in the garden. But there must be other places she hasn’t checked yet. Maylene hoists her explorer’s pack over her shoulder and sets off through the “jungle”, trusty compass in hand.
An hour later and there is no sign of Missy. Marian was easy enough to find - she leapt out from behind a potted plant and tried to attack Maylene’s ankles. But the older Glameow, with her graying fur and lame leg, is nowhere to be seen. The girl frowns, asking herself, “If I was a Pokemon, where would I hide?”
Finally she thinks: the porch. She peers underneath it and sure enough, there is Missy, curled up asleep. But when Maylene smirks maliciously and grabs Missy’s tail, the Glameow doesn’t react. Doesn’t even move.
“Grandma,” Maylene calls. “Something’s wrong with Missy!”
Her grandmother pulls Missy out from under the porch, and they gaze down solemnly at her limp, motionless frame. The girl is confused and frightened, but her grandmother seems wearily resigned to some universal truth, the kind that adults hide from children to protect them (though really, they’re only protecting themselves). She reaches down and scratches the Glameow behind the ears one last time.
“What a good, sweet little puss,” she whispers, and this time Maylene doesn’t grin.
She runs away to Candice’s house later, unable to be around her grandmother any longer. (It’s scary, how unaffected she is by Missy’s passing. “Death is just another part of life, Maylene,” she said, and the girl had never heard anything so terrifying.)
But when she knocks on the door, a strange woman answers.
“Is… Is Candice here?” she asks, taken aback.
The woman ponders this, then smiles in a way that seems too contrite. “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie. You must be talking about that cute little girl… Candice and her family moved away this past spring. To Snowpoint, I think. My husband and I live here now.”
Maylene stares at her, uncomprehending. Candice is gone? It can’t be true. They promised to play together again this summer - Candice was going to take her down to the railroad tracks, and to the pool, and Maylene was going to teach her some basic self-defense. They were supposed to make daisy chains again and put them around Missy and Marian’s tails (but Missy’s gone too, she reminds herself; what’s left?).
“Ah, but they left their swingset behind,” the woman says. She has too much makeup on, and her skin seems to crinkle when she speaks so eagerly. “Feel free to use it whenever you want, okay hon?”
“… No thank you,” Maylene mumbles.
Swinging is lonely when you’ve got no one to impress.
Three little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Three little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
To call on old friend toad.
She’s curled up in the musty yellow armchair, pretending to read some classic novel with hundreds of pages as thin and light as butterfly wings. Struggling through these nonsensical words makes her feel so grown-up and dignified, like a scholar preparing to give a speech or a researcher about to present their findings. This used to be her grandfather’s favorite chair, where he would sit and write his stories (always in green pen, always in capital letters). She feels closer to him, this man she never met, just by being where he once was.
“Maylene,” her grandmother calls from the kitchen. “What would you like for lunch?”
The girl glances up; frowns. “What are you talking about, Grandma? We already ate lunch an hour ago.”
“Really? Oh, yes, I suppose you’re right.”
Maylene shakes her head and returns to her thick tome, all tiny print and yellowed pages. “Con-shee-en-shus,” she mutters. “What does that mean?”
Fastforward.
“What would you like to watch tonight?” her grandmother asks. “How about this one?”
“Huh? Grandma, we’ve watched that four times already! Let’s watch something else.”
“Four times?” Her wide eyes blink, confused, behind her thick lenses. “I don’t remember ever watching this with you…”
“You say that every time,” Maylene says, and laughs as hard as possible (as if she knows she won’t be laughing much longer).
Fastforward.
They’re at the post office again. There’s not much mail these days. Her grandmother forgets the key in the mailbox lock and Maylene is forced to retrieve it. The old woman smiles down at her as they walk home, past the beautiful houses and the tall old trees and the park.
“Have you ever been to this park, my dear? I used to bring your father here when he was your age, you know…”
Maylene’s eyes tighten, and she presses her lips together in a thin, hard line. “We always go to this park whenever I come to visit, Grandma,” she says quietly. “Don’t you remember? Remember when I fell off the jungle gym, and when I got in a fight with that rude little boy?”
“Hmm? Oh yes, yes, of course I remember that.”
She points out a bird nesting in a nearby bush, describing its wingspan and egg color and preferred habitat, but falters at its name. Maylene watches her as she puzzles over this, sees the confusion in her grandmother’s eyes, the desperate search for knowledge which was once so easily found.
“It’s a Starly,” Maylene says finally. “You feed a bunch of them every day, Grandma.”
“Indeed I do, my dear, indeed I do. What was it again you said? Starly?”
Fastforward.
On her tenth birthday and the days that follow, Maylene waits for the card from her grandmother. She always puts it in a bright blue envelope, and the card is always decorated with some famous painting by an artist long-deceased. There is always confetti inside the card, the kind that catches the light and gets stuck in your hair.
But this year, the card never comes.
“Grandma’s getting older, Maylene,” says Dad, as he sits in his chair and stares at the television with deadened eyes. “Older people sometimes have trouble remembering things. Don’t get offended, okay? You’ve gotten plenty of other cards and presents, right?”
She realizes then that her father doesn’t know her. Not at all.
Two little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Two little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
To call on old friend toad.
Her father and aunt are upstairs, negotiating things with the real estate agent. Their muffled voices drift down the stairwell to the basement, where Maylene lies curled on the carpet. Her grandmother is staying with her uncle in Pastoria. Dad says she was getting too forgetful - “a danger to herself” were his exact words. Maylene knows this to be the truth, and yet she’s still bitter.
How could they just take her away from this place, this house she’d loved for so many years? How could they take her away from the uneven stone floors and the rickety kitchen table and the antique armchairs that reminded her of him? How could they take her away from her garden, the berry patch, the little red bridge, the ivy-covered porch? The park and the post office? The tall old trees and the rusty railroad tracks?
And as she thinks this Maylene realizes that it’s not just her grandmother she’s sad for. It’s herself as well. Her heart hurts as she thinks of everything disappearing, of some unknown person calling this place their home (invading it, so to speak). It’s not right. It’s not fair.
This house should belong to her and her grandmother forever.
Maylene walks into her Grandpa’s workshop, where the air is musty and stale from years of abandonment. On his work bench, as if he were about to come back to it at any moment, is a gorgeous wood carving of the house right after it was built. She brushes away the dust, savoring the way the engraved wood feels beneath her fingers. And soon enough she’s crying - sobs racking her whole body as tears stain her grandfather’s priceless art.
“I guess this is farewell.”
One little rabbit
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
One little rabbit
Walkin’ down the road
To call on old friend toad.
Maylene gets up and stretches, enjoying the subtle crack of her joints. She’s been resting here far too long. If she’s to make it to Snowpoint by nightfall, she’ll need to hurry. (And no one wants to be caught in the northern wilderness when the light of day fades, not even the Sinnoh League’s Fighting Pokemon expert.)
With a determined sigh, the Gym Leader focuses her energies and starts the trek across the snow-covered countryside, heading towards friends and golden memories.
She’s learned to ignore the cold through her intensive training. Winter no longer bothers her - in fact, she doesn’t even require a jacket. It's as if the bitter wind glides right through her, barely noticeable when she focuses her mind just right.
And yet she can’t help but wish that summer would never end.
The first little rabbit
Dreamed a dream
And to him it seemed
All in a blur
As if there were
Seven little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Seven little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
To call on old friend toad.
pokemon; family/friendship; g; 3300 words
In her memories, there is always sunlight.
She supposes this was not always the case, because snow and rain and darkness are all very reliable things, coming about every winter or lazy weekend or even every day, in the case of nighttime. But all the same, her childhood recollections are lit by nothing but buttercup yellow sunlight, streaming through the windows and warm against her neck. In her world of memory, the skies are always cloudless, a neverending blue, and the faces she can’t remember are obscured oh-so-conveniently by the brilliant glare.
She remembers an evening - it had to be evening, though the room is lit so brightly in her mind - when she was five years old and tired from a day of summertime exploration. Her grandmother put her to bed right after supper (“supper” her grandmother called it, not “dinner”) despite her bleary-eyed protests. The old woman had sat at her bedside and read to her from an old book of poems with a faded green cover, its binding beginning to fray and break.
“Seven little rabbits, walkin’ down the road, walkin’ down the road, walkin’ down the road,” her grandmother read, in her thin, soothing voice. “Seven little rabbits, walkin’ down the road, to call on old friend toad…”
Maylene remembers falling asleep soon after, the rhyme lulling her into a peaceful slumber, and she’s positive she must have dreamt of rabbits.
-x-
She is exactly six and three quarters years old when her parents tell her they’re going to visit some acquaintances in Celestic Town, and would she like to come along, they have a little boy a year younger than her and maybe they could be friends.
Maylene crinkles up her nose in distaste. A year makes quite a difference in a child’s eyes, you see. A boy of five and three quarters wouldn’t be much fun at all - he wouldn’t be able to run as fast or to hide in any clever places. So she shakes her head and says that she’d rather to go to Grandma’s instead.
Maylene loves her grandmother more than she knows how to say. She’s a small woman with pepper-grey hair, slightly stooped and very thin, reminiscent of the beautiful old bird in the pet shop back home. Her glasses magnify her faded blue eyes to owlish proportions. She’s always laughing delightedly at this or that (small things that no one else seems to notice). She likes to cook, and often hums tunelessly as she chops vegetables in the kitchen. And best of all she has stories, hundreds of them, and is always willing to tell them to Maylene.
“You know,” she says, as she prepares dinner (supper) that evening. “I once went to France.”
Maylene slides her bare feet across the cool, uneven stone floor and smiles. “Really?” she says, though she’s already heard this story many, many times. It’s one of her favorites.
“Oh yes, oh yes. And it was beautiful there - beautiful people and places and wonderful food! Oh, the wonderful food… I do miss it, I do. But one day your grandfather and I decided to travel down to the beach - we could just barely see it from our hotel. It was tantalizing! And when we got there we were shocked to find that no one had any clothes on whatsoever! We had wandered on to a nude beach by mistake!” At this she laughs, a breezy sound like wind through the reeds.
Maylene laughs as well, just like she’s always done, though inside she’s wondering what other places her grandmother has visited. She finds things around the house sometimes - a cat totem from Egypt, a coin from Austria, a postcard from Wales - and tries to imagine these exotic locales so far away from Sinnoh. To think that there are so many places out there that she’s never seen! The distance between home and her grandmother’s house in Floaroma seems immense enough as it is.
“I’d love to see the world again,” her grandmother says. They’re settling down to watch a movie on the hard-backed leather couches, and Maylene’s toes are curled against the oriental rug. “I’d really love to, but I’m getting too old for things like that. And I suppose… I suppose I’ve seen enough already. Don’t you think, my dear?”
Six little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Six little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
To call on old friend toad.
The next morning they sit at the rickety wooden table, eating toast with butter and cinnamon sugar, and Maylene reads the comics while her grandmother reads the newspaper. And then they go for a walk down to the post office, and Maylene is the one who gets to open the mailbox, turning the key with a satisfying click. On the way home her grandmother points out the birds high up in the treetops, naming each one in turn (“that one is called a Pidgey, my dear, and that one is a Swellow, you can tell by their lovely plumage”).
They stop by the park and Maylene challenges an older boy to a pretend Pokemon battle, while her grandmother sits on the bench and watches, smiling bemusedly. She wins, of course (though the boy claims otherwise), and puffs out her chest in pride.
“I’m going to be the greatest Fighting Pokemon master someday, Grandma!” Maylene announces later. She shows off a few of her self-taught karate kicks and nearly loses her balance. “I’m going to be the Champion of all Sinnoh!”
“Oh really?” Her grandmother laughs; pats her on the back. “Well that’s just swell, my dear. That’s just swell.”
“Swell” is a word Maylene’s grandmother uses often, just like “supper” and “neat” and “keen”. No one else ever seems to use these words, at least not in the way her grandmother does, and the girl loves this unique characteristic, this usage of terms so outdated and antique. It makes her feel like she can see into the past, way back to the era of black and white, when everything could be summed up in a simple word like “swell”. The world’s just swell, isn’t it, says a voice in her mind. I’m real keen on the world.
Later she and Candice are playing in the garden, some fantasy game with Candice as the princess and her as the knight in shining armor.
“You’re really neat, Princess Candice,” the knight says, bowing down on one knee like knights are supposed to do. They’re on the little red bridge that leads to the castle, and the wood is warm beneath the knight’s bare feet.
“Ugh, Maylene!” The dark-haired girl crosses her arms and scowls. “No one says stuff like that anymore, especially not handsome knights! You’re so weird.”
Weird? Maylene doesn’t want to be weird. And so the next time her grandmother uses her antiquated terms, Maylene rolls her eyes and smiles indulgently.
“Grandma, nobody says stuff like that anymore!”
Her grandmother’s owlish eyes widen even further. “Really? Well, what do you young folks say these days?”
But Maylene’s not entirely sure. Is there any word in existence that could ever replace “swell”? To her, the very thought seems almost disrespectful.
Five little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Five little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
To call on old friend toad.
She is eight when her mother goes away.
Mom and Dad had been angry and tense for months, always fighting and disagreeing with one another (mostly, the girl thinks, for the sake of disagreeing), but somehow it is still a painful surprise when she comes into Maylene’s bedroom one morning to say goodbye. Maylene can still see the beat-up suitcase in her mind, can still envision her mother’s face, complete with phony smile, and the words, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“Grandma,” the girl says, as they sit out on the porch and sip homemade iced tea. “Is my Mom going to come back soon?”
Her grandmother looks at her sadly over the top of her crossword book. “Oh, I’m sure she will, my dear. She just needs some time to figure things out.”
“What sort of things?”
“Hmm… Well, I can’t really say. Everyone has their own troubles and insecurities, you know. I’m sure your mother will work out her problems soon enough.”
“And then she’ll come back?”
“Oh yes. Undoubtedly. Now would you like to pick some berries, perhaps? They should be ripe by now, and I don’t want the birds getting to them.”
(Maylene’s mother never does come back.)
They go down to the berry patch and pick a bowlful of raspberries and blackberries, and by the time they are done Maylene’s fingers are stained bright red. Her grandmother tells her not to eat them before they’re washed, but she steals a few anyway - fruit always tastes better with a healthy coating of earth. And then she sees Candice, waving to her by the fence, and they run off on another adventure in the endless summer sunshine.
“Your Grandma seems really nice,” Candice says. She’s kneeling in the grass, making a crown of daisies so that her performance as the Princess will seem that much more regal.
“Yeah, she is.” Maylene smiles and pumps her legs, willing the swing to go higher. She loves the feel of the rusty metal beneath her palms and the swift rush of wind in her ears. She loves feeling lighter than air when she reaches the zenith, loves the strain on her muscles as she forces herself up, up, up. Swinging is like an escape, somehow. Floaroma as a whole is an escape. Here, surrounded by flowers and friends and her grandmother’s love, she can almost forget the world.
But then Candice’s mother appears at the screen door, holding a tray of assorted treats, and all Maylene can think of is what she so desperately lacks.
Four little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Four little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
To call on old friend toad.
Her grandmother has two old Glameows named Missy and Marian, aloof little creatures that laze around outside and vehemently dislike Maylene. Her grandmother says they were once strays, abandoned and miserable in the rain, and that she had simply fed them and allowed them shelter. And thus they had “chosen” her as their caretaker (never their owner, though, they were too proud for that). In turn, she is the only one allowed the privilege of petting them. She can often be found stroking their soft fur, murmuring things like “pretty kitty” and “good puss”. (“Puss” is another Grandma Word, and Maylene grins every time she hears it.)
One day Maylene decides she will go searching for Missy and Marian, hoping to find their secret hiding places. She knows they like to lie under the shrubbery, and beneath the old car in the garage, and she knows they like to hunt for mice and voles in the garden. But there must be other places she hasn’t checked yet. Maylene hoists her explorer’s pack over her shoulder and sets off through the “jungle”, trusty compass in hand.
An hour later and there is no sign of Missy. Marian was easy enough to find - she leapt out from behind a potted plant and tried to attack Maylene’s ankles. But the older Glameow, with her graying fur and lame leg, is nowhere to be seen. The girl frowns, asking herself, “If I was a Pokemon, where would I hide?”
Finally she thinks: the porch. She peers underneath it and sure enough, there is Missy, curled up asleep. But when Maylene smirks maliciously and grabs Missy’s tail, the Glameow doesn’t react. Doesn’t even move.
“Grandma,” Maylene calls. “Something’s wrong with Missy!”
Her grandmother pulls Missy out from under the porch, and they gaze down solemnly at her limp, motionless frame. The girl is confused and frightened, but her grandmother seems wearily resigned to some universal truth, the kind that adults hide from children to protect them (though really, they’re only protecting themselves). She reaches down and scratches the Glameow behind the ears one last time.
“What a good, sweet little puss,” she whispers, and this time Maylene doesn’t grin.
She runs away to Candice’s house later, unable to be around her grandmother any longer. (It’s scary, how unaffected she is by Missy’s passing. “Death is just another part of life, Maylene,” she said, and the girl had never heard anything so terrifying.)
But when she knocks on the door, a strange woman answers.
“Is… Is Candice here?” she asks, taken aback.
The woman ponders this, then smiles in a way that seems too contrite. “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie. You must be talking about that cute little girl… Candice and her family moved away this past spring. To Snowpoint, I think. My husband and I live here now.”
Maylene stares at her, uncomprehending. Candice is gone? It can’t be true. They promised to play together again this summer - Candice was going to take her down to the railroad tracks, and to the pool, and Maylene was going to teach her some basic self-defense. They were supposed to make daisy chains again and put them around Missy and Marian’s tails (but Missy’s gone too, she reminds herself; what’s left?).
“Ah, but they left their swingset behind,” the woman says. She has too much makeup on, and her skin seems to crinkle when she speaks so eagerly. “Feel free to use it whenever you want, okay hon?”
“… No thank you,” Maylene mumbles.
Swinging is lonely when you’ve got no one to impress.
Three little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Three little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
To call on old friend toad.
She’s curled up in the musty yellow armchair, pretending to read some classic novel with hundreds of pages as thin and light as butterfly wings. Struggling through these nonsensical words makes her feel so grown-up and dignified, like a scholar preparing to give a speech or a researcher about to present their findings. This used to be her grandfather’s favorite chair, where he would sit and write his stories (always in green pen, always in capital letters). She feels closer to him, this man she never met, just by being where he once was.
“Maylene,” her grandmother calls from the kitchen. “What would you like for lunch?”
The girl glances up; frowns. “What are you talking about, Grandma? We already ate lunch an hour ago.”
“Really? Oh, yes, I suppose you’re right.”
Maylene shakes her head and returns to her thick tome, all tiny print and yellowed pages. “Con-shee-en-shus,” she mutters. “What does that mean?”
Fastforward.
“What would you like to watch tonight?” her grandmother asks. “How about this one?”
“Huh? Grandma, we’ve watched that four times already! Let’s watch something else.”
“Four times?” Her wide eyes blink, confused, behind her thick lenses. “I don’t remember ever watching this with you…”
“You say that every time,” Maylene says, and laughs as hard as possible (as if she knows she won’t be laughing much longer).
Fastforward.
They’re at the post office again. There’s not much mail these days. Her grandmother forgets the key in the mailbox lock and Maylene is forced to retrieve it. The old woman smiles down at her as they walk home, past the beautiful houses and the tall old trees and the park.
“Have you ever been to this park, my dear? I used to bring your father here when he was your age, you know…”
Maylene’s eyes tighten, and she presses her lips together in a thin, hard line. “We always go to this park whenever I come to visit, Grandma,” she says quietly. “Don’t you remember? Remember when I fell off the jungle gym, and when I got in a fight with that rude little boy?”
“Hmm? Oh yes, yes, of course I remember that.”
She points out a bird nesting in a nearby bush, describing its wingspan and egg color and preferred habitat, but falters at its name. Maylene watches her as she puzzles over this, sees the confusion in her grandmother’s eyes, the desperate search for knowledge which was once so easily found.
“It’s a Starly,” Maylene says finally. “You feed a bunch of them every day, Grandma.”
“Indeed I do, my dear, indeed I do. What was it again you said? Starly?”
Fastforward.
On her tenth birthday and the days that follow, Maylene waits for the card from her grandmother. She always puts it in a bright blue envelope, and the card is always decorated with some famous painting by an artist long-deceased. There is always confetti inside the card, the kind that catches the light and gets stuck in your hair.
But this year, the card never comes.
“Grandma’s getting older, Maylene,” says Dad, as he sits in his chair and stares at the television with deadened eyes. “Older people sometimes have trouble remembering things. Don’t get offended, okay? You’ve gotten plenty of other cards and presents, right?”
She realizes then that her father doesn’t know her. Not at all.
Two little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Two little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
To call on old friend toad.
Her father and aunt are upstairs, negotiating things with the real estate agent. Their muffled voices drift down the stairwell to the basement, where Maylene lies curled on the carpet. Her grandmother is staying with her uncle in Pastoria. Dad says she was getting too forgetful - “a danger to herself” were his exact words. Maylene knows this to be the truth, and yet she’s still bitter.
How could they just take her away from this place, this house she’d loved for so many years? How could they take her away from the uneven stone floors and the rickety kitchen table and the antique armchairs that reminded her of him? How could they take her away from her garden, the berry patch, the little red bridge, the ivy-covered porch? The park and the post office? The tall old trees and the rusty railroad tracks?
And as she thinks this Maylene realizes that it’s not just her grandmother she’s sad for. It’s herself as well. Her heart hurts as she thinks of everything disappearing, of some unknown person calling this place their home (invading it, so to speak). It’s not right. It’s not fair.
This house should belong to her and her grandmother forever.
Maylene walks into her Grandpa’s workshop, where the air is musty and stale from years of abandonment. On his work bench, as if he were about to come back to it at any moment, is a gorgeous wood carving of the house right after it was built. She brushes away the dust, savoring the way the engraved wood feels beneath her fingers. And soon enough she’s crying - sobs racking her whole body as tears stain her grandfather’s priceless art.
“I guess this is farewell.”
One little rabbit
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
One little rabbit
Walkin’ down the road
To call on old friend toad.
Maylene gets up and stretches, enjoying the subtle crack of her joints. She’s been resting here far too long. If she’s to make it to Snowpoint by nightfall, she’ll need to hurry. (And no one wants to be caught in the northern wilderness when the light of day fades, not even the Sinnoh League’s Fighting Pokemon expert.)
With a determined sigh, the Gym Leader focuses her energies and starts the trek across the snow-covered countryside, heading towards friends and golden memories.
She’s learned to ignore the cold through her intensive training. Winter no longer bothers her - in fact, she doesn’t even require a jacket. It's as if the bitter wind glides right through her, barely noticeable when she focuses her mind just right.
And yet she can’t help but wish that summer would never end.
The first little rabbit
Dreamed a dream
And to him it seemed
All in a blur
As if there were
Seven little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Walkin’ down the road
Seven little rabbits
Walkin’ down the road
To call on old friend toad.