A/N: Turtles are seven.
It was a dark and stormy night. On this night, four young turtle boys - left alone for a few hours by their father - decided to take on the greatest challenge that had ever been presented to them. Cooking.
"I'm hungry!" Mikey whined. "Ow!" he yelped, as he was bapped by Raph. "What'd I do?"
"Stop whinin'," Raph growled. "I'm hungry too."
"Why don't you guys make a sandwich?" Don suggested.
"I know!" Mikey said. "We can make cookies and surprise Splinter when he comes home!"
"Mikey…" Leo said, "We can't. Splinter said we weren't s'posed to use the oven when he was gone."
"Okay." Mikey said. "You just won't help then."
"What? No, I wanna help!" Leo insisted.
"But what about-" Mikey was cut off by Raph's hand over his mouth. "That's enough, Mikey." He said sweetly. Mike glared at Raph as he took his hand away.
"So what are we waiting for?" Don asked. "Let's go!"
Ten minutes later all four turtles stood together staring up at the oven of doom. "Whaddya we do first?" Mikey whispered.
"We need the cookbook." Donnie said.
"But it's way up in the cupboard!" Mikey said, shocked. Their short seven-year-old bodies would never make it all the way up there!
"Leo, get a chair." Don said decidedly, taking control of this little adventure.
Leo pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and dragged it over to Don, who climbed on top of it. He still had to jump up and down a little to get the cookbook, but finally it toppled down, hitting the cement floor with a smack.
"I'll read the recipe to you guys," Don said, climbing down. "And you do everything else."
"How come you get to read?" Raph demanded.
"Because I'm the only one who can!"
"Oh yeah…"
"Guys," Leo interrupted. "Splinter's gonna be home soon. We should get started."
"Okay," Don said, flipping the cookbook open to sugar cookies. "First we need one cup of sugar."
Mikey, who had climbed up the chair Don had just vacated, reached into the cupboard. "What sort of cup?"
"Well they're sugar cookies, right?" Raph said. "So use a lot of sugar. Use Splinter's tea mug. It's big."
"Right." Mike said, grabbing the mug and filling it with sugar, then dumping it into a bowl Leo was holding.
"Now we need oil." Donnie said, reading from the book.
"Oil?" Raph asked incredulously. "Isn't that what people put in their cars?"
"That's what it says," Don said, pointing to the recipe. Raph shrugged. "Okay…but where do we get oil?"
Leo frowned. "Weren't there a few bottles of it that washed down a few days ago?"
"Yeah!" Mikey said. "Someone should go get it." He blinked – all his brothers were now looking at him. "What?"
Ten minutes later, Mikey came back from his excursion carrying a half-full bottle of car oil. "There," he said, dumping it into the bowl. "Now what Donnie? Huh? Huh? Huh?"
"Vanilla, and soda." Don said.
"Vanilla what?" Mikey asked.
"Doesn't say."
"We have vanilla ice cream…" Leo suggested.
"Let's use that!" Mikey said, excited. "Splinter likes ice cream."
After digging the box out of the freezer, Leo dumped two scoops of vanilla ice cream into the mess.
"Now soda." Don said.
"What kind?"
"Still doesn't say." Don sighed.
"This isn't a very good recipe." Mikey frowned. "They don't tell us anything!"
"Let's use Root Beer." Raph said. "That's all we have left anyway." Leo held out the bowl, and Raph poured half a liter of the beverage into it.
"There, that's it for the ingredients." Don said. "Now we have to cook them."
"We're not supposed to use the oven." Leo reminded them from earlier.
"We can't just eat the dough!" Raph protested, glaring at Mikey, who had just popped a piece of cookie dough into his mouth.
"Yecch!" Mikey said, scraping his tongue off. "It's icky!"
"That's because we haven't cooked it yet." Don said matter-of-factly. "Come on, get a cookie sheet."
Mikey ran to the cupboard under the counter and pulled out a long, flat pan. "This it?"
"Yeah," Don said, glancing down to the book again. "Okay…now we need to make balls out of the dough and flatten them."
"Yessir!" Raph said, dumping the bowl out onto the floor. Leo's eye twitched. "What are you doing?"
"I'm gonna flatten 'em all at once," Raph said in a 'duh' tone. Leo just stared at the floor, mouth open. Raph rolled his eyes. "Splinter just cleaned it this morning!" Leo didn't look any better. Raph sighed. "Whatever." He gathered up all the dough into a huge ball, then proceeded to jump on it.
When they had a flattened pancake of cookie dough, (covered with Raph's two-toed footprints) Don helped Mikey set it on the pan and together they put it in the oven. "Okay." Don said, shutting the door to the oven. "That should be it."
"Good." Raph said. "I never knew making cookies could be so hard!"
"Exactly what is going on in here?" A stern voice asked from the doorway. All four turtles turned slowly to face their father, suddenly aware of the huge mess they had created.
There were bits and pieces of cookie dough on the floor, oil spatters, spilled soda, and basically everything in a maid's worst nightmare.
"We…um…we were…" Donnie stammered over his own words.
"We were makin' ya a surprise!" Mikey piped up cheerfully, but backed down when he was met from a stern gaze from Splinter.
"What have I told you about using kitchen appliances by yourselves?" Splinter asked.
"To not do it." Leo said quietly. Splinter looked down at him. "That is right. It is a good thing you had yet to turn on the oven-"
Don whipped around. He forgot to turn on the oven? He shrugged mentally. One less thing to worry about.
"I appreciate the effort to surprise me," Splinter continued, "But next time ask for my assistance, understood?" Four green heads nodded. "Good. Now, you will clean this up, then it is bedtime." Splinter left the kitchen.
"Well, it was fun." Donnie said, pulling the Raph-stamped cookie dough out.
"Yeah!" Mikey said, his eyes shining. "I think I'd like to do it again sometime."
He ducked as four balls of cookie dough were pelted at his head.
THE END
