Chapter 11 - Now, This is what I Call a Vacation!

I couldn’t have been happier to be back at the hotel. It was only about noon, and we had made up our minds to not go Cackletta hunting for a while.

Daisy rushed up to me, an ecstatic look on her face.

“Luigi! It’s on the news, a really awesome parade is going on in Teehee Valley!” she said. “Let’s go!”

My mind raced. My future self had forbidden me to go.

“Uh… “I said. “Why don’t we go to the Castle Town instead?”

“Why?” Daisy asked, disappointed.

“Because,” I said. “They’ve got everything there… they’ve got shops and food and you can tour the castle… and a beach really close by.”

Daisy dropped her shoulders. “I wouldn’t mind shopping for a souvenir and going to the beach.”

“Then let’s do it!” I said quickly. “We need to drop off the Beanstar at the Castle anyway.” I held it out for her to see.

“You got the Beanstar back!” she said, delighted. “So that’s what it looks like.”

“Yep,” Mario said. “It wasn’t so hard.” he smirked at me, but I frowned.

“Then let’s go.” Wario said. “I like the beach.”

After changing into vacation clothes, (I loved Daisy’s bathing suit. It was rather revealing. However, Wario looked a little disturbing in a wetsuit) all of us, including Chompy and Yoshi, made our way to the warp pipes south of the hotel. Julie, Ricky and Lauren were standing there.

“Hi guys!” Julie said happily. “We’re going to the beach!” And you could tell. All three of them were in bathing suits, and sunglasses that matched. Julie was carrying a towel with a …picture of… me on it.

“So are we!” Peach said. “We’ve got to make a stop at the castle first, but then I guess we’ll see you three there!”

“Actually, I wanted to go to the castle, too,” Ricky said. “Mind if we follow you?”

“Not at all,” Peach chirped. “Feel free.”

An ecstatic smile spread across Julie’s face. “Holy crap…” she whispered. “I’m going traveling with Mario and Luigi! I’ve gotta admit, this is pretty sweet.” Julie had an interesting way of talking. Lauren, however, scoffed.

“That castle’s been empty for days now,” she said. “There’s not anything interesting there.”

But we all went into the pipe anyway. Chompy went first. Nobody wanted him accidentally sprawling over them. As I was sucked into the pipe alongside Mario, I crashed into something cold and hard. Stars blinking in my eyes, I noticed in the pipe’s dim light that Chompy was hopelessly stuck.

Wario came bursting through the pipe and slammed into my back. All of the air was knocked out of my lungs.

“Chompyyyyy…” I gasped. He whined in a pitiful way.

“What are we going to do?” Mario asked. The pressure of the pipe was building. The pipe seemingly wanted us on the opposite side of it. The pressure didn’t make sandwiched between Mario, Wario and Chompy any more pleasant.

And pretty soon, our whole party was crammed into pipe three, clogging it severely. I was losing feeling of my right side with Wario, Lauren, Yoshi and Daisy being pressed into it. It was like there was an invisible hand, forcing all of us into one huge pile, stuck like magnets.

“Wow…” Julie kept saying. “I’m going to die with Mario and Luigi.”’

There was a loud ripping noise, and a horrible scent reached my nose. Lauren laughed.

“Sorry,” Wario said. My stomach lurched.

Waluigi and Daisy started laughing as Yoshi threw up all over Peach’s bathing suit. She let out a scream of disgust as dead mosquitoes, a computer mouse, a billfold that I recognized to be mine, (so that’s where my wallet went…) toilet water, fragments of a wooden table, doll stuffing, half-digested waffles and pancakes, fifteen apple pieces and a long, stringy piece of half-digested cheese slid down her very expensive bathing suit cover-up.

“I have to go pee,” Ricky complained. “And this is boring.”

I groaned loudly as Chompy started fidgeting. He was having a hard time doing so, but he was slowly inching forward. I swallowed hard. “I think Chompy is trying to move,” I said.

“Good,” Mario growled. “I can’t feel my butt.”

Chompy slowly inched his way to the edge of the pipe and was free. With a huge explosion-like noise, all ten of us (excluding Chompy) crash-landed into the dirt of the castle garden. I was slammed into a mud puddle, and I could hear Julie screaming with excitement as she flew over my head and landed in a huge pile of dog mess.

I pushed myself up and noticed that Waluigi was hanging from a light post, Wario had flown into a sign and dented it, Ricky had landed head-first into the castle’s landfill, Mario was pulling himself out of the riverbanks, Lauren was trying to pry herself out of a thorny rosebush, Yoshi was swimming in his own puke, and both Peach and Daisy had landed safely in a flowerbed.

I stood up and tried as desperately as I could to get the mud off of me. Then I remembered… if I made the wristband activate, my clothes would change… and then I’d change back and be back to normal!

So I did just that, and it turned out exactly the way I hoped it would. Yoshi jumped into the river to get all of the half-digested waffles off of his skin, while Mario was wringing out his shirt on the grass. Julie was, perhaps, the unluckiest. She had a huge amount of sticky, brown feces in her fiery hair, and had to dunk her head in the river to clean it out. Still, she wasn’t able to get it all off of her shirt.

As soon as we were all in our right minds again, we approached the castle gates. I dreaded going to the castle. Prince Peasley lived there, and though I knew that he really wasn’t such a bad guy, he just freaked me out a little.

“Here’s the castle,” Daisy said, knocking me out of my little trance.

“I know what to do,” Mario said and walked in. His clothes were dripping wet; a huge puddle of water was forming under his feet. We must have looked quite strange… two of our party members dripping wet, one of them smelling strongly like poop, one of them smelling strongly like trash, one with mud all over his hair. The Castle was just the same as last year; huge and echoing.

“This way,” Mario said. I knew where he was going, to the queen’s chamber.

We turned down two simple hallways. I hardly took thought to it, but the castle was rather empty.

“Gee,” Daisy said, with a small laugh. “These people like green more than you do, Luigi!”

“I think I’ll actually believe that,” I said.

“Um… excuse me?” came a timid voice from above. “A little help?” All eleven of us lifted our heads and looked up. What seemed like fifty million Bean people were stuck to the ceiling.

“Holy crap!” Julie said. “What are you all doing up there?”

“It’s not our fault we’re up here,” Queen Bean said. I was amazed that she was sticking to the ceiling, as she was probably sixteen times bigger than I was, but only a little taller. That must be some strong glue. “Popple, that stupid bandit, trapped us all up here.”

I gulped. “How can we help?”

“This glue is especially weak when warmed,” a castle guard said. “Could you heat it up?”

“Sure!” Lauren and Mario said in unison. They both shot fire sparks at all of the bean people, and all 78 of them fell, facedown, to the floor.

Queen Bean crashed to the floor, cracking the tile. She got up and brushed herself off.

“Well, we came to give you the Beanstar back,” Mario said. I handed it to her, but she had a surprised look on her face.

“Wow,” she said. “You know, I never noticed that it was gone.”

Mario’s jaw dropped. “You didn’t?!”

“Nope,” she said. “But thank you anyway.”

“Sure,” Mario said. He turned to face the rest of the group.

“Well… shall we?” he motioned for us to leave.

“Yeah!” Lauren said. “I haven’t been to the beach in a while!”

Peach bent down and picked up her beach bag. “Hey,” she said after looking around a little, “Where’d Rick go?”

She was right; he was gone.

“Wait,” Waluigi said. “Didn’t he say that he had to go to the bathroom?”

“Oh, yeah,” Daisy laughed.

Ricky met us outside.

“Sorry,” he began, but Peach nodded approvingly.

“I’ll take Chompy down the path to the beach,” I said. “The rest of you can travel by pipe.”

But nobody wanted to.

It was a short, pleasant walk to the beach. Daisy hummed a song that I couldn't identify the whole way. Julie and Lauren were going on and on about Harry Potter characters. All in all, this was one of the first good times I've had at the Beanbean Kingdom... ever.

"There it is," I said, and pointed at the sand on the horizon. The beach was the same too; a couple of bean people surfing, a couple of bean people tanning, and a couple of bean people eating each other.

"Here we are," Mario said. I pulled off my shirt and tossed it in the sand. I
didn't want to do anything today; I only wanted to sleep like I was seventeen
again.

I laid out my towel and sat down on it. Despite the rotten morning, today was a pleasant day with a pleasant temperature of 86. Hopefully, that didn't mean that the water was cooled down. It was one in the afternoon.

"Luigi," Daisy said. "Do you want some sunscreen?"

"Nah," I said. "That stuff smells bad."

Daisy sat down next to me and put her hand on my cheek.

"Oh..." she said slowly and almost trancelike. "But, you don't want to ruin that
beautiful skin of yours by just getting a sunburn!"

After a second of staring at me, I yelled, "Give me that!" and grabbed the
sunscreen bottle.

Daisy laughed slightly and walkd off. Peach joined up next to her, and they went
on talking about how easy men were.

After coating myself with sunscreen, (that made me smell strange,) I laid on my
back and fell asleep almost instantly.

"Hey, Luigi! Get up!"

I opened my eyes and saw Mario. His face was inches from mine.

"Come on," he said. "Quit being lazy. Wario challenged us to a race!"

I sat up. "A swimming race?"

"Yeah," Mario said. "First one to the buoy over there is the winner!"

I stood up. "Oh, allright. Where do we start?"

Wario was signaling for us to come to the edge of the water. Waluigi was
standing there, in a wetsuit that matched Wario's. I walked to the edge of the
water and stood, ankle-deep. The water was a pleasant tempertaure.

"Ready?" Daisy asked. "Set..."

But before she said "go," all four of us were rushing into the waves. Before I
knew it, I was diving into water that was deeper than I was tall. I lifted my
head out of the water to catch a glimpse of Mario slowly inching in front of me. He reached his hand out just before I did and tagged the buoy.

"Dang," I panted, breathless. "You win."

Mario grinned widely. "Cool," he said.

"I want to go back to sleep," I said, and turned around and swam to the shore.

"Who won?" Peach asked.

"Mario, like usual," I said, with a yawn. I had just begun to turn around and
lie back down on my towel when a pair of tiny arms fastened themselves around my waist.

"Daddy!" squealed a small girl's voice. I turned around. A girl who looked
around the age of six was giving me the biggest hug she possibly could. She had hair similar to the color of Daisy's, and the brightest cerulean-violet eyes
I've ever seen. She was wearing an expensive-looking sundress.

"Daddy...?" I asked, confused beyond belief.

"Yeah!" she said, letting go of me.

"Sorry, kid..." I began. "I don't think I've ever met you."

She pouted. "But-but... you look just like him!" her huge eyes got even bigger.

"What's your father's name?" I asked her. She shrugged. "I don't know. He said his name is Daddy."

"Do you know where he is?" I asked. She was probably a missing child who had mistaken me for her father.

"Yeah. He said he would be here."

The only people here were bean people, and this little girl was human.

Daisy appeared behind me.

"Mommy!" shrieked the girl.

"Excuse me?" Daisy asked, obviously baffled.

"This girl thinks we're her parents," I whispered to Daisy.

"Does she," Daisy said. "What's your name?"

"Roooooooose," she said.

"Oooh, I like that name," Daisy said.

"I'm a princess," Rose said, with a huge grin.

"Of course you are," I said. "Come with us... we'll help you find your parents."
she pouted again.

"But I did," she said.

"Come on," Daisy said, and took her by the hand. Mario approached me. His
eyebrows met in confusion.

"Who's that?" he asked.

"Some missing girl," I said. "We'll take her to the police and see if we can
find her parents."

"Have fun," Mario said, and walked off.

I pulled my shirt on.

"My daddy likes green," Rose said.

"Green's a nice color," I said.

The police station was in the castle town. It didn't take long to get there, and
the whole time we traveled Rose went on and on about what her father was like. I had to admit, he did sound a lot like me.

"My daddy likes cherry pastries..." it was starting to become a little annoying.

We approached the police station about five minutes later.

"Can I help you," Said the fat Bean cop at the desk.

"We found this girl," Daisy said. "She's lost her parents."

"I see," he said, with a chomp of his doughnut. "What's your name, little
missy?" he asked.

"Rose," she said. "I'm a princess."

"Of course you are," the cop said. "Do you know where your mommy and daddy are?"

Rose pointed at me with one hand, and at Daisy with the other.

"We've never seen her before," Daisy said. "Honest."

"Yes, you two do look a bit young to have a child her age... well, we'll post a
found child report. For now... we'll give you guys permission to look after
her."

"But we're on vacation," Daisy said. "We don't live here."

"It will just be for tonight," the cop said with a sip of Chuckola cola.

"I suppose we could do it," I said. "She can sleep on the pullout couch in the
hotel."

"Fine, okay," Daisy said. "We'll call you tomorrow." we left.

"Can I have an ice cream?" Rose asked. "Princesses deserve ice cream."

"Yes, they do," Daisy said, with a grin and glanced at me. I sighed; I was
outnumbered.

"Oh, allright." I said. I pulled a couple of dollars from my half-digested
wallet. "We could each get a cone."

"Yay!" Daisy and Rose squealed in unison. They had eerily similar personalities.

After buying some ice cream, we met back up with the rest of our party at the
hotel. Everyone wanted to know who Rose was. Julie frowned, she usually didn't do too well with young children.

"We've adopted her for tonight," Daisy explained with a sigh. Chompy seemed interested in Rose.

"My daddy has a pet chain chomp," she said.

"Your daddy has everything." Waluigi sighed.

"He does," Rose said, beaming. "'Cause I'm a princess."

"Sounds more like a brat to me," Wario whispered. Waluigi laughed.

"Well... shall we all go get lunch?" Peach asked.

"Not here," everyone said at once. Ricky laughed.

"There's a cafe in Stardust valley," Mario said. "Or we could get a sandwich at the coffee house."

"A brownie from the coffee shop sounds great," Lauren said.

"Sweeeeet." Julie droned. She and Lauren laughed.

"I like sweets," Rose said.

That night, Rose had found her way into my suitcase and was wearing my clothes. She looked quite funny with shirts and pants that were far too big on her.

"I think you ought to go to bed now," I said, as soon as the clock hit 9:30.

"No way," she said. "I'm not tired. A princess can stay up late." I sighed.

"Then here; watch a movie."

"No!"

"Then what do you want to do?" I asked. I was getting a little agitated, but I
had no idea how to take care of a kid.

"My daddy always gives me fireworks before I go to bed," she said. I snickered.

"Tell me about him," I said. It seemed like talking about her father was a
favorite pastime. I wanted to give her something pleasant to do.

"Well," she said. "You look just like him. 'Cept... he's ooooold." I laughed. So
did she.

"He's got a funny moustache too," she said. "It's the wrong color."

"The wrong color?" I asked.

"Yeah. His hairs aren't black, but his moustache is."

I glanced sideways at her. "Right," I said.

"My uncle says that my daddy is kind of stupid," she said with a loud laugh. "My uncle likes to read my daddy's diary. He said so."

"Sounds like a mean uncle," I said.

"No, he's not mean... he's funny. My uncle looks just like my daddy. They're... uh... twins."

"Are they really?" I asked, knitting my eyebrows.

"Yeah. And they're both SUPERHEROES."

"Are they," I said with a snicker. "Do they have costumes and save people?"

"Noooo..." she said and yawned. "But they both have super powers. And they do save people."

"Super powers? Do either of them have heat vision?" I asked jokingly.

"No..." she repeated. "But he has lightning in his hands. He can zap people. I
think he calls his powers..." she yawned again. "Thunderbrand, or something like that."

"Really... does he..." I began, but paused. Her father could use the
Thunderbrand? How else would she know about it...

"You look just like my daddy, 'cept your hair has no white." she said again.

"Do you know your mother's name?" I asked.

"Mommy," she said.

"What about your uncle?"

"Umm..." she said, and put her finger to her mouth. "Uncle Mario."

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