After I leave Cassie, everywhere I go, I hear Birdo's name. Birdo and her accomplice shy guy and her army of yoshi. Birdo. Never Cassie.

Passing by talking message boxes, I hear, "BREAKING NEWS. BIRDO REINCARNATES FAMILY OF YOSHI." I walk away.

I board the westbound train from Teehee Valley to Hoohoo Village and I overhear two hoohooligans talking.

One of them says, "I hear a birdo is building an army of yoshi."

"Not just a birdo," the other says. "Birdo." His eyebrows point towards the ceiling.

Has the world gone desperate while I wasn't a part of it?

I get off the train early at Stardust Field and cross the border to Mushroom Kingdom. The two hammer bros. with their jump ropes at customs, they're talking about Cassie, too. Only they call her Birdo.

With all the explosives in the world, they say, Birdo is going to bring world peace. Birdo is going to end war. Birdo is going to stop murder. Birdo this, Birdo that. Cassie and her overdeveloped calves and her army of yoshi.

I pick up a newspaper in one of the New Toadsvilles littered around the continent and I read the headline, "Birdo Collection of Yoshi Narrowing Down". Cassie's still out there building her army. The world at her mercy.

Another headline reads, "Petty Criminal Croco Killed by Gang of Yoshi".

This is like that part of a video game where you enter a kingdom run by an evil tyrant, only nobody in the kingdom knows the tyrant is evil and you get thrown in jail for it. Birdo and her kingdom of the world.

Down the streets of Mushroom Kingdom and Rose Town, I pass stores decorated with Birdo and yoshi merchandise. Perfume sets approved by Birdo. All of them featuring the same wink and flirty kiss Cassie used to give me. If people become statues to ogle the girls passing by, maybe Cassie became a girl to ogle the statues passing by.

A cab pulls over and I hop in. My egg bookbag slides into the opposite side of the car. Sitting in the back, I tell the driver to take me to Seaside Town. On the radio, a trumpet blasts a talk show's theme and a voice says, "Welcome to the WTMK talk show."

The smell of coconut shavings scattered over Boston cream pie fills the air.

"Tonight," the host says, "our guest is Professor Elvin Gadd, owner of Gadd Science, Inc., inventor of the Game Boy Horror Navigational System and prominent sociologist. Let's give a warm welcome to the professor."

There's applause and cheering. Then quiet. Outside the cab, bushes drift past, bushes that a gardener copied and pasted and pasted and pasted all over the road.

We pass by Mole Mountain where yoshi footprints have pounded the ground uneven. Cassie and her golf cart and her army of yoshi must have gone to Yo'ster Isle to kill more yoshi.

A whiny, senile voice says, "Thanks, John. I've been living here since I was a lad of twenty or so, and I'll tell you: I have not seen a one-world government attempt this ambitious since the Koopakaust. But this time, I think Birdo and her army of yoshi will actu—"

I tell the driver to change the station. First static and then Mamu's new single plays, saxophone blaring and the frog's deep croaking voice singing about Birdo and the yoshi.

Eying me through the rear view mirror, the cab driver says, "Can't go five minutes without hearing about Birdo, sir. Worse than swine flu or the economy." The driver lifts his huge electric lime green nose at me and winks.

What the hell?

"It's me, 271, sir," he says. "Birdo wants you. She wants you to be part of her new age."

The cab swerves past Seaside Town. The meter spins. "Don't worry about the meter, sir," 271 says. "Birdo has this all covered. We've been looking all over for you."

I rattle the handle of the door. The backseat lock doesn't open.

271 says, "Don't worry. With the piece of cake world we're going to live in, we won't need locks anymore. Just imagine, you and Birdo running the world and its all-singing, all-dancing yoshi cast."

I tell him to stop the car. I tell him to let me out.

He snorts. "I only listen to Birdo," he says. "Birdo knows best. Best for me, best for you."

Laughing, 271 swings his head back to look at me. This is where I go swoosh, my bookbag slamming right into his electric lime green nose. The best way to disarm a yoshi is to punch it in the nose.

271's unconscious head hits the side window. Throwing him off the side of the road, I take the wheel and speed towards Seaside Town.