She's so small.
It's all I can think when I look at her. With the watchdog head off, she's shrunk half a foot. Her sandy hair sticks to her face, and her head bobs a little as we walk. Her voice is so soft I keep losing it to the traffic honk. A few times I catch the word "stupid."
"Sorry," I say, lifting my own voice up as the scream of a drill cuts the air. "I can't hear. Let's—let's go somewhere quiet, okay?"
We turn away from the city, towards the harbor. The buildings shrink until I can see masts and sails in the distance. The wind smells like salt. I think that's just 'cause we're getting closer to the sea, so the first rain drops catch me by surprise. They splatter on the sidewalk like rotten berries. Then all at once the air is roaring and the water's coming down in great big sheets. We break into a run.
By the time we find somewhere dry to huddle, my jacket's all soaked through. I start to wring it out as the girl drops to the ground and sits with her knees pulled up to her chest. The rain rushes a few feet away, but it's better than the construction sounds.
"I'm Lena, by the way," I say slowly. "I don't know your—"
"Maisie," she mumbles without looking at me. "Sorry. Now you're stuck in the rain."
I sit there for a bit, chewing on the right way to say I don't really care about the rain, but I do care about why she was crying.
"So you're a trainer now?" I say at last, looking at the two pokeballs tied with string to the loops of her pants.
It's the wrong thing to say. Her face scrunches up again, and she starts to blink very fast.
"Told my ma and pa I was. I showed 'em the pokeball you gave me. And they was real proud, and said if an ace trainer had seen something in me, I had better get on with it, and they'd manage the farm without me. Shinli and me did okay at first. And we met a venipede trying to steal my sandwich, and his name's Max, and he came along with us. We got to Driftveil. And. There were these posters. Everywhere. For the tourney. At first I didn't pay them any mind, but I kept seeing them.
"So I went to check it out and stood in this long line, except I didn't know you needed money for it, too much money. I felt so stupid, my face turned into a tomato berry. But then as I was leaving, this lady called out. She was a fancy lady, in a suit and skirt. Old like my parents, only her skin didn't have sunspots, and her hair was curly, but just at the ends. She'd heard what happened and she said it was a real shame the tourneys make the entry fees so high, and it's ex-whore-bit-ant. And that she could see I was real strong and ace and she wanted to help. She gave me money."
Maisie pauses. She was already looking away, but now she hunches in further, like she's a sewaddle herself, curling up on a leaf. "We. We lost in the first round."
Clumsy, I interject, "That's not—that doesn't mean you're a bad trainer or anything. Even the starter tourneys have all sorts of tough trainers, they have Fives, even. It doesn't mean anything that—"
"I know." She cuts me off, sharp and shame-faced. "I wasn't even mad, 'cause the girl who beat me was so good and she said it was smart the way Max handled his sting. But the woman found me after and she still sounded real nice except then she said the money was a loan and I had two weeks to pay her back. I told her I weren't a thief and of course I'd pay it back. So I fought and fought, but Driftveil trainers are real tough, and I kept losing, and then it was two weeks. And I said I was sorry, and I was trying, but it would take me longer, but I'm not a thief and I'd pay her back. But she said. She said it was more now. Because I was late. I didn't see how it could be more than what she gave me, but she had the paper I'd signed and she said that meant it was, because there's—" Her brow furrows and she mouths the next words carefully, like she knows their shape but not their meaning, "five hundred percent APR."
I don't know what that means either, but there's a pit in my stomach now, growing deeper. Maisie's voice speeds up, like she's crested some peak and now it's all downhill.
"I said that's not fair, but she said it was official and the law. So fine. I'm not a thief. I thought, a few weeks work, then I could pay no problem. But here's not like home. I mean, I didn't know folks and all the jobs were real bad jobs. They want you there all the time and they don't give you hardly anything, and I wouldn't even mind, but it's the way they look at me, like they don't see me at all. Like I'm a wheel on a plow, and if it breaks you just get a new one."
"But then." Her breathing's coming too fast for her words. A few feet away the rain pounds furiously, like the sky is coming apart. "I'm coming back late to the pokecenter one night and the nurse calls me name, and she says, 'Have you been working' and I says "Yes, ma'am' and she says 'How long?' and I says 'Couple weeks now' and she says, 'Do you know if you work for more than a month, you can't stay at pokecenters' and I says 'Why's that' and she says it's 'cause the government can't sub-subdize people working when they're supposed to be training. She says I can stay at a hostel, except they cost money and there's no food unless you buy it yourself. And that Driftveil don't let people camp inside the city. And anyway, street camping's not safe for a girl on her own.
"Then she tells me what the hostels cost and I think about what I'm making, and how the interest keeps getting bigger, and I start thinking maybe I can't pay it, because all the work money's just gonna go to the hostel. So I go back to the lady and tell her that, and that I've already paid her almost all the money she gave me, and I'm not a thief but if I pay what she first gave me ain't we even? And she says it's fine, she understands, only they need the money because that's how business works and it ain't free. She ain't lending because her heart is big. So if I can't pay, maybe my parents can."
Maisie's hands ball into fists. "My mam and pap can't pay that! It's been drought three years now. The farm's barely keeping. They can't pay. And come five days I've gotta quit my job or leave the pokecenter. And I'm so stupid. I'm so, so stupid."
I feel cold. The cold's all through me and my mind's just blank, even as I scoot over and wrap her in an awkward hug. I think I say something, like how it's gonna be fine, and she doesn't even ask me why or how, just cries more, until she's cried herself out. When the rain lets up, we walk back to the pokemon center. My gaze keeps getting trapped on the asphalt—it's black and shiny from the rain and there are rainbows in the oil-streaked puddles.
Maisie mumbles something about being real sorry she got me wet and before I can answer she scuttles off towards the cafeteria. I don't chase her. I go upstairs into my room and sit there shivering on my cot as my wet clothes cling to my skin. I should change, but I don't. The clock says it's almost five and I'm 'sposed to meet Sara and I should move, but I don't.
I must fall asleep. When I next blink the room's dark and there's a weight pressing on my chest. I start to fidget and hear Sammy's low mewl. Once she sees I'm awake she bats my face until I'm sitting up and then tugs meaningfully at my wet shirt.
"Fine," I tell her.
But even once I'm in dry clothes, I still feel cold. The longer I sit huddled on my bed, the more it becomes clear.
I made this mess. And somehow, I've got to fix it.