Heroes of Dreamland, Book 5: Nintendo World: The Fate of All Worlds (OLD)

Hello, New York!

Kirby's POV:

"All right, guys," Sakura shakes me and Bandana awake. "Time to get back in the case."

"Do we have to?" I yawn, then groan. "I hated being stuck in there."

With a smile, she reassures me, "As soon as they chuck us off the plane, we only have to wait a couple of minutes before we can get out and make a break for it. Then, it's only about a twenty minute flight to the shelter. You'll like it there, there's a bunch of kids your age. Some were born here, others came here themselves."

Grinning at her, I climb into the case after Bandana, who's already gone back to sleep. "Okay, Sakura."

As Meta Knight squeezes in after I've settled, I notice that he seems a little bit happier today, too. Well, happier for him, I mean, which is still kind of quiet and borderline grumpy. I guess he woke up on the right side of the bed, er, suitcase.

"Is there anything to eat?" I ask as soon as Sakura climbs in and zips the top mostly shut.

Laughing, she nods, "Yeah, I've got a couple of granola bars in my satchel for everyone." She pulls them out and passes a couple of them to me.

Meta Knight, being the suspicious person he is, has to check the ingredients before I'm allowed to eat them. "What is maltodextrin? Or soy lecithin? Or any of these other ingredients, other than maybe granola and honey?"

"The dreaded artificial ingredients," Sakura murmurs in a spooky voice, then smirks as he glares at her. "Don't worry, not even aspartame is as bad as Pufferzene, although I still wouldn't recommend drinking diet soda."

Sounding disgusted, Meta Knight asks, "What is soda? As in baking soda? Who would even want to drink that? How would one even go about drinking baking soda?"

"It's a sugary beverage that has the magical property of helping paranoid people stay awake," Sakura laughs lightly, a grin on her face again. "Coca-Cola is my favorite."

"And how many artificial ingredients does that have, I wonder?" Meta Knight mutters, looking at my now-unwrapped granola bar like he thinks it's gonna try to eat me. I go to pop the whole thing in my mouth at once, but Sakura stops me.

Laughing, she tells me, "I know it's a foreign concept to you, buddy, but you're gonna have to learn how to take bites. I've had so many Star Warrior kids try to choke themselves by swallowing a whole cookie or some other kind of food in their mouth all at once. Fun with having no magic, right?" Turning to Meta Knight, she continues, "I don't know how many artificial ingredients Coke has, they don't have to list them all. But it doesn't matter. If you want to eat, you have to eat what we have. We don't have the funds to go all organic or anything, although trust me, I wish we did."

"What does organic mean in this context?" he wonders, once again lost. Sakura keeps talking about so many things that none of us understand. I guess that's cause she's been around Humans longer than we have.

"It basically means expensive, but better for you," she explains with a smile, then we all fall silent as the plane door is opened and some Humans, (actually speaking a language I can understand,) come in and start taking stuff out.

"Look at this," one of them says suddenly. "The guys in Japan threw this one on partially unzipped."

"Ha!" the other laughs from outside. "Well, zip it shut then!"

Chuckling, this guy agrees, "Thanks for the tip, Captain Obvious."

"Just peachy," Sakura sighs so quietly we can barely hear her as the one guy zips our case shut. Thankfully he didn't look in here, at least.