Chapter 6: Temporary farewell
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Mario heard his mother’s footsteps in the hallway. He had come to become familiar with that sound, at least in the morning. It was the combination of her mother’s dainty feet, along with the soft fuzzy slippers she wore. She was also humming and that was the sound Mario heard before their mother would knock on the door to see if they were awake.
“Our last time here,” Mario shoved his head under the pillow and closed his eyes. He just wanted about five or ten more minutes of sleep. Why couldn’t his mother let him sleep for a few more minutes longer.
“What’s wrong?” Luigi asked in a teasing voice. “You don’t want to go to school today?”
“Bite me,” Mario grumbled and tried to tune out all sounds.
“Not with this flat teeth I’m not.”
“Good morning boys,” their mother knocked on the door. “The coffee is brewing and the sausages and French toast has been made.”
“What’s French toast?” Luigi asked and Mario could hear him sitting up on his bed.
“It’s bread that has been dipped in a egg mixture and fried on a skillet,” their mother explained. The description sounded like egg toast and sure enough, Mario could detect the sweet scent of that breakfast item, along with the rich aroma of the coffee that was brewing at the same time “I think you might have something similar in your world, but call it a different name.”
“We call it eggy toast,” Luigi said.
“Eggy,” Mario chuckled. He couldn’t believe his brother still used that childish name. “What are you Weege, six years old?”
“At least I know how to wake up at a proper hour.” He threw his pillow at Mario.
Mario felt it hit his back side before he rolled over and glared at his brother. “You already want to start something?”
“Yeah,” Luigi slid out of bed. “I want to start eating breakfast. I’m famished.”
“Can’t fight it,” Mario sat up and rubbed his eyes and took care of the eye boogers. Growing up his adoptive mother called them sleepies and sleep crumbs and it did sound better than eye boogers.
“He wanted to sleep in today,” Luigi explained.
“Sleeping in means we get less time to spend with you,” their mother gave Mario a small kiss on the top of his head. “I want to spend as much time with you as I can.”
“We got to return before five,” Luigi stretched his arms. “That was when we first given human forms.” He placed his hands behind his back and gave it a small pop.
“You were first given your human forms when you were in my womb,” their mother said. “However I do know what you mean. We will relax through out the day as a family.”
“I like the sound of that,” Mario said. After several days of seeing the city and taking in nearly all New York had to offer he was looking forward to just a day of sitting home and relaxing. “First thing I want to do is enjoy a nice breakfast from mom.”
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As Mario chowed down through out his meal he reflected on the past few days. His cousins took him and Luigi to several other sites and places to shop, Mario was able to buy as many souvenirs as he could. He almost wished they had visited during winter so the could go ice skating at Rockefeller center.
He was also bit blown away about how Susan dressed when she wasn’t dressed up. She wore a white shirt with cut off sleeves and an image of a pair of red lips with a long tongue that seemed to have been spray painted on the front. Her jeans were grayish blue in color, baggy and covered with pockets. Her sneakers seemed normal save for the safety pins with beads that were attached to the tongues. She also wore red and white striped cloth armbands that were between the wrists and her elbows. She called her style casual punk.
Bethany dressed in pretty much the same style as she did when they went on the boat tour and Stephanie dressed in a short-sleeved pink shirt with pale blue jeans that had roses on the back pockets.
Angie even arrived, dressed similarly to Stevie and apologized for her behavior at the tour. She explained that she had a lot going on in her life. Two of her good friends had an argument that may have ended their friendship to each other and Angie was in the middle. Angie had another friend that was recently dumped by her boyfriend and needed a shoulder to cry on, she also had a book report due after break and music was on of the few things that helped with stress.
Mario could understand. He had dealt with back to back stress coming from both school related problems and problems with friends, as well as problems from home. He accepted their apology before they went on their tour and shopping excursion.
Maria wanted to make certain her brothers would be able to sample everything, or at least nearly everything from the city. The day after they went to Central Park and took a carriage ride before the visited China Town and Little Italy.
The following day Maria took them to the borough called the Bronx to visit the zoo. As usual for Mario, whenever he visited the zoo, most of the animals were sleeping, even the ones that were not supposed to be nocturnal. The monkeys were awake, and so were the gorillas. For some reason they made Mario feel unwary.
“Can’t let Pauline see these guys,” Maria pointed at the largest and meanest looking ape. “She was kidnapped by one that was even bigger than that one and carried up a construction site.”
“You mentioned that before,” Luigi said. Like Mario he could not remove his eyes from the gorilla. “So it is true that Pauline had gotten panic attacks.”
“She used to get them at least once a week,” Maria said and chewed the bottom of her lip. “I thought she was going through one that time you and Wendy turned us into Koopas. I had no idea it was an act.”
Mario turned to the large sign posted near the gorillas. The large words spelled out Primate Family and under it had the pictures and names of the different creatures that belonged to the family. There were monkeys, lemurs, marmosets, baboons, mandrills, chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas and humans. He had to blink to make sure he was reading that correctly.
“Hey sis, is this true?” Mario tapped the sign with a finger. “Are humans really related to apes?”
“Yeah scientists believed we evolved from apes,” Maria said.
“So technically you guys are apes without hair?” Luigi asked before he pointed to his head and moustache. “Except for here and here?”
“Technically we are pretty much covered from head to toe, except it’s so light and small that you can’t see the hairs and scientists believe that thousands of years from now we will evolve to a point where we wont have any hair at all.”
“Humans are evolving to become more reptilian?” Mario asked.
“I guess,” Maria shrugged. “I never really thought of it that way.”
Mario had forgotten about that small discussion after they had left. Yesterday wasn’t much in the event category, but it did end with the family seeing the play with Pauline in it.
“What do you want to do?” Luigi asked after they had finished eating and helped mother clear the table and washed the dishes. “Break out a board game?”
“I was thinking of looking at pictures,” the mother stepped inside the master bedroom and returned a few minutes later with armloads of photo albums. “Too bad your father had to work today. We could look through them together.” She sat down and opened one and flipped through to the first page. “Here is the only pictures I have of you.”
There were only two pictures. The first was of a tired yet happy looking younger version of their mother sitting in bed. Her hair was still damp and stuck to her forehead and the her cheeks. She was holding a red face human infant wrapped in a swaddle blanket. Next to her stood their father with an ecstatic look on his face and holding another baby also red raced and wrapped in a cloth. Both infants were asleep and had noticeable large noses. There was no way to tell them apart. The second picture was of the boys in their bassinets and wearing their hats.
“We were kind of cute as infants,” Mario said.
“Here is one of you father after he joined the force,” she turned the page. It was a picture of their father dressed in a blue uniform and pointing to his badge. “And when he first got promoted to detective.”
The next few pictures were at a party and featured both their parents. Their father was holding up his new badge and he was dancing with their mother. There was a noticeable bump on their mother’s stomach.
“Is that?” Luigi pointed at the picture of their mother where her bump was the most noticeable.
“Yes that is your sister,” their mother pointed to the next page. The bump was even bigger and she was in a chair and surrounded by several women and presents. “The baby shower.” She turned the page “And here she is.” The following picture was of their mother, tired and sweaty as when she had given birth to Mario and Luigi holding baby Maria while their father was cooing over her. “There are a lot of pictures of her.”
There were several pictures of Maria as an infant and sleeping. Followed by when Maria was first able to sit up and she had enough hair on her head to tie on a bow. Then there were her in a highchair and being fed strained carrots and peas by their father, except he was wearing most of her food. The next page was after Maria had learned how to walk and there was pictures of her first birthday, and first trip to the zoo and picture of her standing in front of a bathtub while holding the towel wide open apart and revealing everything.
“Now we have something to get back at her with,” Luigi laughed when they had reached the bath tub picture. “She seen embarrassing pictures of us as babies.”
“She wasn’t a real modest child.” Their mother laughed as she thumbed through the pictures and pointed out the ones of their toddler sister only half dressed. “She often would take off her clothes through out the day, at least until sometime after her second birthday.”
Mario nodded and chuckled at a picture of Maria dressed as a cartoon mouse with a bow and holding a plastic pumpkin filled with candy, and a picture of his sister at a beach and visiting the zoo.
“This is her fourth birthday, and the very first time she was allowed to have a party.” Their mother pointed out a picture of Maria along with five other kids seated at a table covered with colorful paper tablecloth. All of the children were wearing party hats. The cake in front of Maria looked like a doll with red hair. “First time Maria ever tried an ice cream cake. We ordered one shaped as Raggedy Anne.”
She turned the page. “And here she is posing for her pre K picture.” Maria was sitting on a stool, wearing a pale blue blouse and a dark blue skirt. Her hair was done up in pigtails.
Mario watched his sister grow up through the different pictures. There were several of Maria at holiday and social gatherings and dressed in various costumes. He smiled when he came across his sister around eight or nine and dressed in a baseball uniform and all the pictures that followed of Maria and her team mates.
“She didn’t want to smile in this picture,” Their mother said when they reached a group of photos of the family. There was a large paper banner with a Happy 20th anniversary Paul and Sophia. “She had just gotten braces at the time and didn’t want any pictures of her with metal teeth. I told her it was possible to smile without showing your teeth.”
“She used to have braces?” Luigi scratched the top of his head.
“She does have nice teeth,” Mario nodded.
“Her first slumber part,” the picture was of Maria and several girls that were around twelve and thirteen years of age dressed in pajamas and seated on sleeping bags with pillows piled in one corner. A love seat was behind them with blankets strewn across and there were a few VHS tapes on a corner of the couch. Several of the girls had what looked like oatmeal covering their faces. “I think they were in the middle of giving each other makeovers and they made facial masks out of honey and oatmeal. If there were any avocados in the house they would have had green faces.”
“Wendy did something like that,” Luigi nodded.
The last pictures had Maria in various dresses that were either turquoise or black. All four pictures had her hair in different beautiful styles. She was wearing a makeup and she had a flower pinned to her chest.
“Her pictures for her junior and senior proms and homecomings,” Mother explained. “Look how beautiful she is. I wish she would dress up more often.”
“Who’s he?” Luigi pointed at the tall and buff blond guy wearing a tux that was in all four pictures with Maria.
“Cliff Roberts. He was Maria’s boyfriend through out most of high school.”
Mario wasn’t too sure if he liked the guy. He didn’t hate him. Cliff was a handsome guy and with a figure like his he probably played football or was on the wrestling team. He could see that he and Maria were a close couple.
“What happened to him?” Mario asked. As nice as this guy may seem to be if he found out that had broken his sister’s heart he would find out where he lived so he could beat the crap out of him.
“After graduation they went to two different schools. Cliff was accepted to a university in California while Maria went to a local college. They wrote to each other and visited around the holidays, spring break and the summer, but they grew apart and moved on. They still talk to each other online and send letters and arrange meetings, but as of now they are just good friends.
“Oh,” Mario felt the unfounded anger leave.
“This is the last page,” their mother turned the last page of the album. It was filled with pictures of Maria in a maroon colored robe with a bronze collar and a black motor board. There was a picture of her shaking a man’s hand and another of her holding up her diploma.
“That man is the high school principal,” mother closed the book. “After the ceremony we went out to eat. She originally just wanted to go to McDonalds, but pointed out this was the only time she was going to graduate from high school, so she chose a nice French restaurant, one of her favorites.”
“Why didn’t she suggest it first?” Luigi asked.
Mother shrugged. “I have no idea.” She stood up. “After I put this away, how about we looks at some old home movies. There is even one of her old games.”
They watched various tapes together and laughed at the silly antics from the family. Maria joined them around lunch and after they ate they watched several more. They watched two of Maria’s games. One was little league and another was of high school.
“That’ it Maria,” the camera zoomed in on Cliff sitting a few rows down. He had leaped to his feet as soon as Maria had it a home run. “I’m treating her to dinner after this.” He turned to an older man that was seated right next to him. “Hey dad, can I borrow some money?”
Mario burst out laughing. He could remember asking Mama Kammy for some gold coins after he had asked a girl out on a date before.
“Cliff was such a sweetie,” Maria sighed at the memory and checked her watch. “Uh oh. It’s almost four.”
“Crap,” Luigi leapt to his feet. “We were changed around five. We have to pack now.”
“I already have my stuff,” Maria pointed to the luggage she had brought.
“Where are you planning on going?” Mother asked as she pressed stop on the VCR remote.
“Spend a week with my brothers in the mushroom kingdom,” Maria said as she followed Mario into their temporary bedroom.
“Didn’t mention as a Koopa,” Mario whispered.
“Yeah, like she would want to hear that,” Maria said as she grabbed several of their discarded socks and threw it into one of their suitcases. “You guys can sort it out later.”
“I can’t wait to visit again,” Luigi said as he tossed all of his shirts into his case. “Maybe I could convince Wendy to give being a human for a week a try so she can come.”
“Bring all the kids,” Maria said. “You have all of your bathroom stuff packed?”
“All packed, nice and neat,” Mario grabbed all of his clothes and shoved into the bag before he tried to close. He had to sit on top if so he could get the latch to seal. “Mama mia what a pain in the tail.”
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The taxi ride to the park was fast as possible, or as fast as the guy behind the wheel had promised would be possible, but it still didn’t feel like it was going to be fast enough. Mario wasn’t sure if it was going to be instant change or would it be gradual, and he was certain he could feel the hairs on his body slowly withdraw into his skin.
“Thank you,” their mother said when the cab reached the playground. She handed him his money and followed after them. “Hard to believe it is here all this time.”
“Yup,” Maria said as they raced to the well. “Let’s just hope no one was making any wishes.”
The well was empty. Nobody even noticed, nor noticed them as the approached the well, dropped in their suitcases and slid in. After opening the folding grate Mario felt himself and his luggage being sucked in and he felt spun upside down before he emerged outside the other end and into the Mushroom Kingdom. He hadn’t much time to enjoy the scenery before he felt another suitcase hit him from behind and Luigi tackle him.
“Hey,” Mario turned to his brother. “What gives?”
“You knew I was following behind.”
“You could have warned me.”
“You shouldn’t have been standing on top of warp like that.” Luigi poked him in the stomach.
“Could you two stop fighting?” Maria asked after she had jumped down from the warp and checked her watch. “We still have about five minutes to spare.”
“Whoa,” mother said when she had emerged from the pipe. “I forgot what a rush that can be.”
“This way to my house,” Mario pointed towards the direction of his pipe house. “We can relax there for a bit, maybe have dinner.”
“I can’t stay long,” mother said. “I want to make some dinner for both your father and I.”
Only a few minutes had past since they started walking to the pipe house when Mario noticed he and Luigi were surrounded by glowing light. The light grew stronger and brother until it had nearly blinded them. Mario felt the weight of his shell on his back and could feel his tail even before he opened his eyes. When he stared at his hands he hand noticed the hair was cone and replaced by scales. He had his long and sharp claws again, and his claws have returned to his toes. He ran his gingers through his hair and felt his horns.
“We are Koopas again,” Luigi made his voice sounded even more thrilled than he should have.
“Oh,” their mother had covered her mouth with her hands. “So this is what you look like.”
“We aren’t usually wearing torn clothes though,” Mario said.
“I know that,” mother nodded. She brushed her fingers through their hair. “No matter what form or species you are, you two will always be handsome to me.”
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The pipe house was just as Mario had left it and Toad had done a good job, making sure the grass in the front was mowed, the flowers were watered and pulled up any weeds he had found. The mushroom man was standing at the side of the house with a hose in hand, sprinkling the flowers with more water and holding a stack of mail under one arm.
“Hey toad,” Mario called out as they approached the house. “We are home.”
“Hey guys,” Toad dropped the hose and turned off the water. “How was your trip?”
“Great,” Luigi set down their luggage and pointed to their mother. “This is our birth mother, Angela Segali.”
“Wow,” Toad gasped as he gave their mother a look over that made Mario felt uncomfortable. “Hello, welcome to the Mushroom Kingdom.”
“Thank you,” their mother smiled. “This isn’t my first time here.”
“I got something for you,” Mario set down one of the briefcases and opened it. Clothes went flying in every direction. Mario didn’t care about that. He found one of the bags that contained the gifts he got and pulled out a small box that contained a mug with the cityscape painted on it. “For you.”
“Thanks,” Toad accepted his gift and handed Mario the letters. “I got your mail for you. You might want to open the one on top first, Peach wrote that one a few hours ago. She knew you were coming home today.”
“Okay,” Mario set the mail down and opened the letter on top. “Dear Mario, please come to the castle. I baked a cake for you. Yours truly, Peach.”
“A cake?” Luigi wiggled his eyebrows.
Mario stuck his tongue out at him. “There is probably going to be a nice dinner at the castle. C’mon.”
“The invitation is for you,” Maria smiled. “Even if they will want to set the table for us, Peach just wants you.”
“Are you sure?” Mario didn’t want to leave his family stranded at the house.
“Positive,” Luigi nodded.
“Mama are you sure you don’t want to come and meet the princess?”
“Maybe another time,” mother gave him a kiss on the top of his head. “You have fun.”
“I will,” he turned to Toad. “You still have the spare key to the house?”
“Yeah, I’ll bring in the mail and put it on the table.”
“I still have half a case of Chuckola in the fridge,” Mario said before he headed off towards the castle.
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