Golden Rivals, Silver Friends
Chapter Four:
The Field
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I don't think we'd have even found the way into that field if it wasn't for Satoshi.
I think it was during a game of hide-and-seek. I was probably It. I liked being It, especially since Satoshi usually hid in the same places over and over again. True, the actual "seeking" part wasn't very exciting that way, but the ensuing chase always was.
Closing my eyes, I leaned against the tree that we used as our base. "One... two... three..." I counted. I could hear the rustle of branches, meaning that Satoshi was hiding in the bushes by the fence...
Nevertheless, it was cheating to start looking before you finished counting. "Four five six seven eight nine ten, ready or not here I come!" I yelled, dashing away from the tree and toward the fence.
The fence was a wooden fence that ran along the side of my backyard. All it really consisted of was wooden posts stuck into the dirt, with more logs stuck into those, running parallel to the ground. It was also the only thing that separated my house and yard from Grandpa's laboratory fields. On one side, our house's side, the grass was short and trimmed. On the other side, the field grew wild and untamed, the blades of grass long and golden in the summer heat. The adults had warned us to never go into there, since that was where Grandpa kept some of the Pokémon that the Trainers sent back to him.
Like I said, Satoshi never was good at remembering things.
Running to the bushes, I knew I had him trapped. With home base at my back, he'd have to go right through me to get to the safe spot. Plus, the fence was behind him, and he'd never jump the fence.
... he went under it.
"Satoshi! No! Wait!" I yelled, but he kept going.
"Satoshi! Don't go in there!" However, it was to no avail. This time, he wasn't listening to me...
... and I got angry.
More angry than I could remember ever being.
He hadn't listened to me.
"Get back here!" Without another thought, I was under the fence, squirming my way through the dirt and tall grass.
It was hard to find him, because the grass was nearly as tall as we were. Still, my frustration merely pushed me farther. Luckily, wherever we walked, the grass got trampled down.
"Satoshi! Where are you?! Come here!"
"Shigeru!"
There he was. I turned in the direction of his voice.
"I'm gonna tag you!"
"Shigeru!!"
I paused, hearing something different in Satoshi's voice. "Satoshi? Where are you?"
"Shigeruuu!!"
There was a high-pitched edge to his voice now. My anger quickly being doused with worry, I scrambled through the grass. I began to remember Grandpa telling me about the big Pokémon that lived in this field, and how little kids could get lost in it... "Satoshi!"
Just then, I burst into a flattened area of grass, parting the blades with my hands. There was Satoshi, sitting, legs sprawled out on the ground. He had fallen. Tears were starting to well up in his eyes.
"Satoshi? What's wrong?" I asked. He pointed to his legs. Since he was wearing shorts, the rough grass had been able to scratch him up as he ran. His bare feet looked particularly pained. It was just then that I noticed my own feet were hurting, too. Even though our feet had toughened up from climbing and running in our backyards all the time, the field grass was much sharper and stiffer.
"It's okay, Satoshi," I said, kneeling beside him. But he didn't seem much more comforted, and promptly wiped his nose and said...
"Shigeru... we lost!"
'Oh...' Just then, a certain word passed through my mind that I knew I wasn't allowed to say. But who could've blamed me? I'd seen the numbers in Grandpa's lab; this field was huge, especially to a couple of little kids, and there were supposed to be so many big Pokémon roaming around...
While I was thinking about how to get out of this mess, Satoshi got up and started toddling off past me. I turned to him and frowned. "Don't go anywhere! If you get lost... stay where you are!" But to my surprise, he didn't listen again. Frustrated, I stood up...
... and there was a Pokémon, not more than a few yards from us!
It wasn't a very big Pokémon... in fact, it didn't even come up to my waist. It was a little bird Pokémon, brown and white, and it kept chirping.
"Pidgey..." I whispered in awe. Satoshi, not paying attention, kept walking toward it. "Satoshi, wait!" I hissed. "It might attack you!"
"Bird, Shigeru!" he responded, pointing.
I rolled my eyes. "No! That's a Pidgey!"
Satoshi turned and frowned at me. "Pidgey?"
"Yes! That's its name!" All the while, the Pidgey merely looked at us with its huge eyes. I wondered if it was a Trainer's Pidgey, or if it was wild and came from Route 1. It did look tame enough...
"... bird," Satoshi finally decided. Without another word, he closed the distance between him and the Pidgey. Surprised, I watched as the Pidgey allowed Satoshi to pet it for a while.
I couldn't help myself. Taking light steps (my feet were still hurting) toward the Pidgey, I reached out and patted its head, too.
"Good Pidgey... nice Pidgey..." I murmured, like I had seen Grandpa do with other Pokémon. However, I got a bit carried away, and my hand got too close to its beak... "Ouch!" I shouted as it nipped me.
Satoshi looked at me in surprise, and I saw his face darken into a frown. "Bad bird!" he shouted, waving his arms at it. "Go away!" The Pidgey tilted its head, then took off, flapping its wings and kicking up dust at us.
When the dust had cleared and we'd stopped coughing, I rubbed my eyes and watched the Pidgey flying away. "That was Sand-Attack..." I mumbled.
"Sand... Attack..." Satoshi repeated, as if he was storing the word away (although I was sure he'd forget it in a few minutes).
"Ugh..." I muttered as I stood up. "Let's go home, Satoshi."
"Shigeru? We still lost."
I sighed, suddenly remembering our predicament. "Arrgh!"
"Shigeru?" I heard someone call, someone who wasn't Satoshi...
"Grandpa?" I yelled back, hearing someone pushing their way through the grass. "Grandpa, where are you?"
"I'm right over here, Shigeru! Stay where you are!"
I breathed out a sigh of relief. Since Grandpa was so tall, he'd be able to see over the grass better than us. "It's okay, Satoshi. Grandpa's coming."
"Grampa! Grampa!" Satoshi shouted happily.
In no time at all, Grandpa had found us and was taking us back home, carrying Satoshi piggyback and holding my hand the whole way. Then, we got a long, long lecture about how we should never go out into the fields by ourselves, how we could've gotten hurt, blah blah blah. When Grandpa started getting off track and reciting poetry about the Pokémon in the field ("Strong hooves pounding down; Many tails whipping like blades; Tauros are running"), Satoshi and I figured that was a good enough time to get away.
We never told anyone about the incident with the Pidgey. After all, its beak didn't even break the skin on my hand.
And after that, we spent all of our extra time in that field.
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I paused and looked down the road. There was still a long way to go before I could even dream of reaching Tokiwa...
But at least I knew where I had been that day. It must have been Grandpa's field. And since the grass had seemed shorter than that first day, I must have been older then.
I started walking again, but it was an automatic movement. My mind was elsewhere.
'What else happened after that...?'
Then I remembered.
School.
