My Mr. Turtle - Chapter 14: The Truth Behind...

Leo was on his way back to the lair. He had just brought his latest letter to April, though it had taken him a bit longer than usual to write it. Madelyn had asked about April being upset and Leo hadn’t been sure how much of April’s secret he could tell. But he was pretty happy with what he had come up with.
Humming silently – and again, the melody had some resemblance with the ‘Unicornia’-theme song, accidentally, of course – he climbed down into the sewers’ tunnels and marched his way back to the lair, casually resting one hand on the messenger bag’s shoulder strap.
He had thought of leaving Madelyn’s doll at April’s for a little longer, but the fact that Madelyn could be at April’s apartment again soon and that seeing her favorite still there and not with her Mr. Turtle could upset her, had put him off doing so. Despite, now was as good a time as ever to get the doll back.
He had just entered the corridor to his room when he was grabbed from behind and dragged into Mikey’s room. It happened so fast, all he could do was react with a yelp. Quite a ninja you are, Leonardo.
Once in Mikey’s room Leo looked around only to set eyes on Mikey and Raph who were looking at him quite angrily and accusingly.
“WHAT ON EARTH WERE YOU THINKING?!” Raph yelled at him which made Leo back away until his back was against the closed door.
“Now, Raph, calm down,” Mikey said to his red-clad brother as he placed a calming hand on Raph’s shoulder. “Leave this to someone who can stay calm under such adverse conditions, okay?”
Raph glared at Mikey for a second, then crossed his arms over his chest, lowering his angry burning eyes to the ground. “Okay,” he mumbled.
“Good boy!” Mikey said to him with a broad smile, and then turned to Leo.
“HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO DONNIE?!” he shouted at his oldest brother. “DO YOU HAVE THE SLIGHTEST IDEA HOW SAD HE IS RIGHT NOW?!”
The volume and angriness of Mikey’s voice was so unusual for the youngest turtle, it made Leo jump a little. And even Raph shot a surprised look at his little brother.
Leo looked at his brothers wide-eyed. “What are you talking about?”
“You and April!” Mikey said angrily.
“Me and April?” Leo’s eyes grew even wider with surprise now.
“Yeah! We know you two are a couple!”
“April and I are a couple?” Leo blinked a few times. What the heck was going on here?
“There’s no use in denying it!” Mikey went on, pointing at Leo. “She said it herself!”
“April said I was her boyfriend?”
“She did!”
“When?”
“When you were over at her place. I heard her saying it when I was following you!”
“You were following me?”
“Stop parroting, Leo!” Mikey’s voice sounded even angrier now. “This is serious!”
“But it’s not true!” Leo defended himself.
“How can it not be true?” Mikey asked. “You are meeting April without telling us, you are staying at her place, you were gone for nearly the whole night the other day! How can this not be a sign of you having a girlfriend?!”
“Because it’s not true,” Leo gave back. “April is not my girlfriend. I don’t have a girlfriend!”
“Ha!” Raph burst out, looking at Mikey with a broad grin. “What was that about you being right?”
Mikey just growled. Then he turned back to Leo.
“But what else is going on then?” he asked.
“I can’t tell you, okay?” the turtle in blue said as he readjusted the shoulder strap of his bag. “It’s a secret.”
And with that he turned around and wanted to leave the room, but Mikey grabbed his bag and was pulling on it in order to hold him back. “You’re not going anywhere before you tell me what’s going on!”
Leo quickly turned around, grabbing the messenger bag as well and tried really hard to wrest it from Mikey’s grip, but there was one thing for sure: When Michelangelo had laid his hands on something he would never let go. It had always been like that, even when they were children.
Raph was just watching them in not so well hidden amusement until the bag’s fastening gave in and a doll fell out of the bag. Raph’s eyes widened in surprise, and even Mikey froze in his movements and stared down at the doll. Leo looked in shock from the doll to each of his brothers, then took advantage of Mikey being frozen and snatched his bag away from him. Then he knelt down, gently took the doll in his hand and put it back into the bag.
“Okay, this is getting weirder and weirder,” Raph finally said. “First, you are humming the theme-song of a little girls’ cartoon, and now you are playing with dolls?” He turned to his brother with an earnest look. “Seriously, Leo, what is going on here?”
With a sigh Leo got back on his feet and swung the messenger’s bag shoulder strap over his shoulder again. He looked from Raph to Mikey and back to Raph.
Okay, if I am not going to come up with a believable story in three seconds, I am going to tell them the truth.
One…
Two…
Three…
Crud!
He took another deep breath and then told them everything about Madelyn and how they had ended up being pen pals, how he had needed a laptop to be able to watch Madelyn’s favorite TV show in secret, how April had become a hobby photographer and Madelyn’s new babysitter, he told them about Mr. Dearing’s accident and how he had spent the night in Madelyn’s room to watch over her and her father while she was sleeping and how April had called him her boyfriend on the weekend when Mr. Dearing had asked about the male voice in the background on the phone.
“And I guess, that’s it,” he ended his explanations.
Raph and Mikey were still looking at him, blinking a few times as if to put together what they had just heard.
“Dude, I can’t believe you didn’t trust us enough to tell us about this,” Mikey said finally.
“I thought you would make fun of me,” Leo admitted.
“Bro, you were doing all these things just to make a little girl feel better,” Raph threw in. “What would be funny about that?”
Leo lowered his eyes for a moment. “I guess you’re right.”
“And now go and tell Donnie what is going on,” Raph commanded. “I don’t want to have to take over his cleaning duty one more time just to make him feel better.”
“He made you take over his cleaning duty?” Leo asked.
“Yeah, we cleaned the kitchen so he had enough time to get a hold of himself,” Raph confirmed. “But I ain’t doing that again. Now go!”
Leo just nodded and left the room.
“We are making fun of him, aren’t we?” Mikey asked his older brother cautiously.
Raph smirked. “Ab-so-lute-ly!”

Donnie gave a little sigh when there was a knock on the door of his lab again. This was some busy day today!
“Come in!” he called out, but then he remembered that it could be Mikey or Raph and those two were thinking he was being depressed, so he added in sad voice. “If you want to, of course.”
And when he looked up, making sure he looked as sad as he could manage to look like, he saw Leo approaching him. And their leader looked just as uncomfortable as Raph and Mikey had looked just hours ago.
“What is it, Leo?” Donnie asked and raised a brow.
“I..uhm..well…uhm…,” Leo stammered while fiddling with his fingers. “I ..uhm…think there has been some sort of a …uhm…misunderstanding,” he finally managed to say.
“Oooooookay,” Donnie drawled.
“Well…uhm…April and I aren’t a couple,” Leo said.
Donnie’s eyes widened a bit. Oh, right, I am not supposed to know that already!, he told himself. Okay, award-winning performance coming up!
“Oh, thank goodness!” he suddenly called out, pressing his hand to his plastron to where his heart was underneath in a dramatic gesture.
Leo watched this unemotionally and with a raised brow. What was going on here? This was so not Donnie.
“You knew already, didn’t you?” he said when Donnie’s award-winning performance had come to an end.
“Yah,” Donnie laughed insecurely and scratched the back of his head. “April told me by accident when there was a misunderstanding about why she wanted to see you alone.”
Leo twisted his mouth. “So you just pretended to Mikey and Raph that you were sad and depressed? Heck, you made them take over your cleaning duty!”
“I had to keep your secret!” Donnie gave back defensively. “I had promised that to April. And it is not my fault that I am intelligent enough to take advantage of it.”
“You know what?” Leo said. “Because you kept my secret so long, I’ll let you get away with it this time. But stop making people take over your cleaning duty!”
“Sensitive topic, huh?” Donnie asked with a smirk.
“No!”
“Suuuure,” Donnie added. “But you know as good as I do, Leo, that I can’t do that.”
“Next time I won’t let you get away with it!” Leo assured as he turned to leave the lab.
“If you catch me next time, that is,” Donnie gave back, still smirking.
“We’ll see about that!” Leo said at the door.
“Yes,” Donnie said with a silent chuckle. “We will.”
Leo blew a raspberry and then left Donnie’s lab.

The next day Madelyn was already seated at her desk in the classroom. But there were still ten minutes left before their teacher was going to show up, so she took out Mr. Turtle’s latest letter from her schoolbag and read it.

Dear Madelyn,

You are right. The weekend was awesome! I hope we can do it again sometime soon!
How’s your father doing? Did the doctors remove his plaster?
I can totally understand that you miss going for walks with your father, and I sure hope he will heal soon so that you two can go for walks again. Fingers crossed!
Thank you, Madelyn. As I said I love playing Go Fish. And winning with cheating isn’t exactly winning. You should win by sticking to the rules, and if you do so, it is a well-earned win. Anything else is just a loss disguised as a win.
Of course we can talk about you becoming a kunoichi next time we meet. But I think you shouldn’t start training yet. You are a little girl and need to grow up first. Despite, I am in the middle of my training myself, so I am not sure if I am going to be a good teacher. There are so many things I still have to learn before I’ll be able to teach anyone. Do you think you could be patient on this one? I promise I am going to show you a trick or two so that you can defend yourself and your father, okay?
Good job, Madelyn! Just do it again next time Billy is trying to tease you, and I bet he is going to lose interest in teasing you. I am so proud of you!
Yes, I know what is going on with April, but I am not sure if I am allowed to tell you. But I think I can tell you this: April found out something about her past and it really threw her for a loop. I am not sure if there is something you can do to make her feel better. I am not even sure if there is something I can do for her. Just be the happy, little girl you’ve always been and show her that you like her and that she is important to you, and I think she is going to feel better in no time.
I’ve just picked up Mrs. Sparkling Hair from April’s and she is back in my room again. Do you really think she likes me? She didn’t say anything about it.
I hope to see you again soon, too!

Yours,
Mr. Turtle