The day that I met Mara was busier than usual for me. I'd heard rumours of a horde of Oddishes on route 6 and I'd treked out there trying to fill my party. After several hours of chasing (and not catching) Oddishes, I gave up and stumbled onto a field with a pile of Stardust in one corner. Not seeing any obvious owner, I spent the rest of the day going back and forth between the field the local Pokemon Center with loads of it in my pockets. By the time I made it back to Lumiose City, I was starving and exhausted. I stopped at a cafe to buy a sandwich, and then sat down on the bench in front of the Pokemon Center to eat it, but instead I dozed off.
I woke up to the sound of crinkling paper, and when I opened my eyes, I saw a large blue and white face inches from mine. I had only ever seen one in pictures, but I knew immediately it was a Snorlax. It had grabbed the sandwich from my lap, and was trying to unwrap it. I stayed completely still, remembering a Snorlax safety commercial I had seen on television, but then I heard a girl yelling,
"No, CJ, no!"
I was shocked. Didn't she know that loud noises could cause an otherwise peaceful Snorlax to attack? I strengthened my resolve to stay so still that the Snorlax couldn't tell I was alive, when to my great surprise, it stepped back and dropped the sandwich.
"Good, CJ, good!" she said in a slightly calmer voice, "You know not to grab people's food"
The Snorlax's shoulders lowered a bit, and it evened looked a bit sheepish.
"Sorry about that," the girl said, "I'm still trying to train him"
Then her eyes met mine. And while I'm sure a lot of couples remember the moment when their eyes first met, it's different when you're both trainers.
"I am Snorlax Maniac Mara," she yelled immediately, "and I challenge you to a battle!"
I paused for a moment. Ever since I'd quit my job, I'd had trouble deciding how to announce myself in battles. I'd been "Hotel Worker Kevin" and then "Massage Assistant Kevin" and then "Dishwasher Kevin", but wasn't quite sure what to say now that I was out of work. Seeing that Mara was quite pretty, I decided to exaggerate a bit.
"I'm Rising Star Kevin and I accept!" I responded.
I looked at Mara, and she seemed to be deciding what Pokemon to send out. I noticed that alongside wearing a shirt with a picture of a Snorlax on it, her shoes were shaped like Snorlax feet, and her long blue hooded sweatshirt had Snorlax ears. A Pokeflute dangled from the waistband of her jeans. Unsurprisingly, she sent out the Snorlax that had taken my sandwich.
I sent out my only Pokemon, a Metapod.
The Snorlax, CJ, sized my Metapod up for a minute. As he did, I saw that he looked a bit different from the Snorlax I had seen in pictures. His fur was a deeper royal blue, and the light parts of his body were more of a peach than a white. Moreover, instead of the short and straight hair I'd seen in the picture, his was long and matted like a shag carpet. This made him seem wider. He also looked a bit shorter, and when I did a second take, I saw he was missing the claws on his left hand. Not that this mattered, as with a single swipe of his good hand he defeated my Metapod.
Helpfully, I was standing next to the Pokemon Center, so I went in and healed him. When I finished, Mara was waiting outside with her Snorlax.
"Let me buy you a new sandwich," she said. CJ immediately started gesturing to the one that had fallen on the ground.
"He can't eat that, you've contaminated it!" Mara snapped. As we started walking off, CJ stayed put, staring downwards at the sandwich.
"I guess you can have it," she said tersely to him, and he bent over and ate it in a single bite.
"Let's go to Restaurant Le Yeah," she said motioning down the road, and I quickly mumbled,
"Actually I can't go there ..."
I told her the whole story, and thankfully she found it a bit amusing.
"They make employees stand in the same place all day there?" she spat, "That's crazy! I'm definitely never going there again!"
I nodded in agreement.
We went to Restaurant Le Nah instead. To my surprise, CJ followed us in, and stood silently beside the table the entire meal. I was worried when we sat down that he would take a wild leap for other diners' meals, but Mara assured me that she had trained him not to.
"He knows I'll buy him a crate of oranges if he behaves," she assured me.
"Is there a Snorlax in your other Pokeball?" I asked, remember that she had a second Pokemon she hadn't sent into battle.
"No," she said, "It's a Charizard. Snorlax are hard to come by."
She seemed deeply saddened by this statement.
"Wait, why do you call yourself a Snorlax Maniac if you only have one Snorlax?" I asked curiously.
"I don't know," she retorted, "Why do you call yourself a Rising Star when you're like twenty five, and have a single Metapod?"
I paused for a second. I figured it was better to jest.
"Well, you see, I'm rising at a very slow rate. In fact, such a mild trajectory that you can barely even detect it."
Mara started giggling when I said this.
"What do you do?" I asked, wanting to change the topic. She looked down, and started rifling through her pockets. Eventually, she found a card and gave it to me.
Mara Bentley
Snorlax Services
Breeding - Grooming - Training - Removal
Head of Route 3
"You train Snorlax?" I asked.
"Yeah," she said, "I have a PhD in Pokemon Breeding from Kantos University, with a specialty in Snorlax"
"Are there that many Snorlax in Kalos?" I asked.
Her face fell again.
"Actually, I'm just starting the business," she said, "I don't have any customers yet. But if I give out enough cards, I'm sure someone will call eventually."
It was my turn to smile.
"Dare to dream," I said in a slightly teasing manner.
She looked at me.
"Actually," she said, "It's my dream to become a Snorlax breeder. That's my actual goal with this business. I want to save up to buy Snorlax breeding equipment. It would be so amazing to spend all day just surrounded by Snorlax!"
Considering my experience with CJ that morning, I found this less than convincing. However, Mara tipped her head back, as if in a reverie. Suddenly, the waitress came with the first course. CJ won the battle with her easily, and after giving us a look I interpreted to mean that he expected a lot of oranges later, he moved back to his perch beside the table as we ate. As we started eating, the conversation went silent.
"I heard they do a lot of Snorlax breeding the the University of Kalos," I said, rummaging my brain for anything I knew about Snorlax, "Why don't you work there?"
Mara put down her fork and gave me an annoyed glare.
"I did in fact work there for three years, and then applied for a professorship, and was declined!"
She looked around the room in a way that showed that she was still not okay with this development.
"Why not?" I asked, looking into her glowering face, "You seem to know a lot about Snorlax."
"I know, don't I?" she said, "I was the best breeder, but then this other guy, who knew a whole lot less than me came along and applied for a professorship too, and they picked him instead! And do you know why they picked him?"
I shook my head.
"Because his name was the same name as a tree!" she spat, "It was completely unfair, totally political."
She picked up her fork slammed it onto her plate with a clatter. Then the waitress showed up with the second course. CJ was a bit less restrained this time, and leaned over, putting his face a few inches from my plate. But a stern warning from Mara redirected him to battling the waitress, a battle which he won easily.
"He's a good fighter," I said, ignoring the fact that despite being a few feet away, CJ was still staring intently at at my plate, "What moves does he know?"
Mara put up four fingers uneasily.
"The first one is Tackle, which he used against your Metapod. The second is Yawn, which is good for catching wild Pokemon. And the third is Giga Impact, I got the TM on sale at the Pokemart."
"What about the fourth?" I asked, looking at her fingers.
She wavered a bit,
"It's a move I made up myself, called Stand Tall."
"What does it do?" I continued, oblivious.
She started to blush.
"Well ..." she started slowly, "Have you ever noticed that in the field, no one's house ever has a toilet in it?"
I'd never really thought of it before, but I supposed it was true. She paused awhile more.
"Well, I have CJ use Stand Tall to hide me from view so I can pee at the side of the road …"
I started laughing audibly despite myself. Mara looked serious for a moment, and then joined in.
"Really?! What does it do in battle?" I asked gasping for breath.
"Raises his Special Defense a bit, or something," she said before bursting into giggles, "But I hardly ever use it in battle. It's really just a field move."
We sat there, intermittently laughing for a few moments until the waitress came with our dessert in a box.
"Can I get a crate of oranges too?" Mara asked, and then ran to restrain CJ from following the waitress into the back of the restaurant as she got them. As soon as she returned, he forcefully grabbed the crate from the waitress with his good hand, poured the oranges into his mouth, and swallowed them in a single gulp before putting the crate back down into the waitress's hands. She looked stunned.
Mara shrugged, as if to say at least he had behaved for most of the meal. We got up and CJ followed us out of the restaurant, and then Mara moved to walk away.
"I'm sorry CJ woke you up and wrecked your sandwich," she said.
"Don't worry," I replied, "That was a better meal than I've eaten in awhile!"
It was true. With just my Metapod, I could never even make it through the first course battle at Cafe Le Nah.
"Now that you've told me about your secret moves," I joked, "You're going to have to help me train my Metapod!"
She smiled and blushed a bit.
"Well you have my card," she said, "Don't forget, the head of Route 3!"
"Bring your own Snorlax!" she added as she walked off, with CJ trailing behind her.