As they pull into the driveway, Lillian's dad lets out an angry sigh. Their trashcan has been tipped over on its side and garbage is strewn about across the street. "Thirty minutes," he says, probably to the unknown trashcan attacker since he isn't looking at Lillian in the passenger seat. "I leave the house for thirty minutes to pick up my daughter from school and this happens. Just what I needed today."
"Who do you think it was, Dad?" Lillian asks cautiously. He's been pretty stressed recently - Lillian knows she's not supposed to know that every job application he's sent in has been turned down, that the rent's gone up again, that her mom's been working late to try and cover the gaps. But there's been too many nights where she couldn't sleep and she'd snuck out of her bedroom only to overhear her parents talking quietly in the kitchen.
He sighs again. "Probably just some stray. A poochyena or a zigzagoon, something like that. Lillian, sweetheart, sorry to ask but could you clean this up for me? I've got to go make a phone call."
"Sure, Dad." She follows him inside long enough to dump her bag in her room and grab the broom, then goes back out. There's muddy pawmarks on the pavement and long dark hairs caught on a broken tin, but Lillian doesn't know enough to identify the pokemon. Not many of her friends have pokemon of their own yet and their school doesn't have the facilities for training.
Lillian wants to be a trainer, has done since she was six and she read the Felicity Mars books. Felicity had seemed so cool and daring: travelling with her loyal arcanine, foiling evil plots, and discovering ancient treasures. Lillian's since realised how unrealistic the books are, but the idea of seeing new places with a pokemon by her side is still pretty appealing.
The problem is that she won't be able to get a pokemon until she's older.
Lillian knows how expensive a pokemon can be, especially when taking training into account. Anything other than perhaps a silcoon or cascoon still needs food, grooming equipment, vet visits (pokemon centers are only free for travelling trainers and emergencies), a specialised environment if it might grow or evolve into anything larger than about a foot tall, socialisation with other pokemon and humans - the list goes on. Neither of her parents have pokemon of their own - her dad had as a kid, but he'd released them after finishing the standard year - so nothing in their home is set up to accommodate one. And although she knows there are trainers that do so, it'd be cruel to keep a pokemon in its ball every night.
Once she's finished cleaning up the trash and the bin is upright again, Lillian heads back inside. Her dad's still on the phone just inside the kitchen, but he gives her a tired smile when she tells him quietly that the bin's sorted. She goes back to her room and settles in with her homework - the least she can do to help out her parents is not to cause them further stress about her grades. The worksheets aren't too difficult anyway. Twenty maths questions, write a short poem, describe four different methods of evolution… Lillian's trying to remember the proper name for trade-based evolutions (alternating familial something social something - nope, it's gone) when her dad comes in.
"Hey there, sweetheart," he says, leaning against her desk. "Thanks for taking care of that for me. Your mom and I really appreciate how much you've been helping out around the house."
"No problem, Dad," she tells him, standing and giving him a hug.
He smiles down at her, the warmth in his expression briefly lifting the stress lines from his face. "We were also talking about… well, your birthday this weekend. One of my old friends has a surskit that he caught last year but isn't really fitting with his team and he's willing to sell her to us. I know it's not a cool starter like you probably want, but she's already partly trained and you'd have a few months to get to know each other before starting out properly. Is that something you'd like?"
For a moment, Lillian can't speak. Her throat is thick with emotion, tears welling up in her eyes. "Dad," she chokes out, wrapping her arms around him tighter. "I would love that. Thank you so, so much."
Lillian knows that her first few weeks will be difficult. Surskit are delicate and she'll need to catch something sturdier pretty early on. But that her parents are willing to do this for her means the world, and she won't disappoint them by taking it for granted.
