It was the next Tuesday morning. At the middle and high school complex of the newly-established Shroob Town, the many students were still waiting for their teachers to arrive at 8:30 a.m., the time at which school would usually start.

Especially the 9th graders of grade 9B were very restless and confused.

"If this means we have a day off" Mars said, "they should've told us sooner. Lazy excuse of a principal can't even do that right!"

"Well, the printhipal ithn't really lazthy" Shikao lisped, "he'th jutht incompetent and not realithtic. No wonder why we often theem to outthmart the teacherth who think they know better and are actually capable of thtill being able to teach uth thtuff." He was a Dr. Shroob of the age of 15 and no matter how straight his teeth were, he always spoke with a strange lisp of sorts. But he was still one of the most intelligent students in the classroom, to the point where he, himself, couldn't even comprehend why he wasn't at college already.

"Or maybe he's both?" John pondered. He was a 'regular' Shroob, also aged 15, and Mars's boyfriend of a few months ever since they came to live on/invade the earth. One could easily recognise him by his 'nerdy' rectangular glasses and prominent buck teeth that had braces slapped on them in an attempt to correct them since his mother really wanted that. "He doesn't even seem to notice the humongous crowd that we the students are currently forming!"

Alice, a shy Shrooba Diver of the age of 15 who came from a circus family, decided that she had enough of the principal ignoring the crowd. She hopped on her iconic purple unicycle and started juggling a few neon-coloured balls single-handedly.

"And you're thure thith'll work, Alithe?" Shikao sceptically asked.

"Oh, watch and learn…" Alice said, as she also got a flashlight of sorts from her backpack, put it in the 'mouth' part of her iconic Shy Guy mask and shone its blue light on the balls, so they'd look like they were actually lit up.

"And a mathematically correct angle, too! Are you pothibly better at math than me?!"

"Uh, no?"

"Well, it mutht be, becauthe otherwithe, you wouldn't know how to get the printhipal'th attenthion…"

The trick indeed worked, as a little later, the principal opened his window but had to cover his eyes to protect them from the strong blue light. It was also being rewarded with an applause from the large crowd, of which the majority didn't even know about how Alice was part of the famous Circus Connors, despite her iconic Shy Guy mask that she never seemed to take off.

"I didn't even know you lot were here until young miss Connors decided to distract me with her silly ball trick and annoying flashlight" the principal started. "Could you please turn it off before I possibly become completely blind and thus cannot be the principal anymore?" He was a Blazing Shroob who always looked very annoyed, also making the flame on his head look bigger than average.

The crowd of students started laughing.

"It's not that you get blind from directly looking in such light for a millisecond, principal Orange!" Jade scoffed in between her chuckles. She was an Intern Shroob of the age of 15, who also had braces and glasses, except that her glasses were rounded, and on her head, she also wore a white triangle kerchief with a picture of an atom on it. Despite her nerdy appearance and not wanting to be called a nerd because of that, she had quite average interests, such as hacking and tending to the pumpkins in her greenhouse.

Alice took the flashlight out of her mask, turned it off, put it back into her backpack along with her juggling balls, but remained balancing on her unicycle as she looked at principal Orange.

"So, what were you saying?" she asked sweetly.

"First of all" principal Orange started, "sorry for being late with the following. But all of you guys of this middle and high school complex have the days off for the rest of the week due to the official establishment of the Shroob Kingdom now being crowned as an official holiday among us!"

The crowd of students immediately started cheering loudly, even fully drowning out the principal's "But you lot are still mandatory to do your homework in the meantime, since it's not going to do itself until Termina's moon will rise again!" in the process.

"Then, I'll be going back home!" Mars exclaimed, as they jumped back onto their bike. "See you all next week! Bye, Shikao! Bye, Alice! Bye, Jade, mi amigo! Bye, my sweet John-bon-bon!" And with a blown kiss for their best friend and a direct one for their boyfriend, they swiftly went off.

"In that case" John said, as he waved at Mars until they were no longer visible, "I should probably go to my siblings, too. What will their principal possibly think without Mum and Dad being informed either?" He, too, got onto his bike. "See y'all next Monday!"

The nerdy Shroob didn't have to cycle for that long at first, since the school of two of his younger siblings Jane and Joey was only just nearby.

At the schoolyard of the elementary school complex, the crowd of kids was also very restless, and some of them appeared to already have heard the news of them being off for the rest of the week due to them being brought back home by their parents.

"Jane!" John exclaimed as he swiftly parked his bike in a nearby bush. "Joey! Can you hear me?" He didn't dare to go inside of the schoolyard's fences, and looked for his siblings outside of them.

"Wait!" Jane interrupted one of her friends. "I think I see my older brother there! Tell your parents that they don't have to call mine anymore, since I can easily go back home soon!" She waved at John to confirm her presence before going to look for Joey. "Joe! We can go home now!"

The crowd of students at the elementary school complex was a bit bigger than the one at the middle and high school complex, making it difficult for John's younger sister to find her younger brother.

Jane was a Guardian Shroob of the age of 11 who was easily recognisable by a tiny light blue flower on her head, oval glasses, and the same braces as John as she, too, had obvious buck teeth, just except for the fact that her bottom teeth didn't sport any braces unlike her older brother. She was one of the more intelligent students in her 5th grade class, and due to that, she secretly hoped to skip a grade once the current semester would be over.

Joey was also a Guardian Shroob, aged 6, who was easily recognisable by his neon green cap that he commonly wore on his head, as well as a few missing teeth. He was quite the rebellious 1st grader, and especially reading was a problem for him since he had quite the dyslexia, no matter how much he still wanted to learn that.

"Huh?" he said upon suddenly hearing someone call his name. "Who said that?" He decided to exclaim back. "Hello! Person calling my name! Can you hear me?!"

"What's the matter, Joey?" one of his classmates asked.

"Someone is suddenly calling my name!" The rebellious Shroob had trouble making the voice out in all of the ruckus of the large crowd. "Hellooo?! Answer me!"

"Joey, finally!" Jane said upon being able to hear her younger brother back. "John's here, so we can go home!"

"Yay!"

The two siblings arduously made their way out of the mass crowd, towards John, whom they greeted enthusiastically.

"Thank you for being able to pick us up!" Joey chuckled as he squeezed his older brother into a tight hug. "How did you know that we suddenly had the day off for the rest of the week?"

"Because so do I" John said, "but that weird principal Orange told us too late." He lifted Joey on the luggage rack of his bike and let Jane sit on the front rack. (Yes, he had a pretty large bike. An adult-human-sized one, to be exact.) "Now, to check on the playgroup to see if Jude also happens to have a day off?"

"I don't think he really wants that" Jane chuckled. "He's way too eager to see his friends!"

"We'll see about that, Janey." The nerdy Shroob kissed his younger sister's cheek and started cycling towards the playgroup where his youngest brother often went, which was located somewhat further away from the school complexes.

So yeah, as you could read, the Shroob society is pretty much like how we the humans live for most of the time, but little do the inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom of the present know that.

However, Fawful, whose curiosity rung quite a few bells recently, decided to indirectly investigate this. Clad in his red cloak and with all sorts of beans in his large bean-shaped backpack, he hopped into the nearby time hole, which led to Toad- I mean, Shroob Town.

The arrival went smoothly, and the gates were also already opened by the Mario brothers not too long ago.

"Hmm…" Fawful said to himself upon seeing the opened gates. "Maybe the Shroobs have some generosity…? I had the judging of them too quickly…" He went through them and kept his swirly-glasses-eyes on the surroundings well.

On one of the nearby benches, a Shroid sat with a young female RC Shroober, who wore a little adhesive pink heart on her antenna, sported rounded glasses, looked a little fatigued and wore a face mask, something that was commonly done by Shroobs when they felt even the slightest of sick.

"Grandpa, look!" the RC Shroober said. "A suspicious creature!" She grabbed her laser gun from her backpack and aimed it at the cloaked Fawful. "You! Hold it right there before I'll let you catch my cold instead!"

"Manners, Penny!" the Shroid said as he facepalmed and sighed. "By goody, she's already in 9th grade, yet she still wants to take her mask off to consciously infect someone with a cold…"

Fawful didn't dare to move or speak when the laser gun was pointed on him.

"Blitty got your tongue?" Penny chuckled as she lowered her gun after a while of silence. "At least you should show yourself… if you dare, that is." She was one of Mars's classmates - yes, already in the 9th grade despite being nearly 14 - and was very eager to follow her grandfather's footsteps in science, physics and inventing things.

The Engrish Beanish reluctantly took his hood off and put his hands up in surrender, yet still didn't dare to say anything.

"You're not a human, but a Beanish… yet you're still suspicious."

"No" Fawful then said. "You have suspicion."

"Me? No, man! I'm just a simple intelligent 9th grader at first sight, but I also happen to be the only granddaughter of the famous Dr. Agoiraku!"

"Never had the hearing of any of you."

"Well, too bad." Followed by a somewhat mocking chuckle.

"Also, how do you have the knowledge that Fawful is Beanish?"

"Wait, did you just say Fawful?"

"Yes."

"I've heard quite a ton about you." Penny turned back to her grandfather. "Grandpa, how come that Princess Shroob hasn't mentioned anything about the Beanish just yet?"

"I don't know" Dr. Agoiraku awkwardly laughed before clearing his throat. "Perhaps she doesn't know that Beanish still exist? In fact, every single human seems to have forgotten about Fawful ever since we came!"

Dr. Agoiraku was a Shroid, and he also used to be an RC Shroober before suddenly physically passing away prior to his granddaughter's birth, until his only and now late son, Harold, an experienced scientist who worked for Princess Shroob, still wanted him to be there because he just missed him too much, and that's how Dr. Agoiraku became a Shroid, by letting his spirit inhabit that then newly-built robot body. Dr. Agoiraku himself was also a scientist, as well as an ectobiologist and inventor who worked for Princess Shroob for many decades now, and he was still very eager to do so for the rest of his life. Furthermore, he was especially well-recognisable by his adhesive metal moustache.

"Then, how did Fawful even end up here in the first place?" The intelligent RC Shroober then turned back to Fawful. "What brought you here, if I may ask, Fawful?"

"Fururu!" Fawful chuckled. "Good one. Well, have you an interest in beans?"

"Beans? Never ate those. Can I trust them?"

"You can surely have a trust in them. If you don't have a try, you don't have a knowledge." The crazy Beanish took his enormous backpack off and showed a variety of plastic bags of different kinds of beans. "Well? You have luck as the first Shroob, and your grandfather has the second luck! You have allowance to try it for free!"

"Well, alright, if you say so." Penny briefly turned to her grandfather again. "Grandpa, we could possibly experiment on beans…! Does that sound good or what?!"

"Well, Penny" Dr. Agoiraku replied, "if you're eager to try it, then I'll try it, too." He went towards Fawful and accepted the variety of beans from him. "Thank you very much for letting us be the first Shroobs to try your beans." He even gave him a small coin tip as a thanks.

"Fawful hopes you two have a liking of the beans! Catch you later!" The permanently grinning Beanish put his hood back on and carefully shambled further around Shroob Town. "Let's see what'll have a happening when the beans are eaten…! The beans shan't have the duds!" Suddenly, a bike frantically crossed very close across him. "Hey! Have a watching out where you're going, will ya?!"

"Sorry!" John exclaimed without any further thought.

Jane and Joey were chuckling too much to even notice that they actually passed by a suspicious creature. At least, what the rest of the Shroobs would possibly consider Fawful.

"Wheeee!" Joey cheered. "I love going at this speed!"

"Hooray for no more school for the rest of the week!" Jane exclaimed.

A few metres later, the siblings arrived at the playgroup, where, strangely, the playground was empty to the point where some enthusiastic tumbleweed even literally showed itself to those who actually watched.

Inside of the building, on the other hand, it was fairly bustling and a positive atmosphere was present.

Jude, who only just started drawing the block tower in front of him with his favourite kind of crayons, suddenly noticed that something was off somewhere. He put his current green crayon down, got off of his seat, grabbed his favourite pink comfort blanket and headed for the window.

"Jude, what are you planning to do?" Miss Heather, the nursery teacher, asked.

"Nuffin', Miss" the curious little Shroob simply replied as he climbed onto a chair in order to settle on the windowsill, which he could easily reach since the windows were quite low.

Jude was a 'regular' Shroob of the age of 2, as well as John's youngest brother. He was considered 'cute' by his family, but he thought of himself as a grown-up child, despite the fact that he could still throw quite the tantrum when not getting his way, was never seen without his comfort blanket, and not interested in the potty yet either. He was quirky and a little mischievous and conceited, but he could also be sweet whenever he wanted that.

"Look!" Jane said upon seeing something move at one of the windows. "There he is!"

"I can't see it properly from here!" Joey said.

In response, John let Joey sit on the handlebar of the bike and supported his lower back while doing so.

"Thanks, John. Yeah, he's at the window on the… right?"

"Yes, the right" John confirmed, as he also saw his youngest brother peek out of that window.

Jude's tiny ruby red eyes scanned the playground thoroughly, and it took him a while before he suddenly noticed his siblings on the big bike.

"Heeey!" he exclaimed. "Big bwo! What bwings you hewe?!" The exclamation didn't fall on his siblings' ears, unfortunately, since the window was closed.

"Jude, whataya doin'?" one of Jude's little acquaintances asked. "Why you on da windowsill?"

"My big bwo be thewe, but I dunno why."

"Oh, me dunno eithah."

"Jude Gomata!" Miss Heather exclaimed upon seeing a rather unusual sight. "Get off of that windowsill right this instant!" The tone in which it was said shocked nearly everyone in the classroom.

"Dun shout at me!" Jude angrily huffed as he carefully hopped back onto the chair he used to get onto the windowsill. Once he set his toes on the chair, however, he let go of the windowsill too soon, toppled and fell hard on the floor on his behind, but didn't cry since his nappy broke his fall like some sort of cushion. "I be fine, thanks!"

"I'm only glad you're fine, but please refrain from ever doing that again, alright? You might fall even harder if you fell from the windowsill itself, and that thought's what got me worried there…!"

"Yeah, but Miss, my big bwothah be thewe…"

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yeah, look outta the window!"

The befuddled nursery teacher did as she was asked, and once she spotted John and her siblings, she gestured that they were allowed to go inside.

"She actually wants us to go inside?" the nerdy Shroob asked, as he carefully put Joey on the ground.

"Then, we probably should" Joey replied.

Jane jumped off of the front rack of the bike and followed suit with her siblings.

In the majority of the building, it was so quiet that one could possibly hear a needle fall. Nearly all of the classrooms were vacant, save for the one where Jude always was. He was there along with 17 more Shroobs of around his age, and today, that was rather unusual for the nursery teachers, but ever since a few minutes ago, not for those who were already in pre-school or further.

Little did anyone in the building know that Fawful had apparently secretly followed John. He had sneaked onto the schoolyard and took a gander in each of the windows, starting with those where the lights were off.

"Does this building even have a crowding?" the Beanish asked himself. "Oh, never mind." He sneaked towards the windows of Jude's classroom and carefully peeked inside. "Hmm… curious little critters, huh? They could be of the use of beans as easily as pie!" He then quickly dove onto the ground to prevent any curious eyes from ever being aimed at him, since he was currently incognito. "Not today, though." He stealthily made his way off of the schoolyard and ventured further.

"Hey" a young Intern Shroob then said to her Guardian Shroob friend. "Didya see that?"

"See what?" the friend asked.

"I thought I see someone at the window…"

"Hey, me too, me thinks…"

"Pwobwy not impohtant." The two toddlers then continued on their simultaneous painting that they solely made with their hands.

"Big bwo!" Jude happily exclaimed once he saw John on the threshold of the classroom. "What bwings you hewe?" He gave his oldest brother the familiar 'squeeze' hug.

"Hi, little Jude" John chuckled as he hugged his younger brother back. "Joe, Jane and I don't have school for the rest of the week, and we thought you had the same."

"You not in school?"

"That's right, our classmates are also back home, contrary to yours."

"Otay, so that be why Ozzy an' Mawiko not be awound?"

"I think so?" (Ozzy and Mariko were two of Jude's friends who were in a different classroom of the playgroup, and since only Jude's classroom contained him and his acquaintances, it meant that the rest of the toddlers from the playgroup stayed home for today.) The nerdy Shroob turned to Miss Heather. "Do you allow us to take Jude home since we don't have school for the rest of the week, Miss Heather?"

"Of course, John" the nursery teacher replied, "I cannot see why not. I hope your parents are also okay with this?"

"I don't think they even know about this" Jane stated. "John told me that his principal told it too late, and guess what, the same applied to me and Joey."

"Why, but that's not too intelligent of Mrs. Lava and Mr. Orange to have done it like that. I think your grandparents and parents will be rather surprised upon suddenly seeing you lot go back home?"

"Oh, that's how we already expect them to react."

"Very well then." Miss Heather shook hands with Jude and his older siblings. "You lot, take care, and have a nice week!"

"You too, Miss Heather" the siblings said in unison before going back outside and hopping (back) on the bike.

"I'll make sure you're safe, Jude" Jane said as she hopped on the front rack after having put her youngest brother on it. "It's not convenient, but it should do the job." She draped his comfort blanket over his 'shoulders', put him to sit in between her legs and grasped him fairly tightly.

"I ahways be safe wif you guys" Jude chuckled, "an' wif Poppop, Nanna, Mama an' Dada, too!"

"Then let's go" John said as he hopped onto his saddle and finally started cycling back home.

In the meantime, Fawful had found the schoolyard of the elementary school complex, where all of the teachers had one of their very few meetings outside.

"A crowd!" he said to himself. "Perfect!"

"Wait a minute" principal Lava said, "did any of you hear something?" Funnily enough, she was also a Blazing Shroob, and her thick oval glasses often made her eyes look invisible behind them.

"I did not" Dr. Banner, Jane's primary teacher, said. "Must probably be the fact that you're suddenly not too busy anymore." He was a young Dr. Shroob who graduated from the university shortly before his current job, and often sported a fake jetpack as his backpack.

"Well, I'm sure that-"

The rest of the teachers drew their laser guns once one of them quickly noticed that someone who wasn't a Shroob was suddenly present among them.

Fawful immediately took his hood off and put his hands up to surrender.

"Well, well, well" Dr. Banner said as he lowered his laser gun. "A Beanish. We don't see many like you often. What brought you here? Perhaps the fact that Princess Shroob doesn't seem to know about your species?" He made a gesture to the others to also lower their laser guns.

"I have fury and beans" the Engrish Beanish replied as he showed some plastic bags of different kinds of beans. "Do you have an interest in beans?"

"So you're a bean salesman, too? Well, they could come to a good use during science class… if school would still be open this week, that is." The young Dr. Shroob got up and handed the 'bean salesman' quite some coins in exchange for quite some bags that he gave to his colleagues. "It's all on me today, and if any of you is offended after this, then I'll honestly admit that I'm the one to blame, alright?"

"I have thanks! You lot, have an enjoyment and a nice day!" And with that, Fawful was off swiftly, cackling evilly underneath his breath as he made his swift ninja-like steps.

A/N: We know that the real weakness of Shroobs is human baby tears, but since this story takes place in an AU, nobody had made such a discovery yet. Now, do you think that the weakness of humans is Shroob baby tears? (Because I honestly think they are... :P)