Mario and the Koopa Conspiracy, Martin C. Featherworth [book recommendations .txt] 📗

blue toad was apart from his friends, appearing to be messing with something on the mushroom-shaped Starshroom.
I’ll go see what he’s doing, thought Mario. After a second of hesitation, Mario made a swim for the shore of the beach near the toads. He didn’t get too far before someone shouted out his name.
“Hey Mario!” the pink toad called out jovially.
“Hi,” Mario said, trying to be friendly. He continued toward the shore.
“Nice day to be at the beach, huh?” the toad said in a high-pitched gravelly voice. Mario now stood in the shallows. He looked up into the sky. It was sunny, but not too warm, and big fluffy clouds filled the sky.
“Yes, the weather is nice here today,” he stated plainly. By now, the other toads had become aware of Mario’s presence, waving at him and greeting him. He returned the greetings as he walked up onto the sand. Once again, his clothes were dry — just another physics-defying thing about this realm.
As Mario was heading for the blue toad by the Starshroom, a familiar squawk turned his attention. That familiar squawk had been none other than the tiny blue penguin from Cool, Cool Mountain, Eddie. Eddie hopped up and down excitedly.
“Hi there again, Super Dude!” Eddie burst happily. Mario cringed a bit.
“Please don’t call me that,” Mario muttered with a hint of a laugh.
“Okay then. Hi there again, Super Mario. Better?” Eddie said sarcastically.
“Yes, that’s better.” Mario smiled comfortably. “Hello again to you, Eddie.”
“So did you go see ole’ Penguru?” asked the little penguin. Mario nodded. “Did he give you some good advice?” Eddie questioned further.
“He gave me advice…” Mario trailed off. “He didn’t seem to be wrong, but I didn’t like his advice at all.” He exhaled and scowled sourly.
“What’d he say?” Eddie asked. Mario closed his eyes.
“He didn’t believe me,” Mario stated. The penguin gaped at him in disbelief.
“What? How could he not believe you?” Eddie exclaimed. “Maybe he’s not so wise after all. Maybe he’s just an old coot.”
“He is not just an old coot, Eddie. He is wise.” Mario defended. “I could tell that when I was up there. You should respect your elders, Edmund.”
“I’m Eddie, and you’re not my dad!” huffed the young penguin. “Besides, you said yourself that you didn’t like his advice.” Mario shook his head.
“No, no. I didn’t like it. But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.” Mario looked down at his feet. “You shouldn’t be so quick to judge someone because of something they say that you don’t like. Lots of misunderstanding and fractured relationships happen because of that.” After a few moments of silence, Eddie spoke again.
“Well that’s deep,” he said. Mario shrugged. The two were quiet for some time before a voice pierced through into their thoughts.
“Edmund!” called a blue penguin from down the beach. “We’re going back to Jeremy’s house in an hour!”
“Okay Mom!” Eddie called back. “I was just talking to Mr. Mario here!” Mario looked over to Eddie’s mother.
“Mario?” The penguin waddled closer to them. “Oh Make, it is Mario!” she gasped.
“Hello miss. You must be Eddie’s mom,” Mario said in his accented voice. He walked over to the penguin.
“Yes, I am. My name is Mary,” Eddie’s mother replied. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Mario.”
“Nice to meet you too, and please just call me Mario,” said Mario. The penguin called Mary nodded her head.
“Alright then, Mario.” The female penguin looked over at Eddie, who had wandered back with the rest of his family. “I see you were just talking to my son,” Mary said.
“Oh yes,” Mario said, turning toward the penguin family to look at young Eddie. “You sure do have quite the son there, Mary. May I just call you Mary?”
“Sure, that’s fine if you call me Mary. Yes, Eddie is a special boy.” Mary smiled.
Mario continued, “He has a way with talking to people. He actually cares about getting to know someone, which is hard to find these days.” Mario stopped, letting out a breath. “People were like that back where I’m from, too: they only cared about themselves. Eddie would be a rarity. I bet he makes friends easily,” the stout mustached cartoon man finished. Mary nodded her sleek navy-blue head.
“Everywhere we go. And he’s got about a dozen or so friends back where we live.” She looked back to Mario. “It’s funny how you should just happen to run into us when it was my nephew who you rescued a while back,” Mary reflected.
“Your son told me about that. I brought his little cousin back to your sister in Cool, Cool Mountain,” explained Mario. “Yes, there’s that, and I met you in an entirely different environment than your own home, and I happened to be taking a vacation on the same day at the same time,” Mario said with a blank expression. “Fate,” Mario said plainly, making a floaty hand motion. He laughed at himself. Mary laughed a bit as well, but whether it was because Mario’s gesture had been unexpected or if she had actually thought it was funny Mario was unsure. Nevertheless, Mario still liked to make dry jokes.
“Well,” said Mary. “I should be getting back to my family now. We’ve got to go back to our friend’s house for lunch.”
“Hmm, lunch…” Mario said. “What do you penguins even eat for lunch? Fish?” Mario thought aloud. “Oh, excuse me if I’m being offensive to your kind or something…”
“Offensive to my kind?” Mary repeated, baffled.
“Ah… Oh, it’s nothing. You go and have a nice lunch then,” Mario said awkwardly.
“Okay,” Mary said with a brief spell of laughter. “Goodbye.”
“Bye,” said Mario as Mary began to make her way back to the rest of the penguins. Mario gazed upon the penguin family for a few moments. What had he been doing before he’d been interrupted? Oh yes, he had been going over to the Starshroom to see what the blue toad was doing. Just as he had begun to march over to the spaceship, he was interrupted yet again.
“Hey hey Mr. Mario! Hey Mr. Mario!” chirped a high-pitched voice from behind. Mario turned around to look. The voice had been coming from a penguin even younger than Eddie who stood about halfway in between the penguin family and Mario. “Hi Mr. Mario! I’m Beatrice!” the little penguin said in a sing-song voice. She did a twirl in the sand.
“Hello,” Mario said with a warm smile. He just couldn’t stay serious for long around cute things.
“Hey Mr. Mario, can you do the thing?” asked little Beatrice.
“Which thing?” Mario asked back. Beatrice stuck her flipper into the air.
“The ‘let’s go’ thing! Do the ‘let’s go’ thing!” cried Beatrice ecstatically.
“Oh I don’t know… I don’t think I can do the ‘let’s go’ thing right when I’m not on an adventure…” Mario teased.
“Please! Please do the ‘let’s go’ thing!” Beatrice begged, hopping up and down.
“Oh alright. I’ll try,” Mario agreed. Putting on the widest grin he could, Mario leapt into the air with his fist raised over his head, with a hearty “Let’s go!” in his high-pitched Italian-accented voice. Beatrice burst out in giggles, which caused Mario to laugh as well. A penguin in Eddie and Beatrice’s family called something out from down the beach. “You’d better go back with your family,” said Mario.
“Thanks Mr. Mario!” Beatrice said as she waddle-hopped back to the group of penguins, who now had their things packed away. “Bye!” she called out. Mario waved goodbye with his hand. The penguin family had packed up their chairs and beach toys and now marched in a line to the edge of the Sea Slide. Mario hadn’t thought of that until now: How had the penguins got up here? He scooted over to the side a bit to get a better look. Ah, yes — a brightly-colored lift of sorts. It was a floating platform that moved when stepped on. This one was yellow and orange. Mario guessed it went to a small warp zone — an area full of warp-pipes — closer to the ground. It just wasn’t practical to have a lift that went from the ground all the way up to the Sea Slide; they and could break down in midair and cause injury more if they were used in that way. Neither was it to have pipes that went from the ground all the way to the Sea Slide; the pipes could snap in half when suspended that far into the air.
The main methods of transportation in this realm centered around pipes. Some were quite large, containing a cabin to ride in like a subway train. Most pipes, however, were large enough to fit a singular person. All one had to do to use one was enter it. Then, you’d be sucked through to the other side. Sometimes, pipes leading to different areas would all be placed within one building. These were the commercial warp zone terminals. Warp zone terminals would be where you’d find most of your subway pipes. This was the method of travel used by many of the beings that lived in this realm. Of course, there were still non-commercial warp zones out there. Mario used these much more often. But with non-commercial warp zones, there was always the danger of piranha plants — killer man-eating weeds with toothed mouths that could swallow Mario whole. The threat of piranha plants deterred most from ever going near non-commercial pipes, but Mario wasn’t afraid of anything by now. Death could be reversed with the help of a green 1-up mushroom.
Mario had watched the penguins descend on the orange and yellow lift. When the lift came back up after the penguins were out of sight, he knew his initial guess had been correct. Definitely a warp zone down there somewhere. Mario thought of Mary, Eddie, and Beatrice. They had been so friendly. The penguins he didn’t meet likely shared that trait.
They’re such a nice family, Mario thought. I never had one of those. Must be nice… He looked back over at his original goal: the Starshroom. Yes, the blue toad with the glasses was still over there, though he appeared to be resting now. Now that there were no penguins to interrupt him, Mario walked right over to the mushroom-shaped ship.
The Starshroom was only about the height of two men standing on top of each other, but since its occupants were small, it was large enough. The mushroom’s “stem” was a foot taller than Mario, and the “cap” jutted out about half the stem’s height from the stem itself. The mushroom cap served as both the cockpit and the passenger area; it had a few seats in the middle and the room was lined with five round windows. It seemed much larger on the inside than it did on the outside, as lots of things did here. The Toad Brigade was in possession of several different colored Starshrooms, and they had flown to the Sea Slide in three of them. The two others remained on the planet below, however, due to a lack of landing space.
Mario went around to the back of the Starshroom, where the blue glasses-wearing toad stood looking out at the expansive sea of clouds. Before Mario could even form words in his mind, the toad spoke.
“Hi Mario,” said the toad. “What’cha doing over here?”
“Oh… Well, I was just wondering what you were doing over here, as a matter of fact.” Mario straightened his insignia-emblazoned cap. “Also, I don’t quite remember your name. What is your name?”
“Oh, I’m Toadward,” replied the little blue mushroom man. “We flew on the pink Starshroom together, remember?”
“Ah, yes we did,” said Mario. “Toadward. That’s such a toad-like name,” he remarked to