Early the next morning, Professor Oak was awakened by the sound of groaning from Tracey's room.
"Tracey? Are you all right?" Professor Oak asked as he knocked on his assistant's door then peeked in.
"I think the esurin wore off," Tracey moaned uncomfortably while he clutched his hugely distended stomach. "I don't think I've ever eaten so much in my whole life. My stomach's killing me."
Professor Oak, noticing that Tracey's face was a pale shade of green, moved the wastebasket next to the boy's bed. "I think you'd better stay in bed today, Tracey. I'll get you some medicine for your stomach and bring you up some soup later."
"No food…no more food…" Tracey groaned as he leaned over the wastebasket and started to retch.
Professor Oak left his vomiting assistant and went downstairs to find some stomach elixir. As he searched through the medicine cabinet, the videophone rang.
"Hello?" he said as he picked up the receiver.
"Samuel, can you come over here for a second?" a worried-looking Delia asked.
"Well, Tracey's not feeling well and I've got to take care of him and all the Pokémon right now, Delia. What's going on?"
"Uh, Catnap's…I think you'd better see for yourself."
She turned around the video screen to reveal Catnap, who was nearly double the size he was yesterday, standing in Ash's old baby crib.
"My gosh! It's almost as if Catnap grew overnight!" Professor Oak said as he stared in disbelief at the video screen.
"Catnap!" The Pokémon waved at him then pointed to its mouth.
"That's another thing, Samuel. Catnap won't stop eating…and I don't much food left after Tracey got through with dinner last night. At least Catnap's a good baby and sleeps all through the night, so I didn't have to get up and feed him or anything. But ever since he got up this morning, he's eaten everything in the…" A loud crunch made her whirl around in time to see Catnap take a bite out of one of the crib rails. "Catnap! No! Stop that!" she scolded. "Anyway, please hurry over here as soon as you can."
"Catnap!" the Pokémon said as it spit out the wooden rail and pointed to its mouth again.
"All right, Delia, stay calm," Professor Oak reassured her. "I'll be over there as soon as I can."
Delia was in the middle of feeding Catnap anything she could find in her kitchen when Professor Oak knocked on her back door a half-hour later.
"I brought all the Poké Chow I could find," he panted as he lifted one of the fifty-pound bags out of the wheelbarrow he had brought down from his house.
"Catnap!" The Pokémon eagerly tore into one of the bags and began gulping down the brown pellets.
"Guess Catnap does need to be eating Poké Chow instead of baby food," Delia observed as Catnap rapidly downed the bag of Pokémon food.
"Delia, as much as you'd like to take care of him, at the rate Catnap is growing, it won't be long before he'll eat you out of house and home. Why don't you let me take him back to my place? He'll be much happier at the preserve," Professor Oak said.
"But I don't want him to go," Delia protested. "He may be big, but he's still just a baby."
A moment later, Catnap stopped eating and began to grunt uncomfortably. The Pokémon stood up and headed for the bathroom.
"Delia, I know you enjoy having someone to take care of again, but…"
A loud crash made both of them jump. Racing down the hall, Delia and Professor Oak opened the bathroom door and found Catnap sitting atop what was left of the toilet. Water was running in every direction.
"Oh no! My toilet! Grab the towels, Samuel!" Delia yelled as she yanked the bath towels off of the towel rack and threw them on the floor. "Mimie, hurry! Bring me the mop!"
Mimie, who had a satisfied smile on its face, took its time on its way to the broom closet.
---
"Is Togepi going to be all right?" Misty asked Nurse Joy anxiously as she came out of the treatment room.
"Don't worry, Misty," Nurse Joy reassured her. "With a good rest, Togepi will be just fine."
"But what's wrong with Misty's Pokémon?" Ash asked.
"It seems that Togepi has a tummy ache," Nurse Joy said as she removed her examination gloves and made some notes on Togepi's chart. "What did it have to eat recently?"
"Well, Togepi had some oatmeal for breakfast yesterday and a hamburger for lunch," Misty began. "Then we left Forsythia Village and headed back here to New Bark Town for dinner. At the restaurant, Togepi ate an apple, a banana…"
"Half of my hamburger," Ash grumbled.
"The rest of my burger," Misty continued. "Most of my fries, half of my vanilla milkshake, some strawberry ice cream…"
"Half a bag of Poké Chow," Brock added.
"The rest of our peanut butter and jelly," Ash whined.
"A box of raisins…"
"My candy bar…"
"A bag of trail mix…"
"The rest of our chocolate chip cookies…"
"Whoa! Whoa!" Nurse Joy said as she held up her hands. "No wonder Togepi is so sick. You shouldn't let a Pokémon that little eat so much."
"Speaking of which, I'm hungry," Ash said. "Got anything to eat?"
"Morning, Nurse Joy," Professor Elm said cheerfully as he came into the Pokémon Center. "Hi, kids. What are you doing here?"
"Togepi is sick, Professor Elm," Misty informed him.
"Oh dear. Will it be all right?"
"Togepi will be fine, Professor," Nurse Joy smiled at him. "What brings you here?"
"Hey, that shirt looks familiar," Brock said as he noticed that Professor Elm was wearing a red shirt with the words "HOTT LUVR" on the front.
"Do you like it?" he said eagerly. "I found it in the trash can outside of the Celadon U. lecture hall yesterday."
Ash, Misty, and Brock all gave him a funny look.
"More importantly, do you like it, Nurse Joy?" Professor Elm smiled broadly at her.
"Well, it's certainly different from what you normally wear," a highly amused Nurse Joy smiled back.
"Is that the latest fashion craze for professors?" Ash whispered to Brock.
"Maybe both Professor Oak and Professor Elm have been working too hard," Brock whispered back.
--
An hour later, Delia and Samuel had cleaned up the mess in the Ketchum bathroom and were hanging up the water-soaked towels outside. Catnap, his belly now full, was snoozing under the nearby Pokéberry tree in the garden.
"Well, I guess I can use the upstairs toilet until I can get a new one," Delia said as she hung another towel on the clothesline. "How much do toilets cost, anyway?"
"Forget about that now, Delia," Professor Oak said as handed her a clothespin. "I think the best thing to do right now is take Catnap back with me to the lab."
Mimie, who was helping hang up the wet towels, gave Professor Oak a hopeful look. He was jealous of all the attention Delia had been giving to her new Pokémon lately.
Delia looked over at Catnap, who was now sucking on its thumb contentedly. "But, look at him, Samuel. He's just a baby," Delia said as he lower lip started to tremble. "He'll miss his mommy. I'll miss him."
"Oh Delia," Samuel said as he gave her a reassuring hug, "It's not as if he'll be far away. Catnap will be right next door. You can visit him anytime you like."
Delia wiped away a tear and gave him a sad smile. "Okay."
"I think I'll need a Poké ball for this," Samuel said as he removed one from his pocket. "I know there's no way I'll be able to lift him."
"And he's way too big for the stroller now," Delia said, nodding in the direction of the mangled mass of metal sitting on the back porch.
"Okay, Catnap, let's head back to the lab." He aimed the Poké ball and Catnap disappeared inside with a flash of light.