Chapter 5
As time went on, Luke and Caterpie had grown closer and closer.
With a steady supply of fresh fruit from his understanding mother, Luke always had something sweet to offer his little green friend. Each day, the two played in the morning before school and played in the afternoon after school. Caterpie even came to school with Luke a few times, hiding in his backpack, chewing small holes in random objects, and pilfering the contents of Luke’s lunch box during the day.
Even though Luke had resumed biking to and from school again, meaning he no longer had to walk through the woods, he still made certain to visit Caterpie in the forest after he got home each day.
In the evenings, Caterpie had continued to sleep in Luke’s room and, so far, had not been caught.
There had been a few close calls, though. A couple days earlier, for instance, Caterpie inexplicably began spraying strands of silk onto the ceiling of Luke’s room during the night. When Luke awoke, he was met with an unruly mess of silk in the upper corner of his room. Somehow, the young man managed to unstick and dispose of the silk before his mother or father saw it.
Caterpie seemed rather cross about Luke undoing his work but, aside from a few unpleasantly sharp squeals of protest, seemed to accept Luke’s decision. The young man had no idea why Caterpie would want to make such a mess.
Caterpie had no idea why Luke would want to avoid the mess.
Luke was now approaching the counseling department at the middle school were he was in the eighth grade. He had received a call via intercom during class asking him to report there. Luke found this to be rather odd; counseling sessions were usually held before or after school, not in the middle of class.
“Hello, Ms. Watson...” Luke said unenthusiastically as he entered the counseling office and grudgingly sat down in front of the counselor’s desk.
He braced himself inwardly as he waited to hear what the brown-haired woman before him had say. He hated guidance counselors. All they ever did was tell him how great he was and how he could do anything he wanted to. This wouldn’t normally be considered bad news, but Luke wasn’t found of choices. He was the sort of person that takes ten minutes just to choose what flavor of ice cream to order. Then, as soon as he had his cone, he would find himself wishing he had chosen a different flavor.
“I have exciting news for you, Luke.” The counselor smiled, clearly more enthused about this meeting than the student was, “We’ve got your test scores back from the standardized testing.”
Luke perked up a bit. He may not like counselors, but he did like tests. He had never met a test he couldn’t ace, with a little study of course.
“You scored in the 98th percentile...” Ms. Watson began.
Luke raised his eyebrows and nodded in self-approval. Being in the top two percent of his school was pretty good.
“...for all of Kanto.” the counselor finished.
“The whole nation?” Luke gawked. Even he didn’t expect to have done that well.
The counselor went on to say, “In fact, you scored higher than most tenth graders.”
Sensing the direction the conversation was about to take, the fourteen year old asked, “What does this mean for me?”
“For starters, it means we might be able to advance you two grades. Meaning you’d jump right into your junior year of high school this August. All you have to do is pass a proficiency exam to prove you already know what the ninth and tenth grades would teach you.” She said with a giddy grin; she didn’t get to give students news this good very often. Then she went on, saying “Beyond that, it can mean almost anything...”
She went on to explain about scholarships and grants and the endless number of career fields Luke could choose to go into.
The young man slumped down into his chair as the counselor spoke, an anxious knot growing in his stomach; there were too many choices. He had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, no idea what career field he wanted to choose. Compared to choosing ice cream flavors, this was a nightmare.
Just then, he noticed a small hole in the knee of his jeans that Caterpie had chewed a few days earlier. The young man smiled, and the knot in his stomach melted away–at least he knew one thing he wanted to do with his life.
“Here, this is for you,” The counselor said as she handed Luke a thick brochure, snapping the fourteen-year-old out of his pokemon related daydreaming.
“What’s this?” Luke asked as he accepted the brochure. As he looked at it, he saw the imagine of a large four-story structure with so many windows that it seemed as if the very walls of the structure were made of glass. The letters ‘VU’ appeared in large blue print on the cover of the brochure–the symbol of Viridian University.
“In addition to skipping you forward two grades, we’re going to waive some of your high school courses and allow you to take co-op college courses from VU instead.” She said with a bright smile.
Luke began numbly flipping through the brochure. He had barley given college any thought, after all he was only in the eighth grade, and now he was going to start college courses next year. The news was pointedly surreal.
“That’s not the best part...” The counselor added, her expression showing that she could barely contain herself.
“There’s more?” Luke asked, dizzy from considering the implications of this news.
“The courses are going to be paid for by the school, and you get to pick what classes you want to take,” Ms. Watson explained.
More choices!? Luke felt as if he was going to faint. Despite his misgivings over the plethora of choices before him, he was intensely excited. This news was huge, and he couldn’t wait to tell his parents. They would be so proud of him!
This was turning out to be no ordinary Friday. After school was dismissed, Luke rode home as fast as his bike would take him. Upon skidding onto his front lawn, he jumped off the bike, failed to put up the kick-stand, and bolted toward the door. The elated teenager was inside the house and shouting for his mother before his bike had time to hit the ground.
“What’s with the commotion?” Luke’s mother asked as she appeared from her bedroom. She added sarcastically, “Is someone dying?”
Rambling on as if he had drank eight cups of coffee, Luke told his mother the news from school. As he showed her the Viridian University brochure, the middle-aged mom was so proud of her son that she was nearly to the point of tears. The two discussed his options, the different classes he could take, the different degrees he could pursue.
Then, just as the conversation was winding down, Mr. Granes got home and the conversation began again with renewed fervor.
Mr. Granes’ reaction, minus the tears, mirrored that of his wife. He had always known his son was intelligent, but this was simply astounding. The proud father even felt a pang of guilt within himself; perhaps he had underestimated his son. Perhaps the boy was more responsible than he wanted to believe.
As the sun began to set, Luke’s mother looked toward the back door. She knew that, in his excitement, her son had neglected to visit Caterpie. She cleared her throat and suggested innocently, “Luke, why don’t you play outside for a little bit while I get dinner ready?”
Luke’s eyes widened as he realized he had forgotten to visit his friend. The little guy was probably worried sick! Without so much as a word, the young man rushed outside, grabbing a banana from the fruit basket as he ran by.
Mr. Granes chuckled as watched his son zoom by with the curved fruit in hand. The middle-aged man commented, “Luke sure does love his fruit.”
The outside air had cooled noticeably since Luke first got home. A cool breeze blew past him and there looked to be only about twenty minutes of daylight remaining in the darkening sky.
Luke hopped over the fence and called, “Caterpie! Were are ya buddy?”
A pidgey chirping and a tree-branched creaking in the wind were the only answers to the young man’s call.
Luke’s eyes narrowed in concern; Caterpie normally answer him instantly. Luke called again, “Hey, Caterpie, I brought you a banana!”
There was no gleeful squeal.
There was no sign of Catperpie.
Luke panicked. He began frantically searching the forest, with daylight dimming more and more with each desperate minute that passed.
Luke’s repeated, desperate calls, caught his mother’s attention. Her husband, who was clicking away on the computer, seemed not to have heard Luke’s cries. She left a pot simmering on the stove and stepped quietly outside.
“Luke, what’s wrong?” Ms. Granes asked as she approached the fence and caught sight of her son.
The fourteen-year-boy son ran up to her with tears streaming down his face, “I can’t find him... he’s... he’s not...”
“It’s ok, take a deep breath... I’ll help you look,” His mother said reassuringly.
They searched for over ten minutes, but even together, they could not find the small pokemon. Luke’s despair was mounting.
Inside the house, Luke’s father became concerned when he heard a sizzling noise in kitchen. When he investigated, he found that a once gently simmering pot had begun to overflow onto the stove-top. He turned down the heat and, puzzled, set off in search of his wife.
Outside, Luke was now crying harder. He tried to stop the tears, but he couldn’t. He kept thinking about the horrible things that could have happened to the innocent bug. Not least of which was the possibility that the little guy ran away because Luke didn’t come out to see him on time.
“Luke,” his mother said softly as she knelt down next to her son. In the hopes of discovering some clue, she asked, “Has Caterpie been acting strange lately? Did he seem sick or anything?”
“Well, uh...” Luke hesitated. The incident with the silk in his room was pretty strange, to say the least, but to tell his mom about it he would have to admit that he let Caterpie inside the house.
After a moment, the young man found the strength to tell his mother. This was no time to selfishly hide the truth. The young man, with a mixture of shame and despair in his quaking voice, admitted, “Well... in my room a couple days ago he shot a bunch of silk on to the ceiling... he made a big wad of it.”
Ms. Granes stared blankly at her son. Did he just say
inside? She was formulating her response when a deep, authoritative voice came from behind her. Apparently, she would not be the one to respond to this troubling revelation.
“Silk? From a pokemon?” Luke’s father asked, having overheard Luke’s confession. It suddenly felt even colder and darker outside.
Luke nodded quietly, forcing himself to hold back his tears in front of his father.
“What kind of pokemon?” Mr. Granes asked next, his tone rigid and emotionless.
“A caterpie,” Mrs. Granes answered. Then, hoping to divert her husband’s impending wrath she added, “Honey, you should...”
Mr. Granes held up his hand to silence his wife without breaking the hard stare he was directing into his son’s eyes.
After several moments of heavy silence, the father decided that his point had been made.
“Take this, dear,” Mr. Granes said as he handed his wife the flashlight he had brought with him, “Keep looking, I’m going to grab some more flashlights.”
Luke and his mother stared blankly at each other as Mr. Granes headed back toward the house. This was not the reaction they anticipated.
Luke continued to call for his friend while his mother swept the forest floor with the flashlight. She wasn’t hopeful; if the caterpie were here, it would’ve responded by now.
“Any luck?” Mr. Granes asked as he approached a few minutes later. He was carrying two more flashlights and a red-colored, rectangular object. He handed a flashlight to his son and the young boy quickly turned it on and began frantically sweeping the forest.
Despite his father’s proximity, the young boy had begun to cry once more. A terrible hollowness was spreading through him that felt as if it was going to snuff out his very life.
Mr. Granes turned on his flashlight and began searching as well, scanning the treetops while his wife and their son continued to focus on the ground. He had noticed the unusually large bulk of fruit Luke had been taking to school lately and, assuming the fruit had been to feed the missing bug, he had a strong hunch as to Caterpie’s whereabouts.
After a few minutes, Mr. Granes spotted exactly what he was looking for. He called his family over to him, waving his arm excitedly in a ‘come over here’ gesture.
Illuminating a particular treetop, Luke’s father focused his flashlight on a large object stuck between two branches on the tree’s trunk. It was squarish, green, and covered with a thin layer of silk that adhered to the side of the tree.
“See, that?” Mr. Granes asked as his son looked up at the strange object, “That’s your friend.”
Luke’s mother smiled immediately upon seeing the silk-encased green object and said, “Oh, I should’ve known.”
“It looks like Caterpie put all that fruit you’ve been feeding him to work, he’s begun the next stage of his life-cycle.” Mr. Granes explained.
Luke had heard of this sort of thing before. Some bug-type pokemon encase themselves in various sorts of cocoons to protect themselves while their bodies undergo a transformation.
“What... what’s he called now?” Luke asked. He was dazed, but relieved. Caterpie, or whatever he was called, was safe.
“Here, take this.” Luke father handed Luke the rectangular red object he had brought outside with him.
Luke examined the scratched, worn surface of the device, noticing that its surface could fold outward if the poke-ball shaped button on the center was pressed. Curious, the young man pressed the button and the device opened up, revealing a small control pad, a video screen, and a small speaker.
The screen flashed and the speakers fizzled for a moment as the device powered on after nearly two decades of inactivity. Once the screen had solidified into a sold white and the speakers had abandoned their staticy protests, a small red light strobed a fet times at the end of the deviced stubby antenna.
A few moments later, a picture of a green, blockish, immobile pokemon appeared on the screen and the device spoke in a robotic voice, “Metapod: the evoloved form of caterpie. After a period of growth, Metapod will break out of its cocoon in order to evolve into a Butterfree. Metapod can harden their shells to protect against attacks.”
“Woah, what is this?” Luke asked, staring at the mini-pokemon encyclopedia with awe.
“It’s called a poke’dex,” Luke’s mother answered, “That one is an old version that once belonged to my great grandfather. Your father must’ve fished it out of the attic.”
“It doesn’t have the touch-screen and voice activation of the newer models, but it can display all of the same data.” Luke father added.
“So, how long until Metapod evolves again?” Luke asked as he stared as his friend in its new, almost alien-looking, form.
“Scroll down,” Mr. Granes pointed at the pokedex.
Luke scrolled down, reading through a variety of information on Metapod. Average statistics, moves it can learn, type strengths and weakness, and much more was listed. Luke came to a subheading entitled ‘Evolution’ and began to read aloud, “Metapod evolve into Butterfree at approximately level 10. Varying by climate and care, Metapod typically take 10 to 12 weeks to evolve. Studies have shown that allowing Metapod to observe pokemon battles can speed their evolution. If a Metapod’s shell is broken before it is ready to evolve, the result is death.”
Luke stopped abruptly after the word ‘death’. While Metapod wasn’t in any danger at the moment, the very concept that it could be killed was unsettling for the young man.
Sensing his discomfort, his mother said, “Don’t worry sweetie, Metapod has a tough shell. He’ll be fine.”
“So, dad, what do we do now? Should we take him inside?” Luke asked.
“No, I don’t think so, he seems fine up in the tree.” Mr. Granes answered, “The little pokemon inside that shell is delicate, so we don’t want to shake it too much.”
“Its time to eat dinner, kiddo,” Luke’s mom added, the suggested, “Why don’t you come out here tomorrow morning and read Metapod a story?”
“He can hear?” Luke asked, surprised to think that Metapod’s bulky exterior had ears of some sort.
“Oh yea, he’s just as aware of his surroundings as he was when he was a caterpie,” Mr. Granes answered, “He’s just resting and taking it easy while he metamorphs into a Butterfree.”
“Cool...” Luke said softly as he continued staring upward, ignoring the building cramp in the back of his kneck.
“Let’s go in honey,” Mr. Granes as as he lead his wife away, “Luke can say goodnight to Metapod while you clean up that disaster on the stove!”
Luke chuckled as he listened to his parents banter on their way inside. After they were gone he pocketed the poke’dex and began speaking to his newly evolved friend. He talked about anything and everything, but nothing in particular. It was just nice to know that his friend was listening.
The short-term panic aside, Luke decided this had turned out to be a pretty good Friday.