Thank you Nando, for being my first reviewer!
I'm surprised no one else has reviewed too, but I'm writing this mostly for my own enjoyment, so it doesn't matter.
Reviews or not, I hope that everyone has as much fun reading it as I did writing it!
Just before lunch, on the same day, Luigi sounded the alarm-
"THE PURPLE SHY-GUY IS IN RANGE!" he screamed as he raced to the door.
"In range of what? Your screaming?" Mario wiggled a finger in his ear.
Luigi frantically flung the mattresses out of the way, "It doesn't matter, just hurry!" he grabbed Mario by the sleeve and bolted out the door. Looking frantically for a place to hide, he cried, "Quick! Behind these bushes!"
"But we don't have any bushes by our house-" Mario's sentence remained unfinished as Luigi, still grasping his sleeve, dashed madly across the street and made a flying leap into their neighbor's carefully trimmed topiary. Leaves flew everywhere, and the beautiful lion-shaped bush was mangled and mussed until it looked like the residue of some kind of plant-explosion.
"There he is!" Luigi hissed and pointed. Sure enough, the purple shy-guy with his plate of spaghetti balanced carefully on top of his yellow, polka-dot party hat walked calmly down the street.
Mario spat out a mouthful of leaves, "So what's the plan?"
"Um… we… follow him!" Luigi whispered. He actually hadn't thought of anything remotely plan-like, other than the sleeping-in-front-of-the-door-thing. Luigi poked his head up out of the bush, "let's go!"
Suddenly, there was a horrible scream, coming from the open window directly behind Luigi's head. The front door opened and an elderly toad-maid dashed out, broom in hand, shrieking at the brothers, "You- you- you VANDALS! YOU DESTROYED MY HAND-TRIMMED, PRIZE-WINNING TOPIARY!" She began to repeatedly whack Luigi over the head with her broom, "YOU HORRIBLE HOOLIGANS! YOU DASTARDLY DELIQUENTS!" She swiped Mario a good one across his rather large nose. The brothers fought for their lives, struggling frantically to get free of the demolished topiary and out of reach of the maid's broom. "YOU TERRIBLE- uh," she paused momentarily, calling back inside the house, "Honey, what's a word that starts with 't' and means 'vandal'?"
"How 'bout 'troublemakers'?" her husband called back.
She shrugged, "Not very original, but in this case, it will do." By this time, of course, Mario and Luigi had escaped from the bush's vegetative clutches, and run back across the street. Disappointed that she was too late to emphasize her last line with her broom, she yelled, "ONE DAY, YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS! IN CASH!"
"Whew… that was… close…" Mario panted, leaning against the dumpster behind their house. He rubbed his nose, "Ouch! That smarts…"
"Cheer up, bro," Luigi pulled off his detective hat, "At least that toad-maid probably didn't recognize us with our costumes on." His face fell, "But the shy-guy got away again… well, I guess we'll just have to try again tomorrow."
