The meanderings of Justin Dawes
Chapter 1
"No wait, I can't see you on wi-fi yet".
"Maybe you ought to get a monocle; apparently your glasses are failing, and you've got to get yourself some dignity somehow".
"You what?!"
Sighing, I snatched Percy's DS deftly out of his hand and grumbled at the error code on the screen. It struck me at that moment that it was a rather sorry time in my life, where I had waited all day to receive some 'Hadou' mew, even memorising its name in hiragana whilst at school in my I.T. lesson.
"This is dull, dull dull dull dull dull", moaned Jazz, leaning back against the beanbag in the corner of Percy's room. I silently questioned why the guy (James, was his actual name) had followed me to my friend's house in the first place. From the moment I'd seen his blonde, gelled hair and converse trainers, I'd known we had nothing in common. Percy's younger brother Alfred stared up at the darkly lit ceiling, listening to the rain outside.
I suppose I should introduce myself. Where to start? Let me construct for you a mental picture of myself, after all, using one's imagination seems to be somewhat out of fashion these days. A fairly tall, lanky frame, sandy brown mop of hair and the remains of an acne condition you'd expect to find in a sixteen year old's position, adequately sums up my physique.
As for my personal life, I can assure you it was rather "sparse on the ground", as my mother would say. I neglected any active pursuit in my school studies, and never looked to find much stimulation elsewhere in life.
My closest friends lived next door: there was Percy, a bespectacled¹ guy with a slightly crooked nose and dark, shadowed hair, and his younger brother Alfred. We had very little in common, but one feature in our lives that brought us together was the love of a certain game – The Nintendo Pokemon series.
Every afternoon after school – which I avoid speaking of, as my school and I share a mutual repulsion of each other – I'd cycle down the sloped suburban road, round a couple of uninspiring corners, and the traffic lights which I'd never paid attention to in seven dreary years since moving into the area. The terraced house where the neighbours lived was unkempt (as was ours), and its gothic revival decoration combined with the lack of adequate natural lighting gave the interior a dark, dampened aura. Even Percy himself did little to lighten the atmosphere, quiet and cynical, but with occasional flashes of brilliance in his humour. Perhaps that was the heart of our friendship, for we could find laughter in the worst of events.
"Seriously, it's bloody childish, playing some little monster game", Jazz continued, pinching the beanbag. Alfred rolled his eyes and said nothing. Percy sniggered as he took back the DS.
"I could be doing so much more interesting stuff than sitting around here," he continued.
"How about testing the front door?" Percy asked. "If it's working correctly, it should lock automatically behind you". I stifled my laugh in my jumper sleeve.
"Why would I want it to do that?" enquired Jazz, a puzzled expression passing over his face. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, was our Jazz. (Wait. Our Jazz? I'd only known the guy two weeks, and he certainly wasn't what I'd call a friend. Just some boy who aggravated me by tailing me. I genuinely looked forward to the day when I explained that he was wearing his cap the wrong way round on his head. That Jazz², sums it up more bluntly).
My eye was caught by a wire that led from a small bedside lamp to the mains socket – the wires were exposed and vibrating, just a little.
"Are you sure that's safe?" I asked, nodding in the direction of the socket.
"Yeah, I'm sure it is…" came Percy's absent-minded reply; he didn't even spare a glance at where I'd indicated. "Hey, the wi'fi's finally come up!"
"Tea's on the table!" Came a ghastly shriek from downstairs. Perhaps I wouldn't have described Percy's mother's voice as a ghastly shriek, had the timing not been so abysmal. A collective sigh rose from all except Jazz, who cheered "Food! Freedom!", and we all moved to leave the room. Percy flung his DS haphazardly to the other side of the room, though none of us noticed it land on the dodgy wire. Dinner waited downstairs.
On our return, there was an immediate sense among us that not all was well. We were all aware that the rain outside was slowly converting into a thunderstorm, rumbling ominously among the darkening cloak of clouds. With the exception of slow Jazz, who was raving about the Shepherd's Pie that we'd enjoyed, oblivious to the odd light emitting from the crack of the door to Percy's room. Alfred tentatively prodded the door open wide. Percy's DS was balanced precariously upon the faulty wire, and minute sparks crackled and leapt about its surface. We all stayed well back. Except Jazz, who danced forward.
"Woah, look at this thing!" He exclaimed, bending down towards the device.
"Jazz, get back!" Percy yelled, no humour present in his now serious tones. We all jumped forward towards the fool, whose hand was now stretched towards the 'Start' button.
"What happens if- ARGH!!" Jazz was unable to complete his subjunctive sentence, for at the moment he made contact with the DS, lightning illuminated the room, and we all plunged into a keyhole-like shard of light, falling. Fast.
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I sensed movement in the darkness. There was something shimmering, and rainbow-like. It shimmered before my darkened vision, and bewitched, I raised a heavy hand to catch it. I trapped it there, and my eyesight came flooding back to me.
"Gahhhh!!" is the closest description³ I can attach to my vocal realisation that the multicoloured entity was not enchanting at all, but some horrendous beady-eyed creature. Its skin was of a lime complexion; it had blank, glassy eyes, undulating feelers and far too many legs. And it was far too big for an insect. But the worst thing about the creature was that I knew its name, though I dared not say it, in my certainty that this was one great hallucination.
I sprang back from the monstrous bug, feeling light-headed and confused, but what confounded me further was that I couldn't feel my arms at all. In vain I attempted to wave my hands in front of my face, but to no avail. Furthermore, my feet felt more stably planted in the grass than I was used to. Glancing down at my feet brought me close to fainting again; they seemed to have been replaced by furry, chestnut-orange paws, decorated with plumes of white fur. I suddenly felt that this whole situation was desperately real.
The green bug – Caterpie – was inching towards me, and I stood rooted to the spot on what apparently were now my four legs. It reached me, and stared me blankly in the face.
"What're youuu looking at?" it uttered, in a sinister, un-bug-like accent. Screaming, I bounded away through what were the outskirts of a tall, dense forest. I halted at a sparkling blue pond; upon the other side were some farmhouses. This water's clear surface was what I had been looking for. Creeping up to the side of the body of water, I gazed down anxiously at my reflection. Growlithe stared back at me, sharing my disorientated expression. Exhausted, I lay down, trying to make sense of what had happened.
Jazz had gone to touch that blasted Nintendo DS, there had been a flash of light – it had felt as if I had been thrown into the game! But I was convinced in my usual over-confidence that such an event couldn't have really happened; this was all a dream and I'd soon awake.
Hours later however, I was still lying in my growlithe form by the pond. I'd not woken up yet, and I was beginning to realise that this 'mutt' form might just be a permanent arrangement.
A small girl with honey-coloured hair in pigtails and ribbons appeared from behind one of the farmhouses. She was only around eight, and she wore a brown shoulder bag. She was skipping towards the pond where I was sat. I knew now that I needed help, and as she was the first human being in sight, I stupidly assumed that I should choose her as some sort of saviour. I bounded towards her, and she spotted me fairly quickly.
"Wowee, a pokeyman!" she squealed, "It's so cute!" From her satchel she produced a little poke ball, and threw it in my general direction. Luckily she was a pathetic shot, and I leapt out of the way and hurried towards her.
"You've got to help me!" I exclaimed, running up to her, "I'm not a pokemon, I'm a boy, I'm stuck in this body, and I need to get out of here!!!"
The little girl, Teresa, had always been told that pokemon were more dangerous than they seemed. Nevertheless, she'd successfully stolen some of her father's poke balls and headed towards the forest. But when she came across the growlithe, it dodged her poke ball and hurtled towards her, yapping and barking with a wild expression in her eyes. Unsurprisingly she turned around and ran bawling back to the farmhouse.
"Okay, that didn't go as planned", I thought to myself, turning and walking back towards the forest as the sun shone overhead. At least I knew now that whilst I could converse with other pokemon, people were not so responsive or understanding. Sighing, I concealed myself under a bush and lay down in the shade. I was more than a little bewildered and lost.
¹He really should have gone to Specsavers. Seriously though, the glasses that Percy wears – I thought they'd stopped making them by the twentieth century.
²He thought he was all that – Jazz (I'll save any weak puns for the footnotes, so that such puns don't lower your opinion of my intelligence).
³The words "Keeyaaaah!" and "Bgraaah!" could also be deemed sufficient explanations of my nonsensical exclamation of surprise here.