There comes a time in the life of every young pokémon trainer when he realises that perhaps he (or she) won’t become a master after all. That was a proverb of some supposedly wise man, but apparently an even wiser man noticed that there are exceptions to every rule – apart from this one about exceptions, perhaps? All that can be said is that Ash Ketchum was that exception. He never doubted it for a moment. Sometimes I think that maybe he was too proud of himself. He would have been right at home in America. (No honestly, he would. No offence meant, of course, but let’s face it, if anything qualifies as a nation boasting, then calling yourself the greatest nation on Earth bin your constitution fits the bill – and I don’t mean the one of rights.) But for now Ash’s idiocy expanded beyond the horizons of his training. Unfortunately, when that happened others suffered – or at least changed for worse.

Take Misty for instance. An energetic girl from Cerulean City, she was the slimmest and superfluous Sensational Sister. She had a gluttony for walking, and that’s a good thing if you’re the sort of trainer that travels, but frankly the life of a Gym Leader is more sedentary. There will always be those who say that that is the reason for whoosh she left Cerulean City, and then again there will always be those who get the right answer. This would be her superfluity to the slimming and the swimming causes of the Sensational Sisters of Cerulean City and certainly not desire for perambulation that possessed zero satiety in the face of static positions and the reception of fast fleeting trainers. (Warning: do NOT say that sentence aloud if you have a lisp.) Furthermore, there was maltreatment from her boastful sisters. As Misty once put it, “why don’t you just hang up the Stars and stripes and listen to that horrible music that goes with it?” Okay, I’ve said enough about that nation that words don’t want to describe.

Having left Cerulean City, she fished for a short while on the outskirts of Viridian City. It was a mountainous region, or at the very least it had a steep relief, and nearby was a sleepy area that was never confident as to whether or not it deserved the name of town. In a similar fashion, the ground that lay between (this happy breed of trainers, this little world, this blessed plot, this realm,) this Pallet and the capital of the Kanto region was never confident as to whether or not it deserved to be called a mountain. But in any case, what could be said of this place was that it was the only countryside one could find for mountain-high sites around that was an unpolluted countryside and yet within reach of a principal political and industrial area.

However you looked at it, this was nature at the tiniest and grandest scales all at once. Misty must have liked the idea of that for her to come all the way from Cerulean City to this place. It was impossible to go through Mount Moon when in Cerulean City – only in the opposite direction – so she had to go through Saffron (that she could do being a gym leader), then through Route 3 to Pewter City, down Route 2 to Viridian City and all the way down a steep climb to Pallet Town. People didn’t take journeys like that unless they really felt in the mood. Had she not been a VIP it would have been even more difficult; she would have to escape by heading to Vermillion, then take Diglett’s Cave (which can be exceptionally difficult if a Wild Snorlax is in the way and you are a slim, frail little preteen girl) to Pewter before going to Viridian and down the steep land with no accurate classification. Certainly if Diglett’s Cave was inaccessible, she would need to go through Routes 11 and 12 (which was extraordinarily tiring), then make a lethargic motion through Lavender Town, Route 8 to Saffron and then use a few days of recovery to make a huge journey as already described. Ah, one never knew just what the best way to move from place to place.

But that wasn’t a concern to her. Some would guess, as one can never know, that she was just going as far away as she could get. Others guess that she was after boys in the area. There is just one tiny flaw in the plan: Pallet’s reputation when existent is that it has the lowest level of romance in the entire world. No wonder the birth rate was low. It was quickly dying, or rather it would have been if it wasn’t for the fact that people liked to move there for a bit of tranquillity. I think it’s more likely that she was just hoping to get as far away as possible. It was a good thing that she liked exercise, and that she had a bike to minimise the effort of her pilgrimage. However that soon ended, when she caught nothing more than a malnourished Pikachu and a malfunctioning human being who thought he was a trainer. She had heard of insanity but had never had the lack of luck to meet someone who was its personification. But she was no longer a celebrity who was protected by the limelight from the horrors of the world. She had to admit that it was illegal for him to use that bike of hers, but it wasn’t as bad a law to break as murder, and that was her responsibility if that unfortunate Pikachu reached no Centre.

She pursued the “borrower” nonetheless, but it turned out that the bike was totalled, as a slang-user might put it. Well she had nowhere in particular to go, so she might as well follow this guy, increase her chances of getting a new bike with her limited funds and keep an eye on his rearing methods all at once. She knew that the return to Cerulean was inevitable, as he wanted to complete the Kanto Gym Challenge. Still though, she bared this temporary glitch, and continued her journey away from home and with this inexperienced trainer whose brain either had no identity or was disembodied. Within time she began to discover that she was more than just a childminder. She had fallen in love. Eventually she gave in to the behaviour of Ash as far as the cafeteria was concerned. That was partly because Ash was slim enough for her desires, at least now that being out of public eye she did not need to be emaciated. The problem was that Ash was ectomorphic, and entering a period in his life where his body fat percentage was destined to drop; however, Misty in the same period in her life was destined for increased adiposity because of her sex, and although she was a mesomorph, she had quit swimming and her metabolism had slipped into a stage of rapid descent. So an increase of caloric intake caused an increase in weight.

They were also travelling with a man who certainly had no idea of what you’re meant to do with the ladies. Brock, as far from the personification of Romance as is physically and emotionally possible (physically in the sense of the size of his endowment) as he was, recommended that she lose weight. To have the worst lover in the entire world, who might be classified as an Anti-Frenchman, tell you that he wouldn’t date you if you were the last corpulent girl on Earth (to use his exact words) cannot help but cause distress to the recipient. If you are overweight, you will have heard of the monstrous cycle that people of that sort undergo: eat too much, get fatter, get sadder, eat more, get fatter … This is one of those few occasions where Mr Greedy’s cycle was also of effect: eat too much, get bigger, get hungrier, eat more, … well, Misty couldn’t say that Hargreaves hadn’t warned her.

But as Ash matured, the one part of his mind that actually got better was that bit where the romance comes from. He fell in love with her because he was at that age, and because the only alternative options were Narcissism and homosexuality – that’s if you are careful enough not to think of pokémon molesting. I can’t tell you exactly what happened in terms of manservants, but the respect of privacy ends at dates. There were certainly a lot of those I can tell you! And if there was anything they all had in common, it was the way in which the lovey-dovey theme was integrated into the more gastronomic basis to this wonderful interlude from the hectic side of running to catch ferries and beat Gary to that Gym that was anything but physically straining. I think I’ve said enough on that theme.

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There is a commonly held deluded belief amongst the female part of the human race that women have to be as skinny as Victoria Beckham to be beautiful. On the contrary, the truth is that men seek curves in their mates, because curves are what men different from women. Therefore many males, who are if in a minority are a significant group of that sort, prefer that their partners be voluptuous organisms. No, honestly, it says so in the Mirror Magazine for Saturday March 1st 2003. If there’s one thing men like, it’s to feed their steatopygous gals until they pass satiety by miles and help them reach the highest weight achievable, or to the point of incapacitation. Weight gain is something that men admire in women. They are feeders to the females, who are the feedees, enjoying the process of becoming so stuffed that their stomachs are stuffed and on the verge of explosion; and what feeders like most to see is a girl stuff herself with a full roast chicken, a family sized pizza, three doughnuts and a full lemon meringue pie, washed down with a giant Diet Coke. (Hang on? It says Coca-Cola, sorry. Forgot these women take the tastier version of their soft drinks.) Or a good alternative is a full roast chicken, a full pot of roast potatoes, a bag of peas, a bowl of mash, a whole cheesecake AND (if possible) an after-dinner doner kebab.

Not in the case of Misty, however. As far as she was concerned, the standards by which these girls were eating was beneath her. If she would be a feedee, which she indeed became, then she would be the most successful feedee around. In fact, she felt that eating contests were where she belonged. First and foremost she was a trainer, but she knew that her eating ability greatly exceeded her ability in battle; in other words, the best thing she could do was getting stuffed. (That didn’t come out right, did it?)

But she gained a lot of weight before what I will describe in the next suggestion actually happened. She ate as much as she could squeeze into her stomach about six months in onwards, when Ash happened to wager even she couldn’t beat him in an eating contest. She took him on and lost, but over time her satiety dissolved, and she discovered that, after a number of eating contests, she finally emerged victorious. She competed many more times until she had finally won as many times as she had lost, and yet she still continued just for fun. She soon found beating Ash very easy, as much of an eater as he was. Within a year of realising her passion to eat well, she had meals along the guidelines I will shortly detail.

As far as Misty was concerned, the meals were as follows: breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, supper, and a midnight meal. But she reasoned that if there is a brunch, there must also be a lunner, dea, tepper and a sudnight. All of these were meals as much as brunch. Not at all is this the case to us, but it certainly was to her. She knew that snacking was to her irresistible, so she snacked between all consecutive meals as already defined. At first she only snacked once between meals,; in fact she didn’t start snacking until a year had past, and she went through a period of not always snacking between meals, but after eighteen months a snack went in every available junction. That quickly changed to two or three snacks. After Ash had earned his third Johto badge, she snacked continually.

For breakfast she had seven servings of what is usually called a full fry-up in Britain: black pudding, beans, toast, fried bread, tomatoes, bacon, sausages, hash browns and fried eggs. (SEVEN!) That was not how she started, however. That was how she rewarded herself for getting her daily vitamins out of five bowls of cereal. To her that part was a chore, although being eating it wasn’t quite a chore as we would think of the word.

For lunch she had two whole roast chickens, a family-size pizza, three doughnuts, a whole lemon meringue pie, a full pot of roast potatoes, a bag of peas, a bowl of mash, a full cheesecake, a doner kebab and the largest bottle of coke you can imagine. It resembled an oil tanker in its dimensions.

For dinner she had every variety of Curry there is on Earth. For tea she did the same with Chinese takeaways. For supper she filled up on a baguette the size of a perambulator. For her midnight meal she ate every single food she could think of that was available for pickings and that could be salvaged for a picnic in her bedroom.

For the intermediate meals as he called them, namely brunch and so on, she ate all sorts of food that would turn a vegetarian’s stomach. For snacks she did the same with food that did not have this effect other than on vegans.

So you can see why she quickly blew up. She had to buy clothes many sizes too big if they were to last a month or more. By the time she reached Blackthorn City, Ash was confident that she had the biggest appetite in the world.

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In as far as one could say that dragon pokémon are the greatest, so one could say that Blackthorn City was the greatest place on Earth. However they’re not, so what can I say about Blackthorn? They make use of pokémon whose attacks (at least of their own element) are not super-effective against any but their own kind; they can’t even face each other. As for the issue of positive points, dragon types do have an interesting combination of resistances: but frankly, hybrids rely upon the good qualities of the other element.

And yet Blackthorn City was the last stop – and the hardest – on the Johto trail! How come? Well, Johto never has been that challenging. The levels of their pokémon are certainly far lower than those of Kanto trainers. Those who immigrate on the SS Anne to Kanto often notice this when they fail in every area. Johto is an intriguing area, but it certainly has terrible trainers! What more can one say?

The fact remains, however, that the two lands were intertwined in their politics and their economies. This is why no one ever invested in the Kanto stock market – they had the Johto fools on their backs, and they knew that Johto would crash at the worst possible moment. Investors from Houen (or Hoenn) were weary of Sod’s law, and they certainly lived by it, even though superstition is generally bad for a businessman (except in the case of the superstition of others).

This intertwinement angered some of the Kantian senators, and with good reason. But the problem was that they faced war if they broke the power contract. Now obviously Johto was no war menace, but it was the economic damage of civil war that concerned them. Johto was Kanto’s parasite, and it would destroy Kanto if it sought medical assistance, so to speak. An unusual idea, but that’s not important. Actually it was for them, because ever since Kanto had tried to be nice and given aid to the suffering people of Johto, they had regretted it. They were stuck in this together.

That was not what the aim of the Senator who ruled over Kanto. He was a man called Celadonian Viridius Tsunekazu III. (Celadonian Viridius was an official title, a bit like President or Emperor. His name was Tsunekazu. His father and grandfather had both been senators and both had the same name.) He assembled in the Great Hall with the Senators of Houen and Orange. Orange’s Senator was called Mandarina Pummelia Draco IV. But the man from Houen refused to be given a title based on the economic and pokémological centres of Houen. He was only known as “the man of power”.

“Now listen and listen good!” began Tsunekazu III, as he smoked a fine cigar bought with the taxpayer’s money. “I am fully aware of the need by the industrialists and the socialists of sorting out this political crisis. The industrialists want to get Johto off our back, but the Socialists demand unity and equality. The problem is that if I do what the industrialists say, both Socialists and Johto will rise up. Johto will launch war and every Socialist in an astronomical unit’s radius will sign up. I’m not even sure if we could win. I’m not having Johto win and take over or lose and destroy the economy of all of us.”

“On the other hand,” said Draco II, “if you go against the industrialists, they will force their way back into power. The Feudal System will be restored, we will resort to the ways of the shogunate and the industrial wealth of the nation will be eliminated. So your powerful one from Houen, you see the spot this puts all of us in.”

The man of power took a long smoke of his own cigar. He was becoming increasingly anxious. Power was not easy to preserve in a democratic nation. He felt that the Revolution during American captivity in the Post-World War II era was the worst thing that ever happened to the Japanese potentates.

“So what do you want us to do about it?” he asked.

“This is the plan I came up with,” Tsunekazu replied. “You’re going to break your contracts, I’ll let you. Then you declare war on Johto, and when you win and capture it, you will declare your desires to return to the contract.”

“War? What’s the pretext?” Draco IV enquired.

“Say you’re fed up of Kanto having to carry the parasitic Johto on its back. You must register yourselves to be my allies.”

“The public will doubt any alliance straight after the division of the Senate!”

“I see no reason for the division of the Senate prior to the declaration of war,” Draco added.

“If you don’t it’s a civil war – what do you think will happen then? I’ve already detailed the economic problem.”

“If we do, this is going to be very problematic!” warned Draco.

Tsunekazu was getting worried by this.

“Wait a minute!” exclaimed the man of power. “I’ve got it!” Joy diffused amongst the members present. “We’re in Japan. War is prevented by the Constitution.”

Tsunekazu’s heart sank.

“Yeah, the Constitution of the DIET. Indigo Plateau doesn’t count. It’s not the same definition of war for a start. It’s civil attacks operating internally that melt our system from the inside.”

“Then join their Constitution.”

“Johto would never agree to it -”

“They’re in the minority: three against one.”

Draco certainly liked what he was hearing. But Tsunekazu knew the rules of the game, and it wouldn’t work.

“Decisions have to be unanimous. It’s against our constitution to have any disagreements – we only have four Senators. Unfortunately they got that one plugged up too.”

“The Diet will be on our side: if anything went wrong at the Plateau, the whole of Japan’s economy would crash. You’ve already mentioned that. They’ll get Johto into line with an ultimatum – “

“That’s against THEIR constitution!”

“Screwed again! Then we’ll just have to dissolve ourselves into the Diet.”

“And lose all power?”

“That and all the responsibilities that goes with it.”

“I still don’t like it.”

Now why did I tell you about all this? To put it simply, one thing led to another and Johto agreed to at least take on equal responsibility. First, there was some much-needed publicity. Johto would host various events to boost the morale of its tourists from Kanto and so on. Blackthorn City would be producing fun events.

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Ash and his friends – a term that I use in the broadest possible sense to include all the various pokémological organisms that were also among this party – had just reached Blackthorn City at the time when this was happening. Ash was anxious to earn a badge, as you might well eJabedin with good reason. Once he had Claire’s badge he would have finished the Gym Challenge of the Johto region, and then he would be able to compete in the Johto league. As you mighty well assume, he was overconfident with himself, and it was this attitude that on innumerable occasions had let him down. Dragon pokémon, as I have already said, are not a particularly good choice for a gym. What the heck are they good for? And yet … and yet Ash would not find this easy. Even if they are not good to fight with, they aren’t good to fight against either. What you need is an ice type, although that is completely pointless against a Kingdra! Honestly, just when you thought you had the weak spot, it’s cancelled out by the water element. And you think that has the weaknesses of electric and grass? Nope! Sorry, they stitched that one up too. That’s countered by the DRAGON element. The only way you can beat Kingdra without relying upon strength (which was hardly Ash’s forte) was to use dragon attacks without using dragon pokémon. That, as you can imagine, was impossible for him. Just avoid dragon types. No problem … don’t have any. What? USE dragon attacks? Oh! Definitely don’t use ice types against the water-type, advantage-owning Kingdra… Also no problem. No ice types! As you can see, Ash had a serious problem. He had hardly known what to do in the Ice Path. Or had he? I’ll be honest; I haven’t seen that far into the series, so I can hardly touch upon the gym battle.

But whatever he had prepared, this would be a difficult battle, particularly against the Kingdra. He was anxious – to the extent Ash can be – and so it came as a relief to him when he found himself in a situation where he was sure victory would occur.

“Blackthorn City Eating Contest in ten minutes!”

I’m not going to tell you about the registration – too predictable …

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Brock was of course chatting up any girls who were sympathetic and stupid enough to let him get within a ten-metre radius. He wasn’t finding it particularly easy. The word pervert filled the Blackthorn atmosphere with monotonous regularity following his first fifty-seven attempts, which were as numerous as it is said are the varieties of Heinz. But like it or lump it, this is what happens when Misty wanders off to an eating contest and Ash goes along to give support to his fiancée. Love was in the air everywhere Brock looked around because of course Misty took up his whole vision: her voluptuous curves were attractive to some, and even if they weren’t to Brock (let’s face it, Brock never has and never will fancy Misty simply because she is always close by and therefore much easier, save for the fact that she has a boyfriend – okay, it’s complicated) then he simply couldn’t see far enough nothing of her flesh. So she really was everywhere he looked around, and so was the enviable love in her heart.

Let me explain fully: Blackthorn had to put on a fair to officially start off its efforts to make Blackthorn a tourist area, and the eating contest was just one of the many events that was taking place there. Misty was enjoying the fair, not just because of the fair but in particular because of all the food. All day long she had been eating toffee apples, candy floss, hot dogs, ice cream, delicious hot pies … You name it, if it’s at a a fair and it’s edible, she had had it – food or drink. She had no desires not to indulge here. She wasn’t even aware that there was an eating contest; she had seen advertisements of the fair and its attractions in the newspaper and all over the place, but all she was interested in was food, and it never even occurred to her to see if there was an eating contest. When she heard that thee was an eating contest, Ash set his big eyes upon her, and although she didn’t want to disappoint him she had her concerns.

“But Ash, it’s not that I’m lacking confidence in myself – I’m sure I’d do VERY well normally – but I think I’ve overdone it today. I’ve eaten non-stop all day long, and I’ve eaten much more than usual. Are you sure I still have room inside to win?”

“Sure1 You ain’t shown limits in over a year! Come on Misty, I’m sure you can do it. Even if you can’t, at least you won’t fell hungry – and you know how painful hunger is!” Misty followed the logic in Ash’s argument. Logic was usually the antonym ton Ash’s character, but on this occasion he was doing very well, and she realised that in terms of the gastronomic effects of it, everyone was a winner in an eating contest. Of course in a much more accurate way there would only be one winner, but she couldn’t honestly say that satiety was her usual accompaniment. She had not felt belly-popping fullness ever since she’d first won an eating contest against Ash. She still wasn’t sure…

“Misty, they’re starting in five minutes. And if you manage to get through to the last round, it’s the most delicious ice cream you could possibly imagine.”

That is the phrase Ash TRIED to say. But as soon as the word “ice” had left his mouth, she had dashed off to sign up.

That’s the story behind how Brock came to be where he was – namely in a position of utter suffering due to his inability to give a good turn-on. That was the problem he had, and that problem was not going to go away – not until that contest was over. When Ash and Misty sailed into view, she had quite a large smile on her face, and was carrying yet another stick of candyfloss.

“How’d it go?” Brock enquired.

“She wiped the floor with all of them! They didn’t stand a chance! She was EVER so good – didn’t even feel like winning was a struggle, did you Misty?” She shook her head.

“Yeah, it was a piece of cake. Speaking of which Ash, will you buy me some hotdogs next, and then maybe some cake?”

“Yeah sure. Why cake though? You normally prefer ice cream – ”

“I wish to expand my pallet.”

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The next day, Misty happened to get up and think to herself, I wonder what I weigh. She really did want to know. However it wasn’t that easy. The last time she had got on normal scales she had broken them. She ordered some American scales and she even broke them. She knew she would need a cleverer method. She decided to make use of the law of moments. Then she changed her mind because it wasn’t accurate enough. Instead she actually used four sets of bathroom scales. She would get into a Twister position (if you know what I mean - quadruped) and placed a limb on each scale. Each now settled its little, pain filled pointer (poor darlings) on the halfway point between 253 and 254. That meant only one thing …

“Ash! I weigh 1014 lbs!”

“My God that’s the same as the average Snorlax according to my pokédex.”

“What about YOUR Snorlax Ash?”

They contacted Professor Oak and found out that Ash’s Snorlax was precisely this weight.

“I weigh the same as your Snorlax Ash!”

“Hey Misty, I’ve got a good idea.”

Ash never will get banged up for fraud because he honestly believed he was telling the truth; he was just mad. Ought to go to an institute, I say.

“There is only one way you can REALLY enjoy eating.”

Again, strictly speaking not fraud.

“You need to give yourself some challenges. Here’s a challenge: can you beat SNORLAX in an eating contest?”

Misty was hesitant at first, but she could do with something to stretch her. And stretch her (stomach) it did. When Snorlax was teleported there, she tried so hard that her waistline gained 30 inches just through fullness. The event was planned and advertised, and one idiot was dumb enough to supply the food for it. No it wasn’t Ash! He wasn’t rich enough. Misty got off well, and somehow managed to eat as fast as Snorlax, despite having a much smaller mouth. Her stomach let out a loud sound some way through, and she felt something unusual happening inside her. But then, alas, her alimentary canal became saturated. She felt very ill, and she had only managed a few hundred pounds. Snorlax won, even though it was primarily based on ice cream, the one food Misty thought she could never become full on. No, I lied. There was no ice cream at all. That would be too easy. Misty had never, in her whole life, gotten full off that.

“If only it had been an ice cream eating contest…”

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As a result of this great failure, Misty fell in to a state of depression. She felt like she had lost the will to live – well, live it LARGE anyway. She actually started losing weight. Her skin was becoming looser. Her health was improving, I’ll tell you that much, but that isn’t the way you’re meant to see it. This was terrible. Ash was really worried about her. He could tell she was never going to snap out of this. One day she’d be what she was before, which was quite underweight, then she’d become very underweight and die. That was very upsetting for Ash, and if he started having problems, she would get more upset and then get worse. This wasn’t good, not good at all. It was all going straight down the tubes. Something had to be done. Her life, and in fact the lives of all her friends, were in danger in both physiological and mental terms. If you don’t think this is tragic enough, tough, I’m not the most effective writer in the world.

But talk about a sore loser…

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It was Delia Ketchum, Ash’s mother who stepped in and solved this problem, not because she wanted to (though she did) but because of the nature of her maternity; she was expected by her son to do things for him, and to that he ruthlessly held her; or rather he would if it had been necessary, but it wasn’t, for (as I have already explained) she wanted to help. However that is not considered a factor – a reason for it, that is – because even if she had not wanted to help, she would have still helped; whereas if Ash had not wanted her help, it would not have been given because his authority was final. Okay, I messed up this paragraph.

The important question for us to ask ourselves is what did she do? She did a bit of research. It turns out that the competition with Snorlax had taken place in the autumn, a time when Snorlax is due for hibernation and thus undergoes a physiological transformation, whereby it becomes completely impossible for its alimentary canal to know satiety. Therefore Misty had been doomed from the start; such a transformation was unnatural in humans, and it thus followed that Misty would either lose or be a unique individual.

Misty’s condition automatically improved. Having lost more than a hundred pounds, she raced to gain it back, but by now she used the term “race” to describe something that originally (before meeting Ash) she would have described as such, and did now, but in the time before “Snorlax Day” as she called it in her diary, things we very different. Even so, she did gain it back; in the spring, she was ready to take on Snorlax again.

It was a tie this time; Snorlax fell asleep, looking to be in much pain, and the contest was over, as Misty could not continue herself through drowsiness. It is not quite known whether or not Team Rocket put sleeping pills in the milk that was used to manufacture the ice cream of the last round; no one will ever know. Nor will we know whether or not the physical discomfort that eventually caused unconsciousness in both competitors was caused by the build-up of lactic acid in those muscles used for digestion and the relay of food to the mouth due to anaerobic respiration from an attempt to accelerate the competition to its maximum speed, which was (possibly by one or both of the competitors) undertaken. In any case, however, the conjecture that this competition was an inaccurate portrayal of their digestive and alimentary capabilities is supported by the fact that neither did as well this time as before; but that thought didn’t worry Misty. She would get back up to scratch; and if not, perhaps a period of distancing from satiety (though not total elimination of vulnerability to it) occurred in her in the autumn.

P.S. Forgive the fact that, in comparison to other recent works of mine, this story was of greater brevity. In other words, it’s a bit short! Hope it didn’t seem a little rubbish.