Young Writers Society

Once Darren and Aiden had traversed the ten metres to the southern wall of the marketplace, the former asked, ‘So, what’s your plan for the map? How do you want to start?’

Aiden opened his hip-pack’s flap with his nose and revealed a notebook with a pencil in the binding rings. He closed the pack in the same manner and carefully placed the notebook on the ground. Clasping the pencil in his right paw, Aiden opened the notebook and began drawing a crude sketch of the marketplace.

‘This is how,’ the Growlithe replied cheerfully. ‘All settlements have a marketplace at their original centre, so we start there and spiral outwards.’

Darren wrinkled his nose. ‘You do realise that spirals are the ideal shape for mazes because they squeeze the most distance into the smallest surface area?’

Aiden looked up. ‘Should we do it in sections, then?’

‘I thought that would be the logical choice. We can do the centre first, then east, southeast, southwest, and finally west.’

‘Sure, that works. When I make the actual map, I’ll obviously use an A4 page, not A7, or whatever this is,’ he playfully scowled at the notebook, ‘but for now, I can draw each section on its own page. Will you describe the buildings? I want to get the proportions right for when I draw the real thing.’

‘All right.’ Darren regarded the well with the four stalls arranged around it. ‘The marketplace is contained within four walls, one for each direction, but they aren’t connected. The well is in the middle, with the walls to the east and west half as long as the other two. The eastern and western walls each only have one stall in front of them, whereas the northern one has two. The southern one, next to us, naturally has none.’

Aiden pouted. ‘It’s a pity the Cohens had to close their stalls. Miss Cohen at least has bookstore now, but Mr Cohen had to close his candy stall to help her with the shop.’

‘There are still a few jars of candy at their counter.’

‘Yeah, I know, but they only allow us to buy candy there once a week if we don’t buy anything else too.’

‘Doesn’t your father read the newspaper?’

‘Newspapers are sold at the Post Office, Darren. The bookstore sells magazines.’

‘Oh. Mom and I only listen to the radio.’

‘Don’t worry, I do too.’ Aiden gazed at the sketch with tilted head. ‘Should I just mark the stalls “stall”, or should I say what they sell?’

Darren narrowed his eyes into bored slits. ‘Seriously? Would you name the buildings “building”? Obviously you have to say what they sell. The western stall– Oh, hey, Mr Donnelly!’

Aiden whipped his head up. Seeing the Yanmega at the aforementioned stall wave his legs at them, Aiden breathed a sigh of relief and waved back.

‘I thought it was Mr Morvan Donnelly, not Mr Riley Donnelly.’

‘I’d have asked you why you would think I greeted Malcolm’s father instead of his uncle, but then I remembered the general store is behind us.’

‘Exactly.’

‘What are you kids doing over there?’ the Yanmega called.

‘We’re drawing a map of the village, sir!’ Aiden responded before listing the stalls “dairy”, “fish”, “spice”, and “fruit” in clockwise order.

‘You two have fun with that, then!’ the great insect replied.

‘I’m adding the general store now,’ Aiden reported.

‘Okay, just remember its length is the same as the marketplace’s, and its width is the same as most of the other buildings here.’

‘In short, it’s huge.’

‘Well, yeah, but it is the general store.’

‘It’s been owned by the Donnelly family since the village was founded, right?’

‘The bakery is next, so we can ask Minerva when we get there, but I believe so, yes.’

‘I’m done, so let’s go ask her.’

The two trotted over to the bakery, which doubled as the McAllister residence. Seven months before, a fire had broken out in the building. Most of it was destroyed and the stone ovens were ruined, so the McAllister family had to sell their house in the northeast of the village back to Dalton Village Hall in order to pay for all the repairs, as well as the new ovens. They added a second storey where they presently lived, but everyone knew the family was struggling financially. Darren admired Minerva for her perseverance, since she rarely complained about her situation, even though she clearly did not like working in the bakery upon coming home from school until well past sunset.

‘Sorry, you two,’ Minerva said over the open counter at the front of the building, rubbing her paws clean on her apron, ‘I just sold the last batch of poffins to Nurse Wigglesworth, and the oven is currently filled with regular rye loaves.’

‘It’s fine,’ Aiden said, waving his paw dismissively. ‘We’re here to ask you a question anyway.’

Minerva raised her eyebrows. ‘Okay… What’s the question?’

‘For how long have the Donnellys owned the general store?’

‘Besides the Flittering Butterfree and the marketplace, Donnelly’s General Goods is the oldest building in the village. Why do you ask?’

‘Darren and I are drawing a map of the village, and we were just wondering. Hey, would you like to help? You can entertain us with fun facts about the village’s history while we do it.’

Minerva’s features drooped. ‘I’d love to get out of here, but you know my dad. Sorry.’

‘No worries,’ Aiden replied. ‘I’ll show you the completed map tomorrow at school.’

One red canine turned away from the other and walked a few paces towards the Dalton Village Pokémon Centre, which was opposite the bakery.

‘Is it just me,’ Aiden asked, looking from the centre to the general store and back, ‘or is the Pokémon Centre smaller than the general store?’

‘It’s not just you,’ Darren replied. ‘Though it is still twice as large as my house, it was never intended to accommodate a very large amount of people, unlike the temple or village hall.’

‘If it was,’ Minerva said behind them, causing the boys to spin around, ‘the Wigglesworths wouldn’t be able to take care of the village on their own.’

‘I thought you your father doesn’t allow you out on weekdays?’ Aiden asked, perplexed.

‘Not unless my partners came to fetch me for our Behaviour team project,’ she replied, grinning mischievously.

‘You sly fox!’ Aiden softly punched her shoulder. He pulled another notebook from his hip-pack (also with a pencil in the rings) and tossed it to her. ‘You can write anything interesting in there. A list of occupations and the Pokémon that perform them would work too, I guess.’

‘Doesn’t your father already have a list like that?’

‘Yes, but Mr Cameron specifically wanted us to compare the jobs with the species that perform them.’

Upon Aiden’s wink, Minerva chuckled. ‘Gah, I forgot the most important part! So, what do you have already?’

‘We’ve done the marketplace, the general store, and your house,’ Darren responded.

Minerva immediately withdrew the pencil and began writing (much neater than either himself or Aiden, Darren noticed) while reading said writing out loud. ‘The dairy stall is run by Mr Riley Donnelly the Yanmega, the fish stall by Mrs Pike the Floatzel, the spice stall by Mr Guardiola the Darmanitan, who lives in the inn, and the fruit stall by Mrs Cowell the Tropius. Fun fact: The two empty spots at the southern wall used to be where the Cohen siblings had their stalls, but is now used by the occasional travelling merchant.’

‘We knew that already,’ Aiden said.

Minerva glared at him. ‘You wanted me to write you “fun facts”, so don’t complain when I do. Besides, if you attached these to your map, visitors would want to know.’

‘Fine, fine. Go on.’

‘The general store is owned by Mr Morvan Donnelly the Scolipede, but his Ledian wife runs it. Fun fact: Donnelly’s General Goods is one of the oldest buildings around, second only to the Flittering Butterfree Inn.’ She turned to look at her house. ‘McAllister Bakery, run by the titular Ninetales and Camerupt.’ She lifted the pencil off the pad and said, in a soft voice, ‘Fun fact: After the bakery burnt down, the family sold their house to pay for the damage and made it their new home – all the money saved to buy their daughter a Fire Stone also had to be used.’

Darren grimaced and Aiden’s eyes widened. ‘I’m sorry, Minerva,’ the Growlithe said.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Minerva said quickly. She looked square at the notebook. ‘I’ve started saving to buy one myself.’

‘I could–’ Aiden began to offer.

‘No!’ Minerva gave him a stern look. ‘I’ll buy that myself. If you want to buy me things, buy me books.’ She began writing on the notebook again. ‘Dalton Village Pokémon Centre is run by Doctor Wigglesworth the Togekiss and Nurse Wigglesworth the Wigglytuff. Fun fact: The Pokémon Centre is only a few years old; before the governor commissioned its construction, the space was occupied by a community garden.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ Darren commented. ‘When was it built?’

‘A year or two before you were born, I think,’ Minerva replied, scratching her head. ‘Aiden’s grandfather was the governor back then. It was he who also ordered the village’s expansion to make space for a park. He was probably a perfectionist, though.’

‘What makes you say that?’ Aiden asked.

‘Well, the palisades around the village now form a rectangle, which wasn’t the case before then. Once you’ve finished the map, you’ll see what I mean.’