It was September when I first met Takato.
It happened on a Tuesday, on my way back home. I wanted to buy a few post cards from the little shop I always drive past when coming back from home. As usual, I didn't lock my car... I never do when I'm in a hurry and I know that I'll be back in a couple of minutes.
But when I came back out of the store, I saw a young boy, wearing a blue shirt and a pair of goggles who was standing next to my car, opening the door and slamming it shut.
For a while, I didn't say anything and watched the spectacle.
After the third time, he looked up at me and commented: "That's pretty loud, huh?"
"Um..." I said.
He slammed the door one more time, then he seemed to realize something and asked: "Is this your car?"
I nodded.
"Then you probably won't be too happy now, huh?" he asked, a bit sheepishly.
"Well, obviously..." I frowned.
He gave me an embarrassed chuckle, slammed the door one last time and said: "Sorry 'bout that!" Then he walked away.
I met him again, a few days after that.
It was pouring. I was on my way to an extremely important appointment that could not be delayed. The raindrops were falling down on my umbrella when I came past a bakery that was closed at that time of the day.
Takato was standing in front of a door next to the bakery, clad in a raincoat, watching the raindrops falling into a puddle.
I stopped and watched him. "Bored?" I finally said.
"I'm never bored," he replied.
"Don't you have any friends you can play with?" I wondered.
"I've got many friends," he said.
"Friends from school?" I asked with interest.
"Well, I have some friends at school... but recently I've started hanging out with my others friends. They don't go to school, you know?" He thought about something, shrugged and added: "Well, at least not very often. They don't like school very much, understand?"
"Yes," I said. "Yes, I can understand that. And where are your friends right now?"
He gestured upwards. "Upstairs."
"Upstairs?"
"Yeah, in my room. Guilmon and Ami, Tails and Gohan, and Jack... CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow!"
I was impressed. "You've got lots of friends," I commented. He nodded. "How did you meet them, if not in school?" I wondered.
"Ah, that was quite different for each one. Ami recently moved here into the small apartment next to my parents' bakery. She's from Juuban, you know? Guilmon... well, I've known Guilmon ever since I've become a Tamer..."
I decided not to ask what he meant by that. "And what about the others?"
"Well, I found the captain in the middle of a meadow, close to the city..."
"You found him?"
"I met him there. But that's a long story."
I thought about the extremely important appointment that could not be delayed.
"I've got some time. Wanna tell me?"
He shrugged. "Sure, why not?"
One afternoon, Takato and his friends Gohan and Guilmon were on a walk outside of the city. They were following a small path that was going past several fields and grassland.
Takato ran ahead without looking back, and Gohan followed him. Gohan was a teenager who was older than Takato, and he was a very athletic martial artist, although Takato had never seen him fight. Originally, Gohan was an exchange student from another school, who was living at Gohan's place for the duration of the exchange. But he didn't really like to study, especially because his mother always pressed him to do so. But he was a very nice guy, and especially Ami seemed to like him very much.
They walked along the path and Guilmon followed them. The red-scaled Rookie Digimon was carrying a bag with bread which Takato's parents had given them as snacks. Every now and then, he reached into the bag and took a loaf of bread, which he greedily swallowed.
But he almost had no chance to enjoy his meal, because he always had to run after his two friends, who didn't seem to wait for him.
Takato was very angry this afternoon. He glared down at the ground while he muttered to himself: "Five times trouble on one day, that's too much! First those jerks shoved me against the wall and called me a 'Digimon Freak', then the janitor yelled at me as if it had been my fault. Then Miss Asaji and the whole class - including Jeri - laughed at me because I didn't manage to do one single pull-up, and on my way home, when I met Rika, she just had to call me 'goggle-head'- AGAIN - and back at home, my father said I should go to my room and leave him alone just because HE had a stressful day... Five times, can you imagine that, Gohan?"
He turned around and glared at the other boy angrily. "Damn, I wish I could do the same thing you did and just quit school!"
"Eh... yeah, too stupid, huh?" Gohan quickly muttered. To be honest, he sometimes wondered if he had made the right decision. Now that he had to listen to Takato's endless prattle, he wondered if his mother was maybe right about what she told him about school after all...
He still remembered what Ami told him once: "School is not only very important, but it is also the most wonderful thing I can imagine... right after becoming a doctor."
Ami was the most clever and intelligent girl they knew, and she always helped Takato with his homework.
And while the two friends kept on talking about school and about all the trouble in life, they completely forgot that Guilmon was still walking after them.
Guilmon was depressed. If there was something he didn't like, it was being ignored. And the school was one thing he had never liked very much... not after Ami had tried to teach him math.
He remembered the last time when she asked him a question: "Guilmon, how much are two plus one?"
And while he was nervously flapping his ears and looking over to his friends, she impatiently said: "Well, Guilmon?"
Guilmon was never too sure with his answers. "It's certainly not more than four or five..." he murmured. "I don't really know... maybe two?"
And then Ami always acted awfully appalled. But what was Guilmon supposed to do when his tummy was rumbling?
He was getting so frustrated that he decided not to follow the two boys anymore and instead left the path to walk across a lovely meadow. A small river was flowing nearby.
Guilmon lay down on the grass and sighed. He looked into his bag, but on top of everything, it was already empty.
"Oh well..." he sighed. "Takatomon completely forgot about me. Maybe I'll just stay here and he won't even miss me... maybe I'll even starve and nobody would notice."
He felt really miserable. To take comfort, he tried to imagine how the raisin bread he ate last week had tasted. But that only increased the rumbling in his tummy.
And while he was laying there, he suddenly heard a strange voice that was coming from somewhere, singing a song:
"Fifteen men on a dead man's chest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum."
Guilmon stood up and followed the strange song, until he found an unusual man lying in the grass nearby. He was dressed in strange clothes Guilmon had never seen before. A red bandana was around his head, and a triangular leather hat was lying next to him, in the grass.
That was Jack Sparrow... CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow!
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(Posted Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:27)
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