by Alex Polan
Snap! The Mud Ball sailed out the door. If someone had been on the ladder reaching for the flag, it would have sent her scrambling back down.
He waited to hear the splat. Instead, he heard a squeal.
“Hey!” shouted Maddy from the ground below.
“Oops!” Marco got to his feet and ran out onto the deck. “Are you okay?” he called down.
Maddy looked clean and dry. She must have sidestepped the Mud Ball. But she was hopping mad.
“Look what you made me do!” she said, pointing to a squashed Poké Puff on the ground. “I worked hard on that one, too. It was a Mud Ball Poké Puff for Logan.” She held a bakery box in her hands.
Logan popped his head out of the tree house. “You made me a Poké Puff out of mud?” he asked. He actually looked kind of excited by the idea.
“No!” said Maddy. “It wasn’t made out of mud. It was chocolate. But now it’s all muddy.” She squatted down and tried to pull the cupcake wrapper out of the chocolaty, muddy mess.
“Sorry,” muttered Marco. But he was kind of crabby, too. If Maddy had been here when she was supposed to be, she never would have dropped the cupcake.
Thweet! Professor Birch’s whistle blew from the woods beyond.
“Get your vest on, Maddy. Hurry!” said Nisha. “I’ll take your Poké Puffs.”
She reached for the box, but Maddy swung it out of reach. “No,” she said. “I’m taking these with me.”
Nisha just stared at her. Marco wanted to argue, too. But why bother? He shook his head and ducked back into the tree house. He had a job to do. Today, he was going to make sure that Team Treecko came out on top—no matter what.
Splat! Splat, splat, splat!
Marco spotted another blue T-shirt through the trees. Team Mudkip was hot on the trail of the Team Treecko flag, but Marco wasn’t giving it up without a fight.
He dropped another Mud Ball onto the catapult and pulled back the arm. Snap! The Mud Ball sailed into the woods, and he heard someone shriek.
But Team Mudkip kept coming. As a girl with a long brown ponytail raced toward the tree house, Nisha grabbed a Mud Ball from the bin and flung it at the girl. It missed.
Marco grabbed two Mud Balls and hurried out to the deck. He threw one and nailed the girl in the shoulder before she could reach the ladder.
“Ew!” she screamed as mud streamed down her T-shirt. “Gross!”
She ran back into the woods, complaining all the way.
That was the last they saw of Team Mudkip.
“I hope Logan and Maddy are doing as well as we are,” said Marco proudly, wiping his hands on his shorts.
Nisha snickered. “Well, I guess if they run out of Mud Balls to throw, they can throw Poké Puffs.”
“Right,” said Marco, shaking his head at the thought of Maddy carrying that big box into the woods. Then he noticed how empty the bin of Mud Balls was getting. He had brought supplies to make more, but was there time?
He hurried down the ladder and found a wet patch. He had just scooped up some mud and was picking out a rock when Nisha hung her head over the deck. “Incoming!” she whispered, pointing toward a flash of orange in the bushes.
Marco raced back up the ladder, hugging the bowl of mud with one arm while climbing with the other.
As soon as he’d ducked into the tree house, Nisha sprayed the woods with Mud Balls. Snap, splat! Snap, splat! Snap, splat!
Then it was quiet.
Marco crawled out onto the deck and peered over the edge.
“Yikes!”
A huge round face stared up at him—the big kid from Team Fennekin. He was so tall, he didn’t even have to climb the ladder to reach the flag.
Marco felt a rush of fear, remembering how this guy had pelted him with water balloons outside Team Fennekin’s secret base. But as the boy took a step forward, something happened. He stepped onto the Pitfall Mat and fell, toppling like a giant redwood tree.
Timber! Marco wanted to yell, but he didn’t. Because the boy was back up in a second trying to get his foot out of the muddy hole.
“I’m stuck!” the boy cried to whoever was still in the woods.
“Quick,” Marco called over his shoulder to Nisha. “T hrow me a Mud Ball!”
She did, and Marco turned to fling it at the boy below. But the boy was gone! He was limping toward the woods with one shoe on and one very muddy shoe off.
“Yes!” Marco cheered. “Score one for the Pitfall Mat!”
He fought the urge to climb down the ladder and set up the mat again. Maybe this trap could only be used once like the Pitfall Mats in the Pokémon videogames. Besides, there was still another Team Fennekin member in the woods.
Marco scanned the bushes and trees. Was Sam out there? Stella? Someone else? He wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t going to let anyone sneak by him.
“Check the window,” he called to Nisha. She was already there, searching the woods behind the tree house.
Marco took a second to dart back to the Mud Ball Launcher. If Sam or Stella made it to the tree house, they were in for a muddy treat.
But there was only one Mud Ball left!
I’d better make it count, thought Marco, dropping it into the ammo basket.
When a freckled face suddenly appeared above the edge of the deck, Marco yelped with surprise.
“Ha! Caught you napping, you big baby,” said Sam, reaching for the flag.
Marco felt a wild rush of anger. No way was he letting Team Fennekin get the flag—especially not smart-mouthed Sam. No way.
He pulled back the arm of the catapult so far he feared it would break. Then he let it go. Snap!
The Mud Ball flew toward Sam’s head and then … sailed right over his shoulder.
Sam ducked as he slid the flagpole out of its bracket. “Missed me, ya big loser,” he said, snickering.
Marco searched frantically around the catapult, hoping to find another Mud Ball. There weren’t any. Now what? Eyeing the bowl of fresh mud, he scooped up a huge handful and pressed it into the Mud Ball Launcher.
This time, he wouldn’t miss. This time, Sam was going down.
Marco launched a fastball off the catapult. It hit Sam smack in the forehead and wiped the smirk right off his face. He hung there for a moment in mid-air, and then he dropped.
When Sam hit the ground, there was silence.
Uh-oh. Marco felt a chill run down his spine. Something was wrong.
He crawled to the edge of the deck and saw Sam lying on the ground below, his eyes wide. It looked like he couldn’t breathe—like the wind had been knocked right out of him.
And there was something else.
A thin trail of blood trickled off Sam’s forehead and onto the ground below.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I’m sorry,” Marco said again. “It was an accident—honest.”
Sam wouldn’t even look at him. He was leaning back against a tree, tears and snot running down his face. But at least his forehead had stopped bleeding.
Marco checked the trail, hoping to see Nisha. She had sprinted off to get help, and then he’d heard the sound of a whistle. That meant she had found someone. A counselor should be showing up any minute now.
Not soon enough, thought Marco, picking at the grass nervously. He’d probably get in trouble, but at least there’d be someone here to help Sam.
Sam didn’t look like a bully anymore. In fact, he looked like a little kid leaning against that tree. Above him, the drawing of Treecko in diapers was still fresh. Marco had forgotten to wash it off. Now the gecko-like Pokémon looked down on Sam as if to say, “Who’s da widdle baby now?”
Marco wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t. Not when Sam was hurt and crying—all because of something he’d done.
Finally, finally Nisha came running back with Officer Jenny behind her. Marco gulped. He had been hoping for Professor Birch, who wasn’t as strict. Is she going to arrest me? he wondered, staring up at Officer Jenny’s pinched face.
She squ
atted beside Sam and lifted his hand off his forehead. “Let me see,” she said, inspecting his cut.
Sam winced as she pressed on his skin and felt for a bump.
“Does anything else hurt?” she asked him.
As Sam shook his head no, Marco heard more people pushing through the brush. Maddy appeared, still carrying her box of Poké Puffs. And Logan jogged up behind her, waving two flags: the aqua Team Froakie flag and the sunshine-yellow Team Torchic flag.
“Victory!” he called, until he saw Sam. “Oh.”
“What happened?” asked Maddy, her face filled with concern. She dropped to her knees beside Sam, as if he were an injured animal.
“Yes, what did happen exactly?” asked Officer Jenny. Marco half-expected her to pull out a notebook and start doing a real police investigation.
“It was an accident. I, um, hit him with a Mud Ball,” Marco confessed.
“A what?” asked Officer Jenny.
“A water balloon,” explained Nisha. “With a little mud in it.”
“Ah,” said Officer Jenny, nodding. Then she glanced back at Sam’s cut. “But how did you break the skin with a soft, squishy water balloon?”
Silence hung like a heavy curtain. The Marco said in a quiet little voice, “I ran out of balloons and just used mud, and it’s possible … I mean maybe … the mud had a rock in it.”
Officer Jenny raised an eyebrow. Nisha and Maddy looked surprised, too.
“A rock?” asked Maddy. “Ouch, that must have hurt.” She patted Sam’s leg.
Sam scowled at her until she pointed to her bakery box and asked, “Do you want a Poké Puff?”
He opened his mouth as if he were going to say something nasty. Then he clamped it shut again and shrugged. “Sure, I guess,” he said, wiping his nose with his arm.
Maddy chose carefully, giving him a fancy cake with red sprinkles. He took it and actually mumbled thanks before biting into the chocolate frosting.
Marco wondered whether Maddy would suddenly look up and see the Treecko on the tree. Would she be furious with Sam all over again? Or will she be mad at me for not washing it off? he wondered.
She didn’t get angry. Instead, Maddy fussed over Sam as if he were Dedenne, her pet mouse with the bum leg. And, for the first time, Marco was glad that Maddy had been baking like crazy. Her Poké Puffs had saved the day.
Now that Sam was feeling better, Officer Jenny seemed more relaxed, too. When she helped Sam to his feet and toward the trail, Marco breathed a huge sigh of relief. It didn’t look like he was going to get in trouble after all.
“How do you know there were rocks in the mud?” asked Nisha as Team Treecko climbed back up to the tree house. Officer Jenny might have let the rock thing go, but Nisha wasn’t going to.
“Because I found one,” said Marco sadly. He held up his palm to reveal a muddy stone. It was gray, heavy, and sharp.
Maddy sucked in her breath. “Ooh,” she said. “That’s a rock all right.”
When Nisha chuckled, Maddy whirled around to scold her. “What’s so funny?” she asked.
Nisha shrugged. “Sorry. I was just thinking about how Fennekin is a Fire-type Pokémon. And you know what type works best against Fire?”
Logan thought of it before Marco could. “Rock!” he shouted.
“Right,” said Nisha. “Fire burns Grass, Grass covers Rock, and Rock puts out Fire. Marco took out Team Fennekin with a rock. Isn’t that kind of weird?”
Logan laughed, too, but Marco couldn’t. “It was an accident,” he said again, wiping the mud off the stone with the edge of his T-shirt. Then he stuck the rock in his pocket, hoping everyone would just stop talking about it already.
Nisha straightened up. “I know it was an accident,” she said firmly. “And, anyway, Sam is okay.”
“And in other news,” said Logan cheerily, “I scored two flags!” He held them up and waved them in the air. “Actually, it was really Maddy who won them.”
“Wait, what?” said Marco.
Nisha’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.
“You should have seen it,” said Logan. “She distracted Team Froakie with Poké Puffs. She walked right up to their base and offered them cupcakes, and then I snuck over and grabbed the flag. It worked with Team Torchic, too. They didn’t even know what happened!”
He leaned over to give Maddy a high-five.
“See?” she said, beaming. “I told you we made a great team.”
This time Logan didn’t argue.
Marco should have felt happy. Instead, he felt guilty. Just a few hours ago, he’d been angry at Maddy because he thought she was baking instead of helping her team. But she had been helping her team—fighting the enemy with sweet surprises just like a Fairy-type Pokémon would.
I guess Maddy did have a plan, he thought sadly. Everyone’s had a plan that worked, except for me.
“Hey, did you have fun with the Mud Ball Launcher?” asked Logan, tapping the ammo basket so that it bobbed up and down.
“Yes!” said Nisha. “Marco and I made a pretty good team, too. We fought off two attacks and protected the flag.”
Marco was about to agree, but then he remembered something. Just before he’d hit Sam with the glob of mud, Sam had stolen the flag. Where was it now?
Marco hurried out to the deck and searched the ground. There it was—the lime-green flag was wadded up in a ball in the muddy grass below. He sank back onto his knees.
“We didn’t protect the flag,” he said softly.
“What?” asked Nisha.
“Sam took it out of the holder before I could stop him,” said Marco, more loudly this time. He wasn’t happy about it, but he had to be honest. “Sam won it fair and square.”
So as Team Treecko trudged back to camp, Logan carried the Team Froakie and Team Torchic flags high. And Marco carried the Team Treecko flag—a little lower. But somehow, bringing the flag to Sam made Marco feel better.
Sam might call me a loser, but at least he can’t call me a liar. He tightened his grip on the flag and marched on.
CHAPTER NINE
“Shh!” said Nisha. “They’re interrupting the movie to bring us the Great Flag Hunter update.” She pointed to the big screen on the other side of the Media Center.
“I can’t look,” groaned Logan, covering his face with his hands.
But Marco took in the screen. There it was, in black and white:
Team Fennekin: 2 points (2 flags captured, 0 flags lost)
Team Treecko: 1 point (3 flags captured, 2 flags lost)
The other teams trailed with zero or even negative points. But Marco couldn’t see past his own team’s score. If he hadn’t given Sam the flag this morning, Team Treecko would be in the lead. Are my teammates mad at me? he wondered.
Logan wouldn’t take his hands off his face—even when Maddy offered him half of her Lava Cookie. “Not now,” he mumbled. “I lost my appetite.” But he peeked at her through his fingers.
A whoop came from the corner of the room, which meant Team Fennekin had seen the scores, too. Sam and Stella were playing the Pokémon trading card game at a small wooden table. Even from Marco’s spot on the couch, he could see the nasty bruise on Sam’s forehead. It made him look sort of tough. But Marco knew better. He could still picture Sam sitting under that tree with tears streaming down his face.
Marco tried to focus on the Pokémon movie that had started again on the screen. When Logan hopped up to act out some of Pikachu’s fight moves, Marco craned his neck to see. “Logan, sit down!” he said, scooting over on the couch.
But now he was distracted by Maddy, who was playing something weird on the handheld video game she had checked out from the Media Center. She raised the game in front of her face and smiled at the screen. She blinked, opened her mouth wide, and tilted her head back and forth. Marco burst out laughing—she looked so funny!
“What?” she said, glancing up innocently.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“It’s the M
aking Faces game!” she said. “What-ever I do, my Pokémon does. And sometimes it tells me what to do, too. Oh, here—he wants me to make a kissy face.”
When Maddy started kissing her game, Logan shot Marco a disgusted look. He grabbed his throat and pretended to be throwing up behind her, until Maddy spun around and caught him.
“Hey! Mind your own business,” she said. “I’m bonding with my Pokémon.”
“You should try it, too,” Nisha said to Logan. “It helps your Pokémon evolve.”
“No, thanks,” said Logan. “No kissing for me. I’d rather lose. I’d rather die.”
He faked a dramatic death right there on the rug of the Media Center. Everyone pretty much ignored him except for Nisha, who rolled her eyes.
Marco might have laughed, but Nisha’s words about evolution had just reminded him of something. He picked up his own videogame, which he had paused for the movie.
“Okay, Charizard,” he said. “Time to battle Fletchling.” Charizard was an orange, dragon-like Pokémon. And Marco finally had the Mega Stone he needed to help him Mega Evolve.
Marco selected a move and then it happened—in a flash of light, Charizard transformed. The orange dragon turned into a fierce gray-black dragon. Blue flames leaped from his mouth.
“He did it!” Marco blurted out. “Charizard Mega Evolved!”
“Cool,” said Nisha. “Did his type change?”
“What?” said Logan, looking away from the movie screen. “Pokémon can’t change types.”
“They can if they Mega Evolve,” said Nisha. “But it’s only a temporary change.”
Marco was about to check the stats on his game when he heard an outburst from across the room.
“Knock-out!” Stella cried, jumping up from the table. “And that was a Pokémon-EX card, so I win two prize cards for that. I win. You lose, Sammy Whammy. Oh, well. Too bad for you.”
Sam rubbed his forehead as if his injury had made him play badly. “Wait,” he said. “Look! My card has a resistance to your card, so I subtract twenty from the damage. Now it’s not a knockout.” He slid two discs off the card.
