Go Fish was an easy card game, especially in the middle of Zander's ever-cluttered bedroom. The only space was the rug in the middle of the room, patterned with winged bug-type pokémon's silhouettes. Laying on her stomach, kicking her feet idly, Veronica kept bumping her toes into a fort Zander had built and hadn't taken apart, or some old toy that he swore his pokémon liked too much to get rid of.
She could almost believe that last part; Talia, a venonat, was a very particular creature, and more headstrong than her human companion. She was thoroughly, almost pompously, disinterested in their game; she much preferred playing on her and Zander's tablet, or working on her fort underneath his bed. Card games had never been her favorite, despite the fact that she was more than capable of playing them.
So Zander and Veronica played alone, casually asking each other for cards between other, more important topics, such as which of Zander's comic book superheros was the best, or whether or not next week's test was going to be hard.
"I think it will be," Veronica said, more despondent than Zander was. He never cared too much about hard quizzes, but that was because he was smart.
"We could study while you're here," he suggested, and laughed when she immediately dropped her head into her cards and groaned. Talia chirped, always waiting to 'help' with studying. Zander stopped whatever she might have done next by saying, "Okay, okay. Got any eights?"
She handed the one she had over, looking up enough to see over his shoulder. The curtain was drawn, but she could feel time moving, and could almost imagine the sun starting to dip lower in the sky. Outside, the shadows would start lengthening, chasing the day into night.
Veronica huffed a breath and swallowed. She blinked imagined sunspots out of her eyes and asked him, "How about any sixes?"
He won that game, and she won the next, and that left them tied. Talia shuffled their deck for them, her eyes glowing weakly fuschia as she used psychic energy to manipulate the cards. They fell neatly into Zander's hand when she was done. "Thanks, Tali," he said, and then, "How about old maid next?"
Veronica, though, was just about done with cards. "We could do something else," she said, and he obligingly tucked the cards away in their box. They left the bug rug to check out the cupboard of board games, all lovingly sorted by Talia in ways that made no sense to Veronica, but Zander, of course, understood perfectly.
They'd played every game in there dozens of times, from Candy Land to Munchkin and back to Ekans and Ladders, and most of them had gotten boring. Talia's favorite was Rattata Trap; after some chirping from her, they pulled it out so she could set it up.
She was just about done when Zander's mom knocked on his door. "Mail's here," Marelize said, and handed Zander a thick envelope when he'd scrambled to his feet. "I think it's the preparatory academy's curricular list for next year." She smiled at Veronica. The one Veronica returned grew much more strained when she said, "I bet yours is waiting for you at home, too, Ronnie."
"Thanks, Mom," Zander chirped, ripping open the envelope and spreading the papers out on his cluttered desk. She left him to it, and the two kids alone. Veronica came to stand by him, and for a little while there was just the plastic clicking of Talia setting the game up, and the paper shuffle of Zander dragging his notes out.
He had an entire notebook page filled out with lists of credits he'd need to get into the courses he wanted to take down the line. Not for the first time, Veronica felt lost seeing how much he had things planned out where she didn't. He was already circling certain classes in pencil.
In Veronica's opinion, no kid their age should be this worried about school, but Zander had always been sure of himself and what he wanted. He had a confidence Veronica could never relate to. She didn't even know if she liked the nickname Ronnie, and Zander, when he'd come out as a boy, had immediately known what he wanted his new name to be. They'd been even younger then.
"What classes do you think you'll take?" Zander asked. "We're gonna be done with the basics after this year! Now we can specialize."
"I don't know," Veronica said, despondent. She was staring at the list of classes, what credits they'd give, and even the later pages that showed which classes would require which credits. It made her head spin. She didn't want to think about what she needed now, or how that would affect what she'd have to do in the future; she didn't like thinking about the future at all.
"I'm going into medical science, I think," Zander said, swiping a circle around a specific class. "I told you my mom took me to that career counselor, right?"
"You're not even supposed to go to those until next year," Veronica muttered.
"Well, I wanted to, so there." He stuck his tongue out at her. "But I got a lot of good advice about it. I don't know what kinda medical field I want to go into yet, but probably I will in a couple years. And anyway, we've still got plenty of time to finalize stuff."
It didn't feel like it to Veronica. Even just looking at Zander's pile of papers was too much, too soon for her. She didn't want to pick out classes! She didn't want to decide on a career yet!
"What are you thinking about doing?" Zander asked, when she had been too quiet for too long.
"I don't know," Veronica admitted, going to sit back down next to Talia, who was waiting semi-patiently for the game to start. "My mom definitely wants me to go into further education, but I don't know what I want to do. I'm good with math and science, so I could probably do something with that, but…" She met Talia's gaze, those big lensed eyes reflecting the world around her in disorienting ways. "But I still want to be a trainer."
"Your mom still won't let you?"
He was sympathetic, but Veronica still grimaced. "I haven't asked in a long time," she said. "Last time I did she said no, I'm not allowed, and that I should stop asking." Zander came back to sit with them. Talia hopped into his lap, and he wrapped his arms around her with barely a thought. Longing twisted in Veronica's chest. "I'm not even allowed to have a companion pokémon. Mom says it would distract me from school."
Zander wrinkled his nose. "Did you tell her about how my mom uses Talia to bribe me?"
"I did! I told her all about how when you get good grades, you get to take Talia shopping for stuff." Veronica had seen first hand Talia's tantrums when Zander tried to put off his homework even a little.
Talia was obsessed with her fort, a shadowy mess of fabric and toys that made a weird little maze. Some of the fabric scraps were shirts Zander had outgrown, but more of it was from fabric stores. Sometimes Veronica got to go shopping with them, and had watched Talia drag down bolts of fabric patterns she desperately wanted. A lot of those fabrics were, now, chewed into shapes she'd spent hours on.
Veronica said, glumly, "She didn't care, though. Even if she thinks it would work. I wish she would. It's hard to do school work lately."
Zander made a sympathetic noise in his throat. "Why?"
"I dunno. It's like it doesn't feel worth it or something." She flopped over onto her side, searching out shapes and patterns in Talia's fort. "I don't want to worry about school anymore. I want to go see the rest of Isnalt. I've never been out of Candling, and I'm already twelve. She won't even take me to Bastic, and it's like ten minutes away."
Zander nudged her leg with his foot. "You shouldn't let it stop you!" he chirped in that tone she knew meant he was about to tell a joke. "It didn't stop your brother!" Like most of his jokes, it fell flat.
Still, Veronica tried to laugh. It wasn't very convincing. Zander picked up on that, and said, "Have you heard from him lately? How is he?"
"I don't know." Veronica couldn't help her tone from going all quiet. "I still haven't seen him since he left." He'd never even called, not even on her birthdays.
"Oh." Zander wavered for a moment, his brow all furrowed like it did when he'd said something stupid, or accidentally hurt her feelings, and Veronica had to save them both.
"Talia wants to play Rattata Trap," she reminded him, and Talia chirped in enthusiastic agreement. So they played the game, and Talia, of course, won; no one could hope to beat her at her favorite game.
"I think she cheats," Veronica said, after. Outraged, Talia chattered a screech and threw a piece of cardboard cheese at her. "That didn't convince me you're not!"
"She might cheat," Zander agreed, and the betrayal was too much for Talia. She upended the game and made them both pick it all up while she sulked and chewed on a tattered piece of polkadot fabric.
When the room was as clean as Zander's room ever got, he gave Talia a pecha berry to soothe her. She accepted it begrudgingly, and followed them into the living room, claiming the middle seat between them on the couch. Between Talia's chewing, and the sounds of Zander's video game system powering up, he and Veronica argued over which game to play.
Zander didn't have that many games, usually spending spare money on things for Talia, but he had enough that it was a good-natured fight to choose between them, same with the board games. Though Veronica didn't have a game console of her own at home, she spent enough time with Zander's family that she wasn't all that worse at the games than he was.
In the end, they picked out two games to play back to back. The first was their favorite racing game, Doduo Dash, one they'd played enough together to unlock nearly everything. He always waited to unlock things with her; pointing that out made him say he just didn't want to play alone, but Veronica had known Zander since they'd started school. He just liked to make sure she was included.
The first course they picked their favorite kart-and-rider combinations, Veronica with her alcremie and cake kart, and Zander going with mushroom kart butterfree. Three laps later they'd both lost, too rusty to win, but they got better as kept at it. Eventually, even switching karts and riders with the randomizer, they were both neck and neck, winning in turns.
"I won more than you," Zander said, smug, and Veronica squawked that he absolutely didn't, she did, there were so many more times she won, for sure, definitely!
They'd even managed to unlock a new rider and kart, a lucario and a water-themed kart that definitely didn't match their new racer. That, they decided, was a decent enough stopping place in that particular game.
They started up Veronica's choice next, a game she always felt two parts guilty and one part giddy to play: a battle simulator.
Neither of them were particularly good at this one. Zander always focused too heavily on bug types, his favorite, and Veronica just didn't know how to build a good team. She barely knew anything about pokémon, how types matched up, or even what pokémon were which types. The game told her some of it, but not all of it, and they'd never paid much attention to the tutorials, which included too much text.
Who won came down to sheer luck and nothing about skill. Sometimes she had a good fire- or flying-type that could take out his bugs with barely any issue, and other times he'd get off a quiver dance combo late enough in the game that she'd go down one-versus-three.
"It's not real battling, anyway," Zander said, while she flipped through the fairy types. "Real battling isn't so turn-based. I think."
Alcremie was so cute, Veronica thought to herself with a sigh. They weren't native to Isnalt, though, which was such a shame. Even if she did manage to become a trainer someday, she'd have a hard time getting one of them. And that was if she was good at battling.
"Do you think it's harder or easier?" she asked, half-rhetorically.
Zander shrugged. "I have no idea! This is the closest I've ever gotten."
Talia chirped something knowingly, as if she was telling them battling secrets, and Zander snorted, always able to decipher her sounds.
"Talia, you hate battling," he reminded her.
"Neerp," she told him, and he shrugged like she was right, a whole what-can-you-do gesture.
Across the room, a digital clock blared the time at her. Five o'clock. They had an hour left before Veronica's mother would come to get her.
If Zander knew of the impending doom, he didn't say. Instead he got off the couch, fetched them both granola bars, and wandered back to his room. Veronica followed.
He'd thrown open his old toy bin, digging through the junk inside. He yanked out an oversized box of crayons and a stack of creased, rumpled coloring books.
"Contest," he declared, like he'd been planning it for ages and hadn't, she suspected, come up with this on the way back to his room. He slapped the books onto the ground, dumping the crayons out next to them. "Whoever colors the best pokémon wins."
"What defines best?" Veronica asked, suspicious, already sitting down on the carpet. Zander flopped onto his stomach, dragging his book closer.
"Let's make our own regional variants! That way we don't have to stick to the real colors. And, um, Talia can judge." He wrinkled his nose at her. "Right, Talia?"
"Geep," she responded, examining the crayons and books with interest. She levitated a purple crayon and compared it to her own fluff.
"That's a yes," Zander said, and opened his coloring book. Veronica mirrored him.
A good percentage of the pages were colored in, including some of the best pokémon, but there was enough to work with. There was no Alcremie in this book like she'd hoped for, but there were other fairy types. Azumarill was a fairy-type, right? And water.
Veronica scooped up a few crayons and considered them. Maybe she'd lean more into the fairy-type and change it to something else.
Wistfully, she wished she knew more than the very basics. She didn't know what features made a pokémon the type it was. But she knew alcremie, and she knew it was a fairy-type, so she turned the azumarill into a goopy, alcremie-like fairy type. Whatever secondary type it had she had no idea.
She gave it a bauble-like tail, with a predominately pink and white coloration, trying to blend some blue in there just to stick with the real color azumarill was. She gave it a couple of color swirls, and tried to goop frosting-like fluff onto of it.
When she finished, Zander was close behind her. They both presented their art to Talia, who mumbled to herself while she looked between them.
Zander had chosen a gogoat and turned it into a fire type. Its leaf mane had been changed into flames, and he'd tried some weird blending thing to make the horns look all smokey, same with the hooves. He'd done a really good job changing its back stripes into jagged, bright yellow ones. Its white socks were now black.
Her own azumarill was cleaner in most spots, though. She had stayed more in the lines. He got too overzealous with his ideas, scribbling too wildly. But, ultimately, it was up to Talia.
Eventually, the venonat warbled and gestured towards Zander's.
"This was rigged," Veronica faux-wailed over Zander's cheering. "How am I supposed to win when you're playing favorites!"
"Sore loser," Zander crowed, and for that she grabbed at him. He grabbed back and they ended up laying down next to each other on the rug after a brief tussle.
If it wasn't a Sunday, she might have been able to spend the night. They did that sometimes, when they both had Saturdays free, but lately Veronica was attending extra study sessions at the library, and Zander had been visiting family in Fracturra every Saturday for a month.
It had to have been close to an hour since they'd left the living room. How many minutes left until seven? "Zander," Veronica started, uncertain and much too quiet. She was going to try again, but someone rapped on Zander's partially opened door.
"Hey, kids," his dad said, swinging the door open as they sat up. "Ronnie, your mom called to say she's on her way. You got your stuff together?"
The crushing disappointment of being sent home was familiar by this point. "I'll get it, sir," she said, and moved for her backpack. She didn't have too many things, just a pack of game cards that had fallen out. It only took a second, then she was following Zander's dad out into the living room.
"Did you two have fun?" Zander's dad, Raphael, asked. He was a tall man, and broad, easily lifting up his son when Zander latched onto his arm to dangle off.
"Yes," Zander sing-songed. "We had a lot of fun, and she should come back next week!"
Raphael laughed. "Sure, we'll ask Andromeda if she can." With his free hand, he gave Veronica a friendly, affectionate pat on the shoulder. "Sound good to you?"
"I'd really like that," Veronica said. Talia ran between her legs to camp by the door, like a greeter at the fancy restaurants she'd walked by.
Zander dropped off his dads arm and dragged Veronica back to the couch, making her sit. She couldn't help leaning her head against his shoulder; he was going to be tall, she thought, just like his parents. He was already inching up to get taller than her, and they'd been the same height the last few years.
Raphael left them alone to make dinner while they waited for Veronica's mom. Zander kicked his legs. "School," he said, all thoughtful like he was about to get back into it.
And that was too terrible, so, "Um. Hey. None of your big brother's friends have heard anything about Leo, have they?" she ventured, half a whisper.
He shrugged. "Not that he's told me. I could ask him next time he calls home, though!"
"Okay," she said, and that was good, but it also distracted Zander, who, now on the topic of his older brother, who was, like, twenty now; he had a lot to say. Veronica had only ever met Keoni a few times, and even then just passingly, but he was cool. She was fine listening to Zander talk about him.
Because Keoni was really nice. He'd given her brother his first pokémon, which had let him get out of town all the faster. He hadn't even asked for anything in return, just that Leo treated the cubone kindly. Then he'd left, and as far as Veronica knew, no one had heard from Leo since. Except maybe Keoni or his friends, since he'd been everywhere in Isnalt and knew like, three kajillion people.
It wasn't long before Andromeda arrived and Raphael came back in to let her in the door. They had a chat, a big long one about things adults cared about, that went roughly like this:
"Hey, how are you, how's work? Haha, yeah, something like that happened to me, too. Oh, the kids? Well, you know, school!" Like they had nothing else interesting to talk about. All the talk about school just meant Veronica knew what her mom would want to talk to her about once they were home.
Veronica gave Zander a hug goodbye, squeezed him tight, ruffled Talia, got ruffled by Raphael, and, finally,snagged a pretend-sneaked baggie of cookies from Marelize just as they were leaving.
Veronica and her mother walked out into the dim spring night, right on the cusp of summer, where it was dark but not as dark as it had been at this time last week.
"Dinner's ready when we get home," Mom said. "I made scalloped potatoes and roasted vegetables."
"That sounds good," Veronica mumbled, walking right behind her mom. They made it to the tram stop, stepping up. Here Veronica kept her hand in her mom's, just to make sure they weren't jostled away from each other.
The tram was always fun, at least. It was one of a few that went through Candling, following their own path through the tracks that lined the city. Veronica liked riding them, passing through little shopping malls and stretches of houses, all the humans and pokémon existing together. This time she was standing next to an extremely sleepy quagsire, one flipper-like hand anchored loosely to a handlebar, just about to nod off. There was a human next to it, a hand keeping it from falling over.
Veronica risked a glance at her mother. Andromeda was looking out the window, far off, in a way that she knew was specifically not looking at the quagsire. She took the chance to examine them more closely, though in the end there was nothing from their relationship she could glean from it. She thought maybe they worked together, but whatever job it was she had no clue.
It took about twenty minutes to get home from Zander's on the tram. Fifteen to their stop, another five to their house. Veronica rocked on her feet waiting for Andromeda to unlock the door. Inside, she dropped her backpack in her room and then wandered back to the kitchen where her mother plated up dinner.
"Do you have any homework?" she asked, like she usually did.
"No, I finished it already," Veronica said, taking her plate.
"Alright," Andromeda said. "You got your list of classes for next week. Look at it after dinner, okay? We'll talk about what you'll take tomorrow."
"Okay, mom." She didn't risk a sigh. She just shoveled scalloped potatoes into her mouth, half-mournfully, and as soon as her plate was clear, rinsed, and put in the dishwasher she took her envelope and booked it back to her room.
Author's note: WDPJ has been an idea I've had for over a decade. It's gone through a lot of changes over the years, but I think I-and it-are finally ready to have it properly told. I hope you enjoy the journey.