Chapter 2: Questions
It was about 9 o'clock when Mario finally hopped through the pipe next to his house. He was exhausted from the night he had. Being overrun by autographs and fans was nothing new to him, but it was still very annoying sometimes. He couldn't even get a moments peace with Luigi without being surrounded by fans. When Mario looked up at the house, most of the lights were on and slight rustling was heard within the house. He suspected it was Luigi and headed up to the door. When he opened it, he yelled, "Luigi, I'm home!" A scampering the kitchen made Mario curious as he slowly approached the doorway. He stepped in to see Luigi on his knees beckoning to something under the table. He looked up to see Mario at the doorway. "Oh, hi Mario," he said then turned back to the thing under the table. "It's okay. It's just my brother," he soothingly said. "What are you talking to?" Mario asked kneeling next his brother.
The creature under the table shivered nervously. A small green hat sat on top of its head, with an L on the front, just like Luigi's hat. Its fur sparked with electricity as its fear obviously got worse. Its eyes drifted from Luigi to Mario. Mario noticed that its eyes were the same shade of blue as Luigi's eyes. Then the creatures eyes drifted to Mario's hat and its fear seemed to ease a bit. It shuffled closer and sniffed Mario's knee and then it yipped a happy, "Jolt!" "What is it?" Mario asked as the creature dashed away. "To be perfectly honest, I have zero clue," Luigi responded, shaking his head. "I was hoping you would know." Mario got up and offered his hand to Luigi and pulled him to his feet. "Where did you find it?" he asked walking to the living room and sitting on the couch. Luigi followed and sat down next to him and sighed. "I took the long way home today, because it was a nice day out. It had gotten dark, and it came out of some bushes and collapsed. Some goombas seemed to have been chasing it and it had collapsed from exhaustion. I chased the goombas off and brought this little guy home." He patted the creatures head, who had laid down next to Luigi's feet. "He reminds me of you, a little," Mario said looking at the little animal that lay there. "I know," Luigi said, looking up at his brother. "I didn't give him that hat you know," he said. "I thought so," he said, then grinned. "You don't have that small of head." Luigi just looked at him with an unamused stare.
Mario shrugged and said, "Well what are we going to do with him?" "I was thinking about taking him to Rosalina tomorrow," Luigi said. At the sound of the name, the creature's ears pricked up with recognition and yipped. The brothers looked down at the animal by their feet and then at each other. "Do you think it understands us?" Mario asked. Luigi rubbed the back of his head with his hand. "Well… I think so," he said. "When it woke up earlier, it was terrified and wouldn't stop making the yipping noise it makes. I said something in Italian that I didn't intend to say and it instantly seemed to understand exactly what I said. So I'm assuming it can understand us." Mario looked down at the creature who had fallen asleep. "Did you name it?" he asked. Luigi raised an eyebrow and answered, "When did you start asking so many questions?" Mario blinked slowly and then smiled sheepishly. "I guess I've been around to many Toads," he said.
Luigi sighed and got up and walked toward the stairs. "To answer your question, I just started I haven't called him anything… I mean what do you name a thing like him?" Mario nodded. "That seems reasonable," he said and followed his brother up the stairs. "We'll visit Rosalina first thing tomorrow," he said looking at Luigi. He grinned and said, "That sounds good to me."