Author's note: Hey everybody, how was your Christmas and New years holiday? I had a great time spending time with my family, and I hope you all did to, whether you celebrated a different holiday or not. I'm back with another chapter of What's in a name, and hopefully you guys enjoy it.
Marilyn unpacked her things from her bags. She took her clothes and put them in the drawers in her new room. She was pretty impressed at how nice her room was; it even had a connected bathroom. She moved her toiletries into the bathroom when she heard a knock on the door. She answered it to see Master Hand at the door.
"Sorry about that, Marilyn." Master hand apologized. "Did I disturb you from something? I heard from Fox and the others that you were going to retire early. I wanted to talk to you before you did."
"It's alright, I was only unpacking" Marilyn reassured him "Did you need something?"
"I just wanted to see how you were doing. After all, as soon as you arrived, I had to leave you alone."
"Alright, come on in then." Marilyn held the door open for him, as he floated into her room. He took a chair and "sat" in it- rather hovered over it. Marilyn sat at the foot of her bed
"So how do you like the mansion so far? Can you find your way around yet?"
"The mansion seems like a fun place, and I think that I'll find my way around okay." Marilyn said "Most of the people I met are pretty friendly, so I don't think I'll have a problem here" Master Hand paused to process everything as he nodded.
"You said 'most'. Is there something that I should be concerned about?" Marilyn proceeded to tell Master Hand about what happened when she first arrived, omitting the part about Wolf's unfriendliness, and Fox showing her the files of the guests of the mansion's past.
"… and then they ran away from me like I was a ghost or something. But at least I met other people like Yoshi, Kirby, Fox and a few more people." Master Hand sighed
"Oh boy, I see you met the three stooges. You think they would fight in wars and save the world multiple times and come out of it okay, but when it comes to the opposite gender, they're traumatized. I apologize in their place." Marilyn couldn't help but laugh. She wasn't expecting one of the popular smashers to get on Master Hand's nerves like that.
"It's alright" she said "Boys are boys I guess. I haven't seen boys act like that around me since I was fourteen." "Of course, Wolf's case is a whole different animal" she thought to herself.
"I don't want to take too much of your time, so do you think you'll be okay with those three? Or would you like me to have a talk with them?"
"It won't be necessary to talk to them." She said "If I have a problem with them, I'll let you know."
"Well, I guess that's all for today." Master Hand said "I guess I'll see you at breakfast tomorrow then."
"Of course, thanks for checking up on me. Have a good night, Master Hand." Master Hand made his way to the door, and bade Marilyn good night. He closed the door behind him, and Marilyn nodded in satisfaction. She got off the corner of her bed. "I could get used to the mansion" she thought to herself. A moment hadn't even passed when she heard a knock on her door
"Come i-" the door opened before Marilyn even got to finish her sentence. A gloved hand entered the room in a non-formal way
"Where is she? Where's the new girl?" Marilyn just stared at the floating hand. When it finally noticed her, the hand spoke up again "Hi there. You must be Marilyn"
"Didn't Master Hand just talk to me a second ago?" Marilyn thought to herself "Hi…that's me" she motioned to herself "in the flesh. Didn't you just talk to me a second ago?"
"No." The hand said "I'm Crazy"
"The word 'crazy' doesn't even begin to cover what you are." Marilyn was thinking about the odd persona that Master Hand was showing. Why was he suddenly acting like he didn't know her?
"Nice to meet you!" he held out his finger for Marilyn to shake. She shook it after hesitating, "…What's wrong?" "Crazy" asked
"Master Hand, why are you acting like you've never seen me before when you just talked to me five seconds ago?" the gloved hand just blankly stared at Marilyn when he suddenly burst out laughing
"Hahaha… no, that was my twin brother that you talked to earlier! I'm Master Hand's brother, Crazy Hand!" Marilyn's jaw dropped, and she started laughing as well. "Hey bro, you'd better come back. We're having an identity crisis!" the real Master Hand appeared in the door way
"What's going on? Are you bothering our guest, Crazy?"
"No, she just thought that you and I were the same people."Master Hand chuckled nervously
"I see. Marilyn, this is my twin brother, Crazy Hand. Somehow, I'm related to him."
"And I'd like you to meet Mr. Wuggles." Crazy Hand added
"Who's Mr. Wuggles?" Marilyn asked
"My pet hamster." Before Master Hand could stop his brother, Crazy held out the hamster to Marilyn "He's in hibernation, right Master Hand?"
"Y-yes…" Master Hand uneasily replied. He anxiously watched Marilyn inspect the golden hamster with her suspicious hazel eyes. Marilyn stared at Mr. Wuggles. That definitely wasn't hibernation; hamsters don't hibernate in June. She looked at the hamster's glassy eyes, which were grey and devoid of any life. Marilyn ran her fingers along the hamster's head down to its back as if she were petting it. She was sure Crazy would want her to get to know his beloved hamster.
"That hamster is way too stiff" Marilyn thought "…is it...dead?"
"So what do you think?" Crazy asked "I think he likes you."
"But its June" Marilyn said "hamsters don't hibernate in June." Both of the hands froze. Crazy's finger twitched
"…what?" he slowly said "…what is that supposed to mean?" Marilyn also felt uneasy from Crazy's vibes. She could tell that what she said scared him. Her eyes flicked to Master Hand, who was making frantic gestures to change the subject. She quickly turned her attention back to Crazy before the situation got any worse.
"What I meant was…" Marilyn mind raced for something "Mr. Wuggles is way off schedule!" Marilyn started laughing "What a funny hamster! That's the first time that I heard of a hamster that sleeps during the summer, and stays awake during winter! At least he'll be awake to celebrate Christmas, huh Master Hand?" As if on cue, Master Hand also joined in with Marilyn laughter, although his laugh sounded very forced until he was able to relax and make it sound natural. Eventually Crazy joined in as well.
"I guess you're right" Crazy Hand said as the laughter died down. "Mr. Wuggles really is something special. Well, I guess I'm going to put him back in his cage. Good night, Marilyn."
"Of course, good night Crazy, good night Mr. Wuggles." Master Hand and Marilyn watched him leave, and Marilyn closed the door after him. As soon as she was sure that he wouldn't return, she turned her head to look at Master Hand quizzically.
"Master Hand" she quietly said "why are you letting your brother walk around with a dead hamster? That is just wrong…"
"I know…" Master Hand sadly agreed "but I had to say something until I could find an identical hamster, but with the smasher's nonsense, I didn't have the time to do that…"
"So why didn't you just tell Crazy the truth when the time was right?"
"Do you have a death wish? You see, the thing about my brother is that he's well, crazy. If he's not calm, he can't control his emotions very well, and he starts to do crazy stuff. That's why it's important to keep him calm."
"I see… well, I'll play along until you can replace the hamster. But you should do it as soon as you can before his corpse rots."
"Don't worry about that" Master Hand said "I used a spell so that Mr. Wuggles is like a hunting trophy so he won't rot."
"Oh." Marilyn said "Well I guess that's fine then…" Marilyn forgot that Master and Crazy Hand possessed magic powers.
"Don't worry, I'll think of something to solve the Mr. Wuggles problem."
Master Hand said good-night to Marilyn for the second time that night and left her room. Marilyn shook her head, hoping that whatever Master Hand was planning wouldn't result in a catastrophe. She locked her door, took a shower and changed into her pajamas, a black tank top and gray sweatpants after drying off. She brushed her teeth and collapsed on her bed after she finished, trying to process her first day at the mansion. A bouncy dinosaur, a grumpy wolf humanoid and twin floating hands…good grief! Marilyn turned off the lights to her room and quickly fell asleep.
So Marilyn's first day at the mansion (finally!) ended. The next chapter should get interesting, now that we have several questions that are still unanswered. I have a question to my readers. Should I increase the word count? On average, each chapter (including this one) is about 1438+ words. I have a feeling that my chapters is too short, and I should probably merge chapters. What do you think? Feel free to leave a review and share some of your thoughts, I'm all ears. A bonus: The cover for the story has been updated- the character on the cover is Marilyn, in case you were curious on what she looked like :D
-EmTeeDub-Yew