Chapter 11: Pokémon?
A boy with blue hair (yes, blue) and black eyes walked into the forest. He had on baggy jeans and a T-shirt, and he had a blue backpack slung over his shoulder.
"Look at his hair!" laughed Tim.
"You have a problem with my hair?" asked the boy.
"I've never seen anyone with blue hair!" said Tim. "You look funny! And you talk funny, too!" He fell over, laughing.
The boy walked over to him. "What do you want me to do about it?" he asked.
"Wash the dye out," suggested Turtle.
"Dye? There's no dye for hair. And besides, it's natural."
"Yeah, right!" said Tim.
"Yeah, I am right!" The boy sat down on the rocks. Tim, Turtle, and Mocha got up and left. They went into their own cabins.
"Come on, Ryan. We don't want you out here with this weirdo," said Tim. Little did he know this "weirdo" would later be his best friend.
Ryan went inside with Tim. So did Sarah, Ben and Cathy.
The boy looked around and saw Ember lying there, sleeping. When someone who makes the water freeze comes in the forest, the animals usually run and hide, but since Ember had been sleeping, he didn't know someone bad had come into the forest.
"Wow! A Charizard! I'm going to catch it. It will make up for that Charmander that dumb boy stole." The boy went over to Ember. He took a small red and white ball out of his backpack. "Pikablu! Go!"
He threw the ball, and a blue and white creature came out. It looked like a blue egg with big blue ears and a skinny tail with a blue ball at the end.
"Pikablu! Use your Water Gun attack!" said the boy. A stream of water came out of the creature's mouth and hit Ember's flame, putting it out.
Ember woke up. He tried to burn the boy and the creature, but all that came out was a thick puff of gray smoke. He shook his large head to try to scare them away. It worked. The boy was very scared of him, and he bolted back to the "deer rocks". The creature followed him.
Inside her cabin, Sarah was talking to Ben and Cathy
"That boy better leave soon," said Sarah, "or we won't be able to get any water."
"Yeah," agreed Cathy. She peeked out the door. "He's still sitting on the rock, except now he looks scared." She shrugged, opened the door, and walked outside. Sarah followed. They walked over to where the boy was sitting.
"What do you want?" he sneered.
"We want you to leave," said Cathy.
"Why should I?" asked the boy.
"Because you're evil," said Sarah.
"So?" the boy asked.
"So we don't want you here!" said Cathy.
"Just for that, I think I'll stay longer," said the boy, smirking. "I'm sure there are some great Pokémon around here."
"What's he talking about?" asked Sarah.
"Pokémon?" said Cathy.
"Don't tell me you don't know what Pokémon are!"
"We don't," said Sarah.
"Well, I'm not gonna explain it, so I guess you'll never know!" He laughed, then got up and went to sit by the pond.
"That did a whole lot of good," said Sarah.
Back in the cabin, they told Ben what the boy had said.
"I don't know what he was talking about," said Cathy. "What are Pokémon? Have you heard of them, Ben?"
"They sound vaguely familiar," said Ben.
"We need to go to plan B, whatever that is. We need him to leave, and the sooner, the better," said Sarah.
"Yeah, but how are we going to do it?" asked Cathy.
"We might be able to make him nicer, so the water would unfreeze," said Ben.
"Yeah, right. That guy could never be nice!" said Cathy.
"Never say never," said Ben.
Outside, the wind picked up, and the temperature dropped. The rest of the unfinished winter was coming. The boy was stuck in the forest.
The boy was beginning to get cold. He barged into Sarah's house where Tim and Ryan were playing a guessing game.
"Hey! Get out of here, you creep!" shouted Tim.
The boy paid no attention. He sat down by the fire. Sarah came in the door.
"Tim, I think it's winter again," she said.
"You mean Mr. Blue Hair is going to be staying with us?" Tim groaned.
"My name's Damien, not Mr. Blue Hair."
Lee came in with his things and sat down at the table.
"Who's that?" asked Lee.
"It's Damien," said Tim, mocking the new kid.
"I thought it was Mw. Bwue Haiw!" said Ryan.
Damien scowled at him. "Fine. You can call me Mr. Blue Hair, and I'll call you Mr. Baby."
"Hey! I'm not a baby!" shouted Ryan.
"Yeah you are," said Damien.
"Cut it out!" yelled Sarah. "We all have to deal with each other for a week or two, so try to get along!"
"I will if Damien does!" said Tim.
"I will if you do," said Damien.
Sarah sighed and went over to talk to Cathy.
Damien sat and kicked at the fire grate. Ryan played with his teddy on the floor next to his bed. Tim was sitting facing Lee with his back the grate. He and Lee were playing catch with a rock.
Suddenly, Damien kicked the grate a little too far, knocking over a pail over water sitting next to it. The pail splashed all over Tim.
Of course, it was enchanted water, so it dried immediately, but Tim was so mad he didn't notice. He stood up, turned around and glared at Damien. "That's it! I'm out of here!" Tim shouted. He stomped out the door and slammed it behind him. Lee got up and ran after him.
"Hey! Don't leave me hewe with dopey!" Ryan shouted. He hopped up off the floor, still holding his teddy, and followed Tim and Lee outside.
Soon, everyone was forced back into the cave with Damien. Cathy, Turtle, and Ben were pretty sure about their house this time. Lee, Tim, and Ryan came in from outside (though not happily) and Sarah followed them in.
It was a bitter cold winter, much colder than the last, and much snowier. The wind blew snow against the wooden door of the cave, threatening anyone to come outside. No one would. Everyone, including Damien, was toasty warm inside. The animals had all gone into the other cave with the bears, except Moonglow, who had never come back after the last winter.
The first night was horrible. Damien was annoying everyone. He enjoyed making mean jokes about people. He was the only one who laughed.
Lee was working on making a bed. When winter started, he'd hauled a ton of wood into the cave to work on it. He copied off Ben's design. Lee figured that, with Ben there, he would never get a chance to move back in with Cathy and Turtle. When winter was over, he would make his lean-to into a cabin.
No one could get to sleep that night. The wind howled. Tim snored. Damien complained.
"I don't know why I have to sleep on the floor," Damien complained. "After all, I'm the guest."
"How many times do we have to tell you?" said Tim. "You're not our guest!"
"Then how come you won't let me leave?"
"You can't leave," said Ben. "It's winter."
"So? Just watch me!" Damien picked up his backpack and stomped out the door. A few minutes later, he came back in and slammed the door.
"Darn!" said Tim. "I was hoping he wouldn't come back!"
"Ha, ha, ha," laughed Damien sarcastically. He lay down by the fire, and using his sack as a pillow, went to sleep. Everyone else did the same.
Damien liked to sleep late, so he was not happy when Sarah "accidentally-on-purpose" dropped a pot and woke him.
"What'd you do that for?" he asked, sitting up and glaring at Sarah.
Sarah didn't answer. She picked up the pot and went back to work, smiling.
Damien was fed up with these folks, but now he knew he couldn't leave. He might as well make the best of it. He stood up and grabbed a biscuit off the fire grate.
"Hey! That's not for you! You get the poisoned one!" Sarah said quietly.
Damien laughed. "Too late," he said. The whole biscuit was already in his mouth. The water in the pond went up a few degrees.
When they were awake, everyone in the cave, except Damien, went to Cathy's cabin to have a meeting.
"We need to get rid of Damien. He's rude and stupid and he's getting on my nerves!" said Tim.
"Yeah, but how?" asked Cathy.
"Well, as I said before, we should try to make him nicer," said Ben.
"How do we do that?" asked Turtle.
"There is a theory that if you are nice to someone, they will be nice to you in return," said Ben.
"Are you saying we have to be nice to him?" asked Tim.
"Pretty much," said Ben.
"Eww!" yelled Ryan.
"Well, if it's the only thing that will work…" said Sarah, but she was cut off.
"Aw! Why don't you just use your light sword and cut off his head like you did to that hunter?" said Tim.
"That's the kind of thing that would turn me to the Dark Side," said Ben.
No one knew what the Dark Side was, but they ignored that and went on.
"I guess we have no choice. He's stubborn and won't leave, so it'll be easier to make him nice than to try and get him to leave," Sarah said. She wasn't too keen on this idea. Being nice to Damien? Come on?
They went back to the cave. It wasn't going to be easy to be nice to Damien. After all, he wouldn't be nice to them for a while, maybe not ever.
Tim sighed and walked in the door to his cave. Damien was sitting at the table, reading a book.
"What's that you're reading?" asked Tim with fake enthusiasm.
"A book," said Damien.
"Nah, really!" said Tim sarcastically. Sarah gave him a disapproving look.
"It's a book on Pokémon," said Damien.
"Oh, please!" said Tim. "Pokémon are about as real as Jedi Knights!"
"I don't know what Jedi are, or if they're real, but Pokémon are real," said Damien.
"Whatever," said Lee.
"Here! I'll prove it to you!" Damien showed Tim the book. "This book has all the Pokémon from one to one hundred fifty."
"Whoa, that's cool!" Tim and Lee said as Damien showed him a picture of a greenish-blue animal with a plant on its back called Bulbasaur.
"Yeah, but I don't have one," said Damien.
"Show us one you have," said Tim, who still didn't believe that Pokémon were real.
"Alright." Damien flipped to a page with a white horse with flames for a mane and tail on it. The name at the top of the page was, "Ponyta". "Ponyta's a fire-horse Pokémon. Its hooves are ten times harder than diamonds. Want to see it?"
Both Tim and Lee's eyes lit up. "Sure!" Tim said.
Damien fished around in his bag until he found another small ball. It was the same as the other, half red and half white. He threw it.
A fire-horse came out. "It looks just like the picture!" Tim said. Ryan, Sarah, and Lee looked at the book, then back at the horse.
"I'd let you ride it, but it'd burn you. It only lets people it trusts ride it," said Damien. He walked over to it and stroked its neck. He jumped onto the Ponyta's back and rode it around the cave.
"I want to twy!" said Ryan.
"You'll get burned," warned Damien.
"I don't cawe!"
"It'll hurt," said Sarah.
"No it won't! If he can do it, I can do it!" Ryan shouted. He ran over to Ponyta and tried to jump on. He was too short to mount it.
"Lucky you're too short," said Damien. He picked up Ryan, whispered something into Ponyta's ear, and put Ryan slowly on its back.
"Yippee!" Ryan shouted. "Move howsey!" He wiggled around on Ponyta.
Damien jumped on behind him and kicked Ponyta gently. It walked around the room.
Outside, the wind blew and the snow was falling heavily, but the pond was getting warmer.