Meowths and Humans

We were headed down the road following the twerps again. This was new territory for us, and we didn’t know where they were going. But it was a beautiful day, cold with a light sprinkling of snow. We loved it, except for Meowth.

“I hate this,” he said. “I just hate this snow and cold. And why are we bothering to follow those kids?”

“Because it’s better than doing real work?” asked James.

“You do have a point,” I said.

As we continued our stroll, James put his arm around me, pretending to be casual.

“So, Jesse…” he began, “have you every considered…”

I shrugged his arm off and glared at him. “Have I ever considered what, James?”

“Have you ever considered… being tickled?”

He grabbed me by the waist and tickled me. I was laughing to hard to hit him.

Meowth caught up to us then.

“For Pete’s sake would ya knock it off before I throw a bucket of water at ya?”

James was still giggling. He is kind of cute when he giggles so I decided not to smack him too hard with the fan.

When we saw the twerps they were near some kind of farm, peeking in through the fence. We watched with binoculars. The more they watched, the more upset they seemed to get. Then they turned around and noticed us.

Ash marched over with that annoying underage hero look he gets. Brock and Misty followed, glaring at us.

“Team Rocket! Are YOU responsible for this?” yelled Ash.

“If we were, why would we be looking at it through binoculars?” I asked.

“What are we looking at, anyway?” asked James.

Misty began getting teary-eyed.

“It used to be a pokemon breeding center, but the owners got sick suddenly. No one’s been taking care of it and it’s just awful…”

“All these abandoned pokemon…” Brock went on.

Meowth went off to peek through the fence.

“Abandoned pokemon?” I asked. This was getting interesting.

“Don’t get any ideas!” yelled Ash. “They aren’t for you.”

“Why not?” I continued. “Team Rocket would take better care of them than that!”

“Forget it!” yelled Misty.

“Oh yeah?” I yelled. “Well, prepare for trouble!”

“And make it double,” chimed in James.

“To protect the world from devastation!” I yelled.

“To unite all peoples with in our…”

“Hey!” interrupted Meowth. “Look at this, you guys!”

Following Meowth were six scrawny, pathetic, adorable Meowth kittens.

“You’re interrupting the motto!” I snapped.

But meanwhile James and the twerps had surrounded the kittens and were picking them up and making cooing noises.

“Look, can we get back to stealing these pokemon for the boss?” I yelled.

Meowth looked up. “Those pokemon are in awful shape, and they’ve never had any training. The Boss ain’t gonna want ‘em. Not even these sweet, adorable…” Meowth trailed off into goo-goo noises and I sighed.

Brock said, “We’re going to put all the pokemon in pokeballs and take them to Nurse Joy.”

Meowth crossed his arms. “Not these babies, you’re not! They’re too young for pokeballs, they’ll be scared!”

“Meowth, surely don’t think you’re going to adopt these kittens!” I said.

Fortunately James agreed. “She’s right, Meowth, we can’t let these cuties get blasted off with us… they’re too little and sweet…”

Even Meowth seemed to understand. “No, I’m not keeping ‘em. But we’re walking to the pokemon center!”

I was about to ask, “Who’s we” but there was no use. Everyone had gone insane except me.

“So we don’t steal any pokemon, we don’t fight the twerps, and we get six Meowth kittens to take care of for two days. Lovely.”

“I can give you some pokemon food; they’ve got tons of it stored here.” said Brock cheerfully.

Evidently they were going to trust us on this one. I guess the idea of the Boss creating a pokemon army out of these underfed kittens was too silly for them to contemplate.

Finally we were on our way. James was carrying a large bag of pokemon food and I refused to take it from him. Two Meowth kittens were crawling through his hair. Two more were riding in Meowth’s hands and the other two were riding on my shoulders. I muttered constant threats about what I would do to them if they touched my hair.

Eventually it started to get dark and we camped out for the night. Fortunately it wasn’t snowing anymore.

The kittens curled up in a giant ball while Meowth told them a bedtime story. Even I had to admit they were cute.

James and I sat on top of our sleeping bags and complained about the day as usual.

“Hey, wait a minute, I think I just heard our names in Meowth’s story…” I said.

“Really?” said James. “I hope I’m the handsome prince.”

We listened carefully.

“And then the handsome Prince Meowth married the beautiful princess. His two stupid servants, Jesse and James, got ugly haircuts and had to work in the basement their whole lives.”

James got up. “I’m going to rip off his charm and make him eat it!”

I pulled him back down. “Don’t bother, I mean, think about it!”

“Think about what?”

“About… being tickled!”

I pinned him to the sleeping bag and tickled him until there were tears coming out of his eyes. Then I realized he was looking into my eyes. Even with his hair in a giant mess, he looked quite charming. I didn’t object when he lifted his head up and kissed me on the lips.

In fact, I was rather enjoying myself until the bucket of water hit us.

“You perverts!” yelled Meowth. “Control yourselves in front of the babies!”

James sat up and shivered. “For heaven’s sake, Meowth, they’re asleep way over there! Or they were until you started making noise!”

The kittens were up now and heading toward us. James went to change into dry clothes; then I did. By the time I got back he was asleep with two kittens curled up on his stomach. Meowth was nearby with two more and the other two were awake and staring at me expectantly.

So I wound up cuddling with two Meowth kittens, which was a poor substitute for James. But I’m still glad I didn’t let James rip Meowth’s charm off. I’d rather do it myself.