9

Preposterous Accusations On Melemele... Moon Child's Mother Takes the Stand... Lovebirds Made Airborne

The day after Professor Kukui found out that Rattata was not qualified to be the guardian deity of Melemele Island, Youngster Joey and Officer Jenny were sent before the island tribunal to have their fates decided. First, character witnesses were called to explain to the councilmen exactly who it was they were dealing with.

"Something is wrong with the policewoman, too," Professor Kukui declared from the stand. Officer Jenny, who had ingested 800 micrograms of lysergic acid diethylamide shortly before the trial, gave him a dreamy smile and a wink. All around them the storm and its purple tornados raged. Youngster Joey and Officer Jenny were held in a raised bamboo cage where they could be seen by the councilmen and the judge. The judge was Hala, the Melemele Kahuna.

"What do you mean, 'wrong'?" Hala asked.

"There's just something wrong about her. I don't think she's really a police officer, for one thing," Kukui said, glaring at Officer Jenny. "She and the boy are always giving each other mischievous looks, and they both act like everything is hilarious, even when it clearly isn't. I think they might be using… marijuana."

"That's preposterous!" Youngster Joey screamed, and shook the bamboo struts forming the bars of the cage. Officer Jenny found great hilarity in his use of the word 'preposterous' and began to giggle into her knees.

"Preposterous my butt, young cousin," Professor Kukui said. He thrust his index finger at the defendants. "I know reefer madness when I see it. The both of you's are addicted!"

"That's enough, Professor," Hala said wearily. Professor Kukui got up and went back to where the other witnesses were congregated. Moon Child's mother was called to the stand next.

"I don't know about reefer madness, but it's true that Youngster Joey did nominate that lackluster Rattata to be the new guardian deity." Moon Child's mother wiped a tear from her cheek. "We had such hope that all could be made right again. Such trust. And look what we got. A Level 8 Rattata!"

"Rattata is the greatest man I've ever known," Youngster Joey yelled.

"He even called me," Moon Child's mother said weepily. "At 11 P.M. I was already in bed. I got up to answer the phone, thinking maybe it was Moon Child, calling to apologize for all this craziness. But it was Youngster Joey. He wasn't making any sense. I don't know how he got my number. All I could make out was 'Rattata this' and 'Rattata that.' I didn't fall back asleep the whole rest of the night. I was afraid he was going to spring out of the closet with another update on Rattata, or appear at my window."

Officer Jenny looked up from her knees with wild, dilated pupils that twitched from Moon Child's mother to Hala to Youngster Joey beside her. She had not known he possessed the power to appear in closets and at windows.

"Silence," Hala thundered. He sent Moon Child's mother away and called to the stand a representative of Alolan Bell, the phone company through which Youngster Joey had cell phone service.

"His overages are utterly goddamn ridiculous," the tidy little man explained, lighting a cigarette. "To be honest, I'm embarrassed for him. He could save hundreds of dollars a month if he'd sign up for a package that includes unlimited nights and weekends. All day and night, this little dude is calling people and using data. Last month he used 179 gigabytes of data. That's bigger than my tablet's entire hard drive. And I don't know if it's legal for me to tell you this, but most of that data went toward Google searches for pictures of Rattatas."

"You shut your lying mouth!" Youngster Joey screamed.

"Who even knows where his parents are, or why they don't do something about his absurd bill. His account is thirty-seven months past due. And who even knows what possesses us to keep said account open for him."

"My mom is stuck between the refrigerator and the sink, back in Johto," Youngster Joey cried. It seemed like everyone was ganging up on him about things he couldn't control, such as Rattata's Level and his mother's unfortunate condition of being trapped in the kitchen.

The Alolan Bell representative puffed on his cigarette for a minute, contemplating. "Maybe it isn't my place," he said, "seeing as how I have no relation to the defendants. But I believe they should be launched into the sea with a catapult. The kid and the policewoman both. It's said that it takes a village to raise a child, right? Well, hell, I'm part of a village—a phone company, I mean, but a company could be described as a form of village. Basically, what I'm saying is that if anyone gets to fire the catapult, I think it had ought to be me. I've always wanted to cut a catapult's rope with a machete and feel the pride of knowing I had sent something flying up into the sky."

"We're going to the sky!" Officer Jenny cried happily.

Hala nodded seriously. "The catapult idea resonates with me," he admitted.

"You people are all out of your minds," Youngster Joey murmured in disbelief. He had always felt like he was the weirdest one in the room, no matter which room he was in, but today he had learned an important lesson about underestimating the weirdness of others.

The catapult was built despite the raging storm and continuing evacuation effort. The people of Melemele constructed it from palm trunks and whatever else they had lying around. When the catapult was complete, it was towed to the beach and Youngster Joey and Officer Jenny, still inside their bamboo cage, were loaded into the bucket.

"Rattata will get you for this," Youngster Joey promised in a voice bright with vengeance. "A curse upon this place. A pox upon your houses, every last one! Let Melemele Island be completely destroyed! Let it sink into the sea!"

Thunder cracked overhead, and a purple tornado dancing a few miles beyond the shore suddenly sucked a Lapras up into the sky. The Lapras made a loud, mewing cry that seemed to serve as an ominous punctuation mark for Joey's words. The people of Melemele who had gathered to watch the launch looked at one another uneasily. Most of them did believe in the potency of curses.

Officer Jenny, whose system was finally seeing a bit of success in pushing back the recent LSD invasion, looked around at what was going on. "Why are we in a catapult?" she asked innocently.

"Rattata will ruin you all," Youngster Joey roared. The day's fading light painted his face in terrible violet slashes of shadow. His wet t-shirt hung from his skinny shoulders like a battle standard. The people were suddenly very much afraid.

"Fore!" cried the Alolan Bell man. He swung his machete and severed the rope holding the catapult's cup, and WHOOM, the machine launched Youngster Joey and Officer Jenny into the air. Before long they were specks, and then the specks landed in the ocean with an audible splash.

The catapulting saved their lives, as it turned out. The cage broke upon hitting the surface of the water, and they easily swam to one of the leaving evacuation boats headed for Akala. The boat was happy to pick them up. And an hour later, Youngster Joey's curse came true in the form of General H. G. Peckerham's Charizard bomb raid, which razed Melemele with colossal thudding blooms of red and white light and choking black smoke and flying clods of rock and earth that returned the island to a primeval wasteland that could support no living thing ever again.