Five minutes later, we were sitting on a couch inside the building. Mostly. Jolene was not allowed to sit on account of its tail being a fire hazard, but I was, and so was the Poké Ball containing the Rattata. Charmander was still watching it, in a sort of trance.

In an attempt to call its attention, I said: "Well, um, thass our first friend!"

Nothing happened.

Shaking my head, I pressed the button on the ball. Out came a white light that gradually shaped itself into the form of a rat.* But before the transformation was even complete, it blurred and became what was more of a ball shape in the far corner of the sofa.

Then, the colours came and I could see the Rattata, who had curled itself up and lay trembling under Jolene's look. I gingerly reached out for it, but that only seemed to make it cower more.

"Um... Don' be afraid... 'm not gonna, um... Hurt you..." I said, in an attempt to soothe the creature. It cocked an ear at me, but that was all.

"Please?" I tried again. This time it jolted, and ran down to the floor; it ended up at the join between the nearest two walls, where it shook violently.

I sighed, and dropped backwards to the backrest, where my eyes closed. This was turning out to be much harder than I'd imagined.

A voice said: "It'ssss jussst afraid."

My eyelids lashed open, and I sat up straight. "Who said that?"

"I did," it explained, or more to the point, failed to explain.

I swayed my eyes around the room, but there was not a single person nearby, not counting the nurse who was talking in the phone anyway. The back of my mind noted that she was giggling and saying things like "You silly-billy man, you" to whoever was at the other end.

"Who are you, then?" I asked, standing up and scanning nooks and crevices for anyone in hiding.

"I'm right here," it said, sounding a bit exasperated by now, and I caught movement in the corner of my eye. Got you...

But the movement was Jolene, who was peering at me. It had folded its stubby arms, and the fire on its tail was flickering a bit.

"... Jolene? Was that you?"

There was no reply. I touched my forehead and tried once more to find the voice's originator.

It said "Yessss."

I whirled around, and faced it again. "You can talk?"

"Of courssssse I can," it said, its tongue intruding on its lips and giving its voice a very recognisable hiss. "Everyone talkssss." It looked down to the side, finding Rattata in the corner.

I flopped down to my knees on the floor, eyes wide open. "But... But I thought-"

"Why sssshouldn't we talk? You do," it said, turning its eyes on me again and very nearly reading my mind. "All Pokémon talk. Everything doesssss."

I was about to open my mouth and argue, but stopped myself. That made complete sense, although I had imagined that English was a bit human-and-parrot-exclusive. But just because I had never heard any Pokémon speak my mother tongue before, that didn't mean it never happened.

"Fair 'nough," I conceded, sagging a bit. "Um... But you speak, um, Charmander too, right?"

"Naturally. All Pokémon are polyglots."

"Polly... What's that mean?"

"It meanssss we can ssssspeak more than one language, of coursssssse," it explained. "Haven't you gone to ssssschool?"

" 'm only ten!" I said defiantly, and felt a bit of blood rush to my cheeks.

Jolene sighed, and dropped its arms to its side. "The point issss, yesss, we can talk." It turned to look at Rattata again, calculating something.

"Um... C'n you tell it... it don't need t'be scared?" This was said with rather more apprehension.

"I don't think it'll work... Ssssee, it undersssstandsss what you ssssay, too," it replied, then let out a wisp of air, closing its eyes. "But I'll give it a try."

I sat back and watched as the creature in the corner was approached by the Charmander. If anything, the trembling seemed to get stronger, and could very probably be called a shaking at this point.

Once or twice, I caught a snippet of "Char, charchar", and even "... won't hurt you, I'm ssssure..." I tried to listen more closely once I heard the latter, but at that point, Jolene let its shoulders drop and came back over, with a few stray glances thrown back to the other Pokémon.

It approached me where I sat in the sofa, having deemed the linoleum a bit too rough and drafty.

"It'll come around if it wantssss to," it shrugged, but there was an ounce of hopefulness to its tone.

"Oh," I said. Then I sat silently for a little while, gazing off into the distance.

After a minute or so, one that had felt like an hour, I opened my mouth again. "What's 'Char, charchar' mean?"

"That dependsss." It gave me a curious look, and it somehow felt to me that it thought I was stupid. I set my jaw in defiance and continued.

"But you said it-"

"I know. Then, it meant 'Ssssun'sss gone down', but the way you ssssaid it, it meanssss 'There are bearssss in my ssstomach'."

I stared. "Why? They're the same, aren't they?"

At that point, it actually giggled a little bit, something that made me feel even worse; it could be laughing at what I said, but also at me, and neither option was any good. I quickly folded my arms.

"The Pokémon language isss all about inflection, you ssssee," and I carefully avoided asking what 'inflection' was because I wasn't going to look any more an idiot. "Wordsss mean nothing, but the tone, regisssster, and accentsss do the talking."

There was a pause, and it watched me expectantly as I tried to figure out what it had said.

But I was still afraid of looking too stupid, so I ignored my ignorance and uttered, in carefully crafted tones: "Oh, I see."

Jolene shrugged. "I don't think you do."

"Do too!"

It gave another chuckle, and I found myself at a momentary loss for words. But just as I parted my lips to speak again, I heard a careful voice to the right, one that shook with nervousness.

"I, I'm okay n-now, I th-th-think..."

And as I turned to see who had talked, Jolene smiled triumphantly. "What'd I sssay?"

-

* In a not very real sense. Actual (and far more smelly and ugly) rats existed here, too, but were usually ignored by everyone who was not employed in sewers. The same tended to happen to the people who worked down in the sewage system, so mostly, everybody ended up happy.