Toadette's Story: Book 1

Chapter 22.5 - A Night of Healing

I lay in the inn bed with nothing but a dry towel wrapped around my body. Oh, how I wished our clothes would wash faster. Mine had some serious holes, but nothing that a bit of sewing couldn’t fix.

Princess Daisy and Penelope occupied the other bed. Sitting criss-cross like a behaved child, Penelope scooped a spoonful of warm applesauce in her mouth. The princess, also cleaned up but scratched, ate some leftover dried pasta from the restaurant. And finally, Minh T. washed herself in the shower for just as long as she did this evening.

Although my feet felt better from the quick massage Penelope and Daisy gave me, I wanted some more. In a city that lacks the best aid kits, someone’s slimy mouth was the best remedy for the soles.

“Do you not have a stomach, Toadette?” the princess asked.

“I don’t know what I want, is all.”

Daisy pushed her plate to Penelope. “Give it to Toadette.”

Obediently, Penelope handed me the leftover pasta. Before she could scuttle back to the “royal” bed, I grabbed her by the shirt.

“Hey, you mind licking my feet again?”

The girl stuck her tongue in her applesauce container, nodding. “I’ll try.”

Penelope crawled on the bed and took hold of my right foot. The sole was clean, as you’d expect. What the hell was I thinking allowing her to lick my dirty foot earlier? There was no telling what particles were in that collapsed structure.

After poking around for a bit, the kid finally planted her tongue on my heel. Slowly she made her way up the side of my foot, stopping right at the pinkie toe. There, her tongue flapped before she descended the sole.

“They feel a lot harder,” she noted.

“A lack of lotion and a warm shower will do that to you.”

Penelope kissed the area under my toes. “I wish my mother licked my feet.”

“She’s too good for that,” Daisy piped up. “At least that’s what she thinks. When I turned 11, I already had Mom and Dad sucking on my feet. And they WANTED to.”

Um… Isn’t that concerning? If my mom did this weird stuff to my feet when I was a kid, or especially a teen, I’d have wanted to kill her. Even more than I already do.

“What about you, Miss Toadette? Did your mom ever lick your feet?”

I felt the fork grind against my teeth. “No, she never licked them. But she sure made fun of them.”

“Don’t leave us on that,” Daisy encouraged. “What did she laugh about?”

As the pasta went down my gullet, my mind took me back home. Before Mushroom City, back when we were nearly poor in Toad Town. Just me, my mom, and my baby brother.

“She always joked about how bad they stunk. Any time we were at a school event and I was running, she’d tell the other moms that I was killing all my shoes. Oh, she never tried to actually teach me how to make my shoes smell better. I had to learn by myself on a sweaty freaking bus at 19 years old, way past the time I was actually in school!”

CLINK!

I set my empty plate beside me, staring at Penelope, who was frozen with my toes in her mouth. Jeez, this was supposed to make me feel better, not worse.

The princess clicked her teeth. “I mean, you DO have smelly feet.”

“But I can’t help it,” I groaned. “And you don’t get it. EVERYONE teased me for it growing up. You know what that does?”

“Yeah, yeah, I get ya. But it’s done already. Now your smelly feet are a good weapon. Embrace that skill!”

She had a point but didn’t seem to grasp my problem. Then again, it wasn’t the princess’s responsibility to hear me whine about my issues with my mom.

I turned on my side, curling up as little Penelope licked between my chipping toes.

“Besides, it runs in your family like water runs through rivers,” another voice said.

Minh T. hopped next to me. Among the items she’d stored in Penelope’s bag, pyjamas were one of them. A short-sleeved dotted shirt, white and pink, complemented by grey sweatpants.

Rubbing my cap, she said, “I remember your mom saying your brother’s feet smelt just like yours.”

“Well, he’s a boy. His feet are supposed to stink.”

“You have a brother!?” Penelope shouted.

My little brother is six years younger than me. Yet he probably did so much better in the school system because he was male. Being ultra sweaty is a norm for teen boys, on top of being grosser.

Minh T. let out a moan. “If I sniffed you both simultaneously, I’d die one happy Toad.”

“What’s stopping you?” the princess asked.

“Can we end the topic?” I pleaded.

Soon enough, even with the TV noise polluting the room, I had fallen asleep. Did I reveal too much info about my life to these two royals? At least neither I nor Minh T. was dumb enough to say specific names.