Chapter 24: Pokémon School
Snowy woke Tim the next morning at three o'clock a.m. sharp the next morning. He didn't even bother to eat breakfast.
Snowy also woke Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin. They were up even before Ben, which was a first. Tim woke Ryan, and the five of them piled into the car and drove into the sleepy town of Gifek.
Tim dropped them off at the train station. He gave them money for food and tickets then drove away.
It was a long, but uneventful ride. They each went to the small café on board and bought something to eat. Then they sat down and waited.
Pokémon was the first stop, so when the train slowed, they got off onto the planet. Pokémon was a regular planet, just like theirs. They spotted Molly waiting for her very late train to Golda.
"Where's the school, Molly?" asked Jaina.
"It's in Viridian, the next town over," explained Molly.
"What town is this?" asked Jacen.
"Pallet. This is where Gary lives. I'd show you his house, but I don't want to miss my train. Ms. Jade would kill me because the next one is at ten o'clock."
"Thanks," all four of them said, and they walked away. Pallet was a very small town. The train station was the largest building except for a larger one with a sign that said "Professor Oak's Lab".
They walked on a path until they got to the next small town, Viridian. There was a small school. They went inside.
"Where's our classroom?" asked Anakin.
Jaina spotted a list of grades. She walked over to it. "I don't know," she said. "There's no first grade!"
A teacher came over. "You kids should be getting to class," she said.
"We don't know where our classroom is," explained Jacen.
"How old are you?"
"Six," answered Anakin.
"You kids are in sixth grade?"
"No, we're six years old!"
The teacher laughed. "Here, our grades correspond with our ages. Your teacher is Mr. Davis in room six. Okay?"
The four nodded. They walked down to room six and sat down. The desks were in rows, six seats in the front, and six seats behind those. They sat down at four consecutive seats in the back.
Mr. Davis walked into his classroom. "Hello, class! My name is Mr. Davis. Now I need to know yours. Let's go around the room and say our names." He pointed to Jaina. "You first."
"Jaina."
"Good. And this must be your twin brother! What's your name?"
"Jacen." Mr. Davis pointed to each student in turn.
"Anakin."
"Ryan."
"Josh." It was the same Josh who was Damien's "best friend".
"Kenny."
"Liz."
"Emily."
"Maria."
"Matt."
"Dina."
"Good," said Mr. Davis. "As long as you behave, there will be no seating chart. Except for Josh, who will come and sit in the front." Josh stuck out his tongue, but went to sit in the front of the class.
"Did everyone have a good summer?" There was a chorus of yes's and no's.
"What?" shouted Anakin. "Do you mean to tell me this is the first day of school?"
Everyone looked at Anakin like he had three heads. Mr. Davis laughed. "I can see you're not from around here. You see, at the end of each summer, we have a Pokémon competition called the Pokémon League." Anakin made a mental note to ask Damien about this later.
Mr. Davis was interrupted by the other kids in the classroom.
"Did you see that, Maria?" asked Liz. "Gary Oak lost!"
"That was funny!"
"He was favored to win!"
"I made a bet with my cousin that he would win, and I had to pay her fifteen dollars!"
"I was at that competition! It was so cool!"
Suddenly, Josh stood up on his chair and shouted, "Gary Oak sucks! He thinks he's such a big shot just because he's the grandson of Professor Oak! I think he's a loser!"
"I think you're a loser, Josh!" shouted Kenny. "At least Gary completed sixth grade!"
"Gary is famous! He's a really great Pokémon trainer! Better than you, I bet!" yelled Emily.
"That's enough, everyone! Josh, sit down! We can talk about the Pokémon League later. As I was saying, it lasts about a week. When it's over, school starts," Mr. Davis explained.
"Now, for this year, we will have five rules to follow in class," he continued. He pulled out a huge piece of paper. He read the rules out loud.
"Number one: don't curse. Number two: don't be mean. Number three: don't be late. Number four: come prepared. Number five: follow rules one through four. You also have to follow all other school rules. Any questions?" There weren't.
"As you know," Mr. Davis went on, "we will start learning about Pokémon this year."
"Why?" asked the girl named Dina. "They won't be legal to us until we're ten!"
"Yeah! And we can't be in the Pokémon League until we finish tenth grade!" shouted Matt.
"There is so much to learn about the world of Pokémon, that when you are able to train them, you'll be glad you started so young," said Mr. Davis.
They went on with the lesson. Mr. Davis taught some math and gave them some reading assignments. Being a nice teacher, he gave them no homework.
They got on the train after school, and then Tim picked them up in Gifek. It was a rather uneventful evening.