Toadette's Story: Book 1

Chapter 8 - The Club 64 Shakeup

Keeping up with Princess Daisy’s footspeed was quite the exercise. Damn humans with their natural strength.

Club 64. The mention of that name filled my nose with the sweet aroma of coffee and vanilla. What a shame that the princess’s shoes killed the pleasant thought. All this walking in the streets caused dirt to settle on them.

“Boy, this city’s about as packed as my closet,” she said. “You don’t feel things are ever a little too close together?”

“You grow up here, you get used to it. Being bigger wouldn’t hurt, though.”

“A Toad who doesn’t blindly accept everything. I like that.”

I stomped in front of the princess. “Not every Toad is an idiot, you know.”

“Let’s see Peach go a year without being someone’s prisoner, and I’ll believe it. I’ve been telling her she needs to up her security, but so far, I don’t see a single change here.”

We made it to the westernmost side of Toad Town. Club 64 was just a few steps away.

“This is it,” I said, walking to the door.

YANK!

Down to the ground, I went.

“No-no-no, wait just a minute.” The princess put her hands on her hips. “You see all this dirt on my shoes? I gotta maintain some modesty in a restaurant. Make ’em clean.”

Ugh, this princess couldn’t have picked a worse hour. So many people flooded the docks at this time. Some fished, some were just chatting, and some were smoking. And I was going to be out here cleaning her shoes like a… well, I guess I was a slave.

“Yes, Princess,” I said, getting on my knees. I began to sweep the dirt off with my hand.

“Not gonna work, shorty,” she teased. “Lemme see that tongue.”

What little appetite I had flew south. This woman wanted me to lick her shoes? I mean, the dirt wasn’t thick, but nobody in their right mind wanted that stuff in their mouth.

I shut my eyes and took a quick lick.

“More. Come on.”

Damn, this was godawful. I went for another lick, this time on the side of her shoe. My whole body clenched from the powdery dust and sand mix. No, her shoe itself tasted no better. As I lapped the dirt up, Princess Daisy laughed about.

A passing Toad commented, “The hell is she doing?”

That was the encouragement I needed to do a better job at this licking. The faster I cleaned this woman’s shoes, the sooner we’d be out of the public eye.

Now I took lengthy licks on the tip of her sneakers. The dirt being so dry was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it tasted terrible and was undoubtedly unhealthy. On the other hand, since the powdery blend dried out my salvia, it killed my taste buds after two minutes of licking. Then, like when licking Penelope’s feet last night, the flavour became plain. Tolerable.

“Good enough.” Princess Daisy stepped back.

“Let’s check this joint out. I might even grab a drink myself.”

So far, this foot stuff has had a consistent record of making me feel dirty.

Once inside Club 64, the scent of enticing food and coffee hit me immediately. It helped remind me that I didn’t eat breakfast today, nor did I eat much last night. Fortunately, despite the docks being busy at this hour, the restaurant didn’t gain traction until around 11.

On the stage, singing aloud to the audience was the self-titled Pop Diva. Real name? Minh T. probably knew it, but I didn’t care to. Despite my lack of knowledge about her, she wasn’t some lowbrow singer. On the contrary, her purple-spotted cap and red, devilish eyes made her an icon for the kingdom. And the people couldn’t get enough of her vibrato.

“Drink up.”

A giant glass pushed me back into reality. Princess Daisy practically forced the liquid down my throat. “Come on. We can’t have you walking around with a dry throat.”

I recognised that sour taste anywhere. Beer. Wine would’ve suited me better, but beggars can’t be choosers. After taking my sip, the princess gulped some of the alcohol down herself. A bit loose for a princess, wouldn’t you say?

“Who’s that broad?” The princess pointed to the stage.

“Pop Diva. Not MY favourite singer, but—”

“Pop Diva, Toadette, jeez. And I thought my mom and dad were lazy for naming me after a flower.”

An instrumental part of the song commenced, and the singer broke into a dance. But, in flats, it wasn’t super impressive what she could achieve. Those are stock dancing shoes. Now, if Pop Diva did some dance moves in high heels, that’d have caught my attention.

“Somewhere in this small town, one of these Toads is probably wishing to lick her feet,” the princess chuckled.

“Ew,” I raised my voice. “Most people here are sane!”

“And did I say ALL Toads? In Sarasaland, you got three groups. The guys who want a girl’s boobs, the guys who wanna be under a girl’s lush butt, and the third group who wants to rub her feet. Especially after all that footwork she’s doing up there, wowsa! If she’s as popular as her name implies, there’s gotta be a bunch of fans snapping pics of her feet when they can.”

My nails almost ripped into my cap. “I learn that freaks can like feet only two days ago, and now it’s all I hear about.”

“Then either the Mushroom Kingdom is just that boring, or you’ve been living under a rock.”

Pop Diva resumed singing, but my thoughts clouded the lyrics of her song. In contrast, Princess Daisy bobbed her head to the tune.

Taking that swig of alcohol wasn’t the smartest move. Watching Pop Diva move around the stage as she sang drove my stomach crazy. Motion sickness? If I didn’t keep my head down, I was gonna barf all over this table.

Thankfully, the song soon came to an end, followed by a round of applause.

“Thank you! Thank you!”

The curtains finally closed.

CLANK!

“Let’s go,” the princess yelled.

“Where?”

“Backstage, I dunno. You saw that look she gave?”

I shook my head, all while trying to regain balance.

“She had that death look on her face!”

Princess Daisy grabbed my arm once more and flung me across the bar. Now glasses of alcohol were exploding onto me, but the princess pushed through with me as her shield. After bursting through a door, I stumbled about, ready to puke.

BONK!

In my stumbling, I collided headfirst with Pop Diva. The princess appeared to barricade the door with a bunch of chairs. My vision fell in and out, for I was on all fours spewing cold alcohol out my body.

“You in a hurry?” the princess asked, approaching the singer.

Between heavy breaths, Pop Diva said, “No, Princess Daisy. I just didn’t expect you to be part of my audience.”

“Yeah, bet you weren’t.” The princess felt the Toad up, and the singer went blue in the face. The royal checked every inch, even sticking her hand under her dress.

Eventually, the princess pulled out a crumpled paper. Oh, please don’t tell me it was in or near Pop Diva’s panties.

She scanned the paper, then tossed it to me. “Can you speak scribbles?”

The paper looked like it was etched on with a crayon. There were crude drawings of a crown, a football (or soccer ball, as Princess Daisy called it) and a flip-flop. Below that, there was a paragraph or two of text written in a cursive style. It wasn’t English, and I could tell based on the third word.

“I-I don’t know what I’m reading.” I squinted a second time, thinking it might be Spanish that Minh T. could read. But no, the alphabet was radically different. I’d never seen it in the Mushroom Kingdom.

“Well, that’s not gonna help us,” the princess sighed.

Pop Diva’s breathing got even shallow, and the princess’s clutch on her was not getting looser.

“Who gave you this?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

The princess slammed her against a wall, growling almost. “I can have you charged for impeding an investigation, fungus breath.”

“Excuse me, but you can’t enforce laws outside of your land, Princess Dai—”

“How are you Mushroom Kingdom people always so oblivious…” She threw the singer to the ground. “To the fact things won’t always go your way?”

As the princess pinned Pop Diva, she tossed me one of her shoes. An odd smell instantly tickled my nose. Twisting the shoe around, a balled-up sock fell from it like a Bob-omb dropped from an Albatoss. I titled my head, getting another view of Princess Daisy’s naked foot. Once again, it was the right one.

How long had that left foot been trapped in that shoe and sock now?

“Toadette!”

“Y-Yes, ma’am!”

“Shoes off! And don’t mess with me, I want your socks off, too. Welcome to your first dominating experience.”

I slowly undid my sneakers, clenching my teeth.

“If we can’t get a peep out of little Miss Songstress, the only tune she’s gonna be singing ’long to is a flatline.”