Pieces of a Saturday Morning

 	The girl wandered down the wide staircase in 
search of breakfast. Last night’s date had been a 
disaster. ‘So tell me about yourself’ was not 
particularly easy to answer. What exactly is the 
answer to that?


My mother had me too young so instead of raising me, 
she instead pawned me off to one of her best friends, 
so that she could continue to spend my family’s money 
by travelling the seven seas? That she called me once 
before catching some disease in a developing country 
and we never heard from her again. Howzabout the fact 
that friend of hers happened to be one of the 
famous ‘Hamato’ turtles, who brought me up, along 
with my little thrown-together family that formed 
over time, to be trained in the art of ninjitsu, just 
as he and his brothers had been. Yeah, that would 
definitely put me in the ‘interesting date’ category.


"Don’t think I’ll be hearing from him any time soon," 
she informed the cereal as she poured it into a bowl. 

" ‘Morning Nobe." Nobuko turned to see Miles stretch, 
rub his face, and lean against the wall of the 
kitchen. 

"Don’t even tell me you, Miss morning sunshine, just 
woke up."

"Still beat you, didn’t I?"

"Yeah, you must have been out late with… what was his 
name…Roger…whooooh."

"Craig."

"Hmn, not too close, eh?"

"No comment, where’s everyone else at?"

"Oh, yeah, you weren’t here for the dancing were you?"

Nobuko turned from the cup of coffee she was pouring 
to look directly at him. "Dancing?"

"Yeah, Carmen kept whining to Leonardo to ‘let her 
drive on the airway’ and ‘I won’t be late for practice 
for a month’ blah blah blah."

"And this inspired dancing?"

"It did when he finally caved, so Carmen starts 
jumping of the furniture and junk."

"And the point of the story was…?"

"So Leonardo is off endangering his life and letting 
Carmen drive."

"Fun."

"Yeah, Uncle Mikey was over last night."

"Big surprise. Him and whats-her-face still not 
talking."

"I’m getting that idea from his attitude last night.—
Hey, Make me food."

"Make your own damn food." Nobuko stuck out her tongue 
in annoyance. "What was up with Mike?"

"I’m not telling for free."

*Thwap.*

"Ow!" Miles tried unsuccessfully to get the jelly of 
his nose.

"Ow? It was toast. Tell me what happened."

"He was just, like yelling at Carmen to calmed down. I 
mean, Leonardo doesn’t care. He was like ‘whatever’ 
pretty much."

"That’s good. Sometimes I swear he comes over here to 
yell about stuff lately, seriously."

"Yeah, really." Miles stood up tall and crossed his 
arms. "I have written more books on child psychology 
than anyone else in the universe, therefor I have all 
right to tell you, Leonardo, that your children are 
rude, ignorant, dysfunctional products of a corrupt 
mass society."

"Ha! Bobby’s coming out today."

"Yeah, he doesn’t know how to do laundry."

"Are you serious?!"

"Do you know how to do laundry?" Nobuko emptied the 
stuff into the sink.

"Do you??" Miles wiped his face off, trying to rid it 
of crumbs. 

"’Kay, guess we shouldn’t laugh."

"Yeah."

Nobuko went to set her toast on the table when all of 
a sudden a loud alarm began to sound. 

"Great."

"Crap."

They ran into the training room. Nobuko pushed a 
button on a computer screen. "Computer, Alarm silence."


"Voice unidentifiable." 


She rolled her eyes. "Computer, Alarm silence!"


"Voice unidentifiable."


"What the…"

Miles stepped in. "Here let me try. Computer, Alarm 
silence."


"Voice unidentifiable."


He blinked. The thing was seriously messed 
up. "Computer, shut the hell up!!"


"Unprocessable request. Voice unidentifiable."


Miles pointed a choice finger in the computer’s 
direction. "Process this."

Nobuko put her hands on her ears. "Look, there’s no 
one here!" She tried yelling above the 
screeching. "Whoever could get this thing to work left 
it on a map of the house. There’s two people in it…us."

Miles squinted trying to understand what she was 
saying. "So whatever’s pissing it off is coming from 
one of the other processors."

"Exactly, let’s get out of here."

"And leave the alarm running?!"

"No, come on, I’ll show you."

"They ran to the main front door, which was double 
dead bolted due to the alarm. Miles quickly punched in 
a code and the door opened. "Well that works at least."

"Nobuko sighed. "Weird."

"So how are we gonna turn off the alarm."

"Like this." Nobuko turned and ran to the side of the 
house. She quickly pulled a lever and all the lights 
in the house went out. 

"What’s that gonna do? Backup’s gonna come on in like 
2 minutes."

"Yeah, but it’s battery powered. The alarm runs a lot 
quieter, so the neighbor’s won’t hear it. Heh, I’m 
good."

"Whatever, I’m driving." Miles jumped into the car, 
hit a button and made a face. "Funny…"

"Hmn?"

"Phone’s not working either."

"Really?"

"I say we go to the city and see what’s up."

"Why?"

"That’s where everybody else is at; Uncle Raph and Don 
live there, Uncle Mikey’s at a seminar, Bobby’s not 
back here, and Carmen and Leonardo were heading to 
uncle Don’s, I think."

"Go to Uncle Don’s?"

"Makes sense why the ‘puter wasn’t working."

"kay’ let’s go."



Michaelangelo twiddled his fingers slightly. He 
listened slightly to the young man speak. The graduate 
student appeared nervous to be presenting research in 
front of so many renowned psychiatrists. Mike took 
notes to be polite, and when it ended shook hands with 
many old friends, introduced himself to the speakers, 
and turned to leave. He walked outside and wrinkled 
his face. 


I don’t understand how Raph and Don have lived here 
for so long. The smell, the filth, the illness. It’s 
overly depressing."


The earth tremored lightly, and Mike thought of the 
fact that there was supposed to be a major earthquake 
in Manhattan, or at least that was what Don said. But 
all the buildings tremored when the water moved. This 
one felt different though…

"Uncle Mikey! Uncle Mikey!" Mike turned around to see 
Bob approaching him.

"Hey Bobby! Here I had thought you had fallen off the 
face of the earth. How are your classes?"

"Oh, it’s great. Everyone thinks I’m all that because 
I have my own place."

"That’s right, you moved into Leo’s town flat, right?"

"Yeah, he said he wasn’t using it and there was no 
point putting me up in some dorm style thing if I had 
a decent place to stay."

"Ah, I see. Are you going out for dinn-- *Ring*" Mike 
looked at his phone in his pocked. "’Scuse me for a 
second Bob."

"What, no, oh NO, I’ll be right there, Call Raph, I’m 
pretty close." Mike wound the small speaker around the 
video system and looked at Bob. "That was your sensei. 
There’s been an explosion at Don’s building. We have 
to go."

"What’s going on??"

"I don’t know Bob, let’s go."




"Hey buddy you can’t sleep here."

The man woke up out of a drunken stupor and blinked at 
the turtle leaning over him. He was wearing an eye-
patch and the man jumped as the realization hit him.

"Wha-"

"Look Buddy, here’s a deal for you. Now you promise me 
that if I give you some money, that you would use it 
to check into a little clinic downtown."

"Huh?"

The turtle got out his wallet and pulled out some 
bills. "Now, if I come to that clinic and your not 
there, I’m gonna find you and get back my money. But 
doesn’t it sound a bit nicer to be sleeping in a nice 
warm bed?"

The man eyed the money. "Yes, yes it does sir, thank 
you." He reached up and gingerly took the money. 

"Now go on, and don’t forget our deal."

"Yes, thank you, thank you." The man hurried off

Mezcaal looked stuck her head out of the window. "Do 
you think that he’ll actually do that?"

Raphael looked up and smiled. "Sure hope so or I’m out 
of some money for no reason."

She smiled back. "So you won’t ‘track him down and get 
back your money?’"

Raph shrugged. "Prolly not. Just an extra incentive, 
ya know?"

She shook her head. "I have no idea how you’ve managed 
to keep this business going."

"Ha, sometimes, neither do I." Raph turned to go 
outside as he felt a small tremor. 

"What was that?" Mezcaal pulled her head back quickly 
inside the building.

"Probably just a change in water level, nothing major."

"But it felt different."

Raphael shrugged again for a response, but he began to 
get a disturbing feeling down in the pit of his 
stomach. "Let’s get ready for the day crowd."

"Okay."




"Why do you think that the block is all blocked off?"

"I don’t know Miles, this isn’t right. Oh my—is that 
smoke coming from uncle Donny’s building. Just put the 
car somewhere, in the road for all I care. Let’s go!"

The two kids ran. Something had to be wrong. Terribly 
wrong. 

"No." Nobuko saw the crowd watch as smoke rolled 
lightly out of the TURTLECO building and up into the 
sunless New York City sky.

"Look Nobie, there’s Leonardo and Carmen." The tried 
to get through the crowd as quickly as possible.

"Hey, guys wait up!" 

Nobuko turned. "Bobby!"

Miles tried to yell above the chaos. "Uncle Mikey, 
what’s going on?"

"We’ll find Leonardo and ask him, I’m not sure."

"He’s right over there." Nobuko pointed.

"Let’s go." It didn’t take much for Michaelangelo to 
push through the cloud.

"Leo?"

Leo turned to look at his brother. His face had an 
appearance that it had never had before. He looked 
pale as a ghost.

"Leo??"

Carmen’s bottom lip quivered. "Uncle Mikey…"

The kids quickly managed to push their way through the 
crowd and stood behind their uncle. "Sensei, what’s 
going on?"

Carmen ran to them, throwing her arms around Bob as if 
she were hanging on for life. "What took you guys so 
long??"

Bob looked back up at Leonardo. "Sensei, what is it?"

Leonardo looked at him for a few seconds. He looked 
down and took a deep breath as he prepared to 
speak. "They…they found him."

Mike stepped towards his brother and cocked his 
head. "What?" 

"They found him."

"Leo, come on, what’s wrong?" Mike took another step 
towards Leonardo.

"They…"

Suddenly, the chief of police walked over to the 
group. Leonardo, secretly thankful for the 
distraction, looked at him. "Yes?"


He silently prayed he would say something. If you 
say something, they will know. They will know and I 
won’thave to say anything. If I say something, that 
makes it real, and right now I can’t handle this being 
real.


"Would you like someone to escort you to the precinct 
Leonardo?"

"No thank you, that won’t be necessary." He took a 
small strength in knowing he could still sound in 
control.

"I’m sorry to tell you this, but even with his unique 
features, his body will still need to be identified."

A deep breath then a hard attempt at a smile. "I 
understand that, I will be down later, please I need 
some time with my family."

The chief nodded and walked briskly away.

"Body? Leo what was he talking about?" Michaelangelo 
placed a hand on his brother’s shoulders.

Leonardo could barely utter the words. "Donny. They—
they found him after the blast. I don’t know what to 
think. Right now it looks as if he set the blast 
himself, on purpose."

They all were silenced at his words. 

Bob held onto his crying surrogate sister. "What, Why?"

Leonardo looked at him and tried to keep his 
composure. "Believe me Bobby, I wish I knew.

Chapter 2 coming soon
 
 






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