Chapter One ~ La Belle Café

Chapter Five ~ The Vermilion Holiday Inn (where the towels are oh so fluffy!)

"No!" Jessie screamed, "We can NOT be back in Vermilion City!" Upon arriving on a shore, Jessie had inspected a nearby road sign and come to a horrible conclusion. "Two hours and two chapters – wasted! And look at my hair! I am never going swimming again!"

Jessie was throwing a fit. 45 minutes of swimming had brought them back to where they started. As if that wasn't bad enough, the water had ruined Jessie's perm. Her dripping hair hung straight, falling around her knees.

"I'm hungry," whined James, "I want to go back tot he hotel."

"So do I. Let's just take the-" Jessie put her hand over her mouth. "Oh no!"

"What?"

"The Meowth balloon. It was on the ship. The ship sank. The balloon is gone along with all our stuff we brought."

"Oh no!" James's eyes filled with tears. "My… my…"

"What James?"

"My rose!" James burst out crying.

"Your rose?" Jessie sighed. "It's not that important James."

James nodded. "Yes it is." He wiped his eyes and looked at Jessie. "You gave it to me, remember?"

Closing her eyes, Jessie thought back to when she first met James…

***

Jessie ran through the falling snow. Tears blurred her vision as she tried to get as far away from home as she could. She clutched only a single possession – a silk rose. Her mother had given it to her when she was born and it was one of the few things her cruel father hadn't taken away yet.

In her nearly blind running, Jessie tripped over a bump in the road. Wiping her eyes and looking back, she noticed the bump was actually a snow-covered boy. She crawled over to him, still clutching the rose, and brushed the snow off his body. He wore fairly nice clothes that were in deep contrast to Jessie's raggedy brown dress. The boy's lavender hair fell over his face. Jessie rolled the boy onto his back and examined his face. His eyes were closed and his lips matched his hair. His face felt icy. He looked about Jessie's age. To Jessie, he was pretty attractive.

"Better get him warm," Jessie thought. She grabbed his almost frozen hand and dragged him under a nearby store's awning. After a quick search, Jessie found a few sticks and started a weak fire. "Good enough," she said. She held the boy's hands near the tiny fire. Color slowly began to return to them. After about half an hour, the boy felt reasonably warm. Jessie looked at him. His eyes fluttered open.

"Huh? What?" His eyes met Jessie's. "Who are you?"

"My name is Jessica Woodson, but everyone calls me Jessie."

"All right Jessie. I'm James Morgan. Thanks for saving me." James fished into his pocket and pulled out two large, green, circular earrings. "Here. You can have these as a... token of my appreciation. They were my mother's. I took them before I left."

"Thanks James. Nobody's ever given me a gift before. Well, except for my mom." She held out her treasured silk rose. "Here James. This rose is for you."

"What's this for?"

"It's a present, silly."

James took the rose. "Thank you. I'll never forget this Jessie..."

***

Jessie's mind slowly drifted back to the present. Her eyes were teary from the memory. She couldn't let her feeling show though. Hiding her eyes, she snapped, "Oh James, it doesn't matter. It was just a stupid rose anyway. We have much more important things to worry about now. We have to think of a way to get back to Cinnabar Island."

"Can we do it tomorrow Jessie?" James yawned, "It's almost midnight!"

Now that Jessie thought about it, she was really tired. She looked around. "Well, it is late. And this is a city. There has to be a cheap motel or something somewhere." She and James slowly walked closer to the heart of Vermilion City.

The glare of neon lights suddenly caught James's eye. "There!" They ran up to the door. An inscription on the glass read "Vermilion Holiday Inn." Jessie and James stepped inside. They walked up to the check-in desk. Standing behind the desk was a woman in her late twenties. She had curly red hair that fell on her shoulders. The pin on her hotel uniform read "Hi, my name is Amy" and was decorated with gold star stickers.

"May I help you?" Amy asked.

"Yes," Jessie replied, "We'd like the cheapest room you have."

After some discussion and deliberation, Jessie handed over $35 for the off-season room. They received the key and walked past the identical hotel doors.

"Number four… number six… eight… TEN?! Where's nine?" James was alarmed. "Our room's missing!"

Groaning, Jessie pointed to a door on the other side of the hallway. It was adorned with a gold number "9."

"Oh," James said. Perking up, he cried, "Ooh! Can I open the door? Can I? Can I?" Jessie sighed and handed him the card key. After 47 attempts, James finally got the door open and they stepped into the room.

Room nine was small. Very small. There was one bed, a small window, and an even smaller television set. The closet looked like it could hold about half a jacket at the most.

"We're stuck in this junky room? Aargh!" Jessie yelled. "Although there could be some advantages having James sleeping two inches away from me…" she added silently.

"It's only one night, Jess. Now come on. I'm so tired. It's already 12:30. We need sleep if we want to have the energy to get all the way back to Cinnabar."

Jessie was too tired to argue. She nodded in response to James and flopped down on one side of the bed. James lay down next to her and they both fell asleep almost immediately.

Jessie dreamed that she was the little mermaid, Ariel. She swam around with an annoying catfish named Meownder and tried to get the blue-haired Prince Eric to fall in love with her.

James dreamed of dancing donuts singing "Louie, Louie."

When they woke up in the morning, Jessie groaned. "I am never watching "The Little Mermaid" again."

James smiled and sang, "A Louie Louie…"

"What?"

"Oh, well, see, in my dream last night there were these dancing donuts and-"

"Dancing donuts?!" Jessie exclaimed, "You know what? I don't want to know." She began to walk towards the room's minute bathroom. "I have to take a shower."

"No!" cried James, "Me first!" He ran to the bathroom and closed the door.

"Someone's a little pushy today."

"I heard that!" James leaned his head out of the door. He stuck out his tongue and pulled down his lower eyelid. "Ha ha!" Shutting the door again, he locked it.

Jessie heard the water start. Then she heard a shriek and a crash, followed by a yell of "I'm o-kay!" Jessie sighed and rolled her eyes. Flicking on the TV, Jessie scanned the channels. After going through all 12 they received, she finally settled on the Spanish channel. "Blues Clues" was on and Steve was singing about "La Pistas De Blue."

"Ohhhh! I've seen this one already," Jessie complained when Steve found the first "pista," popsicle sticks. Roughly 25 minutes later, Jessie screamed at the TV, "Orange juice ice pops Steve! Aargh! It's so easy!"

Steve gave his guess for what Blue's surprise was. The pictures above him demonstrated his guess.

"WHAT?" Jessie yelled, "What kind of a guess was that?! Blue is smarter than you are for crying out loud!" She fell backwards on the bed in exasperation.

"Getting a little into the show Jess?" James had chosen that moment to emerge from the bathroom. A towel was wrapped around his waist and he was holding an almost dry swimsuit.

Jessie reddened and quickly switched off the TV. "I think I'll take my shower now."

"Jessie?"

"Yeah?"

"The towels are oh so fluffy!"

Jessie slowly nodded. "Riiiiiight…" She took a quick, very warm shower, during which she sang Blue's Clues songs. Afterwards, she drew a small heart in the corner of the fogged-up mirror. Inside the heart, she wrote "JW + JM." She smiled as she looked at it, then wrapped herself in a fluffy, white towel.

"Hmm… James was right," she thought, "These towels are oh so fluffy."