by Alex Polan
“Jeepers, looks like a thrift store in here,” he said. “Are these clothes we’ve outgrown or something?”
He pulled the bags out of the closet and lined them up against the wall. Then he and Devin searched the closet from top to bottom. They found a broken vacuum cleaner, some sports trophies, and three boxes of Dad’s old vinyl records, but no phones.
“Bummer,” said Devin, pulling a cobweb out of her hair. “So where do we look next? In Mom’s bedroom?”
Ethan’s stomach twisted. His parents’ bedroom was strictly off-limits, which made it a scary place to be. But it was also the perfect place for Mom to hide something.
“It might be there,” he admitted. “But she’d kill us if we dug through her stuff, and we’re going to be in enough trouble already. Let’s check the kitchen and office first.”
As Devin took off up the stairs, he piled the paper bags back into the closet. The last thing they needed was Mom finding out they’d been digging in the Christmas closet, even if it was only July.
As he stuffed the last bag inside, something caught his eye. A Poké Ball! Was it a T-shirt? A gift for him?
He reached into the bag—and pulled out a Poké Ball cap. His Poké Ball cap. The one he had accused Brayden of stealing.
Whoa.
Ethan squatted down. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach.
“Are you coming or what?” Devin called from upstairs.
He swallowed hard and set the cap back in the bag. What else could he do with it right now? There was no time to think—they had to find their phones. He shut the closet door tightly and hurried up the stairs.
Mom’s office was littered with real estate postings and file folders. He opened her desk drawers and looked underneath the piles of papers, all the while trying not to think about that cap.
He heard Devin banging around in the kitchen, too. But after forty-five minutes of searching the kitchen, the office, the basement, and even the garage, they’d found nothing!
Devin asked again, “Should we check the bedroom? Mom knows it’s the last place we’d look.”
Ethan glanced at the clock on the wall. They had only fifteen minutes now to find the phones and get to the doughnut shop. They couldn’t be late—not today. But searching through Mom and Dad’s bedroom felt just as weird and wrong as walking into Ivan’s Ice Cream shop had a few days ago.
He chewed his fingernail and stared at the bookcase in the hall. “Actually, Mom probably thinks the last place we’d look is on a bookshelf,” he said with a grin. “She thinks we’re not reading enough this summer, remember?”
He stood on tiptoe and slid his hand along the top of the bookshelf.
No one was as shocked as Ethan when his fingers tripped over something hard and flat. He slid it forward until it teetered on the edge of the shelf. “My phone!”
Devin jumped up and down. “Is mine up there, too?”
Sure enough, it was. Ethan slid it off, handed it to her, and then checked the time on his phone. It read 1:49. “We gotta go,” he said. “Now!”
He ran toward the front door and slid into his sneakers. But when he put his hand on the doorknob, he was surprised to feel it turn in his hand.
Did Mom come back? he thought with horror. He held the knob firmly for a moment, as if he could keep her outside—out of the way of his and Devin’s plan.
But as the knob started to slip in his sweaty hand, he felt his hopes for a Team Mystic victory slip away, too.
CHAPTER 13
As the door swung open, Ethan braced himself. But it wasn’t Mom standing on the front steps. It was Dad, who jumped back in surprise and nearly stumbled down them.
“Ethan!” he said, grabbing the stair rail. “Why were you blocking the door?”
“Because …” Ethan confessed, “I thought you were Mom.”
That’s when he decided to tell Dad everything—about Team Valor taking over the doughnut shop gym, and Dottie deciding to close the store, and Carlo and Gianna meeting there right now to try to save it. Devin chimed in to help him tell the story.
It was two o’clock when Ethan and Devin finished spilling their guts to Dad in the doorway. It was ten minutes later when Dad finally agreed to let them go.
Maybe it was because Ethan brought up the water tower incident, when he’d promised to cover for Dad so Mom wouldn’t know he had skipped work to hunt Pokémon. Or maybe Dad just had a soft spot for Dottie’s Doughnuts.
“I’ll drive you,” he said, jingling his keys. “Let’s go!”
Ethan held his breath all the way there. Are we too late? he worried and wondered.
But as Dad pulled to a stop in front of the doughnut shop, Ethan could tell from the map on his phone that the Team Valor gym was in the thick of battle. The top of the gym was exploding with lightning, fire, wind, and clouds.
“We have to get in there!” he hollered to Devin. “Now!”
Sure enough, Carlo and Gianna had started battling without them.
As Ethan slid into the booth, Gianna didn’t look up—she couldn’t take her eyes away from her screen. “We thought you weren’t coming!” she cried.
“We came!” said Ethan. “We’re here.” We’re probably grounded for life, but we’re here.
“We need your help,” said Carlo. “Choose your top six Pokémon. Hurry!” His forehead was sweating, and he was furiously tapping his screen.
Ethan felt his own heart race as he pulled up his Pokémon. He chose his six most powerful, and then he entered the battle. His Raticate popped up, ready to face off against a Team Valor Venonat.
Ethan scanned the screen. The number three below Raticate’s health meter showed that three friends were battling by his side. And across the battle arena, he could see Carlo’s Sparky. He was battling with Sparky instead of against him this time, and that gave Ethan courage.
When the word “Go!” flashed across the screen, he dodged the bouncy, purple Venonat’s first attack. Then Raticate snarled and started fighting back.
Ethan tapped the screen until the blue attack bar was almost full. Then he pressed and held his finger on Venonat to deliver Raticate’s Hyper Beam, which blew Venonat to smithereens.
“Victory!” the screen said.
“Yes!” cried Ethan.
But there wasn’t much time to celebrate. Team Valor’s Doduo was already in place, ready for battle number two.
Ethan swiped left to dodge Doduo’s attack. Then he tapped the screen over and over again. “Take that, you two-headed monster!” Finally, he pressed his finger against Doduo until Raticate delivered a perfect Dig.
Yes! Another win! Ethan could hardly believe it.
The next Team Valor Pokémon popped up for battle.
It was a Lickitung, but its nickname was “Licks.” When Ethan saw the Trainer name below it, his stomach dropped.
Brayboy.
Ethan swallowed hard. He was about to battle Brayden. And all the guilt he’d felt about finding that Poké Ball cap in the closet came rushing back.
We wouldn’t even be fighting Team Valor if I hadn’t accused Brayden of being a thief, he thought. It’s all my fault. So I have to win this. I have to!
As soon as the battle began, Ethan’s hands started sweating like crazy. He tried to dodge Licks’s attack, but his finger slipped. Raticate’s own attacks were too slow. And Lickitung was too powerful.
Poof! Raticate was gone.
Ethan could barely breathe.
When his Pidgeotto popped onto the screen, he tried to focus. Get it together, he told himself. Your friends are counting on you!
But his phone was so slippery now, he accidentally dropped it. And Licks made another quick attack.
Poof! Pidgeotto was gone.
Poof! Poof! Poof! Poof! Ethan’s last four battles were a blur. One after another, his Pokémon fainted.
“You lose!” the screen screamed at him.
Ethan turned his phone upside down and slumped in his seat.
He’d never
even gotten to battle Bella’s Aerodactyl. He had started the fight with Team Valor, but he wasn’t good enough or strong enough to finish it. Ethan wished he could disappear in a puff of smoke, too.
Devin gave him a sympathetic smile. She’d been done playing for a while now, but Carlo and Gianna were still fighting.
“At least we helped a little,” Devin pointed out. “See?” She held up her own “You lose!” screen, which showed that the gym’s prestige had gone down by a hundred points.
Ethan had a sinking suspicion that it wouldn’t be enough—until Carlo jumped up with a whoop!
“We did it!” he hollered. “Grab your phones—we need to take control of the gym and get our Pokémon in there before another team does. Hurry!”
When Ethan whipped his phone over, the gym on his map was gray—unclaimed, at least for now. He tried to think fast. Which Pokémon should he put in there?
He finally chose Raticate. You fought a tough battle, buddy, he thought. It’s not your fault I totally fell apart.
Then Ethan saw something that made him smile wide. The gym on his map had turned blue again. Bright, beautiful blue.
When he tapped on it, he saw “Dottie’s Doughnuts, Level Four.” And as he swiped through the trainer information, he saw each of his friends and their finest Pokémon.
There was DevGirl506, with Pidgeot by her side. Giadude99 had placed her Beedrill in the gym. And there was Carlozard14 with Sparky, the crowned Gym Leader once more.
Everything’s okay, thought Ethan. I almost ruined it, but everything turned out okay.
When he looked up from his phone, he realized that Dad and Dottie had been watching from a nearby booth.
“You did it!” said Dad.
“Go Team Mystic!” Dottie cheered.
“Whew! That was tough,” said Carlo. “Remember to use Revives to heal any Pokémon that fainted. They worked hard today.”
“You kids did, too,” said Dottie. “I think this calls for doughnuts!”
As she headed for the kitchen, Gianna called after her. “Do you have any powdered-sugar ones?”
“Ooh, and those ones with purple sprinkles?” asked Devin.
“And those Jigglypuffs?” added Carlo. “Those are my new favorite.”
Ethan couldn’t think of his own favorite doughnut. He couldn’t even think about the battle they’d just won.
Why? Because an idea had just flickered in his brain, like a PokéStop spinning in a circle when he’d finally stepped close enough to activate it.
Ethan was pretty sure he’d just solved the Case of the Stolen Jigglypuffs.
CHAPTER 14
“Now that we got the gym back, you’ll keep the shop open, won’t you Dottie?” asked Devin, taking a big bite of her purple doughnut.
“Oh, sweetie,” said Dottie, putting her hand on Devin’s shoulder. “You know, I love what you kids did today. But I didn’t realize you were hoping …”
“Wait, you’re still going to close?” asked Gianna, her eyes wide. “But we worked so hard!”
Dottie sighed. “Oh, dear. You fought that battle today for me?”
Gianna nodded sadly and set her powdered doughnut on her napkin.
Ethan knew just how she felt. His doughnut suddenly didn’t taste so fresh.
Dottie took a deep breath. “You know, ever since the shop was broken into, I haven’t felt the same way about it. It doesn’t feel safe here. It doesn’t feel like home anymore.”
“Wait, the shop was broken into?” asked Carlo. “When?”
“You didn’t know?” said Dottie, her eyes wide. “I thought you were all working together to try to solve that mystery!”
Gianna shook her head. “Not Carlo. He didn’t start working with us at all until just a couple of days ago—to win back the gym.”
“But what was stolen?” asked Carlo.
Ethan watched him closely as Dottie described the missing tray of Jigglypuffs. And the shock on Carlo’s face told him everything he needed to know.
Carlo opened his mouth and then shut it again. He looked like he was struggling to find words.
So Ethan helped him out. “Did you take the doughnuts, Carlo?” he asked in a quiet voice.
Carlo’s face collapsed. “I did! I mean, I didn’t steal them! I came in hoping Dottie had some day-old doughnuts, and she did—that tray of Jigglypuffs. And then I accidentally knocked the tray onto the floor, so I tried to clean it up and not leave a mess. I didn’t know where Dottie was, and … I—I was embarrassed. I’m so sorry.” He hung his head.
Devin whirled around to face Ethan. “How’d you know Carlo did it?” she asked.
Ethan shrugged. “He said Jigglypuffs were his favorite. But Dottie only made them that one time, and Carlo wasn’t helping out with that sale. So when would he have tried them? Unless … he was the one who came back into the shop that night.”
“But the door was unlocked!” said Carlo. “I thought Dottie was still here!”
Devin sighed. “That was my fault,” she said. “I forgot to lock it.”
Dottie’s face spread into a slow smile. “It’s nobody’s fault,” she said. “In fact, I’m suddenly feeling a whole lot better.”
Carlo slumped in his seat. “But now I feel lousy,” he said. “What can I do to make it right?”
Gianna’s head popped up. “I have an idea. You’re a Level-Twelve Trainer, right, Carlo?”
“Actually, Level Thirteen,” he mumbled.
“So you get lure modules as rewards sometimes, right?”
He nodded.
“You should set lures for Dottie! It would help her business. That’s how you can make up for the Jigglypuffs!”
Carlo looked to Dottie, who shrugged. “It definitely helps business,” she said with a smile.
“Okay!” said Carlo. “I can do that. When?”
“Saturday,” said Dottie. “Let’s try it again on Saturday. And I’ll make an extra tray of Jigglypuffs, just for you.” She winked.
“Are you going to tell Mom?” asked Devin as Dad drove them home.
He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “What do you think?”
Her shoulders sagged. “I think you probably will.”
“But you’ll stick up for us, right, Dad?” asked Ethan. “I mean, you know why we disobeyed her rules.”
Dad nodded. “I do. But rules are still rules.”
Ethan thought that was a pretty crummy thing to say for a guy who had been playing Pokémon GO in church. But he kept his mouth shut. He really needed Dad on his side right now.
All through dinner, Ethan kept waiting for Dad to tell Mom what they’d done. He knew Devin was waiting for it, too—he could tell by the way she was making little mountains out of her mashed potatoes instead of eating them.
But Dad waited right up till the moment when Mom pulled on her sneakers for the family walk. She reached for the phones in her “secret” hiding place—the top of the bookshelf—and came up empty.
As soon as Mom’s eyebrows scrunched together, Ethan darted behind Dad for protection.
“Now, honey,” said Dad, holding up his hand. “Why don’t we talk about this while we walk.”
So Dad talked all the way past the park, all the way to the Little Library. While he rambled on, Ethan made a big show about taking a book out of the Little Library. But Mom didn’t even notice.
By the time they’d reached the Pheasant Ranch trailhead, Dad had run out of things to say. But he must have explained everything totally wrong, because Mom looked furious.
“You allowed the kids to break my rules—and you skipped out of work this afternoon—so that they could play a game with their friends?” she said to Dad, whose face was now beet red.
“But, Mom, it’s not just a game!” said Ethan. Why couldn’t she understand that?
“It is just a game,” Mom insisted. “That’s what I’ve been trying to teach you kids. There are more important things than …” When her phone suddenly buzzed, she paused to gl
ance at it.
That’s when Mom’s furious face broke into a smile.
“My medal! My medal! My silver Jogger medal!” She sang it instead of saying it. Then she danced in a circle, holding up her phone to show off her award.
Ethan glanced in both directions, hoping none of his friends were around to see this! But he couldn’t help smiling, too.
“So,” said Devin, giving Mom a sly grin, “what were you saying about this game, Mom?”
Mom was trying her hardest to keep a straight face—Ethan could tell. But she just couldn’t. “Oh, never mind,” she said. “Let’s go hatch some Pokémon. I’ve got a gold medal to earn!”
With that, she took off walking. Dad gave Ethan a secret thumbs-up, and then he pulled his phone out, too.
“Listen to the birds!” Mom called over her shoulder as she walked. “Do you hear them, Ethan?”
“I hear them,” he said, laughing. He also heard something else: the whine of a puppy.
That meant Brayden was nearby. So Ethan took a deep breath and turned around. There was something he had to do.
Brayden was in front of his house, tossing the puppy a tiny orange ball. He seemed surprised to see Ethan coming toward him instead of hurrying away from him.
“Hey,” said Ethan, summoning up his courage.
“What do you want?” Brayden wasn’t going to make this easy.
“I just wanted to tell you that I found my Poké Ball cap. So, I’m really sorry that I accused you of stealing it. I shouldn’t have done that. I was wrong.”
It seemed to take Brayden a second to understand what Ethan was saying. Then his face spread into a smug smile.
I deserve that, thought Ethan, even though it was hard not to look away.
Now that he had said what he needed to say, it was time to tell Brayden what he wanted to say. “I’m sorry about Dottie’s Doughnuts, too. You guys gave it a really good shot.”
Brayden’s face fell like a cake in the oven. “What do you …” he started to ask. Then he scooped up the puppy. “I’ve gotta go.” He hurried into the house, probably in search of Bella.
Devin giggled from the sidewalk behind Ethan. “He didn’t know we won the gym back!” she said. “Did you see his face?”