Blowing Bubbles

Chapter 18: Cooking up a tasty trial

It was a few days after Kiawes trial. I was now in a place called Lush Jungle. Crooked trees and huge leaves towered over me as I crept further into the humid jungle, branches and leaves brushing against my arms. Is this the right place...? I wondered. Someone told me at the pokemon center last night that the grass type trial is here...
"Hello there!" Out of nowhere, a girl swung out from a tree branch and greeted me, hanging upside down and scaring the living daylights out of me. She had green hair tied in two long ponytails, green eyes and light blue overalls. "I'm Mallow," she introduced as she jumped down. "I'm the trial captain here. What's your name?" "M-Millie..." I told her, kind of confused at the way she acted.
"So for this trial," Mallow explained, "you're going to help me find the ingredients to cook something called the Mallow Special." She sent out a dog pokemon with light brown fur and surprisingly durable blue fur covering the rest of its body. "Stoutland here will help you," Mallow told me, "you just need to climb on its back, and it'll sniff the ground when something's nearby. You need to find a Mago berry, a tiny mushroom, a revival herb and a miracle seed. Good luck!" I climbed onto Stoutlands back and we began to wander around the jungle.

Stoutlands nose was on the ground, sniffing. So far we had found the miracle seed and the mago berry.
Just then, Stoutland started barking. I climbed down from its back and found the tiny mushroom. I carefully tried to pull it up when suddenly, an orange crab pokemon jumped up angrily at me. "Paras, paras!!!"

Pretty soon, I came back with the four ingredients, then gave them to Mallow. "Thanks for your help," Mallow smiled as she took the ingredients and put them into a bowl. I then saw two people come out to help her; I instantly recognized them as Kiawe and Lana. Lana and Kiawe? I wondered. What are they doing here? "Surprise," Lana greeted. "We're here to help Mallow," Kiawe added as he bent down and placed the mago berry in the bowl. Lana did the same with the miracle seed, Mallow did the same with the tiny mushroom, and I did the same with the revival herb.

After a few minutes, the Mallow Special was finally done. The aroma coming from it was kind of sweet in a way. "Well, dig in!" Mallow ordered with a smile. At once the four of us took some of the Mallow Special. I was about to eat the first bit of it when Lana told me, "Millie, you might want to look behind you..." At that moment, her and Kiawe backed up. "What's wrong?" I asked as I turned around.

That was when I saw what they were worried about.