I made it back to the Pokémon Centre in Viridian Cluster-of-buildings without anything strange happening. Kevin's big sister, Helen, had called on me to hand me a map, clearly to help – although I wasn't sure how to read a map and hadn't dared to ask.

Jolene was still not awake when I came in. It had fallen asleep, for some reason I couldn't understand, but it seemed to be doing a full run of it, with dreams and all.

Instead of waking it up, which would've been rude, I headed back into the shop. There, Mr. Dale was nodding amiably at some woman he hadn't known five minutes ago, and would stop knowing in four or so hours.

I walked up to the counter.

"Ah, young child!" he exclaimed, as the lady ambled off. "How are you? Who are you?"

"Um, 'm jus' gonna buy, um... A few things, mist'r Dale."

"What is this Mistredayle, please?"

"Um, you, mist'r Dale, sir."

He glanced down at the reminder plate. "Oh, I see, yes yes. So what will it be, little one?"

I bit my lip as I scanned the small display counter behind him. It was where he put the most popular items, the ones that everybody wanted to buy: Poké Balls, Escape Ropes, Repels… Of course, food and medicine were also quite popular, but most of that was stuffed in the coolers at the back wall.

"'ll have... Five Poké Balls, mist'r Dale. An', an' some med'cine…"

"Medcine? Is that big black pointy thing with buttons?"

I stopped, thinking back to the cabinet we had back home. A few black things came to mind, and there had definitely been a few pointy things in there, but 'big' and 'buttons' was worrying.

"... No, mist'r, it's... It's med'cine, mist'r."

"Oh? Medcine? You mean like small colourful thing with pages, that you read-"

"No, mist'r Dale, it's med'cine!"

He stared at me as though wondering what to do about me. "… So you don't want big pointy thing with-"

"I- I fink 'll jus' take th' Poké Balls, mist'r Dale," I muttered, to stop him doing something I would regret.

He rambled back into the store room. After a montage of tumbling noises, he returned, with five small spheres held in a plastic bag. Handing it to me, and accepting my gingerly offered banknote as payment, he waved.

"There's order, yes yes. Come back tomorrow?"

As I carefully inched myself back towards the door, I muttered: "Um, right, mist'r Dale..."

Then, with a "Bye!" I disappeared as quickly as I could through the open doorway.