A preteen Luigi walks through the foster home he shares with his brother Mario, tiptoeing so he doesn’t wake up any of Mama Molly Turner’s passed out friends strewn around the house.
“Mama?” he calls softly, still tiptoeing as he looks for her, then once he spots her sleeping on the couch, tries to shake her awake.
So he’s terrified when in the next instance, the front door bangs open, and several cops come barging in yelling, “Police!” and start waking up the partygoers to get them in handcuffs.
When they get to Molly, she starts screaming, “Stop! I have kids! Where are they? What are you doing?”
Then they barge into a bedroom door containing several kids, =including mario, and a cop calls out, “We got a bunch of kids back here!”
It’s not long before everyone has been hauled outside, and a cop’s ushering Mario and Luigi to a cop car.
“Are either of you aware of what was in those baggies brought to the party?”
“Yes! It was baking soda! For a science project!” Luigi says, trying to be helpful before Mario can stop him.
It all goes from bad to worse when they haul Molly outside kicking and screaming.
“Do either of you know this woman?”
“That’s Mama Molly!” Luigi yells, scared as Mario tries to get him to look away.
“We need to call CPS on all these kids’ behalf.”
“No, we can’t! We have a life here!” Mario protests. “I swear she didn’t take anything. She knows she could lose her license. It was all her friends’ doing. All of us slept in another room. We didn’t come out all night.”
“Mama, are you going to jail?” Luigi asks tearfully.
“No I’m not!” Molly screams. “They’re just doing their job, everything is going to be fine.” She looks at the cops. “Right? Please, these kids have nowhere else to go.”
“Please, I have an address where we can go.” Mario says immediately. “Just take us there, and you’ll have two less kids two worry about.”
He looks to Luigi, and points, “Get into Mama Molly’s car, okay?”
Luigi refuses, shaking his head, “No! I’m scared!”
On top of that, Mario tries to get Molly to take more kids, but she shouts, “No! Only uou two! Get in the car!”
At that, Mario freezes as he braces himself for what he has to do, even as Luigi keeps screaming for him and Molly snaps, “Will you get your brother in this fucking car and shut him up?!?!?!?”
Mario turns towards the other foster kids, hugging them one by one, as Molly’s shouting gets louder,
“MARIOOOO!”
And finally, he’s hugged them all and he’s running towards the passenger seat, grabbing Luigi and more or less shoving him into the back right before he slams the door closes, and the car instantly speeds away from the house.
As Luigi keeps looking in the rear window, Mario side glares at Molly, but says nothing.
They end up driving well into the night until Molly’s almost asleep at the wheel.
“Head down.” She orders, and Mario reaches back to push Luigi’s head down.
“You said we had somewhere to--”
“Things change.” Molly snaps. “Come on.”
“It’s only me and my son.” Molly begs, holding Mario at his side. “And I will pay you in the morning, I promise you.”
“I could just take a credit card.” The woman behind the desk says.
“You’re kidding, right? Look at us!” Molly gestures to both of them. “We can barely afford what we’re wearing, let alone a credit card. And they’re hand-me-downs!”
“Tell me what happened again.” The manager orders.
“Our next-door neighbor is a complete lunatic that was convinced he had bugs in his jeans and decided he needed to microwave them to kill them.”
“Insane!” Molly goes with it, throwing her hands in the air in fake shock.
“Fire burned down his house and we barely got out in time before it reached our place.”
“Unbelievable!”
“But we have a family friend that’s coming tomorrow morning first thing with food and clothes. She knows we’re here.”
“How early is she coming?”
“Blink and she’ll be here when you wake up!” Molly almost screeches.
It takes a lot of flirting and the promise of breakfast no one has any intention if making, but they finally get a room, and as soon as they get settled in, they go straight to the pool.
Or Luigi does, jumping in cannonball style while Mario watches from the side.
Molly eventually gets in herself, pretending she’s a shark about to grab Luigi before she wraps him in a hug and blows raspberries on his tummy, making him squeal loudly.
But Mario has to be the voice of reason yet again, shushing them, “Stop! The manager’s gonna hear!”
Molly gives him a thumbs down, “Booooo.”
The next morning, Mario comes through the front door first with the car keys, quietly walking towards the car to unlock it and start the engine.
As soon as he’s back inside, he orders, “That’s it, we gotta go.” To Molly and Luigi, who are currently grabbing all the toiletries they can carry, be it towels or soaps, it’s all fair game.
While they do that, Mario focuses on getting Luigi’s jacket on him, and the moment everything’s packed, Molly orders, “On three.”
Mario nods, turning them towards the door.
“One, two, three!”
It’s a mad dash for the car, and they’re barely in the car before the manager’s angrily running out, shouting something that doesn’t sound pleasant as the car peels out of the parking lot.
YOU ARE READING
Mario's Choice
FanfictionMario tries to raise his twin baby brother on his own after their foster mother's license gets suspended Note: Because this is set before the Mario movie, there will be little to no references to the Mushroom Kingdom, unless the story calls for it.
