Chapter 5 - The Time Wand

"What's wron-" I started to ask him, but he held his finger to his lips.

"What?" I heard Waluigi whisper irritably. "Did you hear something?"

"I thought I did..." Mario said. "What was wrong with Tibs, anyway? Why did he trap and quiz us?"

"He's lost his peanut-sized dinosaur mind," Ricky said. Julie laughed. She seemed to laugh at anything that was even slightly funny...

"I'm going back to bed," Mario said. "Tibs isn't killing anyone, so don't mind him. G'night." And he walked off. I hope he knew where he was going. Guess he did.

"Me too," I said. "I guess we'll see Tibs again in the morning."

Julie and Waluigi followed me up to the second floor. We ran into Julie's room first, then Walugi's. I made my way ten feet from Waluigi's room to mine, alone. But I didn't go to my room, first. I saw, through the dim light of the ball of lightning I was holding, that a water tank was sitting next to my door. I realized that my mouth was very dry.

"Where are the cups," I mumbled to myself, looking around the tank for some. I couldn't find any.

I groaned in frustration. I remembered there was a kitchen near Tibs's room. I guess I'd have to go down there to get some. But I didn't need to; someone with a very, very cold finger tapped me on the shoulder and, from behind me, handed me a cup.

"Thanks!" I said, and turned around. My heart stopped. Floating there was a little orange ghost, a third the size I was, and it was smiling with a look that obviously said "You're welcome!" Its little poisonous-looking fangs were gleaming.

I couldn't move, but screamed so loudly that I was afraid I'd cough up my lungs. The ball of electricity I was holding surged, and as my legs lost all their feeling and gave way, the ghost stared blankly at the light and disappeared. I sat in the dark hall, my mind number than it had been in three years. I didn't just see that. I could NOT have just seen that.

"Luigi!" I heard Julie say in the dark. "Where are you?" she ignited a spark on her finger and saw me, curled into a horrified ball against the corner where the water tank met the wall.

"W...what happened?" she asked. I tried to use my voice, but it wasn't working properly. I finally managed to utter "ghost."

"You saw a ghost?" Julie asked, sounding excited. I slowly nodded. My hands were shaking, and my shoulder was still cold where that ghost had tapped me. Waluigi came up next to Julie.

"What, are you being murdered?" he asked me sarcastically.

I slowly forced myself to stand up. Tying a three-foot-thick slab of metal into a bow would have been easier. My entire body was coated with icy sweat.

Mario, Ricky and Lauren all burst into the hall at the same time. All three looked very out of breath.

"What's going on in here!" Ricky screamed. "We heard you yelling..."

"He saw a ghost!" Julie piped, pointing at me. Every tiny bit of color drained from Mario's face so fast I wouldn't have been entirely surprised if he had just died on the spot.

"W...what?" he gasped. "Really?"

"Yes," I said, finding my voice. I was beginning to wonder if my heart rate would ever go down. "It was.... it was that little orange one. It gave me ...a cup." I looked at my left hand; crushed in my fist was the small cup that ghost had given me.

"That’s all it did?" Waluigi asked, sounding a little disappointed. "Give you a cup?"

"We're going to find Tibs," Lauren said so sternly that nobody dared argue with her. "Come on. We can't leave him alone in a ghost-infested haunted house."

A fifth rock plunged into my stomach. Deja Vu...

Lauren led the way down the hall and to the first floor. She opened the door that led to Tibs's room's hall.

I couldn't help but scream at the sight in front of us. Julie "wowed" in thrill, but the rest of us were horrified at what we saw. Indeed, there was a bucket of ice in my stomach right now.

Ghosts were everywhere, floating restlessly around corners and merging through walls. I recognized them all immediately, none of them were Boos, but fake spirits brought to life by a dead artist, Vincent Van Gore. These were the same little ghosts that had been so bothersome in my mansion in 2001... this was what my internal alert system was warning me about... I was right, ghosts did inhabit this place...

"RUN!" I screamed, but before I could move at all, Tibs grabbed my wrist. He thrust a small golden wand into my hand, one that was only about five inches long and had a little clock in the middle of a pair of wings at the top.

"T-take this," Tibs gasped. The mansion started rumbling.

"What's going on," I said in a monotone.

"It's Van Gore..." Tibs gasped. "He's ...he's gone mad... messing with all the portraits, ghosts..." Tibs panted and clutched the stitch in his chest.

"But... but I imprisoned him three years ago!" I said loudly as the walls started cracking. "How did he get out?"

"Take the wand," Tibs repeated. "M....Mario knows how to use it. Take it and leave!" A large chunk of the ceiling landed in Tibs's room.

"What's going on!" Ricky screamed.

"There's not much time, Mario knows what to do, GO!" Mario heard Tibs yell this and snatched the wand out of my hand.

"Tibs, what are you going to do?" Mario yelled at him over the large crashing noises all around us.

"I'll be fine!" Tibs yelled back. "Just go! It's your only way out, this place is being destroyed... the ghosts are restless."

"Tibs, come ON!" Mario yelled at him in a frantic voice. "Get over here!"

But Tibs turned and rushed back into his room. Mario momentarily looked hopelessly at the open door, now dust-filled, but then turned to the rest of us.

"Everyone, get back-to-back!" he yelled. I quickly obeyed and planted myself against Lauren's back. Over the noise and ruckus of the crumbling building, I heard a very high pitched, continuous beep, but as soon as it stopped a few seconds later, a bright light nearly blinded us... this felt so familiar...

And in the next second it felt like I was having a horrible out-of-body experience. I could still vaguely see the rest of our party around me, but nothing else, it felt like we were being dragged backwards. I looked down as much as I could. The ground was there, I could see it, only it was turning into grass, the mansion wasn't here anymore. Was that wand a transporter? Where were we going?

Ten seconds later, I felt myself standing upright again; we weren't being dragged backwards. My vision was clear again, the mansion was gone, the land looked totally different. Wherever we were, it wasn't 4:30 AM anymore… it looked like it was about noon. The temperature was chilly. Where were we? We must have been a thousand miles from Tibs's mansion site. I turned around to look at the rest of our party; all but Mario looked as shaken as I felt.

"What...what was that," Waluigi demanded of Mario, who was inspecting the ticking gold wand closely. Was it a bomb?

"Good," Mario whispered.

"Where.... are we?" Julie asked, looking around.

"We didn't move anyplace," Mario said simply.

"What?" Lauren asked. "But... of course we did, look at this place, it's not the same place!"

"Yes, it is," Mario said. I narrowed my eyes in confusion. He returned my glance and smiled.

"Happy birthday, Luigi, it worked," he said.

"Uh... our birthdays were last week," I reminded him.

"They were, in 2004," he said simply.

"Are you trying to confuse us?" Julie asked. Mario raised his eyebrows and held up the wand.

"Luigi, do you remember this?" he asked. I stared at the wand for a second. It was familiar, I know it was... I shrugged.

"Today is October first, 1980, you guys," Mario said. I was starting to worry about Mario's sanity.

"This wand allows us to go back in time."

"A TIME-TURNER!" Lauren screamed, pointing at the wand with a shaking finger. Julie laughed.

"Not quite," Mario said. "It does the same thing... sort of... you can go forward in time, too." he cleared his throat. "Anyway, this is the wand that we used to attend the Double Dash tournament as babies, Luigi, don't you remember? This is how I attended the golf and tennis tournaments in 1999 and 2000... remember?"

"Sort of..." I said, scratching my head.

"This was our only way out," Mario said, pacing. "This wand transports you to the exact spot in a different place in time. All we have to do is move somewhere else and then go back to the present time. We'll be outside the mansion. Let's see..." he glanced at the little clock in the middle of it.

"We left 2004 at 4:56, 34 seconds and 67 milliseconds AM... yes, that's the time we'll go back to... and it will take fifteen seconds to get there...we wasted fifteen seconds of our lives..." he looked confused. "For fifteen seconds we won't even exist."

"So we'll be sort of... dead for fifteen seconds?" Lauren asked.

"That's a good way to put it, I guess," Mario said, "Because we'll be nowhere in the universe for fifteen seconds."

"Wierd," Ricky said. "So us three..." he pointed at Lauren and Julie. "We don't exist yet?"

"You don't exist," Mario said.

"Wow," Julie said. "My parents will be married in a little less than a year..."

"Why did you go all the way back to 1980?" Waluigi asked. "Couldn't you have gone only twenty minutes into the past?"

"I guess," Mario said, "But I just thought it'd be cool to come back to our actual birthdays. I haven't seen this wand in 24 years, after all." he smiled at me. "Yes," he said, looking at the sky. "I believe we're about seven hours old." I swallowed. How weird...

"So, anyway," Waluigi said, "This is freaky. Let's just... let's just go somewhere... besides here... and get back to 2004."

"Fine by me," Julie said. "I don't like the thought of me not existing. Strange world..."

"Modest redhead alert," I joked. Julie looked pleasantly at me.

"Remember that vasectomy I talked about last week," she threatened cheerily. I shut up abruptly. Waluigi snorted a laugh.

"Come on," Ricky said, motioning for us to follow him. "If we were near the front of the mansion, and the rest of it was behind us, we should go this way... how far away from the place do we need to be?"

"Far," Lauren said. "That place was going to burst."

"What about Tibs?" I whispered. "Why didn't he come along? You don't think..."

"I don't know what will happen to Tibs. I tried to get him to come, but he ran back into his room, we ran out of time..." Mario's voice drained out. He couldn't mean that Tibs was still in the mansion? He couldn't mean that Tibs was still stuck in the building while it was being destroyed?

"I am never going back inside a mansion," I said flatly. "Never. All of the ones I've ever been in were horribly infested by ghosts." Mario sighed.

"Let's follow Ricky," Waluigi said, pointing at the 12-year-old, who was already moving to my right. "He knows where he's going... I think."

Ricky stopped about twenty yards away from where we had just been standing. "This good?" he asked.

"I guess we'll try," Mario said. "Come on... stand here... everyone back to back..."

I found Julie's back this time. Mario was fiddling with the side of the wand as though setting the time on a watch.

"Ready, everyone?" he said, once this was done. "Okay..." He pressed in the little button. Immediately it felt like we were being sucked into a tornado. I counted down from fifteen how long it would take for the winds to stop. This time, I was leaning forward.

Three... I thought. Two... one.

The winds stopped abruptly. We were standing in the gloomy shadows of Tibs's palace, in the outdoors courtyard, just within safe distance.

"Welcome back," Mario said, staring hopelessly at the mansion. "Where's Tibs..."

The huge building had now caught fire. Ghosts did this... and just five years ago Mario had called me a chicken for being afraid of ghosts.

"What are we going to do," Lauren moaned. "We can't just leave him in there..."

"OW!" Mario screamed, clapping his hand to his arm.

"What?" I said, whipping around. "Did you get hit by rubble or something?"

"Huh-uh," Mario said, through gritted teeth. "Gosh, that really hurt..."

Julie gasped. "That... that wasn't your Peach-o-meter, was it?" She said. Mario swallowed. "I think it was," he whispered. "Come on, I want to look into this..." and he burst off running as fast as a cheetah towards the side of the mansion. I quickly waved my hand at the others for us to follow him, and then started running, myself.

But I couldn't keep up with Mario. He was dodging trees and rocks so quickly that he was a blur in front of me. Normally I can run about as fast as he can, but when he thinks there's something wrong with Peach, even if you drop an atomic bomb on him, he'll keep going.

Finally he stopped in front of a huge pipeline system very similar to that of the ones in the Beanbean kingdom. I skidded to a stop, breathless, next to him, as he was frantically examining the pipes.

"I remember-" he said, still panting breathlessly, "There-was a pipeline-right outside my window." He pointed up at the charred building; he was right, that was the room he had stayed in. "Which one-do you think-leads to the castle town?"

"I'm not sure," I said. "Is there any way you can tell?"

Julie, Ricky, Waluigi and Lauren all stopped next to us. The kids were breathless, but Waluigi yawned. "What are we doing now," he said irritably.

"There's only four of them," Mario said, acting as though only I was standing next to him. "Guess we should try them all... one of them must lead to right outside the castle..."

Mario jumped in one of the pipes and I followed him. We were transported to a bright place with a warm climate, even though the sun was barely up.

"Koopa's village," Mario said. "We're close enough. The castle is just to the west. You wait for everybody, I'm going."

And he ran off at top speed once again.

I didn't have to wait for everyone else too long. Though, they had made the mistake of trying to burst through more than one at a time. Julie and Lauren both flew in different directions, Lauren landed in a tree and Julie landed on the roof of a house. The Koopa who lived in the house Julie landed on lazily opened his door, noticed me, and waved frantically. I awkwardly waved back as Ricky climbed out of the pipe.

"Jolly good morning!" The Koopa called and walked over. He had a very strong British accent.
"Nice to see you, Mr. Green Mario brother."

I'm so famous.

"The name's Kolorado. Was that me dreaming, or are we being bombarded?"

"We're being bombarded by teenagers," I said and pointed at his roof. Julie was slowly edging to the side of the short roof and dropped five feet to the ground. Lauren was climbing down the tree.

"Ah! Teenagers. Scary things, aren't they?"

"Terrifying," I said, with a smirk at Lauren. "We'd better get going, Mario thinks there's something wrong with the castle town."

Kolorado frowned. "Sure right there is, it's horrible," he said.

"What?" I gasped. "What do you-"

"Some freaky-looking lady with green hair was destroying the place! It's all over the news. We're horrified for the Princess's sake... good to know Mario's on the case. Well, find shelter, it’s not safe to just hang around here. Goodbye!"

And he ran back into his house, leaving me feeling very numb.

"Did... I just hear that right?" Julie asked, pointing at Kolorado's house.

"I hope not," I said. "Come on. We've gotta catch up to Ma... where's Waluigi?"

Ricky pointed behind me. I turned around. Waluigi was talking with a bunch of Bob-ombs.

"Come on!" I yelled at him. He waved goodbye to the Bob-ombs and approached me.

"Loons over there say that some ninja-lady is messing the city up," he said.

"Let's go." I said sternly, pointed at the exit to the city, and left. Mario was right, it only took a few minutes to get to the castle town. Mario was nowhere in sight, but that didn't really bother me now. No, what really bothered me was the fact that the city was more beautiful than before, everything was clean and trees were everywhere. Was Kolorado out of his mind? Or was I?

"Woah," Lauren said. "Dude, what's wrong with it? Looks fine to me."

I shrugged. "I bet Mario went to the castle," I said. The castle looked great, too, why did everyone think that it was ruined?

I opened the large castle doors. It was deserted.

"Hellooooooo..." Ricky said, his voice echoing all over the large, empty walls. He laughed.

"Loser!" he said.

"Loser!" his echo said.

"Stop mocking me," he said jokingly.

"Stop mocking me," his echo said.

"I'm an idiot!" he said loudly.

"You're an idiot!" His echo said.

He shot a confused look at Julie, who was trying very hard not to laugh.

"Luigi!" Mario said, running up to me, more breathless than ever. He grabbed my arm.

"Come- no time- explain later." he gasped. He dragged me into a side room and thrust another time wand into my hand, identical to the other, only this one was silver. Gee, I love these new toys. Who else in the world had the power to play with time? When this entire ordeal was over, I was going to have some serious fun with this.

"Take-" he panted. "Take this, get the 'Yoshi's Benitoite.'"

"The Yoshi's what?" I asked.

"Some blue gem," he said very quickly. "It was destroyed by accident when we were babies. Go back and get it."

"Me? Why me? And why do you need it?" I asked.

"Listen to me," Mario said so sternly that I knew this conversation was over. "When you find the gem, you'll know because the gem is a very light blue, and half of it is glowing. Wand's already set, just press this button... good luck."

I pressed the button, and Mario was gone. This wand was different, though, I was being dragged backwards like the other one, but somehow, I felt strange...

But I had no time to wonder what was so different. The whirling stopped, but all I saw was a dull orange light. Wherever I was, it was very comfortable. The temperature was almost hot, and I think my surroundings were nothing but pillows.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!"

Realizing that my eyes were closed, I jerked them open. I tried to see where there was a baby crying, and it didn't take me long to find him. Lying in a nearby crib, screaming his lungs out, was a medium-sized baby wearing all red. I realized that I, too, was in a crib. What's going on?

I stood up, with surprising difficulty, and looked around some more. The room was a typical nursery, rocking chairs and hobby horses were here and there, rattles all over the floor, and a very smelly trash can. The baby next to me kept on screaming. A woman entered the room, looked at the baby, then at me for a second, and screamed. She was a tall, thin, woman with hair that matched my hair color up in a bun. The window outside showed that it was late evening, giving the room a pleasant orange tint.

"EEEEEK! Come here! Look at him, look at him..." she was pointing a shaking finger at me. I guess I should try to explain what a grown man is doing in their other baby's crib. A shortish man with a very bushy mustache rushed to her side, looked at me for a second, then pulled a camera out of nowhere and snapped a hundred thousand pictures. I blinked the spots out of my eyes as the woman leaned over the crib.

"Standing up, so big, I can't believe it..."

I still didn't understand what was going on, not until the man held up the instant-form film in my eyes.

"The first time he actually sat up on his own," the man said in a very strong Italian accent. "I can't believe it." But I didn't pay attention to what he was saying; I was staring at the picture in horror.

There was a 4 1/2-month-old baby standing in the crib in the picture, one almost identical to the screaming baby, only in green-me.

I tried to explain that this was wrong, that this couldn't be happening, but the only sound that came out of my mouth was "Ack-buh-unk." The people who, I guessed, were my parents, left my crib and attended to the other wailing baby, which I could only guess was Mario. By the time my parents left the room in all, Mario was eagerly drinking from a bottle.

"Mario," I whispered, but all that came out was "Gaah." But Mario looked at me, milk dribbling down his chin, and he took the bottle out of his mouth and said "Ack," which, somehow, I recognized to be "What?" I stared at him for a second before realizing that I could speak-and understand-baby talk. While pondering this, Mario had finished his bottle and resumed crying.

"Hey, hey," I said in baby talk, "Don't, I need to ask you something. Do you know what a Yoshi's Benitoite is?"

Mario paused, looked at me in confusion with wet eyes, then started wailing again. How stupid could I be, no, of course he didn't know what it was, he's less than five months old. So this is what's different about the silver wand... it makes you what you were in the year you decided to travel to, not transport you to your present surroundings. Oh, great... why did Mario give me that one? I can't do anything if I can't even stand up.

I picked up the silver wand and looked at it. I tried to turn the little dial to go back to 2004, but my hands didn't work the way I wanted them to.

"No," I said in frustration, "TURN the knob..." but I had a hard time even holding the wand. How odd, in two months I would be walking, knowing a few sentences, and driving.

"What are you doing?" Mario asked. "You're all... up."

"Just standing," I said, amazed at how unusual this used to be. "Try it..."

"How?"

I shrugged, letting go of the railing, lost my balance, and fell painfully onto the wand. Before I knew it, tears were leaking out of my eyes, and my nose was pointed upward, and I was wailing as loud as Mario had just been.

"Stop," I told myself. "This is stupid, you're 24 years old, don't cry." But I couldn't stop. Mario was pointing at me, laughing.

Finally I got myself under control, but only because my mother had come and stuck a pacifier into my mouth. I had forgotten how fun these things were. By now, Mario had fallen over many times and had given up, and gone back to his job of screaming. Mom stuck a pacifier in his mouth too, and said playfully, "Mario, Mario, calm yourself, if I give you too many bottles you'll throw up..." She picked him up, and as though on cue, he hurled all over her shirt.

I laughed. I couldn't help it. Maybe being a baby wasn't so bad, after all, you could crap your pants, run around naked and hurl on everything, and nobody would really care.

Mom sighed. She got a rag from a nearby table and wiped her very clean, neatly pressed shirt off. She then cleaned Mario up, who laughed the entire time. When she finished, Mario started screaming again. Gosh... did all he ever use to do was scream? Mom stuck the pacifier back in his mouth and he shut up.

Dad walked into the room. "I'm having some business partners over for dinner tonight, we're going to discuss the income of the company and what-not," he said.

"Oh... well, all right. I guess I'll get the stove heated up..." she left the room with him. I heard dad say "Yes, he's got two young children of his own, I believe... big family man, bringing the whole lot over. Anyway, I believe their youngest boy is Mario and Luigi's age, so at..." and he got too far away for me to hear him anymore.

I spat the pacifier out of my mouth and saw the latch on my crib. I wanted out. I started messing with the latch, but I couldn't work it. Mario noticed what I was doing.

"What, you want out?" he said. I nodded. "Then just do what I do..." And he picked up a small bottle of spray.

"What are you doing?" I asked him. "And where did you get that?"

"Smells like poop," Mario said. He dropped the can, and it emitted a smell that did smell very much like baby crap. Then he stuck his nose in the air and cried. I started laughing. Boy, if only I had a video camera...

Dad came back in the room and sniffed at the air a little. Then he said, "Allright, which one of you did it?" then he laughed, picked me up, and stuck his nose in my hair, which was surprisingly thick for how young I was.

"Not you," he said. "Allright, c'mere, Mario." But he noticed the can at his feet.

"Hey-" he said, and picked it up. "What is this doing in here, I thought I threw it out, went bad ages ago..." I pointed frantically at the floor.

"You want out?" he asked me. I nodded.

"Fine," he said. "I'll put you in your pen, come on..." And he slung me over his shoulder and started going out the door. I pointed at Mario, who was staring at me with large, pleading eyes. It was odd; they were a steely gray.

"You want him too?" Dad asked. "Gah," I said.

And before long, me and Mario were sitting in a large fenced-in area of our living room. Mario was bouncing a large ball, but I was trying very hard to remember that this is what our house was like. It was a simple, medium-sized townhouse with a stone fireplace. There was one upstairs room; that was our nursery. The kitchen was right by the staircase, and Mom was in there now making something that smelled very good.

"What are you doing now?" Mario asked, noticing that I was holding onto the little crossed bars that made up the walls of our playpen like I was a prisoner.

"Thinking," I said. "I'm looking for a jewel."

"What's a jewel?" Mario asked.

"It's... uh..." I suddenly remembered that my mom was wearing emerald earrings. "Those things that Mom has in her ears."

"Oooooooooh," Mario said. "Why do you suddenly want those?"

I yawned. I was becoming very tired. "Just... I think they're...cool," I lied. I guess it wasn't really a lie since I do think gems are interesting, but this was not why I came here. The doorbell rang.

"Oh, that must be the Scapellis now," Dad said, and rushed to answer the door. The Scapellis? He couldn't mean...

He opened the door, and I almost screamed in horror. A very tall man and very short woman were standing at the door, the woman holding the hand of a pudgy four-year old boy with a very pink nose, and the man holding a 7-month-old baby over his shoulder. The two children looked almost identical to each other, though 3 1/2 years separated their ages... I couldn't believe it, it was Wario and Waluigi!

"Can I have a cookie, Mr. Mario?" Wario asked sweetly. Waluigi's father set him down in my playpen and followed everyone back into the kitchen.

Waluigi looked at me as though I was the most interesting thing he's ever seen.

"Um... hi," I stammered. He blinked a few times. My eyes fell on Waluigi's neck. Embedded into a gold chain was a bright blue gem. Only half of it was shining.

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