bloogum

That night we looked on the 'Internet' for my tail and Sapphire's necklace. Sapphire had a different computer to when we saw her last. It was similar to her other one, but a pretty blue, a lot like the colour of an Articuno. She must have bought it with the money she kept winning from Pokémon Gym battles and stuff. It may have been a different computer, but the background picture was the same; the picture of our mountains, the Articuno Mountains.

She logged onto the Internet and made that annoying squeaking scratching noise that sounded like the computer was falling apart. The screen filled with a large white box and Sapphire typed the address in for some site, who knows what. The white box was filled with writing and a kind of silhouette of the mountains.

As the page loaded, Sapphire explained to us that this was a search engine. It was similar to EggSales.com, but you could search the whole web for anything, not just eggs. I still didn't get it. Sapphire searched up first 'Articuno tail', since that would have been easier to find than a necklace. The screen changed again and listed various sites.

Sapphire scrolled down the page to view each of them. "Damn!" she growled, "They're all about Articuno, none want to sell a tail."

"How about adding in 'price' or something to the search," Shelly suggested. I wish I could understand this stuff.

Sapphire searched again and muttered to herself in annoyance. "Nothing." She tried again, four times, including the words sell, buy, sale and cost, but still the search engine returned no hits.

Sapphire was getting annoyed. "Okay, all right. If you won't do what I ask you to do, I'll get you to do something else," she muttered to the machine. She typed in another address in the address bar and another site came up, this time showing three gemstones up the top, a sapphire, a diamond and a ruby. After a few clicks and a few pages, Sapphire came across a column of sapphire necklaces, with their description and price written alongside.

"Ha, gotcha now!" she smiled, scrolling down the page. Her face fell when she'd reached the bottom of the page and she slumped back in the chair. "It's not here," she whined.

"Well, it was only just stolen last night," I reasoned, "maybe they haven't had a chance to put it up yet."

Sapphire nodded as she closed down the web, revealing the Articuno Mountains once more. "I guess so. We'll try again in a few days. I'm going to bed." And with that, she rose to her feet and ambled back to her room. I sure hoped we'd find that necklace. It meant more to her than my old tail did to me.

"Sapphire, don't bother," Glacier advised her on the eighth unsuccessful night, "The cops are probably doing a better job. An Articuno egg is an entirely different thing to a sapphire or a few feathers. Whoever stole it is probably trying to sell it discretely."

Sapphire sighed. "It's just, I can't bare to stay here and do nothing except be nervous all the time. It's just not me. I'm going to either be bored or worried, and I really don't enjoy either."

"So take the holiday!" Shelly persuaded, "You won't be bored and you'll be having too much fun to be worried!"

Sapphire sighed again. "I just don't feel like one right now. Let's just go and watch tv."

So we all followed her into the lounge room and flopped back on the couch. Sapphire flicked the tv on and lay back to watch the news. There was some article on about a plane crash near Cinnibar Island. I didn't know where that was, so I ignored it and sauntered off to the kitchen to get some eats.

Just as I had opened the fridge door, Sapphire called out to me, "Quick! Snowfall! There's a story about an Articuno!"

I slammed the door shut and tore into the lounge. This could be some news about my baby! I flopped down on the couch and stared intently at the screen. It was amazing what humans could do.

"... Was spotted flying over Lake Enyata this morning by a local bird watcher by the name of Phil Dunn," the reporter was saying. It was the same guy who had reported about Glacier and me two years ago.

The camera switched to Phil Dunn, an elderly man with greying hair, by the lake. "It was incredible! I'd never expected to see anything rarer than a Farfetch'd, maybe a Charizard, but an Articuno!" He held up a photo of the Articuno, which I was itching to see. After all, who else could it have been? The camera enhanced the picture, but it was still hard to make out.

"This particular Articuno," Phil was saying, " was very pale in colour, but that was all I could tell, it was just such a shock seeing it!"

The camera moved back to the reporter, who then proceeded on to a story about a baby Magby being born in the Fuchsia City zoo.

"Well then," Sapphire said, smiling at me, "I guess there's no question as to what we do now!"

"How far's Lake Enyata?" Shelly asked.

Sapphire frowned. "I'm not sure exactly, but if we go by train, it'll be quicker than flying, I know it's a fair way."

My heart was racing. I might finally be able to see my baby!

Eleven | Thirteen