The Slowpoke Clockmaker

The town clock has stopped, and Slowpoke saw exactly what happened. Unfortunately, the clockmaker keeps trying to solve the problem before her witness has finished explaining it.

9 min read · Comedy · October 4, 2026

Two seventeen forever

At three in the afternoon, the town clock still said two seventeen. The baker assumed his oven timer was wrong. The schoolteacher assumed her classroom clock was wrong. The grocer assumed everyone would eventually agree on a time and continued stacking pears. Bess, the clockmaker, knew all the smaller clocks were behaving perfectly. She had serviced most of them herself. She crossed the square carrying her tool bag and a cup of tea she intended to drink while working.

Slowpoke sat on the maintenance landing beneath the clock face. It had come upstairs that morning to enjoy the sun through the open window. Its tail lay along the warm wooden floor, and its eyes followed Bess with leisurely interest. Hoothoot stood on the beam above it. Klink hovered near the mechanism, turning its own gears in a quiet demonstration of what working gears should do. The clock's gears did not appreciate the comparison. They remained completely still.

Bess checked the winding drums. Both weights had enough room left to fall. Nothing had broken, and the large wheels were not out of alignment. The pendulum, however, was held by the maintenance catch, a little brass lever used to stop the clock during repairs. Bess lifted the lever. It slipped from her fingers and returned to its stopping position at once. Something behind the frame was pulling it down. She leaned around the gears and could not see what.

Slowpoke raised one front paw. Bess recognized the beginning of a helpful gesture and asked whether it had seen the trouble start. Slowpoke blinked, considered, and nodded. Bess asked what had happened. Slowpoke turned toward the window, slowly enough that she mistook the movement for an invitation to look outside. She looked outside. A child in the square waved a paper pinwheel. Bess frowned. Wind, she said. Wind must have blown something into the mechanism.

By the time Slowpoke had finished turning its head, Bess was examining the window latch. She found a small leaf and announced her first suspect. Hoothoot lifted one foot and tucked it back beneath its feathers, seeming unimpressed. Klink rotated near the leaf, which was nowhere near a moving part. Slowpoke lowered its paw, waited for Bess to stop talking, and raised it again. The clock still said two seventeen. Bess's tea had begun to develop a skin.

Downstairs, the square was growing argumentative. The baker wanted to know whether his afternoon buns were officially late. The schoolteacher wanted the public clock covered until it could tell the truth. The grocer suggested adding a sign that said approximately and was ignored. Bess leaned from the window to promise a quick repair. Behind her, Slowpoke was finally pointing at something. When she turned back, it had lowered its paw again, unsure why the explanation kept ending before it had reached the important part.

The excellent wrong answers

Bess decided the catch spring must be bent. It was a reasonable answer, so reasonable that she felt slightly offended when the spring proved perfectly straight. She removed it, checked the tension, and put it back. The lever still pulled downward. Klink hovered where the spring had been, apparently interested in the way small metal parts belonged together. Bess thanked it for the inspection, although she suspected the gears were merely admiring another gear-adjacent object.

Slowpoke reached toward the floor. Bess crouched immediately and found a loose washer beside the winding handle. This looked promising. She held the washer beside several gaps in the mechanism, trying to remember whether any of them ought to contain it. Hoothoot tapped the wooden beam once. Bess glanced up. A matching washer lay beneath a jar of cleaning oil. The two were lids from an old repair kit, not missing clock parts. The first washer joined the second with considerable disappointment.

A gust entered through the window and moved a bunch of drying mint hung beside the sill. Slowpoke watched it sway. Bess noticed the movement too and remembered her wind theory. She closed the window. The maintenance lever continued to hold the pendulum. So much for wind. Hoothoot gave a low call. Bess reopened the window because the room had become unpleasantly warm, then began looking for something else that could be wrong without being visible.

Klink drifted to the right-hand side of the frame. One of its gears brushed a hanging cord. The maintenance lever moved slightly. Bess turned at the sound, but by then Klink had withdrawn. She asked whether the gears could repeat whatever they had done. Klink turned faster, displaying its ordinary motion with enthusiasm. The cord remained still. Bess tried moving one nearby clock wheel by hand and achieved nothing except a small black mark on her cleanest finger.

Slowpoke opened its mouth, closed it, and looked at Bess. She knelt in front of it and promised to wait this time. Five seconds passed. Bess found five seconds manageable. Ten seconds passed. She could already picture the bent lever theory she had not properly tested. Fifteen seconds passed. Slowpoke began to lean toward the window. Bess stood to inspect the lever and heard Hoothoot's talon strike the beam behind her. The bird's expression contained no more information than before, but considerably more emphasis.

Bess sat down again. Her tea was cold now. The public clock had spent almost two hours displaying a minute that no longer belonged to the day, and every quick solution had cost more time. She put the tool bag beyond reach, folded her hands, and faced Slowpoke. It considered this arrangement, then raised one paw. Bess said nothing. The paw moved toward the window. This time she kept watching long enough to see where the movement actually ended.

The whole explanation

Slowpoke's paw did not indicate the window. It indicated the drying mint. Bess looked at the bunch without touching it. Slowpoke waited, apparently ensuring she had found the correct object. Then it moved the paw downward along the wall. The mint was tied with a long piece of green cord. One end hung beside the sill. The other ran behind the clock frame, where Bess had assumed it was part of the winding arrangement. She had not used green cord in any winding arrangement.

Slowpoke stood. This took a while, partly because its tail had settled under one foot. Bess remained seated. Hoothoot watched from the beam with the solemn satisfaction of someone whose advice had finally been followed. Klink moved aside as Slowpoke reached the window. The little Pokémon nudged the mint, then let it fall back. The cord tightened. Behind the frame, the brass lever twitched downward. Bess could see the connection now, but she still waited. The witness was not finished.

Slowpoke leaned toward a hook beside the sill. The mint bunch had been hung there in the morning by the caretaker, who liked the maintenance room to smell less of oil. At two seventeen, a strong gust had lifted it off the hook. The bunch fell behind a small wooden shelf, carrying its cord over the maintenance lever. Its weight had been just enough to pull the lever into place. The clock had stopped because of a perfectly healthy bunch of herbs.

To demonstrate the last part, Slowpoke pushed the mint gently off the sill. Bess caught it before it could fall behind the shelf again. The cord went slack. The lever rose, and the pendulum gave one hesitant swing. Bess removed the cord from the frame completely and set the mint on the table. Then she released the pendulum properly. A familiar tick returned to the room. Klink turned beside the moving wheels as though pleased to have company in its profession.

Bess looked at Slowpoke. Its explanation had been complete, accurate, and available from the moment she arrived. It simply had not fit the speed at which she preferred to receive explanations. She apologized for interrupting. Slowpoke blinked, thought about this, and nudged the empty teacup toward her. Bess laughed for the first time that afternoon. The repair required no new parts. The clockmaker required a fresh cup of tea and an improvement in her listening.

Before setting the hands, Bess checked the time against her pocket watch. She moved the clock carefully to the correct minute, ensuring the striking mechanism would not announce two seventeen in a fit of delayed enthusiasm. Down below, the grocer noticed the hands moving and called to the baker. The schoolteacher came out carrying her classroom clock, which she had never actually doubted. The town prepared to agree on a time again. Upstairs, Slowpoke was still deciding whether to sit by the window or by the tea.

The sunset appointment

Bess brought fresh tea upstairs in a pot, along with water for the Pokémon and a plate of biscuits. The caretaker came to see why the room no longer smelled of mint. Bess showed him the cord and the lever. He looked embarrassed, then suggested tying the bunch with a shorter piece. They chose a hook well away from the frame. A useful idea did not need to be abandoned because its first location had been unfortunate. It needed a better location and a less adventurous knot.

The grocer called up to ask whether the clock had really been fixed. Bess answered that it had. He asked what had been broken. Nothing, she said. The square became briefly silent in the way it did when a simple question received an unexpectedly difficult answer. Then the baker asked whether his buns could be considered on time after all. Bess said the buns should be judged by their own merits. This ended the public discussion more effectively than any technical explanation would have.

At sunset, the bell rang the hour cleanly. Hoothoot gave an answering call from the beam. Klink hovered near the working mechanism, close enough to inspect but far enough not to interfere. Slowpoke sat where the last sunlight reached the floor. Bess drank her tea without holding a tool in the other hand. She had planned to finish the repair quickly so she could have a peaceful afternoon. The afternoon had arrived by a route she would never have put on a work schedule.

The caretaker proposed a little plaque honoring Slowpoke's contribution. Bess thought a comfortable cushion might be more useful. Slowpoke considered both suggestions, although nobody was sure how it had distinguished them. When the cushion arrived the following morning, it settled onto it at once. The clock continued ticking overhead. Hoothoot inspected the cushion and seemed to approve. The caretaker shortened every unnecessary cord in the room, including one that had been bothering absolutely nothing for twelve years.

Word of the repair traveled through the town. In some versions, Slowpoke had mended the entire clock. In others, it had discovered a hidden flaw no trained eye could see. Bess corrected both whenever she heard them. Slowpoke had noticed an ordinary event and explained it properly. The trained eye had been too busy looking for impressive problems. She began asking her customers to describe what had happened before she opened her tool bag. Some descriptions took longer than others. She let them.

A week later, the clock kept perfect time and Slowpoke still visited the landing whenever the sunlight was good. Bess stopped there after work with her tea. Occasionally Slowpoke raised a paw to point out something happening below: a cart stuck near the fountain, a basket overturned, a new awning going up. Bess followed the whole gesture before answering. The clock measured every second around them. Neither of them felt obliged to spend those seconds at the same speed.

An original fan-created story by the Poke Fun Play editorial team. Illustrations generated for this adventure.

• Our editorial policy

Featured Pokémon

SlowpokeHoothootKlink

Keep exploring

• Color Slowpoke
• Slowpoke in the Pokédex
• Try Match 2

Related stories

Comedy

9 min read

Fuecoco and the Silent Orchestra

The festival conductor is stuck on the wrong side of the river. Fuecoco volunteers to count the orchestra in, with enthusiasm, snacks, and a very unreliable idea of four.

Read story →

Comedy

11 min read

Psyduck’s Perfectly Ordinary Rainy Day

Psyduck has reserved a day for doing almost nothing. Unfortunately, the puddles keep offering evidence about a missing basket of berries.

Read story →

Rescue

9 min read

Absol Before the Rain

When Absol blocks the mountain road, the village sees another bad sign. Neri notices a new spring, frightened Deerling, and a warning that deserves to be heard.

Read story →