For some reason, I had the idea the birthday weather was supposed to be good. I guess it's obvious that that couldn't be true, otherwise it would never rain and we'd be in a lot of trouble, but I still felt personally insulted as I walked to Dad's lab in the worst rainstorm of the year. The good news about the horrible weather was that it was guaranteed to keep Dad inside, so I wouldn't have to go halfway to Oldale Town to find him. He hates being cooped up in the lab, but he hates being out in the rain more.
I walked up the last hill on the road to the lab, eager to get there as quickly as I could. I didn't like being out in storms much, either. I ducked under the overhang of the lab and walked around to the front. Pulling open the glass door, I stepped inside and wiped my feet on the mat.
"Ah, Brendan, there you are. I wondered how long it would take you to get down here." A man with green hair in a white lab coat said as he walked toward me.
"Hey, Joshua," I said, "Is Dad here? I thought he might be, with the rain and all."
"He's in the back. Oh, and he wanted me to tell you that you're going to need to use your head more if you're going to help with research. Your mother would kill him if anything happened to you, and being reckless is a great way for something to happen." He smiled as he said the last part.
"Thanks," I said, letting Joshua get back to his work. I smiled sheepishly when he mentioned using my brain. I knew it wasn't the best idea to come here during a storm, but it was the only way I could get Dad in the lab for sure. Just like Joshua said, Dad was in the back. He was hunched over his laptop, entering some data he gathered last week while he was out doing fieldwork. He looked up when I came in, probably glad to take a break from being a data monkey for a while.
"Didn't take you too long to get here," he observed. I rolled my eyes.
"Good to see you, too, Dad. I came as soon as I knew you'd be inside."
"Well, it's your birthday. You're ten years old now, and that means you can have a Pokémon. You know what three I have. Which one would you like?" he said, walking over to a table with three Poké balls on it.
I thought for a moment, as I had many times over the last month. "I'd like Mudkip, please."
He tossed me the Poké balls containing the mud fish. "There you go," he said, smiling. "Why don't you go home and get to know each other a little bit. Maybe have your mother freak out because you didn't get the cute chicken."
I smiled at that. Mom always said that I sold get a Torchic, because it was cute. I thought the generally calm water type would suit me better. Torchic tend to be running from place to place all the time, and I didn't really want to have to keep up with one for my first experience as a trainer.
I thanked Dad for the Mudkip and headed back home. The rain had stopped, so the trip back home was much easier than the trip to the lab. When, I got home, mom was in the kitchen making dinner.
"Hi, honey," she said when I walked in, "Did you get your Pokémon from your father?"
I shook my head. "Am I that obvious?" I asked.
"No, you're just ten," she said. "And you're my son. You would have gone over there if the town was half flooded, just to get a Pokémon of your own."
"I'm taking him upstairs to say hello. I'll be down in a bit." I told her.
"All right," she said, as I walked up the stairs. "Tell Torchic hello for me." "About that..." I said, releasing Mudkip onto the stairs.
"Kip!" it cried happily.
"BRENDAN BIRCH!"
"Yes?" I asked, poking my head around the railing.
"WHAT IS THAT...THING DOING IN THE HOUSE!?"
"What, Mudkip?" I picked it up. "He's mine. Dad gave him to me at the lab."
"It's not living in the house." She said, then turned back to her cooking to prevent any kind of argument on my part.
"Good thing I won't be, either," I muttered under my breath. I carried Mudkip up the stairs to my room. I sat down on the bed at set Mudkip next to me. It looked up questioningly.
"Mudkip?" It asked. I put my hand on its back.
"How are you doing?" I asked it. "You want to go traveling with me?"
"Kip!" It chirped. "Mudkip!"
Mudkip and I stayed in my room until it feel asleep on the bed. I left it to sleep and went down to the kitchen. Dad had come home shortly after I did, and was being yelled at by mom for not making me take the Torchic. He was trying to explain himself, but she was having none of it.
"Come on, you can't expect me to force Brendan to be around a Pokémon he doesn't want. He's going to need a partner he has a bond with immediately if he's going to help me with fieldwork."
"He's not going all over Hoenn to help watch Pokémon build nests. You already spend enough time out there, gone for a weeks at a time."
"This isn't about me, and you're only making it about me because it makes you feel better to have someone to blame. Oh," he said, noticing me in the doorway, "Brendan, we were just talking about you."
"I heard," I said, trying to sound disinterested. "Mudkip's asleep upstairs, so I thought I'd come down here to not wake it up."
"Good idea," Dad said. "Mudkip's still young; he needs time to rest."
We ate dinner, and I went back to my room. Mudkip woke up when I entered and greeted my cheerily.
"Have a nice nap?" I asked.
"Kip!"
I laughed. "I'll take that as a yes, then. Want some food?"
"Mudkip!"
"What should I feed you, anyway?" I wondered. "Maybe, I should go ask Dad what he has for you. It would be what you're used to, probably." I stepped to the door and opening it to find Dad holding a bowl with Pokémon food.
"I thought Mudkip might like something to eat," he said.
"You were dead on. I was about to ask you what to feed him."
"Just give him this. I'll give you some food for when you go out. And you'll be able to buy some pretty easily, most towns will have a store that carries food for various Pokémon."
"Mom doesn't seem thrilled with the idea of me helping you," I said.
Dad grimaced a bit. "Well," he said, what she doesn't know won't hurt her, not for a couple of days, at least." He handed me the bowl and started to walk out of the room.
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
He stopped at the door and turned. "Could you leave tomorrow?"
I cocked my head. "Leave to go where?"
"Petalburg City. I have a friend who's moving there to become the new Gym Leader. At the very least, you can be helpful while he moves in. It will take you a couple weeks to get there, so your mother will have a month to get used to the idea of you being on your own. She'll probably hate me for it, but, well, she'll get over it eventually."
"Sure. How do you plan to get me to get out of here without Mom noticing, though?"
"That's the easy part. You're going to be coming down to the lab to help me enter and sort some data. I would have needed you to do that even if your mother wasn't so against you leaving. After lunch, you'll head out toward Oldale Town."
I looked at him blankly. The idea of basically running away for a month didn't really appeal to me that much. I thought about it for a moment. One the one hand, I would have to wait for years before Mom was willing to let me go and help Dad with his research, and there wasn't much to do here in Littleroot in the meantime. On the other hand, my father was suggesting I skip town without telling anyone so I could make my mother panic so much she stops caring. That didn't seem like that great of an idea.
"Great," I said, "I'm going to get some sleep, then. See you in the morning."