Buizel rested his head on one paw in a bored manner as he watched Mr. Breloom talk about type matchups. It was certainly informative, but Buizel wished that the lesson was over already.
The school took place outside in a grassy lot, separated from the rest of Island Village by a short hike and trees. It was a quiet place when class wasn’t in session.
Buizel glanced at the row of desks in front of him. Behind the desks were the younger Pokemon of the class, the Electric twins and Wooper, who were eagerly eating the lesson up with enthusiasm. He was faintly amused to see that the twins, a Plusle and Minun, were dismayed to learn that they were weak to Ground-types.
“But sir,” Minun asked, raising a paw, ”Does that mean if we were to enter a fight against Wooper, we would lose?”
Mr. Breloom shook his head appreciatively. “Not exactly, my young mons. While type matchups certainly help in battles, there’s far more to them than that.” He proceeded to ramble on about various other battle techniques, boring the back half of the class. It was fair, Buizel supposed. It was important to teach the new generation of Pokemon these things, but he still wished that there were separate classes for the younger and older mons of the school.
The back half of the class consisted of Buizel, Haunter, and Sneasel. Buizel glanced to his right over at Haunter, who looked about as bored as he was. Haunter noticed and grinned patronizingly back, making Buizel look away quickly.
Buizel looked to his left at Sneasel, who looked similarly bored. She was pretty, Buizel thought, in a dangerous flashing-of-knives kind of way. She was arguably the most bored looking ‘mon in the row, with her eyes betraying the fact that she was elsewhere entirely.
Buizel returned his attention to the blackboard. He barely knew anything about Sneasel, only seeing her show up to school. He didn’t even know if she lived in town or not.
His eyes involuntarily glazed over as he waited through the class. Arceus, this was boring. He vaguely thought of visiting the library after school. It had been a while since he had checked out a book…
A tinkling of wooden bells alerted everyone that class was over. Buizel resisted the urge to groan with relief. He didn’t know if he could survive another hour.
After being seen off by the schoolmaster, Mr. Fearow, Buizel was on his way home. It was a quiet walk, as he was the first to leave due to chores at home. He had joined the group walk back to town sometimes, but he didn’t think it was ever worth it.
A faint breeze stirred the trees as he walked. It was mid-winter, and the weather reflected this by being cold and stormy. Buizel supposed he should be glad that it was a dry year, as usually they were hit by tropical storms that had his family working overtime. Those were the stressful months.
Buizel arrived in town and made a beeline for the lighthouse. He wanted to read through that story that Dad had shown him last night. He didn’t know why, but something about it felt familiar.
Inside, the lighthouse felt of home and warmth. Buizel inhaled the scent of home and faint wood smoke from the fireplace, before walking over to their bookcase.
It was a tired old thing, crammed full of books. Ampharos often said that they gave the library selection a run for their money, which Buizel always scoffed at. There was no way a single bookshelf could house an entire library’s worth.
He pulled down the book of fairytales and flipped through to the back of the book. It was strange, he could’ve sworn that he read every story in the book, but there were some he had never even heard of.
After a moment, he got to the beginning of the Time Gear one. The story described how a storm washed up a Turtwig onto a beach where a Vulpix found him, and their myriads of adventures. Buizel was soon engrossed in reading the story, eagerly turning each page to see what happened next. It felt like he was really there, cheering them on as they saved the world.
A sudden knock on the door startled Buizel out of a particularly tense moment in the story. Feeling slightly miffed at being interrupted, he walked over to the door and opened it to see Cleffa standing there.
“Oh good, just the person I was hoping to see,” Cleffa said, relieved. “Do you think you could come down to the clinic for a while? It’s not really an emergency, but…” she trailed off, looking at him pleadingly.
Buizel was more than a little surprised. “Uh. Yeah, sure? Let me just ask my parents first.”
He left the door open with Cleffa peeking anxiously after him. What on Arceus’ green planet did the clinic need him for?
He walked over to his parents’ door and knocked. After a moment, the door opened and Ampharos’ long neck peeked around the door. “Niiils?”
Buizel gestured in the general direction of the door. “Cleffa wants me to go to the clinic again, is that fine?”
Ampharos gazed towards the door for a moment before responding. “I see no reason not to go. Just be careful.”
Buizel nodded. “I will.”
“Good.” Ampharos nodded in response. “Go with my blessings.” He shut the door.
Buizel walked back over to the waiting Cleffa. “Yeah, I can come visit.”
“Phew, okay,” Cleffa said in palpable relief.
On the way to the clinic, she spoke up. “So the Shinx we’ve been taking care of escaped the clinic last night, somehow.”
Buizel looked at her in shock. “What?”
She nodded. “We’re not exactly sure how, as he won’t say, but he was gone for at least twenty minutes. He won’t say where he went, either.”
“Ah.” Buizel chuckled weakly. “So you want me to be the interrogator.”
“Yes and no,” Cleffa replied. “Yes, information on where he went is fine and dandy, but we really just need someone to keep him entertained and quiet.”
Buizel thought for a moment. “Do you think he likes books?”
Cleffa stopped walking and paused for a second. “You know, I don’t think either of us have thought of that. You’ll have to ask him.”
They arrived at the clinic shortly after. Chansey was anxiously standing at the door, waiting for them. When they came into view on the path, she visibly relaxed.
“Oh good, you were able to get him,” she said to Cleffa. Turning to Buizel, she bowed and said, “Thank you for coming on such short notice. We really just need someone to make sure that Shinx doesn’t get into trouble for a while.”
“Why me?” Buizel voiced the question that had been bothering him since he left the lighthouse.
“Because you’re just about the only ‘mon he knows,” she replied. “And we’re both too busy with keeping the clinic afloat and taking care of him to actually entertain him.”
“Oh.” Buizel was slightly nonplussed. “Alright.”
He was ushered into the sick ward by Chansey, and then she shut the door behind him. Walking over to the bed, he saw Shaun sitting despondently there. He looked no worse for wear, Buizel noted, but he certainly looked a lot more tired than the last time he had seen him. It took a second for him to notice Buizel, as well.
Shaun’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, hey! I recognize you.”
Buizel shrugged. “They practically dragged me here to entertain you.”
“Ah. So they told you about my escapades,” Shaun said conspiratorially. He grinned after a moment. “I don’t regret it at all, personally, but now I’m on even stricter bedrest for the foreseeable future.” He coughed.
Buizel cocked his head. “What did you do?”
“Oh, just the usual,” he said lightly. “Did a little bit of parkour, went to the library, learnt that I can only read ancient script that was written probably several thousand years ago, had a small existential crisis, the usual.”
“Whoa whoa whoa,” Buizel said. “Back up a second. ‘Reading ancient script’?”
Shaun grinned. “Yeah, apparently I can read an untranslatable script of some kind.” His grin faded somewhat. “Means I don’t know how to read the strange footprint writing, though.”
Ah, so leaving books is out of the question. “That’s… certainly interesting.” Buizel didn’t know how to process this. “What script was it?”
“I think the librarian said it was ‘unknown script’? I was kind of reading a doomsday prophecy at the time so I wasn’t focused on the finer details.”
“Unown script?” Buizel felt like his brain imploded. “The same one that’s been untranslatable for hundreds of years? The same Unown script that has baffled cryptologists the world over, and you can just… read it?”
“It’s just English,” Shaun shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
Buizel stared at Shaun for a moment. “So you’re insanely weird.”
Shaun laughed, sending himself into a coughing fit. “So glad that’s being established early. Though I’m surprised that you finding me in the woods doesn’t constitute me as ‘weird’.”
Buizel started pacing back and forth. Finding an unconscious mon in the woods? Unusual, but not unheard of. Exotic illness? Yeah, sure, that happened all the time. A combination of the two? Now that’s strange. He turned to face Shaun. “A sick, lost, amnesiac mon who can read an ancient script that the best cryptologists in the world can’t figure out? That’s crossing the line from ‘weird’ to ‘freaky’.”
Shaun gazed at Buizel for a moment with uncannily blue eyes before letting out a low whistle and looking at the ceiling. “Would you believe that’s not the entire package?” he muttered. He hastily attempted to change the subject. “So considering that I’m not allowed out of bed for the foreseeable future, do you have any interesting books that I could look at?”
“I thought you just said that you couldn’t read footprint writing,” Buizel said.
“Pictures, obviously.” Shaun looked mareepishly at the ceiling again. “That’s true. Uh, are you comfortable with reading aloud?”
Buizel considered the idea. It wasn’t a bad one, but he wasn’t really good at it. “Comfortable? Yes. Bad at it? Also yes.”
Shaun’s ears perked up. “How can you be bad at reading aloud?”
Buizel felt a faint smile force its way onto his face. “Oh, you’ll see.”
It took Buizel about ten minutes for him to leave and come back with a book tucked under his arm. When he reentered the sick ward, he discovered Shaun practically jittering with boredom. “Oh you’re back. Thank goodness. I was starting to go mad.”
“It wasn’t that long,” Buizel scoffed. “Five minutes at most.”
Shaun rolled his eyes. “Easy for you to say. You can actually get up and walk around.”
Buizel plunked down the book he had been carrying. “This is my dad’s book of fairy-type tales.”
Shaun gave it a cursory glance. “Looks well read.”
“It’s an old book, yeah,” Buizel said comfortably. “I figure it’s got more than enough stories in here to entertain us for a while.”
“Cool!” Shaun flipped it open to the first page, which happened to be a table of contents. He then flipped to the second page, which was a continuation of the table of contents. “Wow, this is a dense book.”
“Like I said,” Buizel waved a paw. “More than enough stuff here to entertain for a while.” He went down through the table of contents, slightly awed at how many he hadn’t read. “Any preferences?”
Shaun shook his head. “Just read me something interesting.”
“Alright.” Buizel flipped to a story that he knew very well and sat down. “This is ‘Jirachi And The 99th Wish’.”
The story started off with the titular Jirachi deciding to grant a few wishes on a whim. He came down from Arceus’ plane to the Pokemon world in search of Pokemon to grant wishes to. It started off well, but the wishes grew more and more selfish as he granted them. After the 98th wish, a particularly selfish one, Jirachi had grown tired of granting wishes to ‘mons that didn’t deserve them, so he flew far away to hide under a rock.
Spring turned to summer, and summer turned to autumn. Still he hid under his rock, wanting to never grant another wish.
Autumn turned to winter, and with it came cold snows and bitter winds. Sometime before mid-winter’s eve, Jirachi heard a knock on the rock he was hiding under. Grumpily, he pushed up the rock to see a Togepi standing there. “What do you want?” he grouchily asked.
“Oh, I was just seeing who lived here,” it replied. “Do you wanna be friends?”
“No,” Jirachi said curtly, and hid under the rock again.
The next day, at around the same time, Jirachi heard knocking again. He was inclined to ignore it, but curiosity got the better of him, so he lifted up the rock again.
The Togepi was standing there, holding a small Sun Stone. “What’s this?” Jirachi asked.
“You just looked cold and lonely, so I brought you our family’s Sun Stone,” it replied. It pressed the stone into Jirachi’s hands and walked off, leaving him in stunned silence. This was the first time a mon had done something for him for a completely altruistic reason.
That night, a particularly fierce blizzard raged outside, but Jirachi was kept warm by the Sun Stone so kindly given by the small child.
The next morning the world was covered in a thick layer of snow, but there was still a knocking at the rock Jirachi was under.
Jirachi lifted up the rock to see the Togepi standing there. “Oh, it’s you again,” he said, not quite miffed.
“I just wanted to see if you were alright after the big storm last night,” the Togepi said.
Jirachi decided that he would grant one last wish, just for this innocent child. “Do you wish for anything? Anything at all?”
The Togepi considered for a moment and shook its head. “No, I’m perfectly content with what I have.”
“Really?” Jirachi wheedled. “You can’t think of anything at all?”
“Well, I can think of one thing,” the child replied.
“What is it?”
“I wish that you’d be my friend.”
Jirachi smiled for the first time since he had hidden under the rock. He didn’t need to use his cosmic powers to grant this wish. “Sure.”
The Togepi smiled with real joy. “Really?!”
Jirachi nodded. “Really truly.”
And so the Togepi and Jirachi became great friends, without that last wish ever being granted. Some say that the 99th wish was hidden away under the rock by Jirachi, waiting to be found by someone who would wish for a friend, themselves.
Buizel stuttered and stumbled over his words, often needing to take breaks to breathe. But Shaun was enraptured by the storytelling all the same. “Whoa. You really like this story, don’t you?”
Buizel flushed a little with embarrassment. “How’d you guess?” He was still breathing heavily from the effort. “Wow, I really need to read out loud more.”
Shaun nodded. “It’s a skill that you do have to learn.” He coughed a few times. “Man, I almost forgot I was sick for a moment.”
“I’m not sure I can read another story,” Buizel panted. “That was a pretty long one, and my voice feels just about spent.”
“Eh, it’s fine,” Shaun said. “I figure I probably need ‘rest’ and ‘peace and quiet’ to make a full recovery.”
“That you do,” Chansey said as she walked around the curtain, startling the both of them. She had been lurking just out of view, presumably waiting for Buizel to finish the story.
“Yeesh! Warn me the next time you do that,” Shaun said, hair standing on end. “I’m not good with jumpscares.”
“Boo,” Buizel said in the most deadpan tone he could muster. Shaun laughed and pretended to jump in fright. “Yikes! What did I just tell you, young man?!”
“While laughter is the best medicine, Buizel does have to leave now,” Chansey said apologetically. “I feel like I’ve kept him from his family long enough as is.”
Buizel cocked his head. “How long has it been? An hour?”
“It’s been about two and a half hours, actually,” she corrected.
Shaun’s eyes widened. “Wow. Time really does fly when you’re having fun, I guess.”
Buizel picked up the storybook and bowed towards Chansey. “Thanks for having me.”
Chansey bowed in return. “No, thank you for coming here on such short notice. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”
“Tie me down with ball and chain, presumably,” Shaun muttered. Buizel heard this and grinned to himself as he was ushered out of the ward.
After saying goodbye to Cleffa and Chansey, Buizel made his way back to the lighthouse. The sun was just barely starting to tint the sky an orange color, promising a wonderful sunset later, and the streets were filled with Pokemon going about their evening business. Buizel took a deep breath of the ocean air and sighed. This was home.
Halfway there, he was struck by a sudden idea and decided to stop by the library.
As he stepped inside the familiar building, the Farfetch’d looked up from his constant supply of forms. “Oh, hey, Buizel. Here to check out a book again?”
“Kinda.” Buizel set down the book he had been carrying since he left the clinic with relief. “Did a Shinx happen to stop by last night?”
Farfetch’d stared at him blankly for a moment. “Eh?” Recollection dawned on his face. “Oh. Oh. Are you referring to that Shinx?”
Buizel nodded. “The only one in town, yes.”
“Ah. Yes, he did stop by last night, around ten-thirty if I had to guess. Came up and asked for stuff with Unown scripts and was able to read them. Somehow.” Farfetch’d shuffled forms around in an attempt to organize his thoughts. “Said stuff about a ‘doomsday prophecy’ and asked me what humans were. Odd stuff.” He looked keenly at Buizel. “Why do you ask?”
“I figured that I could attempt to transcribe some of the scripts,” Buizel said. “He can’t read footprint writing, and I’d bet good Poke that he can’t write it, either.”
Farfetch’d looked at Buizel for a moment before shaking his head. “This ‘mon just gets weirder and weirder. Hang on, Mr. Fearow is in right now, I’ll ask him about it.”
Buizel glanced at the office door nervously. Mr. Fearow was alright, but he was slightly terrifying to be around. He didn’t envy Farfetch’d as he entered the door behind the desk.
After a few minutes, Farfetch’d still hadn’t come back out of the office and Buizel was slightly bored of waiting, so he decided to peruse the library’s selection. It was mostly the same as the last time he had checked it out. They didn’t often get new books in, due to being on an island and all.
Putting a book back onto the shelf he pulled it from, a strange feeling of overlooking something touched Buizel’s brain.
He perked up and looked around. There was something important in this room.
Buizel slowly walked around the library, looking for what was missing. Ah, there was something there, he just needed to look at it from a different angle.
He backed up until he was almost out the door before the message seemed to spring out at him. Buizel blinked and rubbed his eyes, and peered closer.
Somehow, drawn out of the shadows and various pieces of furniture, there was a message. Moving too far away from the spot broke the illusion, due to differences in the light’s angle and furniture placement.
Farfetch’d reentered the room and said something, but Buizel was too engrossed in the message’s appearance to notice. “Hey,” he said, interrupting a question Farfetch’d was asking. “Can you hand me a piece of paper and some ink?”
“Huh?”
“Piece of paper and ink. I need to write something down.”
“Alright, I guess.” Farfetch’d rummaged around in a drawer, pulled out a sealed bottle of ink and a spare sheet of blank paper, and offered them to Buizel. “What’s the big idea?”
Buizel hastily snatched the writing tools from him and sketched the characters as he saw them. It was a bit of a tricky job, as it mostly consisted of straight lines, which he wasn’t used to having to draw. He had to work fast, too, as the light was changing to quickly erase any evidence of the message. But eventually he had copied down the message, just as any signs it existed faded away.
Buizel looked at what he had written in curiosity. It just looked like a bunch of nonsense scribbles to him, nothing that he could read. Farfetch’d cleared his throat loudly, startling him. “Are you done?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Buizel gave back the ink jar. “I saw something and I had to write it down before the light changed.”
“Before the light- let me see that.” Farfetch’d held out an expectant wing, and Buizel obliged by passing the paper. He glanced at the paper, seemingly expecting something else, before doing a double take. After a moment, Farfetch’d looked back up at Buizel and waved the paper. “What in Arceus’ name is this?”
“You tell me,” Buizel said uncomfortably. “I just knew I needed to write it down before the sun moved too much.”
Farfetch’d gazed at him for a moment, before beckoning him behind the desk. “Come look at this.”
Buizel obliged, and Farfetch’d took a book off of the top of a pile that he hadn’t noticed him bring out. Farfetch’d opened the book and put the slip next to it for a comparison. “Look at these two side by side and tell me what you just wrote.”
Buizel studied the book’s contents, and then what he had just written. “They’re certainly very similar looking,” he admitted. “Lots of the same straight lines.”
“Forget ‘similar looking’, this is straight up Unown script,” Farfetch’d said irritably. “I would know, I’ve had to look at what’s inside these more than a few times. My question is,” he turned to Buizel. “How in the name of space and time did you write Unown script, having never seen the inside of any of these books before?”
Buizel opened his mouth to reply, but only a strained noise came out. How did you explain something like that? The coincidence was already uncanny enough, but having written it down from a message that appeared made out of shadows and convenient furniture placement was straight up terrifying. “I don’t know?” He managed, with a rising tone in his voice.
There was a moment of silence, which Farfetch’d broke by muttering, “Of course this stuff starts happening the moment I put in my vacation request.” He took a deep breath to recollect himself. “As I was saying before… that. Happened. Mr. Fearow said that he’d be willing to let you transcribe the manuscripts, and even pay for the effort.”
That got Buizel’s attention. “Wait, like, real Poke?”
Farfetch’d nodded. “Real as you, me, or that slip of paper there. We potentially have the only ‘mon in the known world who can actually read these, and it’d be a cryin’ shame if we didn’ take advantage of the opportunity’, he said. So we’re allowing you to take these out on your library card for transcribing purposes, as long as you actually hold up your end of the bargain.”
“I mean, there’s a monetary element involved,” Buizel said. “I’d be stupid to not take that.”
Farfetch’d moved the stack of books onto the storybook that Buizel had forgotten and slipped the piece of paper inside one of the books. “How soon do you think you can get all this translated?”
“Uh.” Buizel thought about Shaun being bedridden and most likely bored out of his mind. He’d probably leap at the chance to do anything useful. “Probably sometime within the next week?”
“Good. I’ve already checked these out on your account, so just take them home with you and translate them there.” He patted the top of the book stack proudly. “I don’t think I need to tell you to be careful with these, right?”
“Oh yeah, I understand completely.” Buizel’s family had a few irreplaceable books of their own that were safely locked away somewhere. “I’ll be as careful as possible.”
“Glad to hear it,” came the reply. “You should probably get going now.”
It was a slight undertaking to get the books out the door, but between the two of them, they managed. Farfetch’d waved as Buizel walked slowly to keep the books from toppling over.
After a laborious walk, Buizel finally reached the door of the lighthouse. He had to kick the door as a way of knocking, as his hands were currently occupied. After an excruciating minute, his mother opened the door. “Buizel! Welcome home!” She automatically took some of the books to lighten his burden, which he was immensely grateful for. “Did you stop by the library on the way back?”
“Yeah,” Buizel panted. “Wait until I tell you what happened.”
He waited until the books were situated by the door and the storybook was put back on the shelf before he relaxed. “Man, today’s been so weird.”
“You can tell us all about it over dinner.” Floatzel whisked off to presumably continue preparing the aforementioned dinner, leaving Buizel to stare at the pile of books he had brought home.
Out of curiosity, he picked up a book and started to flip through it. It was covered in the same rune things that he had drawn earlier, though this seemed to be an actual book of some kind. Astonishingly well preserved, the text was very readable by the right person.
Buizel thought back to today’s clinic visit. Something about Shaun just felt… off. He was certainly a jovial companion, but there were a lot of odd things about that Shinx.
And there seemed to be even more that he wasn’t telling him.
“Interesting choice of reading you picked up,” Ampharos said over Buizel’s shoulder. Buizel jumped, startled out of his thoughts. “Oh! Hi, dad. Yeah, I’m gonna transcribe these to actual readable text.”
If Ampharos had eyebrows, they most likely would’ve shot up his forehead. “Really. Been studying cryptology behind our backs, now?”
“Uh.” He wasn’t ready to explain that particular oddity about Shaun yet. “I’ll tell you more over dinner.”
“Alright, if you say so,” his father said, unconvinced. “Though you’re a bit young to be discovering the secrets of the universe.”
“Oh, hush,” came Floatzel’s voice from the kitchen. “Everyone needs a hobby, especially Buizel.”
Ampharos laughed to himself. “Odd hobby.” He wandered off, leaving Buizel to roll his eyes. He loved his parents, but they were a bit much sometimes.
That evening over dinner, Buizel explained everything that had happened to the best of his ability. He had some trouble due to his strained voice from the clinic, but he was determined to talk about what happened.
His parents were relatively quiet as he was telling the story, only stopping him at a few key points.
“So you’re telling me,” Ampharos said slowly, “That Shinx can read a language that most educated ‘mons believe is impossible to translate?”
“If that’s true, then that’s amazing,” Floatzel said. “We’d actually have the ability to make a cipher that can translate most Unown texts in the world.”
They went silent again until Buizel struggled to describe the scene in the library.
“I just felt that I was overlooking something,” he said. “And then there was just… a message, drawn out of shadows and furniture.” He rubbed the back of his head with a paw. “Dunno how to really describe it. Oh! Hang on.” He slid out of his chair and ran over to the pile of books by the door. Shaking each one over the floor yielded the scrap of paper he was trying to find. He ran back to the table and gave it to Ampharos, saying, “Farfetch’d came out and was saying something, but I needed paper to write down what I saw before the light changed too much.”
Ampharos stared at the paper for a minute as Buizel climbed back into his chair. He passed the piece of paper to Floatzel in silence, and then tapped his paws to his mouth in a concerned gesture. “In all my years roaming the planet, I have never heard nor seen anything like this before.”
Floatzel surveyed the paper before passing it back to Ampharos. “How did you even see this?”
“I dunno. It was just… there.” Buizel couldn’t explain it even if he tried.
“I think this Shinx is a bad influence on you,” said Ampharos. “If nothing else, his strangeness alone is contagious.”
“Dear!” Floatzel scolded him. “Be nice!”
They lapsed into silence again as Buizel continued. When he finished, he felt like he was ready to take a vow of silence so that his throat wouldn’t threaten mutiny like this ever again.
“Ahh, monetary incentive,” Ampharos chuckled. “The weakness of any ‘mon without a steady income.”
Floatzel cocked her head worriedly. “Do you think that the Shinx will even want to do this?”
Buizel nodded. “He’s bored out of his ever-loving mind in there. I think he’ll jump at the chance to do anything.” He hoped.
“If you say so,” said Floatzel, unconvinced. “You are going to share the money with him, right?”
Buizel nodded emphatically. “I’m just the person writing it down, I don’t deserve the Pyroar’s share of the Poke.”
After dinner, Buizel went upstairs to his room. It was a simple affair, consisting of a dresser pushed against the wall, a rug in the middle of the room to add a small splash of faded color, and his worn bed off to one side. The window across the room from the door let in a view of an early sunset, the sky just barely starting to shift into a pinkish tone. He flopped onto his bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to process what had happened that day. The clinic visit, the strange event at the library, work…
He groaned. “Buizel, what in the world have you gotten yourself into?”