It was a beautiful spring day, the day I received my first Pokémon. The night before I couldn't sleep. I kept watching the Introduction to Pokémon Training video, rewinding the tape with the TV on so that the Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle kept going back into their Pokéballs. Then I'd watch it again, and the three standard starting Pokémon would emerge as I'd seen them do countless times. In my stupid youth, I had the window open so that the neighbors could probably hear as the looped fanfares played first forwards, then backwards at higher speeds.

"Kiddo, you're going to wake up the neighbors," came my mom's muffled voice from the other side of the door. "Aren't you supposed to be asleep by now?" Looking back on it, my mom was very patient with me.

"Real Pokémon trainers don't sleep, Mom!" I had been tossing a Pokéball up in the air—not a real one, a practice one—and catching it in the palm of my hand, feeling how heavy it was and calculating impossible trajectories for it in my head. "Besides, I haven't decided which Pokémon I want yet!"

"Real Pokémon trainers need their rest just like everybody else, dear. Why don't you sleep on it and decide tomorrow?"

"Because I have to decide now! My whole future rests on this decision, so I have to decide now!"

"Don't stay up too much later, sweetheart. I'm not going to be around to wake you up on time forever, you know?"

"I know, Mom!" But I didn't. I didn't really know. I just kept tossing the Pokéball up in the air and rewinding the tape. "Charmander seems like a really solid choice," I said to the TV or to myself. "But have I really considered Squirtle?"

I was up all night, watching that stupid tape. When I awoke, the sun already streamed through the window, and it was a beautiful spring day.

"Oh no! I'm late!" There was no time to even put on clothes. All the other kids in the village had picked their Pokémon except me, which meant that—

"You're out of luck, girl," said the professor. I think he was named after a tree. "All the standard starting Pokémon have been taken."

I had fallen to my knees in front of him, dirtying my pajamas on his lab floor. "Please, Prof. Tree." I had to stop myself from bursting into tears. "I was up all night trying to decide which Pokémon I wanted and I overslept! There has to be one left!"

"Sorry, but they're gone," said the professor in a tone that did not sound like he was sorry at all. "You will have to come back next year—maybe when you're a little more responsible."

"But I am responsible! I am ready! I have to be a Pokémon trainer; I just have to!" I was going to do whatever it took to change his mind. "What can I do to prove that?"

He sighed and tutted and rolled his eyes. "Fine, I think I have one more Pokémon."

I was overjoyed. No, not overjoyed. Following him through the lab, I felt a strange sense of relief. Something I had been waiting for ever since I could remember and was suddenly about to be taken away from me had just been restored.

The professor harrumphed. "Here," he said, producing a Pokéball. "I think this Pokémon will be quite suitable for you." He threw the ball. There was a flash of red light. Then, on the floor, was a perfectly delicious plate of roast chicken.

I couldn't think of anything to say, so I just stood there in silence for a while staring at the perfectly delicious plate of roast chicken. Finally, the words came to me: "That isn't a Pokémon."

"Well, it was in a Pokéball, wasn't it?" said the professor. "See how it is being perfectly delicious? I think it likes you."

"How am I supposed to go on a Pokémon adventure with a roast chicken for a Pokémon?" I asked. "I don't even know any of its attacks."

"You don't just know how to be a Pokémon trainer the moment you get a Pokémon." The professor's voice dripped with condescension. "It takes time. You have to bond with it. Why don't you pet it?"

I didn't move. The professor glared at me. "Pet it now," he demanded. Instantly my palm found its greasy side. The perfectly delicious plate of roast chicken did not respond to my ministrations, because the perfectly delicious plate of roast chicken was not a Pokémon.

I had become uncomfortable, my palm sticky with grease and my knees dirty from when I had pled with the professor. He stared at me down his nose from above and I knew that he had done this on purpose. "Well?" said the professor brusquely. "You do know how to recall a Pokémon to its Pokéball, correct?"

"Y-yes."

"I should like to see you do it."

The Pokéball slipped out of my hand because of the roast chicken's grease, landed haphazardly on the perfectly delicious plate of roast chicken, and the whole thing disappeared. Presumably back into the Pokéball, which now sat still on the floor, covered in a light film of oil.

"Very well, I deem that acceptable." The professor put his hands behind his back and wiggled his mustache. "Now you may go off on your Pokémon adventure™, etc."

"Professor," I thought to say again. "This isn't a Pokémon. I can't go on a Pokémon adventure™ of my very own without a Pokémon."

"You will do with what you are given," said the professor pointedly. "Such is the test of a real Pokémon trainer."

I didn't look up from my feet when I got home. A crowd was beginning to gather outside, likely because my mom had told the town I was leaving that day with my first Pokémon. "Mom?"

There was no response. I put down my bag, containing my perfectly delicious plate of roast chicken as it slumbered in its Pokéball. I walked to the kitchen, trying to think of how to explain what had happened today to my mom, and how I could possibly make the whole village forget about me until next year. I tried again: "Mom?"

"In here, kiddo," came three voices simultaneously.

My eyes narrowed. I peered into the kitchen where the voices had come from only to see my mom had split into three aspects. She sat at the table, flanked by a younger version of herself and an older version of herself. Maiden, mother, and crone. Also they were all completely naked.

"Wh-what—" I swallowed, hard. "What are you doing, Mom? You have to put on some clothes right now!"

"We have no need for clothes," said my mothers all at once. "Where we are going, there will be no need for clothes."

"What are you talking about?"

"We are going on our own Pokémon adventure™," said my mothers. "As you do not need us anymore, so too do we no longer need you."

"But—" There was no time. My mothers got up from the table then and walked, single file, to the living room. All three of them. All three aspects of my mother, then, wandered out into the front yard to be greeted by the silent crowd. They went, holding hands and singing. "I want to be, the very best," they sang in perfect unison. "That no one ever was."

No one in the crowd averted their eyes, nor shrieked, nor groaned in disgust. They merely looked on, stone-faced, and then began to clap quietly and entirely off rhythm to my mothers' song.

"To catch them is my real test," sang my mothers to the crowd. "To train them is my cause."

Their feet no longer touched the ground. They were hovering in place. Nothing could hold them here, not even gravity. Quickly they began to ascend, although they still held hands, so that the undulations of their bodies in the turbulent air made a danse macabre. "I will travel, across the land. Searching far—" and then they were no longer audible, their voices lost to distance.

"Look! Look!" An elderly man I did not recognize from the people in town had produced a telescope and was beckoning me to peer through it. "Look!"

I did as I was told. In the lens I could see my mothers, still holding hands, entering the upper atmosphere and never looking back.

Later, when the crowds had dispersed and the sun had begun to set, I sat alone in my kitchen. I had not turned on the light. My hand was still greasy where I had touched my new Pokémon from before, but also had gained a smattering of dirt.

In all this commotion, I had forgotten my new Pokémon! I threw the Pokéball on the table to let it out but I threw it wrong and the whole perfectly delicious plate of roast chicken came out sideways. It smashed into the table and was practically destroyed in the impact, the chicken's bones sticking out through the now too-tender meat.

I don't remember how long I stared at it, but it was darker than it was before when I looked out the window afterwards. So I drew the curtains. Then I went into the living room and drew the curtains there as well. I wouldn't have anything more to do with the outside world. I laid down on the living room floor and felt the carpet dig into my skin, and then I shut my eyes.