Not too far away, Jessie and James were still searching around the square.
"Hey, where did Meowth go?" Jessie pushed aside the bushes, pulled out a painted egg, and asked after looking around.
"I don't know," James replied, still searching the area. "How many have you found?"
"Two."
"Then with my one, that makes three." James then glanced up at the countdown timer nearby. "Forget about Meowth for now, let's just keep looking."
"Fine."
"You guys are really trying hard, meow." Meowth took one look at the enthusiastic duo and walked away in silence.
Meanwhile, on Jodi's end.
After searching all over, Jodi finally found a massive, strange egg in a corner.
"This has to be a Pokémon egg, right?" Jodi thought uncertainly, clutching the egg in her arms.
Since she had never seen a Pokémon egg before, Jodi had no idea what kind of Pokémon would hatch from an egg with these patterns.
—
But the family's standard of living had improved quite a bit recently, so feeding one extra mouth wouldn't be a problem at all.
With that in mind, Jodi hugged the egg tightly and jogged back home.
"Mom, what is that?" Sam asked, glancing over as he walked by.
"This?" Jodi said, holding the Pokémon egg. "I just found it by the side of the road. I don't know what Pokémon it is, but I figured we could take it in."
Jodi sounded a little guilty saying this, but Sam's attention was entirely focused on the Pokémon egg, so he didn't notice.
"That's awesome!" Sam cheered.
He had always wanted to catch a Pokémon of his own, but since he didn't have a Pokémon to battle with, and because he had been so busy working for Gunther at the museum, he had only just found the free time for it.
"But how are we going to hatch it?" Sam asked, staring at the egg.
"Hmm, maybe—" Jodi began to think, but Sam pointed at Ron in the distance and suggested, "How about we go ask Ron? He's raised an Indeed before, so he should know how to hatch one of these."
Jodi was just about to agree when she spotted Indeedee standing right next to Ron. She fell silent for a moment before rapidly shaking her head.
"Huh? Why not?"
Jodi looked around guiltily for a moment before saying, "Asking Nurse Joy should work too. She should have the time to help us with this."
"That works too," Sam agreed, looking at the Pokémon egg with a face full of anticipation. "If Vincent finds out, he'll probably jump for joy."
Meanwhile, Vincent.
Just as Sam had predicted, he was jumping.
With Abigail absent, Vincent had boasted to Penny and Gus early on that he would take the championship in this egg hunt.
He hadn't expected a Rattata to suddenly crash the party and scoop up seventy to eighty percent of the eggs on the field in one go.
And even for the remaining eggs, he couldn't beat out those two adults who worked on the farm.
Vincent honestly couldn't wrap his head around why a tiny straw hat and a little painted egg hunt would attract so many participants.
"And so—the champion of this year's egg hunt is Rattata!!" Lewis announced loudly.
The Rattata walked up to the chest as if it had just been bestowed some supreme honor, waiting for Lewis to bring out its rightful straw hat.
Under normal circumstances, it should have won with ease, but it couldn't be helped—there were simply too many competitors today. Even the Rattata had to give it its absolute all to snatch the majority of the painted eggs from everyone else.
"Rattata, Rattata!"
"It says—" Meowth didn't even have time to translate the Rattata's victory speech before Jessie smashed a fist onto its head.
"Where the heck did you run off to, Meowth?" Jessie snarled. "If you had been here, we might have actually won!"
"..." Meowth opened its mouth, feeling wronged. But it knew that if it told Jessie it had figured out ages ago that today's prize was just a straw hat, Jessie would absolutely pummel it.
With that in mind, Meowth snapped its mouth shut.
Completely disregarding the lack of a translator, the Rattata over there excitedly shared with the crowd all the grueling effort it had poured into claiming this straw hat.
"Rattata, rattata, rattata—"
"Alright, save the rest of the speech for when you get back."
Seeing that the Rattata was still babbling on, Lewis couldn't help but interrupt, "Here is your prize—" Before he even finished speaking, Jessie's burning gaze had already locked onto the chest.
"Could it be gems?"
"Or maybe some incredibly delicious food?"
Before the two of them could finish guessing what was inside, Lewis threw open the lid of the chest.
A yellow glow immediately caught their eyes.
"It's yellow—" Jessie paused. "A yellow straw hat?"
Jessie and James stood there with their mouths agape. The disappointment of not winning first place instantly evaporated, replaced by a wave of relief that they hadn't won. Jessie honestly couldn't imagine how she would have felt if she had mistakenly believed she was about to win some grand prize, only to lift the lid and find a crappy hat inside.
"Hey wait a minute, Meowth, did you know about this already?"
"Meowth didn't know anything, meow. Meowth just had other things to do, meow."
Meowth said, awkwardly averting its eyes.
Immediately after, Jessie's iron fist came crashing down.
"Tell us about this kind of stuff earlier next time! If I had this kind of energy, couldn't I have put it to better use?" Jessie grumbled, shoving the eggs in her hands into her pockets.
"So, are we heading back to Ginger Island after this?"
Meowth asked.
"Might as well." Jessie thought for a moment before adding, "But let's swing by our place first. I need to grab some things."
Saying that, Jessie walked straight out of the square.
Meowth and James exchanged a brief glance before quickly following after her.
They made their way all the way back to the farm.
Jessie and James stood frozen in front of the brand-new cabin.
Meowth, bringing up the rear, didn't notice that the two had stopped in front of the cabin and bumped right into Jessie's back.
"What are you guys doing, meow."
Meowth complained, but upon looking up, it saw the new cabin. "It's already fixed?"
Ron had mentioned that he would upgrade their house and expand the Pokémon room so that Wobbuffet, Lickitung, Mime Jr., and the rest would have a place to sleep.
But he never said it would be this big.
Meowth walked inside with its head tilted back, eyes darting everywhere.
"So this is our new home, meow." Meowth rubbed its paw against the brand-new little bed. "It's awesome."
Jessie finally snapped out of her daze and stepped into the house.
James, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by the size of the house.
However, he was still quite surprised that Ron was willing to shell out such a massive amount of money to upgrade their house, especially when his only reason for doing so was sending them to Ginger Island to tend to the farm's fields.
"Ahhh, it's this! Meowth's hat rack!" Meowth quickly dug through a box in the corner, pulled out its trademark felt hat, and hung it up on the rack.
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