The boy has the decency to look ashamed as he hands her the pokéball. "I love Persian, but she's just not keeping up and it's not fair to keep her if she's always in her pokéball..."
She doesn't ask him what he expects her to do with a pokémon too strong for a beginner but too weak for an experienced trainer, too tame to release but too wild to make a good pet. He could just keep the persian, tucked away in a digital box. He is trying.
So she sighs and says, "Fine. I'll find someone to take her."
She hates parents like this.
"We were hoping you could suggest a nice, safe pokémon to be Emily's starter."
Magikarp, and keep the poor kid at home until everyone else is years ahead of her, she doesn't say.
Pokémon training isn't safe, she doesn't say.
Life isn't safe.
"Why don't you ask Erika?" she says.
They exchange glances. "We were hoping for... a broader viewpoint."
They don't like grass-types. The poison, perhaps. That is a shame. Many grass-types make excellent starters.
"Jigglypuff," she finally suggests. Cute. Nonthreatening. And pokémon — other, different, any pokémon — are easier to catch when they're sleeping.