"Forget it.  I'm not eating raw pancakes and barbecued Wheaties for breakfast.  Have James cook instead.  At least he makes something edible."

                I sat with arms folded; glaring distastefully at the concoction Meowth called breakfast.

                "But Jessie, I cooked yesterday!  And besides, we're all out of strawberry jam to spread on the pancakes!" James whined.  "You should cook something!"

                "Asking Jessie to cook something is like signing your death warrant," Meowth shot back.  He snagged a burnt Wheatie and munched on it.  "I like my Wheaties and pancakes just fine."

                "Are you insulting my cooking?!"  That is, basically, something I would say, and just did.

                My name is Jessica Rachel Lillis.  That probably means nothing to you, but picture a beautiful face with a bad temper, and that would be me.

                You're most likely wondering who the other clowns are.  They're my partners on Team Rocket, and they double as best friends.  James is the cute guy with blue hair and Meowth is the one that looks like a cat.

                Right now, the cat wore a frown that seemed to say, "Eat my Wheaties and pancakes or die."  I didn't take it personally.  Meowth tries to be a good cook, but his cuisine usually backfires.

                I pushed my share of "breakfast" away.  James hadn't touched his either.

                "I've got a solution!"  James waved his hand around in the air.  He would be the one to come up with a plan.  He's awfully smart.

                "So what's your idea?" I asked.

                "Those who don't like Meowth's food can-"

                "Eat dirt," Meowth muttered.

                "Have donuts!" concluded James.

                Meowth immediately brightened up.  "I'll have a donut!"

                "You said you liked your pancakes and Wheaties," I pointed out.

                "I was just saying that so you two would eat."

                "Well," I sighed, "it's up to James who he gives donuts to, because they're his."

James hugged his box of twenty-four donuts.  Actually, twenty-three, judging by the powdered sugar and strawberry filling around his mouth.

"Pleeeaaase?" implored the cat.

~

                Approximately five minutes later, we all sat enjoying the essence of donuts.  Meowth only got his due to James's benevolence.

                All right, I admit it.  I do have a crush on James.  Aside from being incredibly handsome, he's got an exceptionally kind heart.  Well, maybe I should call my feelings more than a crush.

                "What are our pokémon snatching plans for today?" asked Meowth as he licked sugar off his whiskers.

                "There aren't any," I declared.  "We're going to take a day off and go to the beach."

                James and Meowth stared at me for a moment, and then exploded into whoops, hollers, and applause.

                "We haven't taken a day off in the past five years," James cheered.

                "Yeah, and the Boss better not catch us at it."  Meowth wasn't cheering anymore.  It seems to me that he always looks on the unpleasant side of things.  He's a rather pessimistic cat.

                "Who's going to tell him?" I pointed out.  "Come on; let's get ready for a day at the beach."

~

                I felt like doing a dance.  I felt like singing a song.  I could have been abandoned in the middle of nowhere with nothing and I'd still be happy.  Or maybe "happy" wasn't a strong enough word.  I was the luckiest girl on the planet.

                James had asked me out on a date!

                His exact words were, "Hey Jessie, since we're taking the day off, does that mean we're taking the evening off too?"

                I had said yes, I supposed so.

                Then he said, "Jessie, would you like to go out to dinner with me?"

I almost kissed him right then and there.  After I said yes, he bought me an ice cream.

                The scene continued to run over and over in my mind.  I was trying to study a book called Training Your Arbok, but for some reason I just couldn't concentrate on it.

                Just as I was picking out something to wear, Meowth sauntered up.

                "So where are you and James going?" he asked me.

                "I don't know," I replied.  "James said he'd pick the restaurant."

                "Knowing him, it'll probably be someplace with a lot of food that's really cheap."

                "Meowth!"

                The cat tried to swagger away, but I threw a pillow that caught him with such force that he flew through the air.  He would have set a record if he hadn't collided with James.

                "Sorry James!"  I pulled Meowth off and helped James up.  "The cat got on my nerves."

                "That's okay."  James was wearing a suit.  He looked great.  "You ready?"

"Ummm . . ." I looked down at myself.  I was in my Team rocket uniform, which had a stain on the left shoulder and a rip to the right on my skirt.  The boots weren't exactly new, and my gloves were close to threadbare.

                I grinned at James.  "I'm not quite ready yet."

~

                James had picked a place right nearby in Viridian City called the Poképlace.  It was a not-too-well-known restaurant on the corner of a street.  The place was rather small, but not so much so, more like just the right size.  The whole restaurant glowed with candlelight and soft, slow-dance music played in the background.

                It was so romantic.  Perfect for a first date.

                We were seated at a table for two, sort of off to the side.  There was a dance floor to my left, and it was unoccupied.  Come to think of it, almost the entire restaurant was, save for a few people way towards the back.

                I glanced at the clock on the wall.  Yikes!  It was almost ten!  I'd promised Meowth we'd be back at eleven.  I turned my attention back to the salad I couldn't seem to eat and picked at it.  Slowly my gaze wandered from the salad to James.  He was looking at me, too.

                "Ummm . . . "I blushed and looked away.

                "Would – would you like to dance?" James asked me.

                I nearly sighed out of sheer relief.  Now we were getting somewhere.

                "I'd love to," I told James.  He smiled and took my hand and led me to the dance floor.

                I felt him hug me gently around the waist as I rested my cheek on his shoulder.  It was a nice feeling, the kind of feeling where you lose track of time because of total happiness.  I counted six songs that we danced to before I just sort of dozed off in James's arms.

                After what seemed like an eternity of absolute contentment, I became aware of James whispering in my ear.

                "Jessie, it's eleven thirty.  Meowth's going to be really mad at us."

                "Okay," I murmured.  I really didn't want to go, but sometimes the most wonderful dreams have to end.

~

"Are you both NUTS?!  It's almost midnight!  I could have been catnapped!"

                Meowth wasn't taking it too well. In fact, he got so hysterical that we got a kitty lecture complete with details on how he had seemingly defeated eighty villains that possessed a knife and shotgun apiece.  Meowth reenacted the whole episode with relish.

                James sat completely mesmerized, listening to Meowth's tall tale.  He wasn't quite sure to believe it or not, by the look on his face.

                "And then I showed them my claws!  They all backed off and forgot their knives.  Then I roared my terrifying roar!  Meeeooow!  Like that!"

                I tried to suppress my laughter, but it came out as a snort.  "Right, Meowth.  I'm sure you did.  I guess I'm going to bed."  I went to the tent and changed into my pajamas: a large T-shirt accompanied by flannel pants.

                I flopped down on my pillow and tried to rerun the date in my head.  It had been such a wonderful evening.

                Funny, it seems that whenever you want to go to sleep, you just can't.  I didn't want to go to sleep though, I wanted to replay the entire outing, but I was so exhausted . . . so tired . . .

~

                "Mom?"  She was here.  She had to be.

                It wasn't the first time I'd had that dream.  It was collected from bits of memories from my past.  My mother always appeared, but she was young, maybe twenty, which would make her two years older than me.  The same ending always came, though; the dream always ended with my mother singing the same song; the song with a sweet melody, but words that made no sense.  I could never remember the whole song, just the last verse:

               

                And then the father will cry

                Because the mother did die.

                Long ago their fate was sealed,

                Like it was meant to be.

                So I'll meet you at the rock by the sea, by the sea

                I'll meet you at the rock by the sea.

                My mother had gone to Heaven when I was little.  I don't know what fate befell my father, and I don't recollect him too well.

                Maybe he's still out there, looking for me . . .

I decided to take a walk outside the tent, because it was getting terribly hot and stuffy.

                It was surprisingly bright out.  The moon looked like a huge silver dollar and the stars were all pennies and dimes.  My mother was up there somewhere, among the stars.

                I'll meet you at the rock by the sea.

                "It's amazing, isn't it?" commented someone behind me.

                It was James.

                "Sorry," I whispered.  "Did I wake you up?"

"No, you didn't," he assures me.  He held my hand and we both gazed up at the night sky.  We didn't talk for a while, but then James broke the silence.

"The moonlight makes you look absolutely beautiful with your hair down like that."

I squeezed his hand a bit tighter.  "Thanks," I told him.

He sighed.  "Jessie, I'm sorry for not telling you this for seven years."

I just waited for him to finish.  It must have been really so important if he'd kept it secret for the entire time we knew each other.

James took both my hands and looked directly into my eyes.  "Jessie, I care about you.  I care about you a lot.  Actually, I, um, I love you."

                I didn't know what to say.  Obviously James didn't either, so we simply gawked at each other for a few minutes, but he didn't let go of my hands.

                I was just about to open my mouth and tell him that I cared about him too, that I was sorry I hadn't told him either, and how I should have told him on our date, but . . .

                The phone rang.

                I should have let it ring.  I should have ignored it.  I should have just stayed with James.

                But I didn't.  My curiosity got the better of me.  After all, who would call at three o'clock in the morning?  So I dug my cell phone out of my duffel bag and pressed the "on" button.

                "Hello?"

                "IS THIS MISS JESSIE LILLIS?!"

I had to withdraw the phone out to arm's length to avoid being deafened.  "Yes," I answered timidly.

                "YOU ARE TO COME TO THE VIRIDIAN CITY GYM IMMEDIATELY!!"

                "But-"

                "YOU KNOW THE PUNISHMENTS FOR DISOBEYING YOUR BOSS?!"

                "Yes, but-"

                "GOOD.  THEN BE HERE IN FIFTEEN MINUTES OR YOU'LL BE GOING TO ROCKETPRISON!!"

                "But-"

                Click.  The Boss had hung up.

                "-I'm in my pajamas."

                If I had been given a choice, I would have stayed with James, but in Rocketprison, I wouldn't be a help to anyone.

                So I zipped up my duffel bag and shouldered it.

                James had heard the phone conversation.  He stood, completely shocked, and watched me.

                I stood up and he embraced me tightly.

                "I could keep you safe," he whispered in my ear.  "I'd never let you go to Rocketprison."

                "I don't want to get you in trouble," I told him.  I turned to leave, but then remembered something I had to say.  "James?"

                "Yes?"

                "I love you, too."

                Then I turned away and ran, not looking back because then I'd never get to Viridian City Gym.

                Something wet trickled down my cheek.  I brushed it away, but more dampness came.  This was the first time I'd really all-out cried in my entire life.  That was because I had the best reason to cry: a broken heart.

~

                "I'm here to see the Boss," I told the two Rocket guards on duty.

                "Then you would be . . . Miss Jessie Lillis?" guessed one of them.

                "Yes."

                "This way, please."

                I was led down a long corridor by both guards until we came to a door marked OFFICE.

                The guard knocked on the door.  "Boss, it's Miss Lillis.  She's arrived."

                "Excellent.  Come in, please," boomed the same voice that had been on my cell phone exactly fourteen minutes ago.

                The rocket guards seemed to have left, so I twisted the doorknob and walked into the office.

                I found myself facing an immense oaken desk and the back of a leather-padded chair.  The entire office displayed no lights, and was surrounded by a rather depressing and gloomy atmosphere.

                As I watched in fear mixed with some fascination, the chair swiveled around and I was faced with a man gently stroking a Persian.  Or maybe "faced" isn't quite the right word, since he had no face that I could see.  It was completely covered in shadow.

                "Welcome, welcome.  Have a seat."  He indicated the chair to the front of his desk. 

                I felt like I was on a visit to the psychiatrist's, preparing to be cross-examined, but I sat down anyway.

                "I have a job offer for you."  The Boss leaned forward on his desk, but not enough that I could see his face.  "My former bodyguard has – ahem – passed away, and hoped that you might take up the position."

                There was something fishy going on.  Why would he ask me, of all people, to be his sole defender?

                The Boss tossed something into my lap.  "She was also the secretary.  There's your new uniform.  You are hereby promoted to bodyguard and secretary."

                "But James and Meowth..." My voice cracked as I thought of my friends.  "I'll never see them again . . ."

                "They're not worth it, Jessie.  That is your new uniform.  You will wear it."

                A tear coursed down my cheek for the second time that morning.  Why?  Why did he choose me?

                "You know the punishments for disobeying your Boss."  His voice was soft and harsh – almost like he delighted in my despair.

~

                It had been almost a month since I took up that wretched position.  That awful job that had taken me away from James.  And through it all I could only think of what I should have done. 

                I should have let the phone ring.

                I twirled around idly in my swivel chair at my secretary desk.  Then I heard three people approaching.  I got in typing position.  Since they had entered the Viridian City Gym, they would have to check in with me first. 

                "Names?" I asked without looking up.

                "006 and 007."  They gave me their traditional Rocket code names.

                "But there's three of you," I protested.

                "The third is a prisoner."

                "Oh.  You'll be going to Rocketprison, then?"

                "Yes."

                I typed in "Destination: Rocketprison".  "Prisoner's crime?"

                "Gambling."

                I still didn't look up.  "How's gambling a crime?"

                "He lost and had no money with which to pay The Boss."

                "Oh.  Prisoner's name?"

                "James T. Risk."

                That made me look up.  "James?!"

It definitely was James.

He managed a weak smile.  "Hi, Jessie."

"You gambled?!  You?!"

"Yeah.  I tried to get some money so we could go out on another date.  I'm completely broke."

"What happened to Meowth?"

"He left a while ago.  He found Meowsie again, and this time, they're both happy with each other."

"So you were all alone?"

"Yeah.  So I gambled with The Boss.  He seems to like to gamble.  I thought if I lost, at least I'd be here with you."

"Come on."  006 gave James a shove and both guards led him off down the hall to Rocketprison.  I was going to go after him when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Don't, Jessie," whispered The Boss.  "He's not worth it."

~

                It was getting close to ten p.m.  Then my work for the day (and evening) would be done.  To kill some time, I clicked on the icon on my laptop screen.  The icon that appeared as Rocket Databank.

                A window popped up that had more icons that read, Teams: 1, 2, 3, 4 etc., and Guards: 001, 002, and 003, so on and so forth.

                I scrolled back up to Teams, but didn't know which to pick.  "Oh well. James always believed in lucky seven." So I clicked on Team 7.

                The screen suddenly filled with a very short document.  It looked like this:

TEAM 7 is composed of JESSICA RACHEL LILLIS and JAMES THEODORE RISK.

click for more information

I had found what I was looking for.  I clicked on the name JAMES THEODORE RISK.  Somewhat larger of a document showed on my screen.  It contained this data:

NAME: James Theodore Risk

AGE: 18

DESCRIPTION: Risk formerly worked for Team 7, but is currently in cell 356 of Rocketprison for the crime of gambling.

                Just about on instinct I reached for a sticky note and wrote down 356.  Then I gazed at James's picture on the screen.  He looked almost as handsome as in real life.

                "It is now ten p.m.  All Rocket member excluding guards should report to their dormitories.  It is now ten p.m.  All Rocket members excluding guards…"

                It was the intercom.  Quickly I clicked on the exit button and watched James's picture vanish from the screen.  I meant to click on exit databank, but my hand slipped and I accidentally clicked on the icon beside it.  The icon that was not marked with Team or Guard, but with just one meaningful name.  Boss.

                The screen filled with a picture of - you guessed it- the Boss. It had some interesting information…


NAME: Giovanni

AGE: 2021

DESCRIPTION:            is the Boss of Team Rocket and is said to be the richest man in the world.


          At first I double-clicked on                        , but it came up with a notice:

THE FOLLOWING DATA HAS BEEN PROHIBITED FROM PUBLIC VIEW BY THE BOSS.

         Then I became aware of AGE: 2021.  It had to be a joke!  My computer was screwed up.  Just to double-check it, though, I clicked on my own icon.

NAME: Jessica Rachael Lillis

AGE: 2000

DESCRIPTION: Lillis, previously of Team 7, is now bodyguard #1 to the Boss and secretary to Team Rocket.

AGE: 2000 yeah right!  I was eighteen and I knew it.  My computer definitely had something wrong with it.  I shut down and grabbed the sticky note.

356.

By absolute total luck, Rocketprison was on the way to my dormitory.  I didn't go into my dormitory, but walked right past it.  Down the hall to Rocketprison.

The corridor was getting colder.  I realized I wasn't treading on tiled floor, but on dirt.  The walls were of rough-hewn rock, and in the atmosphere lingered a vague inkling of death and despair.

356.

A piece of rotting wood hung on the wall.  After studying it for a while, I could make out:

CELLS 350-400 à

CHEMICAL LAB à

I followed the arrow down the dimmest, most depressing passage yet.  However, I stopped short and pulled back at the sight of two guards.  Though the light was rather poor, I could tell that one was a boy and the other was a girl, both probably older than me.

Quickly I thought up a plan that must have been used at least a million times, but it was all I could come up with, so I stepped out from behind the wall.

"The Boss said I should take over here."  I tried to make my tone commanding, but it came out a bit shakily.

"You?!  The #1 bodyguard and secretary?!"  The girl stepped into the light and I realized that I could call her by name.

"Cassidy?"

"You're addressing guard 002."  The boy lifted his face enough so that I could recognize him, too.  "I'm guard 001."

"Butch?  I thought you both were still in jail!"

"Hah!" answered Cassidy.  "The Boss bailed us out again.  After all, we are his favorite Team members."

I got back to the reason why I had come.  "The Boss told me that you two should take the night off and that I'm on guard duty here."

Cassidy and Butch didn't wait for a second invitation.  They took off down the corridor so quickly that I could almost see the dust kicked up from their racing heels.

"Hang on!" I called after them.  "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Aannd…what would that be?" asked Cassidy.

I held out my hand.  "The keys."

"Oh.  Right."  Cassidy dropped a heavy ring with roughly fifty keys on it into my hand, and then sprinted away faster than you could say "Rocket".

I looked for the certain key with the certain number on it.

356.

I found it, and, clutching it tightly in my fist to distinguish it from the others, broke into a run down the somber, daunting, (and a bit damp) passage.

I counted the prison cells as they went by.  351.  352.  353.

The penitentiary enclosures were so confined that most prisoners must have gone crazy within the course of a week.

354.  355.

There it was.  356.  He was right on the other side of the door.  I could see him because the door was a mixture of glass and plastic, this it was transparent.  He was sitting with his back to me, though, so he couldn't see me.

"James!"  I banged on the door, but it wouldn't budge.  James' didn't hear me, either.  That would probably be the work of chemical "X".  Chemical "X" made the door soundproof and utterly impossible to get in or out of.

This, unless you had a key, which I suddenly realized I did.

I jammed it into the keyhole and turned.

James must have heard the scraping of the key in the keyhole, because he turned and saw me and dashed to the door.

I tried to yank it open, but the barrier between James and me still refused to move.  James tapped the door to get my attention and pointed to the top corner opposite the hinge.  It was a lock, way up high, much farther than I could reach, but I tried nevertheless.

After many unsuccessful attempts to jump and try to shove the key into the second lock, I leaned against the door to catch my breath.  James gazed at me longingly with his sorrowful emerald eyes.  Then he seemed to lighten up and began motioning dramatically.

"You have an idea?"  I knew he couldn't hear me, but it felt good to talk anyway.

I watched him pantomime taking rocks out of the wall and putting them off to the side.

"You want me to dig through the wall?"

He could tell that I was puzzled, and shook his head to my question.  Then he went back to the game of charades, taking rocks out of the wall and piling them up.  Then he pretended to climb on the mound of rocks and reach up to the lock.

"Oh!  I get it!"  I turned to look at the rock wall.  The mortar around a particularly large boulder was crumbly and soft.  An easy job.  I used my hands to dig out the unstable clay, and then tugged on the stone.  It slid out smoothly.  I prized out another rock.  It was getting a bit painful.  Maybe it wasn't as simple as I'd thought, but my determination kept me going.

By the time the fourth rock was loose; my hands were raw and blistered.  I stopped and stacked the four rocks on top of one another.  Luckily they were square, or my tower wouldn't have been very sturdy.

I clambered to the top of them and reached they key towards the lock.

Darn!  About an inch short!

The pile of rocks wobbled and I tried to balance rather precariously.  There was only one thing left to do.

I jumped from the rock column, shoved the key into the lock, and turned it, all in one swift movement.

Fortunately I landed on my feet and escaped most of the shock.  Almost as soon as I wrenched the door open, James embraced me tightly and ran his hand through my hair.

"Thank you, Jessie," he whispered.  "Thank you."

I didn't know what to do next, having never rescued anyone before, so James and I just savored the happiness of being in each other's arms.

"By the way, Jessie, you sing beautifully," James murmured.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.  "I've never sung in my life."

"That wasn't you that was singing before I turned around?"

"No.  I thought you heard the key in the lock."

"How could I hear that?  The door is soundproof."

He let me go, and I did the same to him.  Then I noticed that my hands had left two bloody patches on James' shirt.  They were extremely tender from digging the mortar out from between rocks.

"Oh, Jessie!"  James had noticed the red splotches too.  "You should have told me your hands were like this!  I could have thought of another plan!"

I said nothing a tore a strip from my lab coat to bandage my hands with.

James put a comforting arm around my shoulders and we made our way back from Rocketprison.  Out to freedom.

~

"What were the words to the song?"  I broke the silence and became the first to speak since we had started out of Rocketprison.

James was silent, and I thought he wasn't going to answer my question, but then he spoke.  "I was sitting there, like you must have seen me, and then I heard someone singing.  Something about rocks by the sea.  Anyway, she sounded like she was right behind me, so I turned around and saw you."

"There's the exit!"  I pointed to the large glass double-doors that marked the way out.

There was some motion by the doors, and I realized with a shock that the metal security gate was closing down.

I grabbed James' arm and we both sprinted forward with all speed.  We had to make it!  We had to!

Slam!  Metal crashed down upon tile as the gate blocked our only chance of liberation from the Rocket Gang.  How could it have closed, though?  Someone needed to push the activation button…

There.  In the far end of the lobby stood a girl with a uniform like mine.  How could that be?  There was only one secretary and bodyguard…me…

It had to be a mistake.  The uniform had to just bear some outstanding resemblance to mine.  There had to be some difference in it.

No.  Everything was the same.  The short black boots.  The black spandex Rocket suit.  The white lab coat with a red "R" embroidered on the left pocket.

She spoke.  Her voice had a taint of an evil snigger.  "Now you will both be thrown in Rocketprison.  A life term should be sufficient."

Someone else became known by speaking.  "Hang on a minute, Cassidy.  It's up to the Boss what to do with them."

Cassidy and Butch.  I should have known they were not to be trusted.  But still, why was Cassidy wearing the one-of-a-kind uniform like me?

"My most trusted employee."  I spun around.  Off to the left stood the Boss.  At that moment I wouldn't have been surprised if half of the Rocket Gang stepped out of the shadows.

"My most trusted employee," the Boss repeated, "you have betrayed me.  The one I had put all my faith in.  Gone."

With a jolt I realized that he was talking to me.

"Miss Cassidy Jones spoke truly.  You are to be sentenced to life in Rocketprison.  She will recover your position as secretary.  Mr. Butch Taylor shall relieve your duty as bodyguard."

"Hahaha!"  Cassidy laughed her high-pitched, evil laugh.  "It feels so good to be in power!"  She snapped her fingers and almost immediately, two guards came running and grabbed James and me roughly.

"This just proves it, Jessie," Cassidy continued.  "You can't be better than me.  No matter how many times you try to succeed me, you'll always be the lowest of the low."

"Why you-"  I struggled against the guard, but he would not prevail.

"What's this?"  Cassidy barely batted an eyelash.  "Is this resistance I see?  You shall be punished for that, Jessie.  I make the rules and I say resistance deserves a slow, painful death."

"Cassidy, don't you think you're going a bit far?" Butch spoke up.

"Going too far?" Cassidy sneered.  " I don't think I'm going far enough!"

"Please, sir," James pleaded to the Boss, who was still lurking in the duskiness, "didn't you ever care for someone?  Didn't someone ever care for you?"

I thought I saw a glimmer of recognition where I assumed the Boss' eyes to be.

James resumed his pathetic plea.  "If you've ever felt that way about someone, you must understand.  Please," he sank to his knees and bowed his head.  "Please, have mercy on us."

A dark could of silence fell, which at any moment would rain forth with agreement or disaccord to James' implorement.

"Boss?" Butch spoke in a low tone.  "What shall we do with them?"

The Boss collapsed in a nearby chair and I could see that James' words had hit home.

"They should go," he whispered.  "They should just go."

"But sir," persisted Cassidy, "wouldn't an execution be much more satisfying?"

"No," replied the Boss, "they should be allowed to leave.  They deserve it."

Quite relieved and a touch perplexed, James and I were escorted free from the Gym of peculiarity.

~

I awoke to the aroma of pancakes with strawberry jam.  I smiled.  James absolutely loves strawberries.  He'd eat them with anything.  There's only one thing he likes more than strawberries.

Me.

I deserted the warmth and comfort of my sleeping bag and sat outside by the campfire.

"Hi Jessie!  You want some pancakes?"  James pushed a plate in my direction.

I accepted it.  "Sure.  As long as they're not raw."

Just as James was stacking the pancakes on the plate—

THWOCK.

Stars exploded in front of my eyes and my skull throbbed with pain.  What was happening?  I couldn't see…

"Jessie!  Are you all right?!"  James had apparently abandoned the pancakes.

"Yeah…"  Slowly my vision began to return.  "What happened?"

"Something flew out of the sky and hit you on the head!"

"What?!"

The "something" was still fluttering around on the ground.  It struck me as being a pokémon.

"It's a messenger Pidgey," said James.

"What's a messenger Pidgey?"

"You don't know what a messenger Pidgey is?  All pokémon trainers in the world communicate by sending these special kinds of Pidgey.  It should have a letter in its beak."

Sure enough, there was a letter.  As soon as I removed it, the Pidgey flew off.

"What's it say?"  James was practically bouncing up and down with impatience.

I took a close examination of the envelope.  It was one of those official-looking types addressed to:

MISS JESSIE LILLIS & MR. JAMES RISK

I didn't spend any more time on the envelope.  It was the letter inside that was important.  I ripped open the frail paper document with fervor and held the inside piece of stationery.  James watched from over my shoulder as I unfolded it.  It appeared to be some sort of invitation written in calligraphic handwriting.

You are cordially invited to tea at the Viridian City Gym at promptly 3:00 PM on Friday, the 13th of August.

~

                "Do you really think this is safe?" I asked for about the tenth time that day.

Specification: that day – August 13th, a Friday.

James and I were waiting outside of the Viridian City Gym, debating whether to knock or not.

"Yeah, it must be okay," James answered.  "You knock first."

James had to be right.  It was safer to go to this tea party than refuse the Boss' invitation.  Just as I reached up to knock, the glass doors sprang open and two guards appeared.

"Follow us, please," one of them spoke curtly.  He had a rather scratchy voice.

We were escorted down that all-too-familiar hall.  It was after a while that I noticed the female guard was muttering something.  Something about a secretary job.

"Hello Cassidy," I said in a mocking tone.

Stupid – not let – secretary job –"

"What's that you say?  Speak up!"  Oh sweet irony!

"Here you are," stated Butch, the other guard.  He and Cassidy turned and retraced their steps back down the hall.

I laid one hand on the office door and jumped back, surprised, as it swung inward.

"Come in, come in!" boomed the Boss.  "Make yourselves comfortable!"

James and I exchanged suspicious glances.  We decided to do as he said and sat down in the two chairs in from of his desk.

"Let's begin with a game, shall we?"  This man's jovial mood was becoming a bit queer.  "Try and guess my age!"

"25!"  Obviously James had decided to play along.

"Wrong."

"32!"

"No."

"37!"

"Sorry."

"I give up.  What do you guess, Jessie?"

"2021," I whispered.

"What did you say?"  The Boss stared at me directly.

I looked where his face might have been and spoke strongly.  "I said 2021."

He quivered with fury.  Or perhaps it was fear.  "How did you know that?"

I never dropped my defiant gaze.  "The computer.  It says so in the Rocket Databank."

He swiveled around in his chair and began typing rapidly.  We could see as the same data popped up.  The same data marked with "Boss".

"I told them to delete it!" The Boss howled.  "I told them!"

"Sir," I spoke quietly, "would you please open my document under Team 7."

Surprisingly, he obeyed my wishes and my own picture filled the screen.

"This document," I stated, "declares that I am 2000 years of age.  If I was correct about your age, is the computer correct about mine?"

The Boss studied AGE: 2000 for a moment, then spoke.  "No.  There has been a malfunction with the computer.  You are 18, as old as Mr. Risk here, I believe."

I said nothing, but inside I was almost fainting with relief.  You see, it's just not cool to have a boyfriend who's 1982 years younger than you are.

The Boss seemed to have calmed down.  He poured two cups of tea from an unnaturally green teapot and offered them to James and me.  "Go on," he prompted.  "Drink up.  It's my own special recipe."

I examined my tea.  It wouldn't take too many drops of a certain substance to make a drink poisonous.  I cast a sideways glance at James and my heart seemed to stop.  He had quaffed the tea in one gulp!

James wasn't stupid; he was just too trusting.  He'd be the first to call an enemy a friend.

I stared down into the cloudy amber liquid.  Oh well.  I had nothing to lose but my life.  At least I'd see James in heaven.

The tea cooled my insides and blew away all my worries.  What was my fear again?  Ah yes – that this tea was poisoned.  It couldn't be infected.  The whole world was perfect.  Nothing was wrong.

"I'm going to tell you a story."  The Boss' voice was so soothing.  "A story that happened long ago.  Very long ago…"

~*~

"Long ago, there was a boy named Giovanni and a girl named Jennita.  They fell in love at the age of 21 and got married and had a little girl.  It seemed like a perfect life until a devastating tragedy took place.

"Giovanni and Jennita were on a picnic with their child, who was only three month old at the time.  Suddenly they heard a gunshot and group of gangsters leapt out of the bushes and tossed a revolver into Jennita's lap.  The gangsters had just shot someone.  Two seconds later the police arrived and Jennita was discovered with the gun in her hands.

"She was taken to jail, because the jury declared her guilty.  Four days after her imprisonment, however, she had escaped by way of a secret passage on which she fitted a lock; a lock which no one could open except the one with a certain fingerprint.  The technology was far ahead of her time.  She was exceptionally intelligent…  Only the one with the fingerprint or one so precise to the match could open the lock…  She didn't want the police to find out where she had gone.

"Giovanni had gone off to war, leaving his daughter under the care of a trusted nurse.  He left on a boat, but before the land completely vanished, he thought he saw his beloved Jennita waving to him from atop a mountain peak.  He blinked and then realized it was a trick of the mist.

"He was merely a month at war when he was shot in the forehead at the end of a battle.  Left for dead, he was deserted by his comrades.  His life was dwindling rapidly when a funny lady wearing a purple cloak appeared.

"'You are like to die,' she said.

"'Aye,' replied Giovanni weakly.  'Soon I will.'

"'I have a medicine that will cause you to live forever.'

"'I doubt that.'

"'Why doubt it?  I could leave you here to die.  Yes, die, and never again see your beloved.'

"That caused Giovanni to change his doubting thoughts.  'Could you spare a little extra?' he pleaded.

"'It'll cost you,' the little lady cackled.  'Oh yes, cost you.'

"'Take all my money (for Jennita was worth much more to him) but just give me some medicine.'

"'You have a child,' said the lady.  'Give me her life in exchange for yours.'

"At first Giovanni was inclined to say no, but then the lady cut back in.

"'I won't kill her, I'll simply freeze her in time.  The freeze will last for 1982 years.'

"At last Giovanni accepted the offer.  He lived through that battle, but fled back to his hometown.  He spent many years looking for Jennita, but never found her.  Then he realized the cause of his misery.  The police.  The police had taken Jennita away.  So he formed a rebellion against the police, and it still exists today.  Today I, Giovanni, am the leader of Team Rocket."

~*~

So that was how evil Team Rocket was formed.  But Team Rocket wasn't evil.  Evil didn't exist in the world.  The world was perfect.

Everything was so peaceful.  I slowly let my head recline upon James' shoulder.  He made no move to comfort me, but that was okay.  He was just taking a snooze.  Gradually I drifted asleep…

  Asleep into what was turning out to be an eternal rest.

~

It was unimaginably dark.  Darker than midnight.  Darker than the color black.  Darker than The Boss' mind.

We were in Rocketprison!  No, wait.  There was a steel door, not one composed of Chemical "X".  This was just regular jail.

"James!" I called out into the darkness.  No answer.  I shuffled along on the dirt floor until my hand encountered the wall.  It was no use trying to search for him in this black hole.  I sat back and let my eyes adjust.

The gloom eventually became penetrable.  James was slumped in a corner.  He was still asleep.

I had a terrible ambition that he wouldn't ever wake up.

Nevertheless, I brushed his azure hair away from his face and softly called his name.

"James, wake up.  Please.  It's me, Jessie."

Slowly his emerald-colored eyes opened and he reached up a hand to touch my cheek.  "Jessie?"

"I'm here."

"I can't see you."

"Yeah.  It's really dark in here.  Can you get up?  I'll help you over to the window."

He stood up and I helped him towards the narrow barred aperture, the only source of light in our enclosed cell.

Slowly it began to get lighter and I assumed the sun was rising.  Was it Saturday?  Or had we completely slept through Saturday and was it Sunday already?

James was pacing around the confined area.  I found it better to sit in this corner.  It made the cell seem bigger and I felt less restricted.  Claustrophobia is not a handy thing to have around.

Someone was coming down the hall.  By the sound of it, they were wearing high-heeled shoes.  I stood up and peeked through the barred window to get a better perception of who it was.

Go figure.  It was Officer Jenny, probably coming to check on the prisoners.  She was closely followed by one of her fellow policemen who seemed to be pounding her with questions.  I strained to hear their conversation.  Perhaps it would reveal something of value.

"You don't know who left them?" inquired the policeman.  "You just found them left at the door to the police station?"

"That's right," replied Officer Jenny.  "They were knocked out with some sort of strange sleeping draft.  I didn't question it, though.  When someone turns in criminals from Team Rocket, we put those Rocket Gangsters right in jail.  No inquiries."

"Are you sure they won't escape from there?  You know what happened 2000 years ago…"

"I'm certain they can't.  The only one who could open that lock lived 2000 years back from now."

Their footsteps receded down the hall, and now I knew what had happened.  Giovanni, The Boss, had sent us to find his lost Jennita.

"Hey Jessie, look at this!"  James brought my attention to a cubical metal box in the corner.  Whenever he pressed his hand on the top, it glowed magnificent neon blue.

"You try."  He gestured toward the box.  "May be it'll do something more interesting."

My thought was that this was Jennita's lock.  It was probably a computerized fingerprint reader.  I felt a strange feeling right before I lowered my hand to the lock's surface, almost like I had done this before.  It was all very familiar somehow…

Instead of glowing blue, the lock flashed an amazing shade of iridescent pink.  Words emerged from the shiny metallic surface.  They read as:

YOU HAVE AN IDENTICAL FINGERPRINT TO THE CHOSEN ONE.

YOU MAY ENTER, AND YOU ALONE.

What happened next was very hard to describe.  The whole wall folded inward, revealing what looked like a hole, no, a passage leading away into darkness.

~

It was awfully chilly and damp because, after all, we were underground.  At first James had not wanted to go, said it was probably dangerous, but after I jumped down, he followed me.  Now we were trekking ahead to I had no clue where, but the suspicion that we soul learn something about Jennita lingered in the air.

"GO BACK!  GOOO BAAACK!"

I stopped dead in my tracks and almost died from the laughter that was bubbling up inside of me.  Typical haunted house effects!

James, however, screeched to a halt and hid behind me, trembling.

I was slightly amused by his antics.  "Haven't you ever been inside a haunted house?"

James stumbled over his own words.  His eyes were wide with fright.  "Jessiebelle dragged me into one once.  I was only about four years old.  She jumped out from behind the scenery and wore a creepy mask and scared me…  She did a lot of stuff like that to me…"

Jessiebelle was James' forced fiancée.  She had really abused him, and tried to make him do everything her way.  How anyone could be so unfeeling to a guy as cute as James I'll never know.  James' description of her is quite accurate: A rose with too many thorns.

"I'll protect you, James," I spoke rather sympathetically.

"GOOO BAAACK!"

"We're not going back!"  I called that out mostly for James' benefit, but was surprised when an answer returned.

"NOT YOU.  JUST THE ONE WITH BLUE HAIR.  HE MUST GOOO BAAACK!"

To my surprise, James simply commented in a cool manner, "Is that how everyone identifies me?  'The guy with blue hair'?"

I blushed somewhat shyly.  "That's not how I think of you."

"What do you picture me as, then?"

"The really cute guy with blue hair."

James blushed slightly.  "Um, thanks."

"GOOO BAAACK!"

This was seriously beginning to be annoying.  Even though I hadn't the faintest idea who (or what) was creating the din, I merely ignored it and continued walking forward.  Naturally, James followed me.

"I'M WARNING YOU, I SEE ALL.  I WILL TRACK YOUR EVERY MOVEMENT AND COME UP WITH A WAY THAT WILL CAUSE YOU TO GO BAHAHAHAAACK!"

I didn't think much of it.  What was the worst one could do?

If only I had thought to perceive how little I knew.

~

The mysterious creature that had been bothering us with its obnoxious threats had subsided, much to the relief of James.  He had been absolutely terrified by it.

Now we faced a new horror.  I was standing right at the edge of it.  How something so immense could exist underground was beyond me.

It was a gigantic gorge.  Far too wide to leap across.  Much too deep to climb down in and then up the other side.

I became aware of a thin cable tacked from one side of the canyon to the other.  A bad feeling was beginning to well up inside my mind…

"Hey Jessie?" James spoke tentatively.  He was exploring something farther down along the brink of the abyss.  "Remember when we were in the bike gang?"

Uh oh.  This wasn't giving me the greatest thought.

James didn't wait for me to answer.  "Remember when we rode that two-seated bicycle across the telephone line?"

Oh no.

"Do you think you could still ride one?"  James wheeled a rusty and rather out-of-date two-seated bicycle to stand by the iron peg that held the ling of metal into the hardened dirt.

I stared at him incredulously.  "You're expecting me to ride this across that?!"

"Do you think you can?"

"You sit in the front and steer.  That way, if we fall off, I can blame it all on you."

James cast a wary look at the sharp rock ledges bordering both sides of the bottomless chasm.  "If there's anything left of me to blame."

Approximately five minutes later, we were situated on the two-seated bicycle at the rim of the ravine.  James was in the front.

"Jessie?" whimpered James.

"Before we die, I just wanted you to know that I'll always love you."

I grinned.  "All righty then!  Onward, to the center of the earth!"

"AHHH!"  The bike lurched forward, pedaled furiously by James and me.  The trick is to go very quickly and not shift your weight.

However, I made a fatal mistake.  At about the halfway point, I looked down and felt my stomach flip.  I clutched James tightly around the neck, which was the wrong thing to do.

He managed to gasp out, "Jessie, you're choking me," before we fell.

Down, down, down into the never-ending pitch-black void.

~

Splash!  I didn't know which was worse, the sting from coming into contact with the river or the shocking coldness which froze me right through.  The swift current began pulling me downstream and forcing me deeper.  I fought desperately to get to the surface, dragging James along with me, for he and I had not unclasped our hands the whole way down.

I forced my head up above the rolling white swells.  James arose seconds after me, and we were both immediately pulled along by the strong flow.

We had to get out!  Who knew where this river would lead?  There.  I saw it.  Our chance of escape.

It was a rock embedded in the bank of the river.  At the last possible second, I snagged my left foot on the rock and it stopped our river cruising, but the watercourse was as strong as ever.

I could feel James' fingers slipping, but couldn't see or hear him for the dark and pounding of the rushing torrent.

Then he was gone.  Whisked away into the subterranean depths.

It didn't seem real at first, but I made all hast to get out of the river.  The din was considerably quieter on the banks of the river, but light was still nonexistent.

I didn't care.  I just had to find James.

"James?  James, are you there?"  I sprinted along the coast of the river.

THWOCK.

"Owww!"  Completely blind underground, I ran into something that nearly knocked me out.  I reached out toward it hesitantly, and, when encountering the smooth cool surface of glass, I found it was safe.  It had a hinged door, which I prized open and discovered two items inside.  One object was smooth and waxy, the other some sort of cardboard shape.

A matchbox!  I shook it open eagerly and located several matches inside.  I struck one and felt and saw the blissfulness of light return.

What I had run into was a lantern suspended from a low-hanging stalactite.  I lit it hurriedly and continued along the edge of the river.

There was no sign of James.  I began to pace at a faster gait but screeched to a halt just in time.

I was standing on the apogee of a gigantic waterfall!  Looking down, I could see that sharp rocks disrupted the surface of white-topped waves.  It would be an awfully painful way to die.

I turned away.  James was gone, and it was all because of me.  Who had suggested that we traverse this route?  Me.  Who had caused us to fall off the bike?  Who had even started this whole thing by answering the telephone?

Me.

I found a small cave enclosure in the wall and crept in, away from the devastating sight of the waterfall.  A tear trickled down my cheek and I leaned against the wall for support.  Surprised, I recoiled swiftly.

There was writing on the wall.

~

I held up the lantern and found that there were two carvings in this cavern.  They were ancient and therefore slightly worn away, but somewhat legible.  They looked something like this:

None shall die here,

But all shall suffer.

      !   

                J & G.  That would be Jennita and Giovanni.  I took a rock to the soft sandstone and carved my own drawing.

In memory of James T. Risk.

May you rest in peace.

      !

                Then I sat down and leaned against the wall and wept.  I cried myself to sleep.

                And as I slept I began to dream.

~

                It began with someone whispering, "None shall suffer here but all shall die".  Or was it, "None shall die here but all shall suffer"?  I can't remember…

~*~

                My name is Rachael.  I live here.  Underground.  My friend Lilly lives here too.  Bad things cannot happen here.  That's what I believe, anyway.  And if it does happen, there's always the other passage through the cave.

                That's not what Lilly thinks.  She's rather serious, and doesn't believe in miracles.  She only sees reality.  I don't know why we are so different, because I am her and she is me.

                I play by the river and watch the waterfall.  I explore the cave with strange carvings.  I wish to know what they mean.  I study them every day and try to find what the missing words of the poem are.

                I went there today.  There was a girl there, but she was not glad to be here.  She was crying in a corner.  I said nothing and did nothing to disturb her, but she turned and saw me.

                She paid me no heed, and didn't seem afraid.  I asked her what was wrong, for I had heard of it, but never seen sadness or suffering.

                She said, "My friend.  He- he went over the waterfall.  He's gone."

                I laughed out loud.  "He can't go over the waterfall.  No one's ever gone over the waterfall.  He's in Secret Channel."

                "What is Secret Channel?"

                There was no plainer way to put it.  "It's called Secret Channel.  It's by the river."  I turned to leave.  "I'm going to play."

                "But who are you?" asked the girl with blue eyes like mine.

                I laughed again.  "You know me, and I know you.  I've seen you before and you me, you understand.  Goodbye, now, I'm going to the river."

                I left and frolicked about on the banks.  It was funny to find her, here, of all places.  The one with blue eyes so plaintive and scarlet hair like me.

~*~

                I awoke suddenly.  Where was I?  What was my name?  Was it Rachael?

                No.  My name was Jessie.  No, it wasn't.  I knew what it really was.

                Jessica Rachael Lillis.

My eyes fell upon the carving that I had engraved into the wall.  JRL ! JTR.

James T. Risk!

I had to find him!  My dream said he had gone down Secret Channel, not the waterfall.  And where was Secret Channel?  By the river.

I snatched up the flickering lantern and made my way outside the cave.  The torrents of water cascaded over the edge of the waterfall to break up against the sharp rocks below.

But this time I wasn't interested in the waterfall.  I searched on my hands and knees by the riverbank until I found what I was looking for.

It was a bend in the current.  Some of the water actually flowed down a side passage in the riverbank about as large as a porthole.  In other words, big enough for a person to float down.

Without a second thought, I dove into the river and was instantly borne along through Secret Channel.

~

The current gradually slowed to about the speed of water in a lake.  I thrust my head up above the surface and found that I could stand.  Another lantern, lit, was hanging from the ceiling.  I snatched it down and searched around wildly.

I was on an underground sandy beach, and there, impressed firmly in the ground, was my first sign of hope.  Footprints.

I took off along the shore hollering, "James?  James, where are you?"

Wait.  What was that noise?  I could clearly hear someone speaking…

"57, 58, 59…"

I followed the voice until I was sure it was coming from around a bend in the rock.

"63, 64, 65…"

It was James.  I didn't want to surprise him, so I just laid a hand on his shoulder.  He didn't show the slightest sign of recognition.

"67, 68, 69…"

"James, what are you doing?" I asked him.

"Counting.  70, 71, 72…"

"James," I spoke firmly but not harshly, "what are you counting?"

"Them," he spoke simply.

"James, what is them?"

He gave me a look that clearly said, Gosh, can anyone be more ignorant?  "All the Gyarados that live in the pond.  Duh."

"GYARADOS?!"  I grabbed James and pulled him back from the surface as a pair of heavy crushing jaws with the rancid breath of a carnivore nearly closed on our heads.  A thick spume of water caught James squarely in the face, and he blinked as if waking up.  Catching sight of me, he blinked again like he was seeing me for the first time.

"Jessie?  What- what happened?"  I don't remember…"

"Never mind what happened.  Let's just try to get out of here."

We started off along the underground beach, with hopes that we might again see the sun.

~

"Chocolate-covered marshmallows."

"No way.  Ummm…marshmallow pudding."

"That's not a real food!"

"Sure it is.  You just take the marshmallows and mash them up and you have marshmallow pudding."

"Okay, fine.  Uhhh…Boston Crème Pie."

"Hey!  You have to use something with either pudding or marshmallows in it!"

"Boston Crème Pie does have pudding in it!"

Uh uh.  That's the Crème part."

We were attempting to take our minds off the long walk by playing a game.  You had to make up a kind of food (right now we were stuck on desserts) using one of the elements that the other person made up.  All it succeeded in doing, however, was making us hungry.

Something halted our further progress.  And it wasn't one of those minor problems, either.  The beach path that we had been following sloped downward to be swallowed up by the lapping of the lake.  Our only chance was to go back.  Unless…

Moored in the shallows was a small, two-person rowboat.

"We're going to have to, aren't we?"  James looked at me with the most melancholy look you could possibly imagine.

"Would you prefer to stay underground forever?" I asked.

James picked up an oar gingerly.  "Y'know, I had visions of us taking a romantic day off, rowing along in a little rowboat on a peaceful lake, but this whole underground thing and the Gyarados just didn't seem to be a part of that."

I placed my lantern inside the rowboat and then climbed in, followed by James, and pushed off from the shore.  James began to row, propelling us along to the far end of the lake, which we could not see, for it was an awfully large lake.

"I really don't understand why that would be a fantasy of yours, James, because you get seasick on any type of watercraft."

"I do not.  Just on ones that start to sink.  Hey, why's there all this water on the bottom of the boat?"

The boat bottom was indeed covered with about and inch of water.  I examined the woodwork and came up with a solution.  "Maybe because there's a big gaping hole in this side."

James stopped rowing and stared at me, wide-eyed.  "I'm not feeling very good…"

Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that.  "James, just keep rowing.  I'm going to bail out the boat."

The Gyarados gathered around our rapidly sinking vessel.  Their gleaming dagger-like teeth were clearly visible, and what had once been eyes glared greedily.  They were merely white, sightless orbs; robbed of vision by the subterranean depths and hundred of years of evolution.  I shuddered and kept my mind on bailing out our waterlogged boat.

Oddly, about after five more minutes of attempted self-control, I noticed that the Gyarados had begun to disperse.  I glanced at James and found that he had become aware of it, too.

"Why are they all leaving?" James spoke nervously.

I couldn't have him panic, so I thought up a reason for the Gyarados' strange behavior.  "They know we're too hard to get, so they're giving up."

James was just about to accept what I'd said when our boat lurched.  We began to spin and white spume gushed in the gap.

We had hit the rapids.  This body of water wasn't a calm lake like it had seemed, but another river with a flow as vicious as the first.

The rushing current whisked us along, in between rocks, flying helter-skelter.  I caught a glimpse past James' shoulder and felt my skin drain of color.

The rapids stopped a few feet away.  And where they stopped, they fell.

It immediately clicked inside my head.  Since the actual river ended in a waterfall, so did this inlet.

There was nothing I could do to stop the boat.  The mighty torrents of water pushed us over the edge.

It was quite different than falling from the canyon.  The water falling forces us downward, and as it did, I saw something that lightened my spirits slightly.  There were no sharp rocks at the bottom.

I closed my eyes and let myself drop.  Trying to think of pleasant things, I let my end come swiftly.

I hit the surface with such force that it must have knocked me out, for all I could see was blackness.

~

Everything was warm and cozy.  It was extremely comfortable and I wondered if this was what it was like to die.

I let my eyes drift open of their own accord and gaze up at the ceiling.

Ceiling?

Yes, there was a ceiling, and four walls and a window.  Outside I recognized the grayish drabness of our rock cavern.  This was totally unnatural.  A house underground!

The entirety of the room was a creamy green color, including the floor rug and the door.

At that moment, the door creaked open and it seemed as if a tray piled high with silver dishes, platter, and teacups wheeled itself in.  Then someone stepped out from behind it.

She was a very small girl, maybe about age five or six, but she seemed to be much older intellectually.  Clothed in a creamy green dress and white frock, she gave the appearance of being very well mannered.

"You must be hungry."  Her voice was high pitched and notably childish, reminding me of the little girl Sabrina in Saffron City.  "You may eat and drink, and then we can play a game!"  She skipped out and closed the door behind her.

I sat up and looked around.  I had been lying on a bed with pale lime-green pillows and sheets.  James was beside me, sleeping peacefully.  Snagging a strawberry-filled donut from the tray, I dangled it and inch from James' nose.  He reached up in his sleep and tried to bite it.  I laughed, the first time in a long time, and James came fully awake.

I gave him half of the donut and we sat there, munching away.  The tray was filled with all sorts of magnificent things: cakes, pies, various cordials, and all sorts of cookies and pastries.

When our hunger seemed to be relieved, the little girl returned, bringing with her a deck of cards.  "Now let's play a game!" she giggled/

After about fifteen rounds of go fish (which was strangely relaxing and stress-relieving) the little girl found her jump rope and we went outside the cottage.  James and I turned the rope for her while she sang "Engine Number Nine."

"I've been waiting," she told me afterwards.  "I've been waiting for you, for such a long time."

This phrase rang a bell somewhere, but I couldn't remember exactly where I'd heard it.

I crouched down to her level.  "I'm sorry we can't stay and play forever.  We have to continue our journey.  You're welcome to come along with us, if you'd like."

"I can't go, and you can't either until you solve my riddle."

Assuming that this was another game, I asked, "What's your riddle, then?"

She smiled and began to recite.

"What's more prickly than a briar bush,

But has no thorns that we can see?

Whose means of torture is the whip,

Of which the beloved will not be let free?"

How could a little girl come up with such a complicated anagram?  This was all very odd…

"Please stay," she begged me.  "Think about the riddle overnight and give me your answer in the morning."

How could she tell that it was morning or night underground?  Nevertheless, I consented to stay, and went off to look for James, who had seemingly disappeared.

I entered the cottage and peered into the green room where we had first turned up.  "James?  James, are you in here?"

No answer.  He wasn't there, judging by how the crisp green sheets of the bed weren't rumpled and that the light was turned off.  Oh well, he was probably in the kitchen, having a late snack.  I went to look for him there, and perhaps pilfer a snack for myself.

"James, I know you're here."  I eased the refrigerator door open and was surprised to find it full.  James had not purloined a single donut.

I abandoned the game of hide-and-seek and figured James would come out when he wanted to.  I retired back to the green room, for I was really exhausted.  In the act of climbing into the clean green sheets, however, I tripped over something, landed on the floor, and found myself gazing into a pair of frightened emerald eyes.

"James!" I squeaked in surprise.  "What are you doing down here?"

He reached out and arm and drew me close.  "Jessie, I'm scared."

I groped for the light switch.  "Maybe some light would help…"

"No!"  James grabbed my hand and pulled it away from the lamp.  "Then she'll find me!"

"Who?"

"I don't know…  But she's here!  She's looking for me!"

"James, I'm telling you, all you need is a good night's rest.  Being underground is just starting to get to you.  Come on, get up."

"No.  I don't like the green sheets.  I…I…remember them…  I want to sleep down here."

I could see that there was no reasoning with James, so I told him to mover over to make room for me.  I fell asleep almost instantly, but it was a pained, troubled sleep, in which I was constantly on the lookout for a feared enemy.

~

I awoke in a cramped and uncomfortable position.  James wasn't there, and my fingers were blue with cold.  I stretched and proceeded outside.

I found James there, by the waterfall.  As I stopped to gaze at it too, a thought crossed my mind.

How could such a small girl salvage both of us from the mighty falls and get us into the house by herself?

James began to speak, but didn't turn around.  "Jessie, I want to leave.  There's something wrong here, can't you tell?  Someone's after me; she's looking for me and she's going to find me if we don't get out of here."

I laid my hand on his arm.  "All right, but we better get going before the little girl wakes up and finds us gone."

~

"What do you mean, it's like an invisible wall?"

"I can't walk past it.  It's solid, see?"

James stepped up beside me and but his hand forward.  By the frown on his face, I concluded that he could feel it, too.  It was exactly like a wall in any house, except for the fact that it was not to be seen.

"I told you," giggled a little voice from behind me.  "I told you that you couldn't leave until you solved my riddle."

I spun around, and there, behind me, was the little girl.  "Let's go back now, shall we?" she said.  "Let's go back and play."

I hung my head.  There was nothing to do but comply.  Who knew what deadly powers this child was hiding?

~

"Jessieee," James whined, "my back hurts."

We had spent the entire day playing leapfrog.  By "day" I meant from when we had gotten back to the cottage until the little girl said it was evening.  She had then sent in her magical tray piled high with food and drink too good to be true, but neither James nor I could seem to find our appetite.

I was sitting in the green room on the bed, reading a magazine I had found when scrounging around the house.  James was getting to be a pest, pacing back and forth because he was obviously at a loss of what to do.

"James, just sit down," I finally burst out in an exasperated tone.  "Maybe that will help your back."

He flopped down on the bed beside me and sighed.  "Jessieee, I'm bored."

In all honesty, I was glad that James was back to his old self and not worrying too much about this so-called person that was trying to find him.

I put down my magazine.  "I suppose we should try and figure out this riddle."

"What riddle?"

"Oh, she never told you?  We have to find the answer to this riddle in order to leave:

What's more prickly than a briar bush,

But has no thorns that we can see?

Whose means of torture is the whip,

Of which the beloved will not be let free?"

James buried his face in the pillow.  "Jessieee, I'm tired."

"Well go to sleep then.  I'm not stopping you."

James stayed very still and I assumed that he was taking my advice.  I was about to go to sleep myself when I noticed something just under James' shirt collar.

"James, have you always had that scar?"

"What?"

"That scar.  On your neck."

"Oh.  You mean this?"  He lifted up the back of his shirt, and I could see that his back was heavily scarred.

"Who…how did…where did you get those scars?"

"Where else?"  James shrugged.  "Jessiebe-"  He turned and stared at me with wide eyes.

"James, what is it?  What's wrong?"

He grabbed my hand and took off down the hall, me following in his wake.  We stopped in front of an inconspicuous door that I never seemed to have noticed before and James placed his hand on the knob.

It was a closet, full of torturous items such as whips, mallets, paper fans, and cooking pots.  James managed a strangled sob.

"I remember now," he whispered.  "Jessiebelle used to bring me here and-and-"  Here he broke down into fits of hysterical wailing.  After he pulled himself together, he continued.  "I didn't remember because once she hit me on the head with a cooking pot and gave me amnesia…but now I remember…" James began to weep uncontrollably.

I put a comforting arm around his shoulders.  "Come on, James, we're going to get out of here."

James had more or less calmed down when we reached the door.  Thinking quickly, I grabbed a flashlight and we headed outside.

The little girl had been sitting by the river.  She sensed us coming, though, and turned around.  "Where are you going?" she asked us in her innocent child-talk.

"We're leaving."  I thought it best to be direct.  "We've solved the riddle."

"Oh really?  And what might your answer be?"

"Our answer is Jessiebelle."

For a moment the little girl's eyes flashed.  "How did you know?"

"Never mind that," I answered.  "We're leaving now, so take down the invisible wall."

The little girl began to laugh, except it wasn't her usual giggle.  It was a deep, booming voice that reminded me of the being we had heard when we first entered those subterranean depths.

Then the child and her house swirled together, and I understood.  It was all an illusion created by…by…

The figure assumed a shape.  It was a Gastly!  I should have guessed: Gastlies can produce very strong hallucinations.

"You seem to have escaped every danger here," it spoke.  "Every danger…except me."

Then it dove upon us, spreading its violet light everywhere.  I grabbed James' hand, and aided by the flashlight, we stumbled down a passageway in the rock wall.  And as we ran, I made a solemn mental vow never to whack James with anything resembling a cooking pot again.

~

"Where are we supposed to go now?"

I shined my flashlight in front of us.  It was a dead end.  We were bordered by rock on the left, right, top, bottom, and front.

"We're never going to get out of here!"  James sighed and gazed up at the ceiling, as if wishing it was the sky and not stone.  Then he smiled and took my flashlight and pointed it up.

It was a wooden trapdoor cunningly hinged into the rock above.

~

We seemed to be in some sort of cabin.  It was great to see colors other than the pewter gray of rock.  But the most glorious thing of all was the sun.

I went outside to savor the setting orb.  It glowed a deep, lustrous orange and was sinking rapidly on the horizon, causing the waters below it to turn a shade of vivid blood red.

Yes, we were by the ocean.  And towering high above it all was a rock that had the contour of a girl.  Suddenly I knew where we were.

"This is it?"  James asked from behind me.  "We came that whole way underground just to see Maiden's Peak, which we've seen before?"

I slipped my hand inside his.  "It's kind of romantic, though, don't you think?"

He tipped my chin up and placed a gentle kiss on my lips.  "I love you, Jessie."

I just smiled and kissed him back.

~

Since we hadn't a clue about what had happened to Jennita, we just decided to inhabit Maiden's Peak's shrine for a while.  After all, the summer festival was over so there wouldn't be anyone to recognize us as Rocketeers and try to stick us back in jail.  Actually, James and I had made up our minds never to offer out service to such evil as Team Rocket again.

Now it was time to rest.  One's logical part of the brain functions better after a snooze.

I found something interesting on the wooden paneling by the floorboards.  All sorts of names were carved there, including some I knew like Ketchum, Jones, and Taylor.  They were the names of all who had come to stay here.

I discovered a pencil wedged in the floorboards and I drew my last name and enclosed it in a box so it looked like this:


                There was something oddly familiar about that shape…but I couldn't think about it now…I was so tired…

~

                She was standing in front of me.  "Mother," I begged, "stay with me for a while.  Talk to me."

                She smiled and began to sing.

"Two thousand years ago

Into this world of woe

Came a father and a mother, and their child with months of three

So I'll meet you at the rock by the sea.

The mother was sent to jail

And the father had set sail

He left their child with a nursemaid while defending his country

So I'll meet you at the rock by the sea.

The mother saw him go

And she cried as her tears did flow,

'I'll wait for you forever!  But please come back to me!'

So I'll meet you at the rock by the sea.

The father will return

And some sad new he will learn

The mother turned to granite, and cannot be let free

So I'll meet you at the rock by the sea.

And then the father will cry

Because the mother did die

Long ago their fate was sealed, like it was meant to be

So I'll meet you at the rock by the sea, by the sea

I'll meet you at the rock by the sea."

                She curtsied and disappeared into the mist, ignoring my calls of "Mother!  Come back!"

~

THUMP.  I fell out of bed, entangled in the sheets.  I fought to get free of them and rushed outside.  I gazed out across the foggy waters of the ocean.

No.  There was no one here except for me and this maiden rock.

I peered at the detail of the face.  It was almost like someone had carved it.  Her gaze was fixed out over the water, too.  Waiting for her beloved to return…

"Jessie?  Jessie, what's wrong?"  James had followed me.

There was no time to explain now.  I whipped out my cell phone and dialed a number.

Hurry up, I thought as the phone rang on the other end.  Hurry up and pick up the phone!

"Hello?" said the voice on the other end.  The dark, foreboding voice that filled me with dread.

"Boss, it's me," I answered, "Jessie Lillis.  I've found her.  I've found Lost Jennita."

~

I watched with interest as a black limousine pulled up on the dirt path.  I expected to wee the Boss get out and come to meet us, but I was surprised to see a girl with golden-blonde hair tied back in pigtails run up the mountainside.

It was Cassidy.  As she drew near, she collapsed on her knees in front of me and worshiped me in a wailing voice.

"Oh, Jessie, I'm so sorry for what I did!  I don't know what it was, but please accept my humble apology!"  She drew herself up by my hand.  "Please, tell me, Jessie, what did I do?"

James spoke from behind me.  "You only tried to murder her."

Cassidy threw her arms about my neck and wept piteously.  "I'm sooo sorry!  It wasn't my fault, though!  Remember that night you saw Butch and me on guard duty?  Right before you cam, I was feeling so thirsty.  I just ducked into the chemical lab nearby and saw a bottle with a clear liquid in it that looked like water.  I took just a few quick sips and soon after you relieved us at the post, my memory went blank.  Afterwards, I found the bottle, and on it…" she reached into her pocket, "was…THIS!"

Dangling in front of my face was a sticker.  He was ugly, he was green…he was Mr. Yuk.

"That's enough now, Cassidy."  The Boss placed a comforting arm on her shoulder.  "Why don't you go back to the limo?"

Cassidy backed off towards the limousine, sobbing hysterically.  I turned to the Boss, but found him not there.

He was standing up high on the mountain peak, facing the maiden.  As I watched, he bent forward and kissed her stone cheek.  What was the trickling down his shadowed face?  He dropped his head and shook it as if giving up, and then walked back to us.

"Thank you, Jessie," he spoke.  "Your mother would be proud of you."

Despite this compliment, I felt a small flame of anger against this man.  He had put us through all this without our agreement, and on top of that, he hadn't even known my mother.  "How would you know?" I said perhaps a bit too cruelly.  "You didn't know my mother."

His masked face creased into a sad smile.  "OH, I knew your mother, Jessie.  I knew her very well.  And if you don't want to believe that, I know that your father is very proud of you right now."

There was something I wasn't catching.  "How-how do you know that?"

His smile seemed so distant somehow…longing for something he knew was impossible to get.  "I know, Jessie, because he is me."

I stared at him incredulously.  No.  This man wasn't my father.  I couldn't be related to someone so evil, someone who had wasted his life away developing and leading such a wicked organization.

And yet I knew it was true.  Deep down inside, I knew there was no use resisting.  I knew it as my father turned and got in the limousine and drove away down the dirt road.

I felt someone's hand on my shoulder.  "Come on, Jessie," whispered James.  "Let's go."

~

"Eat something, Jess-chan, please?"  James pushed a plate stacked high with waffles, powdered sugar, and – you guessed it – strawberries in my direction.  I simply rolled over in my sleeping bag and ignored it.

"Go away," I groaned.  "You don't want to love me anymore because I'm 1982 years older than you are."

As far as I could tell, James was shocked.  "That's stupid, Jessie.  I still love you more than anything in the world."

I should have found his words comforting, but they did not fill my emptiness inside.  I shut my eyes and went back to sleep.

~

"Come on, Jess-chan, you haven't eaten anything for two weeks," James begged.  "Please.  I'll make you anything you want."

His voice began to sound slurred and strange.  I looked up at the sun.  Funny, it was dark blue in color.  I let my eyelids droop and ignored the grumbling of my stomach.  What was that supposed to mean, anyway?

My vision began to change.  Ever so slowly, the scene around me melted away and was replaced by a new image.

~*~

I saw Cassidy and Butch on guard duty, and I knew I had come to watch Cassidy.  She paced back and forth, obviously bored.  As I watched, she ducked into the chemical lab nearby and uncorked the bottle labeled with a Mr. Yuk.

~*~

What was going on?  This had already happened in the past.  I ignored James' desperate sobs of "Jessie, wake up!" and tried to see more.

~*~

I saw James and myself on our date.  That's something: to see yourself.  James smiled and asked me if I wanted to dance.  I watched myself say yes and James led me to the dance floor.

~*~

Slowly it changed to become more in-depth, like I could see people's thoughts.  James was hugging me around the waist and crying into my shoulder.  It seemed like he wasn't there, though; he seemed so far away…

~*~

I saw my father as he typed his info into the computer, replacing the last name "Lillis" with the shape                     .  His thoughts told me that he longed for Jennita.  He glanced at a picture on his desk.  To my surprise, it was a picture of me.  I could tell that he missed his daughter as much as his wife.

~*~

My field of vision widened and I strained to catch every detail.  James was weeping piteously, making it hard to hear.  "Oh, god, Jessie, wake up!"  Why was he so sad?

~*~

I saw Jennita as she added the finishing touches to her lock and leapt down into the passage.  She found a Gastly there, but it was obviously injured by the way it laid on the rock floor.  I saw her take it along, making a place for it one the two-seated bicycle, keeping it safe in the rowboat for two.  She nursed it back to health on her journey, and at the end, I could tell it made a promise to her.  It would always keep her legend alive.

~*~

I wake suddenly.  It is dark, dank, and musty-smelling.  Where is Giovanni?  Oh.  Of course.  He is at home with our daughter.  I wish to once more see his familiar face.  My lantern flickers as Gastly passes in front of it.

"Are you all right, mistress?  Sleep is seemingly not coming easily to you."

"I'm fine, thank you, Gastly."  I pick up a rock, and try not to worry myself over my beloved.

"You think so much of him," Gastly comments.

I turn around and begin to carve a drawing on the soft sandstone wall.  The depiction is a heart enclosing the initials "J" and "G".  My eyes fill with tears.  "Oh, Gastly, I wonder if I'll ever see him again, or our daughter."

Gastly is silent.  I believe he knows, for Gastly is psychic.  He would never tell me, though, for he detests worrying me in the least.  I try once more to grasp at the elusive beast of sleep, and finally it gives up its struggle of avoiding me and lets me ride on its back.

~

When I awake again, my thoughts overwhelm me.  I need to get out of here, back to Giovanni and our little Jessie.  I must not die down here in the dark, without ever seeing them again.  That would be dreadful, to die underground and never have anyone know.  I wish that anyone who traverses this route may live, for I would feel awful if anyone came down here by the use of my lock and never again saw the sun.  This is a place of suffering, though; that I cannot deny.

                I turn around to see Gastly reciting an odd chant to the sandstone wall.  As I listen closely, I catch the words.

                "None shall die here,

                But all shall suffer.

                None shall die here,

                But all shall suffer."

                I grin inwardly.  My Gastly will cast any spell for me.

~*~

                I'd seen my mother's past.  That was enough for me!  Stop!  Take me back to James; back where I am safe.  But no, the scene changes yet again...

~*~

                "And why do you want this money?  Am I not paying you enough, Mr. Risk?"

                I watched and could practically see James become nervous.  "I – um – Boss – sir...  You haven't paid me in two years, and I'd like some money to take my girlfriend on a date."

                "I see.  And who is this – ahem – girlfriend?"

                "Jessie, sir.  Jessie Lillis.  My team partner."

                My father's eyes glimmered slightly behind his mask of indifference.  It was strange, because I could almost read his mind.  No, he seemed to say.  I don't want my daughter to date this one.  He doesn't have the looks of what she deserves.  But I must not speak outright of this.

                He reached to his right and grabbed a pair of dice.  "All right.  I'll gamble with you.  You must roll as many sixes as you can.  For every six you roll, you'll receive $5.  For every one you roll, let's just say I receive $5."

                James nodded his agreement and picked up the dice.  I could tell that he was optimistic, but I could also see something that he couldn't.

                He rolled the dice and they clattered to a halt halfway down the table.  Snake eyes.

                The dice were weighted.

                I wanted to cry out to James that he was being cheated, but I had left my vocal chords behind.  I watched in dismay as he grimly accepted each defeat.  There was nothing I could do.

                Why was I there?  I wanted to go back...back with James and tell him that he had been cheated.

~*~

                James rocked me gently back and forth.  Only it wasn't me.  I could feel his arms around me, except he seemed so far away.  His sobs quieted, but tears still rand down is cheeks onto my own.  I tried to talk to him, but words wouldn't come.  I tried to simply move my hand up and touch his face to let him know I was all right, but my arms seemed to be made of lead.

                Then my father appeared in front of me and took me into his arms instead of James.  His eyes softened.  Yes, his eyes.

                They were the kind, forgiving eyes of one twenty-some years of age.  His mask of evil and foreboding was replaced with a compassionate gaze that seemed to melt ice and encourage spring.

                "I know you can hear me, Jessie.  Let James give you one of his donuts and I'm sure you'll feel better."

                I tried to manage the words "You lied to me," but they wouldn't come.  It seemed as if my father didn't need words, though.  He knew exactly what I meant.

                "Yes, I'm sorry, Jessie.  But if I told you that you were 2000 years old while we had tea, I'm sure you would have – ahem – as they say nowadays – 'freaked'."

                I drifted into a dreamless sleep, but woke up in time to see my father hand James some green papery stuff.  "Take your girlfriend on a date."

~Epilogue~

                5 years later...

                "No, Jessie.  I'm warning you, don't go into that apartment."

                I stared at James with a look of puzzlement.  "Why not?  It's my apartment."

                "Because...because..."  James searched the ceiling for an excuse.  "Um...strange things happen to people's apartments on their birthdays."

                "Yeah, right.  Get out of the way or I'll have to use my mallet."

                "But you haven't used your mallet in five years!"

                "What, you think I've forgotten how?"

                Sadly James stepped away from the door.  I pulled out my key and undid the lock.

                A truly "bright" scene met my eyes.  "Yeek!  The apartment's on fire!"  On instinct I grabbed a watering can off the windowsill and doused the flames.

                As soon as I flopped down on the couch, I was greeted by a large Cheshire grin I hadn't seen in years.

                "Happy Boithday!"

                I sat bolt upright.  "Meowth?!"

                "Did you like your cake?" the cat asked.  "It took us forever to stick 2005 candles in it."

                I glanced at the smoldering mess on the table.  "Um, yeah.  It was great."

                "Presents!  Presents!  We have to do presents!"  James hopped up and down.

                "Here ya go."  Meowth dropped a small cloth package tied with string into my lap.  I undid the string and found it to be an old sock.

                "Thanks, Meowth...  I think."

                "It's one of James' socks," the cat explained.  "I knew you'd like it because I know how much you like James."

                This earned him a playful whack from James.  "Why'd you even come to wish Jessie happy birthday with such a lousy present, Meowth?" James joked.

                "I had to come," Meowth protested.  "2005 is an important number.  And my present isn't lousy.  I bet it's better than yours."

                "Well it isn't."

                "Is too."

                "Is not."

                "Is too."

                "All right!" I cried.  "James, what is your present?"

                A slight blush formed across James' nose.  "Um, I can't give it to you right now."

                I nodded, even though I didn't quite understand, but then Meowth cut in.  "Why not?" he bristled angrily.

                James was constantly avoiding my gaze.  "Because...because..."  He focused his stare at the plant on the windowsill.  "Because now isn't the right time."

                "Come on, just spit it out!"  Meowth pounced on James, knocking him to the floor.  A little box wrapped with blue and violet-spotted paper flew out of James' shirt pocket and through the air.

                "Nooo!"  James dove to try and catch it, but it was intercepted by Meowth, who presented it to me.  James grabbed it before I could, though, and tucked it away again.  "Later," he said with a wink.

~

                "Later" we were all seated around the table, drinking fruit punch and engaging in conversation.

                "So, Meowth."  I sipped my punch daintily.  "What does Meowsie do for a living?"

                Meowth's punch had dribbled down his chin, dying his fur pink.  "Um, she designs atomic bombs and timed explosives," he explained.

                I chocked, spraying fruit punch all over the table.  "That's nice," I managed to splutter.

                "Of course," Meowth continued, "not all of the work.  She needs someone to test them.  That's where I come in."

                "How do you go about that?"  James' voice had a hesitance to it that seemed to say, Do I even want to know?

                "Well," Meowth remarked in a very offhand way, "Meowsie just gives them to me, and I stick them on whatever I want.  It might be something as ordinary as a dining room chair..."

                At this, James and I quickly evacuated our chairs.

                "Or maybe a punch glass..."

                Two cups of punch were deposited on the table.

                "But perhaps I might stick it on a certain present that a certain person won't give a certain someone..."

                "Yagh!"  James tossed the small package to me.

                "I don't want it!" I yelped and batted it toward Meowth.

                Meowth calmly cat-whacked it back to James.  As the explosive present traveled around the room, I began to notice that it emitted a ticking noise.  Meowth was staring fixedly at his wrist where I assumed a watch to be.  He was counting down.  "Five...four...three...two..."

                On "one" James made a last attempt and hit the box high into the air.  It exploded, showering us all with fragments of ribbon and wrapping paper.

                Only one thing came back undamaged.  It fell slowly, glinting in the light, casting twinkling bits of blue and green around the room.  I caught glimpses of gold and sparkling white luminescence, before James lunged forward to capture it in his outstretched hand.  He stood before me with a somewhat guilty look on his face, and then revealed the most beautiful ring I had ever seen.  It was a gold band set with diamond, emerald, and sapphire.  He grinned shyly.  "Will you marry me?  Please?"