I felt quite grown up in a way now. Not only because I had finally turned sixteen, but also because I didn't have the spectre of school hanging over me anymore. I had sailed through the final class at the Pokémon Technical Institute and never had to return to that dreadful place again. My only hope was that my mother wasn't planning to send me off to one of the Pokémon Advanced academies. I shuddered at the thought. I made my way over to the training gym at the Headquarters, planning to exercise my Pokémon. I found Miya there, putting her Vulpix through its paces over a small obstacle course. She greeted me with her usual smile.
"You've grown!" she exclaimed.
"I have?" I asked. My parents had said the same thing to me, though I hadn't really noticed anything except most of my clothes suddenly seemed too short on my arms and legs.
"Yeah. Anyway, how are you? I heard you passed your final exams," she said.
"I'm fine thank you," I said. "I got good marks." I noticed for the first time how the green and blue in her eyes mingled, then realised she was speaking to me.
"Well you worked for it," she said.
"But you helped me," I replied. "And Xan."
"We only got you back on track. If you were really crap, you wouldn't have got anywhere at all," Miya told me. "Come on, let's go and sit outside and get some sun." We left the gym and went to sit on a slope that ran down to where there was an assault course for trainees. We sat down on it, Miya taking off her gloves and boots, revealing slender white arms and legs. Her Vulpix stretched out nearby and began to doze. Miya yawned and tucked a bit of her hair behind her ear. The two thick bunches she wore her hair in curled onto the grass, the purple of her hair contrasting perfectly with the green. In the back of my mind I added her to the list of girls I thought were pretty.
"So, know what you're going to do now you've finished at the Tech?" Miya asked.
"No," I said.
"Not going to try your luck in the Pokémon League?"
"I could do… I don't know. I like battling, but I can't be bothered to go through a competition like that."
"That's not a very good attitude to have."
"You sound like my mother," I grumbled. Miya turned onto her side and looked up at me.
"No I don't," she said, then cleared her throat. "But if I spoke to you like this I would." I laughed at this; the impression was almost spot-on. Miya giggled, and then looked serious again.
"Personally, I think going to the Pokémon Tech is a pretty cheap way to get into the Pokémon league."
"Why's that?" I asked, interested in this different insight.
"The point of a Pokémon journey is to learn about life," she said simply. "Both yours and that of your Pokémon. I'm not saying that you or your friends at the Tech don't care about their Pokémon, but I think travelling around to collect the badges is so much more fulfilling. The classroom just can't give you that experience."
"I know," I said, wistfully. "That's what my father said."
"You've got the equivalent of eight badges since you graduated, right? But to me, that doesn't mean anything. You haven't actually gone out and got those badges, have you? How can a piece of paper say you have eight badges? Put it this way, no one who's graduated from the Tech has ever placed anywhere decent in the league." I realised she was right.
"Try telling my mother that," I said. "I wish I was getting badges the proper way."
"It's hard work, but fun," Miya said.
"You've got some?" I asked her. She nodded.
"I started off on my journey like plenty of other kids do. I earned twelve badges, but I never battled in the Pokémon league. I just got so fed up of hearing my family saying things to me like, 'Miya, you're going to easily win the league and be a famous Pokémon Master" and 'You could take on any of the Elite Four, you know'. After I got six badges, I didn't go home again. I wandered around earning money from street battles and odd jobs. Not long after I got my twelfth badge, I came across Team Rocket and decided I had nothing to lose. After I got in, I sent a letter home telling my family what I had been doing the past couple of years, and where I was now. I never got a reply."
"Twelve badges?" I exclaimed, my eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.
"I'll show you them sometime," she smiled.
"Don't you regret not battling in the league?" I asked. Her blue-green eyes turned a little sorrowful.
"Sometimes I do. But I got myself here, so I have to live with it."
"If you wanted to leave, I'm sure Mum would let you," I said. "Everyone says you are her best agent, and I know she likes you." Miya laughed at this.
"No way. And why would I want to leave? Yeah, okay, Team Rocket has its dark side, but I get to travel around and look for Pokémon just as I did on my journey, the only difference being I get paid for it and the majority of Pokémon I catch go to your mother." I couldn't really reply to that. She smiled at me again.
"When your mother starts preparing you to become the boss, you'll learn that things aren't straightforward. Just because you happen to like your best employee doesn't mean you'll bend over backwards for them. Just because you're the boss doesn't mean everything will go your way."
"It will when I'm in charge," I said, bullish. Miya just grinned and shook her head.
.
As the summer wore on, I was continuing to relish basking in the joy of having to do nothing at all. The weather was really hot, and as doing anything strenuous was exhausting, most of my days were spent lazing round the pool, much to the annoyance of my mother.
"Are you actually going to do something in the near future?" she asked, coming to sit at the table by the pool.
"Yeah," I replied.
"Well, what is it?" she asked me.
"I don't know," I admitted, stretching my arms. My mother emitted an annoyed sigh, the kind that meant she was going to try very hard not to lose her temper with me. Which meant she was after something.
"Look, I understand that you probably don't want to attend any more schools or academies, though I hope that you will still go to university," she said.
"I haven't decided that yet," I said.
"Well, say that you are going to go," she said. "That still leaves at least two years to fill."
"Miya suggested I should try the Pokémon League."
"That's a once a year competition. You'd have to wait a year now, seeing as this year's competition is almost finished."
"Well, I could spend the year training for it," I said, wishing she'd go away and leave me alone.
"I think you've spent enough time playing with your Pokémon," she replied. I rolled my eyes. It felt like I couldn't win with my mother. One moment it was "You're not training your Pokémon hard enough," the next it was "You're spending too much time training them."
"Maybe I don't want to do anything," I said, without thinking about what I was saying. Though her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, I could feel the glare they gave me.
"You sound exactly like your half-wit of a cousin," she seethed, taking off her sunglasses in order to glare at me better. "Your aunt might have been happy to let her son grow into a useless bum, but I will not stand by and let my son do the same!" My mother often criticised my aunt over how she brought up my cousin, though never to her face. I don't really know why, Stefan always seemed to have been well brought up to me. Maybe it was a kind of sibling rivalry thing that she felt she needed to come out on top in. Saying that, my mother had to get the better of everyone. She was a perfectionist, and had a hard time understanding people who couldn't seem to work to their maximum efficiency. I could understand her point of view, for I hated things that wasted my time too, but I didn't really want to have to think about the rest of my life at the moment, especially not while there was the summer sun to be enjoyed. After a visible struggle to prevent a complete outburst of temper, she spoke again.
"I think that it is time you learned some things about the running of Team Rocket. I think you should spend the next couple of years learning from me and other people in the organisation."
"You want me to work for you?" I asked, a little perplexed at this suggestion, which it was obvious she had been plotting for some time.
"If that's how you want to put it, yes," she answered.
"I don't know," I said doubtfully, images of me running around in the uniform of the lowest ranking agent, doing all the dirty work like some dogsbody coming into my mind.
"I will pay you as I would any other employee," she said.
"How much?" I asked.
"That depends on what you do and how well you do it," she replied. I let out an annoyed sigh. But I had no suitable alternative to her proposal.
"Okay," I said. "I'll give it a go."
"Good." My mother smiled at me and put on her sunglasses again. "I shall make the appropriate arrangements." She rose from her seat. "Don't get sunburnt," she said, and finally left me alone.
.
My father said he'd take Jack and I to see the final of that year's Pokémon League competition. I knew Miya was still around, so went to find her to ask if she would like to come along too.
"Well, thanks for asking, but your mother has already told me to go along with you," she smiled.
"Really? What for?" I asked.
"She wants me to keep a look out for Pokémon, silly," she answered, then looked at me slyly. "Unless she felt you needed an extra minder."
"I don't need looking after," I retorted.
"Why do you get angry so easily?" she laughed.
"Stop picking on me."
"I'm not, I just asked you a question," she replied. I scowled. "Your face will stay like that when the wind changes," she said, not for the first time, either. I don't know why I reacted the way I did, it was just the way it happened. Together, my mother and I sometimes drove my father up the wall.
"Giovanni," he said after breaking up a recent argument between us. "One temperamental, self-important person round here is quite enough. I don't need you to be one as well." I tried to listen to what he had to say, as I always did, but the argumentative side of my nature was too deeply ingrained in me. However, all was calm as we journeyed to the league final. The match was amazing, to see it in real life was far more powerful than watching it on television. The weather at the moment was boiling, and we had been sat here for a good hour. I could feel myself getting darker in colour under the sun. The two contestants finished the current battle, and a break was called. A surge of people rose from their seats to make a dash for the lavatories and to get refreshments, my father and Jack amongst them.
"No way I'm going to even try to get to the ladies," Miya told me.
"That was a good battle," I said.
"It's a close one this year," she said, adjusting her sunglasses. She used her programme to fan herself, stray purple strands lifting up in the draft whilst she looked around at the remaining crowd. Suddenly she rose from her seat and disappeared off without saying a word. About ten minutes later, she returned.
"One Golduck," she said, fishing out a Pokeball from somewhere in her skirt to show me.
"Where did you get that?" I asked.
"I spotted a trainer from one of the earlier rounds who I remembered had a very powerful Golduck. So, I followed him, created a bit of fuss and took it in the confusion," she replied with a smile, putting the Pokeball away. I looked round nervously.
"Didn't anyone see you?" I asked, half-expecting an Officer Jenny to appear.
"Do you think I would be sitting here if they did?" she replied. My father returned, carrying some cold drinks. The next battle commenced just as he took his seat again, Jack squashing past us to take his. It was even better than the previous one. Of course, there had to be a winner and that came just over an hour later. We drove back home after dropping Jack off, the shade of the forest pleasant after the glare of the sun. I stifled several yawns on the way; the sun had made me sleepy. We pulled in through the gates onto the drive that led us to our house, which had an orange tinge in the late afternoon sun. To our surprise, there was a sports car parked outside it.
"Looks like we have a visitor," my father said.
"Fancy car," Miya commented.
"Yeah," I agreed. I didn't recognise it at all. But when the front door of the house opened, I recognised the dark-haired man who kissed my mother goodbye on the cheek before turning and making his way to the sports car.
"That's my cousin, Stefan," I told Miya.
"So that's Stefan," she said. Stefan spotted us and made his way over. He greeted my father, then me.
"I've just been dropping off some late birthday presents for you," he smiled at me. I just smiled back. Stefan took hold of Miya's hand.
"I don't believe I've had the pleasure," he beamed at her.
"Miyamoto," she replied, her smile polite but not the ray of sunshine I was used to.
"Miyamoto," he repeated, kissing her hand. "I'm Stefan, Gio's cousin." I felt a pang of something inside. It wasn't jealousy, and it wasn't anger. Something in between the two. I couldn't remember having felt it before.
"Nice meeting you, Stefan," she smiled, still in the same polite manner. "Well, please excuse me, I have to be on my way." She turned to me. "See you later, Giovanni."
"Bye," I said. She thanked my father for taking her with us, and then walked off down the drive. For someone who didn't know any better, it would seem an odd thing to do, to wander off on foot into this sparsely populated part of Viridian Forest. However, the thick trees disguised many secrets and one of those was the proximity of the Headquarters – which, even if you stumbled upon it by accident, looked like some generic military or government facility. I realised Stefan was talking to me.
"That a friend of yours?" he asked.
"Yes," I said, managing to ignore the insinuation in his voice.
"One of the agents," my father said.
"Ah, thought so," Stefan said, glancing in Miya's direction. I felt the pang go through me again.
.
Not long after, I began to start what was really the process that would enable me to take over Team Rocket one day. The first day was weird. I'd been in the headquarters before of course, I'd even sat in my mother's chair before. But this time I was there to do something productive. To my relief, my mother wasn't going to make me traipse round with her thugs. She said it wasn't necessary, I would have everything about them explained to me though I think I knew what they did.
Team Rocket was made up of three main divisions and their sub divisions. The broad main divisions were Security, Laboratories, and Fieldwork. The head of the so-called security division was a man named Trey. Tall and serious, his green hair beginning to fade to grey, it was clear he meant business despite being a man of few words. He was one of the very few people Mother had complete faith in; he'd been a member of Team Rocket since before I was born and was effectively her second-in-command, although she officially did not have one.
My father was the head of the laboratories, and a portly, bespectacled man called Oliver shared command of the field-agents with my mother. Oliver, I learnt, also looked after a group of agents who spied on the other employees. Mother concerned herself with keeping the integrity of Team Rocket together almost obsessively. She was immensely proud of her role in bringing Team Rocket from its humble beginnings to what it was today, and she was going to let no one take that from her. As the first couple of months passed, I began to have a cautiously renewed admiration for her. Pieces of her behaviour that for so long had seemed strange and unreasonable began to fall into place. Like why she pushed me so hard to do well. After spending some time learning the basics, I got sent to the laboratories for a while. It was strange, I think I learnt more about the internal workings of Pokémon in the first fortnight than I did in the whole time I spent at the Pokémon Technical Institute.
Being with my father was better than being with my mother. I didn't feel like I had to prove anything to him. And when he went out on business to other parts of the country, he took me with him most of the time. Strange as it sounds, it had never occurred to me until now that Mother was his boss.
"Doesn't it bother you that Mum is your boss?" I asked as we sat in a pub on our way home one day.
"Does it bother you that Mum is your boss too?" he replied.
"I never thought of her like that," I said after a slight pause. My father smiled at me.
"There's your answer then," he said. I sat in silence for a moment.
"Do you think I could run Team Rocket?"
"The question is whether you wish to run Team Rocket or not."
"Well, I like the idea of being in charge… It's not like I have a choice really, is it?" I said.
"Of course you have a choice. Nobody can force you to do anything if you really don't want to," my father said.
"She can. Look what happened over going to the Tech," I answered.
"This is a little different. You were a child then. Another eighteen months and you'll be an adult, which is a completely different game. You have to take charge of yourself." I didn't say anything, so he continued.
"If your mother thinks she can walk all over you, she will do. It doesn't matter who you are. If your grandfather hadn't turned a blind eye to some of your mother's less redeeming personality traits, I don't think there'd be a Team Rocket, certainly not in the form it is, anyway." I was a little taken aback by this but continued listening.
"You should sit down and think very hard about what you want to do with your life Giovanni, because sooner rather than later, it's going to be too late to change your mind." He leaned back in his seat and took a sip of his drink. I realised he was right - I hadn't really thought about where these two years would take me, I had just accepted my mother's offer without thinking of the consequences. Still…
"I want to run Team Rocket," I said, adamantly. "I want to do it for Granddad. I want you and Mum to be proud of me." My father smiled and shook his head.
"Running Team Rocket wouldn't make me proud of you, Gi. Aside from my work in the laboratories, I have no interest whatsoever in Team Rocket. If it wasn't for your mother I would have left after the breakup of the government project it originated from," he said.
"So, she made you join even though you didn't want to?" I asked. He laughed.
"She'd like to think so, but it was my choice. No, I stayed because I wanted to be with your mother, but it was one of the hardest decisions of my life."
"Do you regret it?" I asked, intrigued.
"Actually, no. It's not been easy, but then an easy life is boring," he said. I didn't really understand my father's logic in his decision to stay with Team Rocket. I wouldn't give up my life for someone like my mother. But I knew that despite all her faults, my father commanded a great respect for her. Well, most of the time. Though Mother had a notorious temper, it was rare for them to row badly, so when they did it upset me. When I was younger, I used to flee to my grandfather's apartment and refuse to go back until one of my parents came to collect me with the assurance it was all over. These days I would take my bike and leave the place altogether for a couple of hours. Today was one of those days.
I hadn't got very far, when I bumped into Miya. She suggested that I should come with her and Cal on a short overnight expedition to take my mind off things. I snuck back to the house which was quiet for the moment, packed a rucksack and left a note on the kitchen table, not wanting to seek either of my parents out. I soon began to regret my decision. My legs ached, and my back was killing me. I felt like I had a Snorlax on my back, not a rucksack.
"Don't you ever rest?" I asked Miya.
"We've only gone two miles," she replied.
"But you walk so fast!" I said.
"We have to move fast," Cal replied tersely. "We need to make it to the river before it gets dark to remain on schedule." I pulled a face at him behind his back. The lower ranks weren't like this. They did their job, but more slowly.
"What are we looking for, anyway?" I asked.
"Rhyhorn and Rhydon. A herd has been spotted about six miles from here," Miya said.
"Six miles?" I groaned. I had travelled further than that before, but that had been on my bike and I wasn't carrying a heavy backpack. Things got worse though, for we turned into the forest in order to cut across to where we wanted to be. Just as I thought I was going to collapse, we stopped in a clearing not far from the river Cal had spoken about. I dropped my rucksack to the floor and sat on it, glad to be off my feet. Miya pulled me up.
"Come on, you can help us look for some firewood," she smiled, and dragged me through the trees with her. Cal had gone off on his own. Together we gathered a large bundle of wood and brought it back to where we had chosen to spend the night. Soon we had a fire going, and we were able to have something to eat. Through the trees, the sky slowly turned to black. Miya chatted away to both of us, though Cal and I did not say much to each other. For some reason Cal had always disliked me, and now the feeling was mutual. We settled down for the night, after throwing some extra wood on the fire. But I couldn't sleep. The ground wasn't comfortable, and I was cold despite the fire not far from me. I looked over to where Miya lay fast asleep. People look strange when they are sleeping. I suppose it's because it's not how you are used to seeing them. I tried to go to sleep again but couldn't. Exasperated, I crawled out of my sleeping bag, and crept out towards the river. There was a full moon tonight, and out of the forest, everywhere was cast in a silver light. I sat down on the bank of the river, watching the water move like liquid silk.
"What are you doing?" The voice behind me startled me so much I nearly fell into the river. I turned around to see Miya standing looking at me.
"I couldn't sleep," I said. She sat beside me.
"Not cut out for the outdoor life really, are you?" she smiled.
"I'm not used to it, that's all," I replied quickly. "What are you doing up, anyway?"
"Something woke me, I looked round and saw that you had gone so came looking for you," she said. "Don't want you to spend another night lost in the forest."
"I was only going to sit here for a bit," I said.
"You don't mind if I sit with you?" Miya asked.
"No," I replied, quite happy she was with me. She smiled at me and I returned it. She looked back at the river. We sat in silence, watching the water ripple like quicksilver. I got a sudden longing to want to hug her. I restrained myself. Miya was not just some girl. Miya was someone special.
.
Despite my lack of sleep, the mission was a success and I was permitted to keep one of the Rhyhorn for myself, which was a bonus. In general, Mother still would not let me help myself to Team Rocket's repository of Pokémon. However, a little while later, that looked like it could change. One evening, she appeared to be in an unusually upbeat mood at dinner. Usually she was tired and irritable at this time of day.
"Well, I have made an interesting purchase today," she smiled as we tucked in. My father and I looked at her expectantly.
"I've bought the Viridian City Gym," she said. My father paused in lifting some food to his mouth to give her a puzzled look.
"That derelict heap of old rubbish?" he asked. "What do you want that for? You're not planning a scrap metal business now are you?"
"I'm going to rebuild it of course. I want it to serve as another base for Team Rocket, though the public will not suspect anything but a normal certified Pokémon League Gym," she replied. She looked at him playfully out of the corner of her eye. "Though selling the scrap isn't a bad idea. I'll need all the money I can get to pay for the renovation, since the deal includes redeveloping the entire plaza."
"Yeah right, a couple of million or whatever it is going to cost isn't going to burn a hole in your pocket, is it?" my father replied, and laughed. "You keep a tight grip on the organisation's finances then go and spend all that money on a gym?"
"It'll be worth it," my mother answered, as if she was already reaping the rewards.
"Don't tell me you're planning to be the gym leader," my father said. I stifled a snort of laughter.
"Of course I'm not. I have that planned out as I have the rest of the project," she said.
"You're going to put Miyamoto in there, aren't you?" my father said, making my heart jump as her name was mentioned. I was sure I was going red and looked down at my plate.
"Wrong. Giovanni's going to be the leader of course," she said. My head shot up again and I stared at her.
"Me?" I stuttered.
"Him?" my father said, as surprised as I was.
"Giovanni's got to hone his leadership skills somewhere and a gym seems as good a place as any to me especially if it is also a small base. Don't forget this is still two or three years away yet, so he will have plenty of preparation," she said.
"Well, it'll be interesting when it comes around," said my father. "How about that then, Giovanni?"
"It's okay," I managed to say brightly. Giovanni, the Viridian City Gym Leader sounded great to me. My mother shook her head.
"It's okay," she snorted, mimicking me. "You'd think every sixteen-year-old boy gets told he's going to have his own gym the way you're acting."
"What do you expect him to say?" my father asked.
"A 'thank you' would be nice," she said, on the point of a glare at me. I sighed.
"Thank you," I said, which turned the glare back into a smile again.
.
A year passed by. I hated winter because since the night I had been lost in the forest, I had gained an intense dislike of the cold. So, I was glad when spring came around and the temperatures began to go up a little. I finished my breakfast and made my way over to the headquarters. My father was at a conference across the country and was due home this evening. Mother hadn't been at home either, so I assumed she had gone over to her office early. It wasn't unheard of. I found the door to her office locked. Alison, her secretary, wasn't in yet, so I walked down the corridor and found Trey in his office sipping a cup of coffee. His change of expression as he looked up filled me with a sudden anxiety.
"You don't know where my mother is do you?" I asked, feeling stupid.
"She didn't tell you?" he asked, a little surprised.
"Tell me what?" I asked, the anxiety becoming tinged with dread.
"She had a call early this morning. Your father's had some kind of accident, so she's gone over to Azure City," he told me. "I'm afraid I can't tell you more than that."
"You don't have a number I can contact her on do you?" I asked. Trey nodded and picked up a piece of paper.
"Use my phone if you like," he said, rising from his seat with some files in his hands.
"Thank you," I said, and waited until he had gone out of sight before I picked up the phone, dialling the number with a shaking hand.
"Hello?" The voice on the other end was not my mother. It was one of her agents.
"Is my mother there?" I asked.
"Just a moment," he replied. After a few seconds, I heard my mother's voice.
"Giovanni?" There was the slightest of strains in it.
"Mum? Someone said Dad's had an accident? How is he?"
"Well," she began, then there was a slight pause. "Giovanni, he's dead." Those words went through me like an arrow. I couldn't say anything. Mother continued. "He had very bad injuries," she said.
"What happened to him?" I managed to ask.
"I don't know yet," she replied shortly.
"When did he die?" I asked.
"Before I got here," she said, the strain in her voice a little stronger.
"Oh," was all I could say.
"I'll be home before the end of the day. I have some matters to take care of first," said my mother. At the back of my mind I wondered what she meant, but that wasn't what mattered at the moment.
"Okay," I said.
"You go and do whatever you want today," she said, her voice taking on a rare softness. "I'll see you later."
"Okay," was all I could say before putting down the phone. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. This wasn't really happening. I must be still dreaming, and when I wake up, my father will still be coming home this evening. But it was real, I knew it only too well. I didn't know what to do, so I just sat in Trey's chair staring into nothing. He came back in.
"My father's died," I said quietly. He paused in his stride, and his lips pressed together as he contemplated the news.
"I'm sorry to hear that," he replied. I didn't answer. He came over to me. "Perhaps you should go back home. If your mother has anything to pass on, I'll let you know straight away."
"You're right," I said, standing up. I left his office without saying a further word.
Mother was home later that afternoon as she said, her large black helicopter seeming to symbolise the descending gloom in our lives. She looked absolutely shattered, and not just because of tiredness. The news that she had only deepened the emotional turmoil I felt inside. My father's death hadn't been an accident. Someone had murdered him. I didn't sleep much that night. Instead I lay in bed on my back, wondering what I was to do. Mother may be the biggest influence on where my life was heading, but my father was my guide. He was the one I went to when I had problems with my homework or wasn't sure what to do in certain situations. As I got older, we hardly did anything as a family, it was always my father and me. We'd go on bike rides through the forest at weekends, or fishing. I suddenly felt very alone.
The next morning, I was up before my mother. She appeared after a little while, tell-tale rings and puffiness round her eyes. I didn't comment on it. She did not take kindly to having any perceived weakness pointed out, at any time. I hate to use the word in the circumstances, but she looked like a ghost, so pale was her face despite her olive skin. I realised for the first time in my life how petite she actually was. The imposing aura that normally surrounded her was gone, leaving behind a woman who was…normal. I decided to make an effort and made her some breakfast.
"Here," I said, and placed some toast and a cup of tea in front of her. She looked at me and managed the faintest of smiles, but her eyes were dull.
"Thank you, but I'm not hungry," she said, pushing the plate away from her a little.
"Just have a little bit, Mum. You didn't have anything last night," I pleaded, a sudden irrational fear that she was going to waste away and die too popping into my head. She sighed, picked up a piece of toast and took a small bite, chewing it slowly. I sat down with her and ate my toast. I didn't feel particularly hungry either, but I forced the food down my throat.
"I'm going to be in my office today," she said. "What are you going to be doing?"
"I can come and help you," I replied. She shook her head.
"No. You should go and get out of here for the day. Go to Viridian City or one of your friends."
"I'd rather stay here and help you," I said.
"There isn't a lot you can do. Do as I ask of you," she said. She didn't even have the energy to begin to yell at me. She was so out of character it frightened me. I wished she wouldn't try to push me away from her. I wanted to comfort her, but it felt like she wanted to deal with my father's death all by herself. I got up from the table.
"Okay, I'll probably go and see Jack. I haven't seen him for a while," I said quietly. She just nodded. I hesitated for a moment then went and hugged her. She stiffened ever so slightly for an instant, but then hugged me back.
.
At my father's funeral, my mother was pretty much the same as she had been at my grandfather's. Unlike my grandfather's funeral, the sun shone brightly, and the blue sky was flecked with white clouds. My aunt arrived with Stefan that morning, and the first thing she greeted my mother with was,
"Have you been eating properly?"
"Yes," was my mother's growled reply. The real answer was no, and my aunt knew that even before she grilled me about how Mother and I had been coping.
"I knew I should have come over as soon as I found out about your father, but she insisted everything was okay and that she didn't need me here," my aunt had fumed to me. After the funeral, we returned home. My aunt wished to be alone with my mother, so I wandered outside to join Stefan. He was leaning against the wall of the house, about to take out a packet of cigarettes. He offered me one. I shook my head. He shrugged nonchalantly, took one out himself, lit it and took a long drag before blowing the smoke out in a grey cloud.
"Not used to seeing your mum upset, eh?" he asked me. I shook my head. Stefan continued. "Not like me and my mum. Then again, Kyle wasn't exactly nice to her." He lifted the cigarette to his mouth again. A couple of years back, there had been some mess concerning Kyle. Something to do with trying to take my aunt's money. I didn't know the full story.
"At least he can't get to her now," I said. Stefan nodded.
"I'm sorry about your dad. He was a decent guy, didn't deserve to die like that."
"I know," I replied.
"I didn't even know my dad," Stefan said.
"How come?" I asked.
"My mum was, in her youth, mixing with a lot of people shall we say."
"Oh," I said. Stefan smoked some more of his cigarette and smiled at me.
"So, where's your friend, the young lady with the purple hair?"
"Miya? I think she's running some scheme for my mother up north. I haven't seen her for a while," I replied evenly.
"That's a shame. Was kind of hoping she'd be around," Stefan said. I found myself clenching my teeth together.
.
It took a while but gradually things got better though they would never be the same. Mother still appeared the same to her employees, but I knew that my father's death probably tore out what little love and empathy she might have possessed. I continued to learn from her the ways of Team Rocket. I went on a couple of expeditions with Xan and his partner Dahlia. The first one was halfway up a mountain in a thunderstorm, and the second one I woke up in the middle of the night to find I was sharing my sleeping bag with an Ekans. I decided I was probably better off sitting down and studying how to run a gym and learning how to drive.
But, being at home wasn't so great now my father wasn't there to stabilise my mother's prickly temper – it meant that I became more of a direct target. To sometimes have to spend the day with her then come home and still have her telling me what to do in the evenings became tiresome. A particularly vicious argument between us one night was the final deciding factor for me that I would go to university, if only to give myself a break more than anything else. That left the question of what to study. My father held degrees in Pokegenetics, but I was no scientist. Mother didn't go to university, though I think she could have easily got a degree had she wanted or needed to.
I settled for doing a general Pokeology course. My time at the Pokémon Tech and the knowledge I had picked up from my grandfather and the time I had spent in the labs should give me sufficient grounding in Pokémon to be able to do it. I purposely sent off applications to universities far away. Viridian City University was one of the most prestigious around, but it was too close to home. I chose in the end to go to Mandarin University in the Orange Islands. It was one of the best, plus its warm climate appealed to me. Mother was pleased to see me go as she had long made it clear she thought I should go to university. I think she was also glad to have me out of the way for a while.
It turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. I quickly made some friends, and I quickly learnt how to use the money I had inherited from my grandfather. At first, I hadn't let on that I had a rich background in order to see the people who would be friends for the right reasons. After that, it became not unknown for me to go into a bar with my friends and buy everyone in there a drink. The reaction meant that we would often be sat until the early hours surrounded by a load of girls. Though I knew that I wasn't exactly ugly from the fact that I got a lot of sideways glances when walking round campus, I knew that most of the girls in the bars were only cosying up because I flashed the cash. It wouldn't have mattered if I was ninety years old, bald and as wrinkly as an elephant, their reaction would have been the same. I had seen from Team Rocket how powerful money could be, and it was nice to experience that power.
I couldn't forget studying, of course. If running Team Rocket wouldn't have made my father proud, I knew that doing well at university would. So, I cut down on the partying - it had got boring anyway - and concentrated. The time I had spent working for my mother had taught me how to sit down and deal with tedious items like writing long reports. Despite the workload, I had a relationship for a time with a girl called Lauren. Unfortunately, it didn't last, partly because I felt that I couldn't fully trust her, and partly because of Miya. I had hardly seen Miya at all over the past couple of years, though we had written to each other a few times. But I couldn't get her out of my mind. I had thought that when I went to university, what I admit was a crush would fade away. It hadn't happened. It was crazy - it wasn't like I was ever going to be with Miya. She had told me in her last letter that she had a boyfriend now. It wasn't fair to Lauren to tell her I loved her when really I… I loved someone else. My mother was inquisitive as to why Lauren and I had split up.
"Last time I spoke to you everything was fine," she said.
"Well, I guess things don't always go as planned," I said, not wanting to go into details.
"No, they don't," she said. "It just seems rather sudden, that's all."
"Neither of us was happy really. I'm putting it down as one of those things," I replied.
"That's probably the best way of looking at it. Put it in the past and don't dwell on it," she said. She certainly didn't put my father's death in the past. When she wasn't busy with Team Rocket, she – or rather, Trey - was busy digging up every last contact to find whoever had murdered him. She was eventually successful, through Trey's hard work, but again she cut me out over the matter. It was like she didn't want me to know. I don't know what she told my father's family, if anything. We didn't see much of them, even when father was alive - his sister lived in the Silver Islands, which were some seventy miles from the Orange Islands, and work kept visits to his parents few, even though they only lived in Cerulean City. The person we saw most of was my father's brother. He was the only person in his family my father felt he could tell the truth about his life to. Initially my uncle had laid the blame for my father's murder at my mother. In his eyes, it must have been something to do with Team Rocket. When that had been disproved, he made his apologies, but the damage had been done. Mother allowed herself to be on speaking terms with him again, but she never forgave him for some of the remarks made.