A Father's Love

Chapter 57

The following weekend, Ethan and Alan invited Shelby to a sleepover at their house. The boys were going to a Pokemon trading card game session at a comic book store and asked if she would like to go. Shelby was so excited to go, she and the twins spent every minute they could, practicing. Luke reminded her not to practice during class or she couldn't go. So the kids spent both recess and lunch battling against each other. Friday afternoon, while waiting on the twins' mom to come pick her up, Shelby tried once more to teach Lorelai how to play.

Lorelai drew a card with a picture of a round, yellow duck holding its head. "Ooh. This little guy is so cute. I play him." She set the card down in the center of the table.

Shelby leaned closer to get a better look at the card. "Ta's Psyduck. He's a water type," she explained. "Bu' he also has psychic a'tacks."

"So why isn't he a water/psychic type?" asked Rory, who was spectating the match. Shelby had explained Pokemon and each of the elements each creature was.

She shrugged. "I don' know. Some Pokemon can learn each o-ter's attacks. Like 'tarmie, who is also a water type, can learn t'underbol'." Shelby meant to say Starmie can learn a thunderbolt attack, an electric type move.

"Well, Psyduck doesn't sound like a good name for a cutie like this," Lorelai stated. "His new name will be Quackers. Quackers the duck."

"Quackers?" Rory questioned of her mom.

"Yeah, like crackers, but he's a duck and ducks go quack." Turning back to Shelby, she asked, "hey, uh, Shelby. You think, instead of battling, your frog-plant thing can go get a milkshake and be friends?"

"Ba'toe-ing makes tem grow 'tronger so tey can evolve," she pointed out. "Tey like to ba'toe."

"I said it once, I'll say it again. That's not how evolution is supposed to work," Rory pointed out once more.

"I' is if i's a Pokemon."

"With logic like that, who can argue?" Lorelai snickered at the girls.

Luke had been standing there, spectating as well while holding the coffeepot in his hand, making his rounds.

"I'm just saying. Things don't evolve because they gain a certain level or are touched by a rock. They evolve to adapt to their environment."

"I stopped questioning it when I started getting headaches from thinking about it too much," he shrugged.

About that same time, the twins' mom walked in the diner. Shelby slid off her chair to go greet her best friends' mother, giving her a hug. With how much time the kid spent over at their house, Shelby had practically become a close friend to the entire family, including the twins' older brother.

Cheryl greeted Luke and the Gilmores, making small talk while Shelby picked up her cards. Rory helped, grabbing her mom's since Shelby was still one-handed. Afterwards, Shelby gave Lorelai and Rory a hug, and Luke, a hug and kiss good-bye before following Cheryl outside to her minivan.

Shelby had a blast at her friends' house, spending the entire weekend there, coming back Sunday evening. That's when Luke could finally take her shopping, having almost forgotten. They found a Harry Potter costume in Shelby's size, who tried it on to show Jess, pretending to use the freeze spell that was used on one of the characters in the first book/movie. However, instead of pretending like he was frozen, Jess said he deflected it, while looking at his own book he was reading.

This year, Shelby didn't win any special awards during her school's Halloween assembly. Her class did have a Halloween party. Thankfully, Luke didn't have to take Shelby trick-or-treating this year. Instead, she went with Ethan and Alan, and their family, bringing home a ton of candy she couldn't touch until Luke inspected it. Jess tried once again to steal more than one piece of his cousin's candy.