Chapter Two: Cookies and Fire

"Mommy?" asked Mika. Her curly hair was pinned into two pigtails, as she'd always worn it when she was five.

She had woken her mother up. "What is it, Mika?" Her mother had the bleary-eyed look of someone who'd just been awakened, but she sat up, worried look on her face.

"My teacher said there's a big thing tomorrow, and we hafta make food for it."

Her mother visibly relaxed, leaning back against her headboard now that she knew they weren't in any danger. "Oh, Mika – "

"I know it is late, but it's really, really important." Mika's eyes, already large, widened.

"Mika, can't it wait until the morning?"

"No."

"We can wake up early and make it then," yawned her mother.

"No."

"You're going to force me to make this now for you, aren't you?"

"No."

Mika's mother smiled, happy that her plan had worked. She pulled the blanket back up around her, and lay down, closing her eyes. "Okay. Goodnight, honey."

"I'm going to force you to help me make it," Mika said innocently. "She said we gotta have adult supervision or we might burn the house down or something. If you don't really care 'bout the house, then I guess it's okay, but – "

"Never mind." Mika's mother sat up. "I'm already awake, anyway." She peered at Mika. "You know, you're quite the manipulator."

"Thank you," Mika beamed.

-x-

Mika's dream was suddenly interrupted: now she was being attacked by something rough and slimy. When she realized she wasn't exactly dreaming, she scrunched up her face and moved away from it before she opened her eyes cautiously.

Before her sat an obese Growlithe, its tongue lolling out of its mouth as it sat there, staring foolishly at her.

"Uhh…" Mika tried the best she could to wipe the dog drool off her face, not exactly knowing how she'd gotten there. Then, she remembered: the evil Butterfree! It must have put her to sleep using its powder… stuff.

She looked around, confused. How had she gotten here, then? She was lying beside the rose garden, the hedge maze just a few feet away. Somewhere, she heard a waterfall of some kind. Had the Butterfree taken her here, or the Growlithe? What was even going on in her life?

"You must be Giovanni's, right?" she asked, patting the Growlithe. It sneezed, and she smiled a tiny bit at its expression. "Did you take me here?" Once again, the dog-like creature gave no clear answer.

She sighed and stood up. "Okay…" Her amber eyes scanned around her, searching for the Butterfree, but it was nowhere to be seen. She might as well do the hedge maze, since she was here. Maybe she just hadn't gotten enough sleep, and that was all.

She looked down to the Growlithe at her side. "Do you want to go through the maze with me?" she asked it.

"Grrr-oww grrrrr-ow!"

A few minutes later, they were lost in the thicket of the maze. Mika's pants were caked with mud (she could barely see her shoes) and dog drool. And while the Growlithe pranced ahead, apparently happy at being lost, Mika was a little less enthusiastic. She really thought it strange that Giovanni would let his hedge maze have anything like mud in it, but realized he wasn't really the kind to go through hedge mazes anyway. Which led to the question of why he even had it. To look at? Possibly.

She hadn't seen any of his famous Pokemon collection while she walked through the maze, except for the Growlithe. But it seemed too happy-go-lucky for her father, who would obviously want one that acted, well, just like his Persian.

She guessed she was like her father in that way. The puppy Pokemon was wearing her out.

"Wait up, Growlithe," she sighed. "This mud is like quick sand."

Sure enough, her shoes sank, became stuck, and finally were tugged on with such force that they came flying out, splattering mud everywhere, with a great THWACK sound that soon became Mika's least favorite noise. Her shirt was now even dotted with spots of mud, making her look more like a farmer who had worked all day in the fields rather than the daughter of a millionaire (or possibly billionaire?).

After nearly a half an hour of splattering mud all over her good temper, Mika was fed up. She no longer wanted to be in this stupid maze, and wondered why she'd ever gone in it in the first place. All she wanted to do was take a shower and sleep and never see mud again.

"Hey, come here, Growlithe!" she called, suddenly getting an idea – desperate as it was. The puppy bounded over. "Okay, stay right there…" she told it. Then, she climbed up on its back, reaching for the top of the hedge wall next to her. Grabbing onto it, she still rested her feet on the sturdy Growlithe. She dragged herself up and on top of the tightly packed leaves, and looked around. The sight of the huge hedge maze made her head spin, and she saw no way out that could be memorized. Furthermore, she didn't even know what direction to go in, since the exit was north but the path to it went in all directions.

Feeling also slightly dizzy from the height, she slid back down and landed on the ground with a muddy welcome. Growlithe grinned at her, then began to roll on the ground. When it got up, mud was covering its fur like a sticky overcoat.

"That makes one of us who likes the mud," Mika muttered.

An evil grin spread across the Growlithe's face and it suddenly shook. Mud flew off it and onto Mika, splattering it all over her face and hair.

"Ahh!" she cried. Once she'd wiped it off her face with her reasonably-clean sleeve, she opened her eyes to glare at the Growlithe, but it was gone. She saw footprints leading away.

Preparing to race off after it and exact her revenge, Mika raised one of her feet from the ground – only it stuck. She tried again, but it was held fast by the mud. When she had dropped back down to the ground, the fall had made her heavier, she'd gotten completely stuck. Pulling her foot as hard as she could, it suddenly flew out of her shoe, leaving it there, surrounded by mud. The force she'd pulled it out with sent her falling forward, only able to save herself from falling face-flat in the mud by stepping down on the muddy ground hard with her socked foot.

Mika sighed as her shoe-less foot became immersed entirely in mud. She looked at her shoe, almost completely covered with muck, and realized she'd rather leave it there for now. She pulled her other foot out, shoe still on thankfully, and began to hurry after the Growlithe stiffly.

If her mood had been sour before, now it was even worse. She tracked the Growlithe's pawprints as if she were following a map to some ancient city of gold. Or better, platinum. She ignored the thwacking of her feet and tried to focus on what it would be like when she got back to the house and could soak in a hot bath. She thought of chocolates and her fluffy robe and her pink yet comfortable bed and watching OnDemand (never without its supply of trashy movies) or TiVo (she'd noticed that her favorite episode of Gilmore Girls had just been recorded). These were the thoughts that kept her motivated as she struggled on, vengeful look on her face and a hedge-branch in her hand (this was a rather mysterious item; she must have torn it off violently, though she couldn't remember when).

Like a wise old tracker man, Mika kneeled over, testing the mud with one finger on the rim of a Growlithe print. "Still warm," she muttered, though it was really just still gooey and not really warm. This gave her energy to go faster, and she ran through the evil mud as it thwacked around her, following the tracks. In the still sane part of her mind, she thought it a wonder that she wasn't foaming at the mouth or turning green and ripping her clothes off.

Finally, to her immense animal-like delight, she rounded the corner and realized the tracks had stopped. Then, slowly, as if she was awakening from her drunken stupor, she realized the tracks ended at a dead end. The Growlithe had somehow led her here, though she had no idea how it'd gotten away. Had it jumped over the hedge maze?

While she pondered this, she heard a mocking voice just on the other side of the maze. "Grrr-ow ow!" The effect of it was so startling that Mika jumped, lost her balance, and fell face-down into the mud. After heaving herself back up again, she leaned back on her knees and yelled, "ARRRGGHHHH!"

Perhaps, after all, she was the Hulk.

-x-

"So, what do you want to make?" Mika's mother asked. She was still a bit tired, as was evident from the rings around her eyes.

Mika stared up at her mother. "Cookies?"

"Is that what your teacher wanted you to make?"

"I think so. Well, she didn't say. But cookies are good."

"You know, for potlucks at school, you're not allowed to eat whatever you make. You have to eat everyone else's food." It was obvious she wanted Mika to make something easy and healthy. More like celery. Or possibly grass, handpicked from the garden.

"I still want cookies."

"You don't want… string cheese?"

"Mommy, ew!"

"I know, you hate string cheese. So what kind of cookies?"

"Chocolate chip?"

"Okay, chocolate chip it is, then." Her mother pulled out a myriad of ingredients from the shelf as Mika watched in wonder.

"So for a pot-lock, we bring food?"

"Potluck," her mom corrected, then answered, "That's right."

"Then what?"

"Well, you share it with everyone."

"Then what?"

"Well, after everyone's had some, you bring the rest back home."

Mika thought for a moment, silently. "Maybe the ones on top can have nuts in them."

"Nuts? Why?"

"Well, most won't have nuts in them. Just the ones on the top."

"But you hate nuts."

"I won't be eating them, remember? And everyone hates nuts."

"Then why do you want nuts in the top ones?"

"Well, it's pretty simple," Mika said. "If there's nuts at the top, they'll think there's nuts in all of them. Then nobody will take any. And so I can bring all them home."

Mika's mother turned to stare at her for a moment. "You sure have a business plan, don't you?"

Mika smiled at her. "Yup."

-x-

Mika lay, exhausted, on her bed, watching a bad chick flick she wasn't really following. She had opted for the bad movies over the Gilmore Girls rerun, mostly because she already had a whole folder of new episodes to watch anyway, so she didn't feel like watching her favorite episode. A whole season had gone by since she'd watched it, but she'd held off watching all of them. Of course, she was dying to see what happened, and dying for Logan to die, but it somehow felt wrong watching it without her mom. They'd always watched it together before. Even when they were fighting, they'd watch it together and usually would forget their anger halfway through the show, when they'd be concocting strange sundaes (Caribbean Peppermint, Blueberry-Caramel-Lemon, and the War of Skittles vs. M&Ms were a few favorites) during the commercial breaks.

Trying to not think of anything important, so she wouldn't start feeling the hollow, achy sensation in her chest that she hated, she tried to immerse herself into the movie she was watching. Maybe it could be her new favorite thing to watch.

"You skanky whore! You stole my fiancée at the altar!"

"I only did that because I'm the one he really loves!"

"No you're not! You only got him because the witch doctor brewed you a love potion!"

"You liar!"

"Then why did he choose to come with me?"

"You got a love potion from the witch doctor!"

"Ohmigod, I hate you!"

"I hate you more!"

Mika sighed and collapsed, turning off the TV. "You'll have a job tomorrow. At least that's something to do." Her stomach suddenly rumbled, and she realized she hadn't eaten since breakfast (if she didn't count the mass quantities of chocolate consumed after her maze incident).

Leaving her room, Mika headed downstairs. Once she'd reached the first floor, she made her way to the kitchen, and tried to sneak past the chef, but there was no way that was happening.

"Good evening, Miss Mika! How may I help you?" The cook was reassuringly overweight but unreassuringly had a long beard that was covered with garlic pieces. He was mincing it for what must have been Giovanni's dinner, which he always took in his office.

"Uh, I'm okay," Mika said. She suddenly looked around, dazed by the bright lights of the kitchen. It, of course, was made of glass and crystal and marble. She caught herself staring at the counter, which was glass or at least something transparent. She could see everything in the drawers underneath it.

She'd never really been in the kitchen before, and felt sort of strange. Was she allowed in there? Maybe she was supposed to sit and wait for someone in the dining hall. But then what, would someone come and take her order?

"Do you need anything?"

"No, I just came to get some…" Mika was at a loss for words. "Uh… milk!" she finished proudly, heading to the fridge and opening it. She came face-to-face with a rather gruesome looking frozen bird.

"That's the freezer," the cook supplied.

"Right!" Mika's fridge in Mahogany Town had the freezer on top, with the fridge below. These were French-door type refrigerators, the kind she'd seen in her dentist's waiting room's magazines but never in person.

She opened the other door, and suddenly all she saw were eggs, everywhere. Confused, she looked back at the chef. "Uhh…"

"That's the meat fridge," he told her.

"Meat fridge?" Mika blinked. Why anyone would have more than one fridge was beyond her. She also hadn't known that eggs were put in a meat category. "Are eggs meat?" she asked, though she'd meant to ask the other question.

"Why, if they're fertile eggs, then yes! They're little baby… Spearows!"

Mika stared at him, suddenly feeling nauseous. "So… all those things in there… were little Spearow embryos?"

"No, of course not! We don't have fertile eggs."

"Then… are non-fertile eggs meat?"

"No!"

"Why do you call that fridge the meat one, then?"

"We don't!" The chef laughed eerily.

Mika nodded, giving a huge fake smile. "Okaay… Where's your dairy fridge, then?"

"Why, you're looking for yogurt?"

"No, actually, mil – "

"You know yogurt is mold, right? Wait, maybe that's cheese. I never learned my fungi very well! Wait, is mold fungi?"

"I think so!" Mika started rushing around the room, opening fridges at random. She found the fruit and vegetable fridges, but no dairy one yet.

"All I know about fungi is I'm a fun guy!" He laughed heartily. "I learned that one in med school!"

"Do you know where the dairy fridge is?" Mika cried, not knowing or caring why he'd gone to med school.

"Well, sure!"

"Where is it?" she snapped, finally cracking. She'd suddenly just seen the similarity between the cook and the Growlithe, and didn't want this to end with her being stuck in mud again.

"Why, right next to you!"

Mika threw open the fridge and saw rows and rows of milk. There was even a half shelf filled with mini-bottles of chocolate milk, and she grabbed one of these.

"Oh, swell! You found my favorites! I guess we'll have to start getting more!"

Mika stalked out of the kitchen without another word.

"Do come again!"

As she hurried up the stairs, she ran into her father, who was coming down. He looked at her strangely, as if she had suddenly grown an alien out of her forehead or something.

"How… are you?" he asked, awkwardly.

"Fine." She wanted to go upstairs, but he was saying more.

"I heard you got lost in the hedge maze today?"

She turned red and looked down. She could see through the stairs below her, which gave them a sort of nice floaty feeling, except it mostly just gave her vertigo. "Yeah."

"The gardener said he found you covered in mud, with no shoes on."

Mika winced. She'd pleaded with the gardener, her savior, not to tell anyone. "I actually only lost one shoe."

"Of course, when I heard about it, I was obviously very angry with the help for letting you get lost. I also made some improvements to the hedge maze. I believe you can see it from your window?" Mika nodded. "You should go look once you get up there. Well…" He paused, searching for words. "I'll see you tomorrow. You'll come to my office at nine, correct?"

"Yup."

"Well… goodnight." He began to walk down the stairs, and Mika scurried up her own, glad that conversation was over and still embarrassed about the gardener spreading her story around.

He'd found her about three thousand years after she'd come to the dead end, when she'd given up and had sat there, face buried in her knees, legs hugged to her chest. After that, she'd been so covered in mud that she wouldn't care if she didn't ever get found, and maybe she could just lie there, not moving, until eventually she would die and her body would be preserved in mud. A thousand years from now, some advanced lifeform would find her fossil, the only one compltetely intact, since when bodies were buried, they weren't really preserved well, and her cadaver would do wonders for the science of the future. Mika hadn't really gotten around to asking herself why the future wouldn't already know what a human was, but she didn't care. Maybe human-type creatures in the future had limbs or appendages that became useless over time, and the future people would finally figure out why they had vestigial spines or something, like how whales had vestigial hips that seemed to mean they once walked the earth, or possibly just supported the theory of common ancestry. Then Mika began to wonder what 'whales' were, anyhow, and why thoughts about common ancestry suddenly sprang to her mind a lot of the time.

Shaking her head, as if trying to clear it, Mika opened her door and entered her room, closing it again behind her. As she walked over to her curtained window, curious to see what Giovanni had changed about the hedge maze, she broke the seal on the chocolate milk bottle. Then, when she'd reached the window, she pulled back the heavy pink curtain and prepared to cup her hands around her eyes to look out. After all, her room was lit, and it was dark outside. But she realized with a start that she didn't need to do this. It was bright enough outside anyway.

Where the maze had once stood was now a pile of twisted hedges, curled together, collapsed, diminished. A huge fire was raging amongst them, burning every last inch of the hedge maze, as if wiping it from existence.

Staring at it numbly, Mika couldn't move for a second. He had burned it down just because she'd gotten lost in it? The thought of this somehow scared her. If a Pokemon bit her, would Giovanni order the extinction of them all? If she asked him to kill someone, would he?

She didn't know what to think, but she vaguely remembered that as she opened the bottle of chocolate milk and took a gulp, she wished it was a much stronger drink.

-x-

"There!" smiled Mika's mother, pulling out the last batch of cookies, the ones with nuts on them. "That's all of them!"

Mika looked over all the cookies with a big grin on her face. It was nearly 5 am, and they probably wouldn't end up getting any more sleep, but the result was well worth it. The cookies looked perfect, and soon she'd get to eat them all! Well, she'd share them with her mother, of course.

"They look good!" Mika said.

Her mother nodded. "They do. But next time you have to make something for school, try to tell me before it's the middle of the night, okay?"

"Okay! But you'd still do it for me, right?"

"Well, yes. I'd do anything for you, Mika. But just try not to."

"You'd do anything for me?"

"Of course!" Mika's mother smiled at her strangely. "I love you more than anything else in the world, Mika." She knelt down and hugged her daughter.

"Would you kill someone for me?" Mika asked, innocently.

Her mother stared at her, then laughed. "Mika, that's a bit morbid."

"Still!" Mika pressed, though she didn't know what 'morbid' meant. "Would you?"

"Well, I guess so," her mom said, blinking. "But please don't ask me to."

"Don't worry, Mommy." She helped her mother put the cookies that had already cooled into the container she was going to take to school. "Thank you!"

"No problem, sweetie." Her mom yawned, rubbing her eyes tiredly.

"Oh, by the way?" Mika asked.

"Yes?"

Mika looked up at her, the epitome of innocence. "My teacher said that making food for the pot-lock is optional. What's that mean?"

-x-

Coming up next, Mika goes to work for Giovanni... Please review!