The Beginning of a Misunderstanding
A little girl, about seven years old, gripped the tree limb firmly, stubby fingernails digging into the wood. A few branches above her, a spearow chirped mockingly at her.
'You can't catch me!'
Giving a small grunt of frustration, the girl pulled herself up, scrambling to her feet and pushing wisps of long blond hair out of her face. There was dirt in the hair, not to mention several mud and grass stains on her shorts and T-shirt, from a rough start, always slipping from the tree and somehow falling to the ground. "Fledge! You have to go home now!" she called, stretching an arm out to the bird.
In response, Fledge fluttered up another branch and wiggled his tail feathers at her.
Sighing, the small female grasped the branch above her and began hoisting herself up. 'Don't look down, don't look down.' she thought, refusing to tilt down her head and peek at the world below her.
'Scaredy cat, scaredy cat!' Fledge teased, making a show out of how fearlessly he hopped up and down his own leafy bough.
"I-I'm not a scaredy ca-!" She cut herself off abruptly, clinging to the rough bark as her right foot dangled beneath her. "Oh my gosh..." she gasped, scared stiff despite her earlier words at her brush with death. Pulling her leg up, she caught a glimpse of the ground and froze.
Through many leaves and branches, she could see her pink bookbag lying at the edge of the tree, a smudge against vibrant greens.
'Y-yellow?' the spearow chirped nervously, looking down at his blond friend. 'You okay? I-I'll stop...'
Gulping, Yellow sent the bird a wavering smile, relief and fear in her amber eyes. "Yeah Fledge... Let's go."
Slowly, carefully, she crawled down tree limbs, wincing as a thin branch struck her cheek.
They were already halfway down, just fifteen feet away, when her foot slipped once again, this time on warm, gooey sap.
"K-kyaaaah!"
When Yellow finally reopened her eyes, she saw a stranger in a long white coat and her parents standing over her.
"Yellow? Finally awake I see." The strange man scribbled something down on a clipboard and pulled away her father.
"Sweetie?" Yellow looked at her mother, smiling up at her in confusion.
"Um, hi Mommy." Her mother gently touched her right hand and she felt a slight twinge of pain, wincing.
"Ouchies..." She glanced down and noticed she had two splints on; one on her right index finger and one below her wrist, all wrapped up in gauze until you could only see the very tip of the metal. Four or five names of her classmates were signed messily on it in green and orange marker, with a big yellow heart dominating the center. "D-did I... break my hand?"
Her mother shook her head and held Yellow's uninjured hand delicately, as if it might break too. "No, sweetie, you fractured a few bones in your hand and wrist. You fell out of a tree and landed on it. You've been unconscious for almost a whole day." she murmured.
"..." Yellow thought for a moment, blinking rapidly as she recalled the definitions of 'fractured' and 'unconscious', before jerking a bit. "Fledge! Where'd he go?"
"Fledge? That spearow? Oh yes, he was the one who came and told us you were hurt."
"Oh."
Her parents stayed and talked with the strange man, who was probably the doctor.
They signed some papers before taking Yellow by her left hand and going home.
For the next week or so, Yellow was told to stay inside. It wasn't needed, of course, but her parents were awfully protective. After two days and a few hours of negotiating, she was allowed to go to school on some conditions: Go straight to school and straight back. No rough housing, no sudden movements. Get a friend to help carry your things. Don't go chasing around pokemon, and for Arceus's sake, don't climb a tree. Or anything, for that matter.
What a bore.
One day, she saw them with another stranger. It was a lady with glasses, a white buttonup shirt, and one of those tight skirts that went to the knee. [I don't believe Yellow would know what a pencil skirt is. She's seven.] She also had shoes, high heels that made her really tall and made clicking sounds when she walked, and a briefcase filled with lots of papers.
They would sit down at the coffee table and talk and talk and talk, something about schools and help and the cold.
Sometimes the lady would take out some of the papers in the briefcase and show it to her parents, pointing with a ballpoint pen to important stuff.
Yellow would spy on them, peeking around a doorway when she was supposed to be practicing piano and hiding under the table when she'd been told to take a nap. Eventually, she was caught, accidentally kicked while in hiding.
They told her she was going to go to a new school, one in a different region. This caused a few tears, but Yellow accepted in the end. She could never say no to her parents.
It was a fancy private school in Hearthome, Sinnoh. There were lots of rules and you had to stay in rooms in the school, or what Daddy called 'dorms'. It was for all grades, even something called college, and it was very expensive. There had been a slight problem in enrollment, seeing as school had already been in session for two months, but with the lady, 'Brenda', they had succeeded in entering her.
She asked why they were sending her away. Did they not want her anymore? Did she do something wrong? Was it bad when she hurt herself?
They told her they loved her, but she got injured too much. They were sending her to the school because it was very safe and was something called 'supervised'. It meant there was someone watching so no one would get hurt.
And she was going tomorrow.
They were wrong. They sent her to the airport in a cab, only for her to find she was a day too early.
Fortunately, her parents had given her a credit card. [Amazing what parents give their children these days.] She preordered herself a hotel room on the tiny cellphone her parents had said was 'only for emergencies' and spent her last few hours in Hoenn wandering in and out, playing with shop owners' pokemon even though her mother said it might hurt her hand more.
Then she saw a pokemon she hadn't seen in a long time, ever since she moved from Kanto.
"Eh... Pikachu!" she ran into the shop without a second thought and began hugging the adorable mouse, ignoring the twinge in her hand. "You're so CUTE!"
She had sat there stroking the rodent's fur for maybe a minute when a shadow cast over her.
"Hello there Miss..." Her eyes were drawn to wild, blue-tipped brown hair stuck up in a lopsided mohawk. The man had piercing blue eyes as well and they bore into her own... disturbingly. An orange apron thing was around his waist and had scissors and combs sticking out of it. "I take it you're here for a haircut... Please, COME WITH MEEEEE!"
He grabbed Yellow's hand, the uninjured one, and dragged her from the pikachu to a silver chair with red cushions. Lifting her up with ease, he deposited her in the seat and whipped out a pair of gleaming scissors, at the same time pulling out a sort of large sheet and fastening it around her neck.
"U-um-"
"A short hairstyle! A nice, simple bob! That's what everyone's going for nowadays!" the man cried.
"W-what-" She was cut off once again as the crazy barber pulled out her hairband and ran a brush through her hair swiftly, releasing minimal squeaks of pain as the brush encountered multiple snarls.
"Okay... Would you like to save the hair?" asked the man, brandishing his scissors in one hand and grasping her hair with the other.
"... Yes?" Yellow didn't know what it meant. Saving hair? What?
She gasped as the insane barber gleefully sheared off at least a foot of hair, tying the shining gold locks with a pink ribbon before sealing it in a clear plastic bag.
Her eyes widened and shot to look at the mirror, noting the end of her hairstyle was perfectly even, hanging just below her shoulders.
What the heck.
Ignoring her mortified face, the barber began snipping at the remains of her hair, hopping from foot to foot and humming as he did so.
"Oh my." He stepped back, frowning as he took in her hair. The side he'd been working on was choppy and uneven, not at all the look he was going for. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he turned toward the back of the stored and yelled, "Manager!"
Almost immediately, a short, fat man stumbled out from behind a door labeled 'Storage'. "Earl? What's going on?" He had small, twinkling eyes and a pleasant smile, a pair of circular spectacles perched on his nose. "Oh, hey Sparky." He leaned down and petted the pikachu.
"I messed up on a customer..." The man, Earl, sighed and draped a hand over his brow dramatically.
"Customer? Oh dear. My glasses are more blurry than usual, but I think I can manage. Scooch, Earl. To the back room." The manager gave a wave of his hand and turned to the unintentional customer as his employee trudged off. "Why, hello there. What's your name?"
"Yellow." A little kid wouldn't know the dangers of giving out personal information, right? "I'm almost eight."
"Well then, Yellow, I'll be fixing your hair.." Yellow was about to tell him how she didn't need one, but stopped as she realized she now did. She already mourned the loss of her tresses.
"... Okay."
"Tada!" The manager, Mr. Mellad, whipped off the sheet with a flourish, spinning Yellow around so she could see her reflection in the mirror.
She forgot to breath for a second, her breath catching in her throat. Her bangs were still rather unruly, only trimmed shorter. The rest of her hair was a different matter. It was messily layered in a way that covered most of her ears, a little longer than a usual haircut for a boy with the tips brushing her neck and shoulders.
{A little longer than the usual haircut for a boy.}
'I look like a boy', she thought, blanching. 'The manager thought I was a boy.'
Then again, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Maybe, the school would mistake her gender and allow her to enroll as a boy. Her part of the registration forms hadn't been filled out yet, and there were so many advantages to being male...
She could play with anyone she liked and run around without anyone saying it was 'so unladylike'.
Boys weren't supervised as much, they were all free to do whatever...
Oh yes. This was great.
Yellow flopped down on the hotel bed's soft cover, her head unfamiliarly light.
On the floor beside her, plastic bags sagged, the weight of the snacks inside them toppling them to their sides. Next to them was another bag of blonde hair.
Beside that were three empty red and white pokeballs.
Crazy PokeMart lady. Handing out random samples to everyone.
Giving away store merchandise on a platter, more like.
Pfft, if they could get 'samples' that worked so well, why bother buying them?
Yellow didn't even have pokemon.
Oh well. What's done is done, and, more importantly, she didn't have to pay.
And the insane lady, who probably had perfect vision, believed she was a boy.
Which meant it was working. She'd filled out her enrollment information that way as well, so she shouldn't have any problems with authority, and she looked convincing enough. The only thing to worry about now was her voice and possible relatives...
She spent the rest of the night staring at a mirror and trying out her new overly deep voice.
I don't own Yellow. Just the crazy barber and his boss. And her parents.
This was just lying around in my phone. It's been there for a few months. I started chatting with another Yellow fan, Metatyph, and it reminded me of this.
So I decided to post it. Yay.