The return of that Monkey!

A Toddler Turtles Special

By The Poss

Disclaimer: Someone else beat me to it – Eastman and Laird invented these characters first! I take my hat off to them for giving me enjoyment with these characters over the last 15 years. I feel blessed to be borrowing them for my own enjoyment – which I like to share with my readers. If you have not read the Toddler Turtles story The Monkey ate it – then please read that first. This one will make more sense once you read the first tale of the monkey in the lair.

BURP!

"Nice," Leonardo rolled his eyes at his younger brother.

"Glad you liked it," Mikey grinned as he pulled himself away from Leo's ear.

"That's not even half as loud as mine," Raphael piped up, he was busy building his bug.

"Raphie you just spined an orange eye, how come you picked up a red one?" Donnie asked.

"Raphie don't know his colours, ha ha," Mikey giggled.

"Shut up, I don't want orange, I want red eyes on my bug!"

"You shouldn't say shut up!" Leo said.

"Raphie, you are not playing the game properly," Donnie replied.

"I don't care, I want red eyes!"

"My bug's got lots of colours," Mikey said, looking at his bug, "Leo's nearly built his bug, he's going to win. He always wins."

"You need to start playing the game properly, Raph. You are ruining it for the rest of us."

Raph stuck his tongue out at his older brother and replaced his eye with an orange one, grumbling.

"Can we play hungry hippos next?" Mikey asked as he bounced on his knees.

"Do we have to? I thought we could play checkers, that's more grown up. Splinter plays that," Donnie told his brothers. He was sick of playing the baby games – he wanted the mind games like chess and scrabble, but only Master Splinter or Leo would play them with him. Mike and Raph would only agree and then eventually take off and never complete the game.

"We could play Ludo?" Leo said, for as long as he could remember he loved this game. He remembered when Mikey couldn't say Ludo and so he just called it "Leo".

"No, Hungry Hippos!" Mikey cried.

"I don't want to play another stupid board game. I want to want to play ship to shore," Raph informed his brothers. He was sick of sitting down and wanted to run around.

"Splinter told us we're not to go out of the lair when he's not home," Mikey said.

"We can play it in here," Raph replied.

"What about the furniture?" Leo pointed to the various items in the room.

"We can move them," Raph said.

"How?" Mikey asked.

"Push them to the wall, stupid," Raph replied.

"I not stupid!"

"You are too."

"Leo!"

"Raphie, don't call him names," Leo ordered his brother.

"Ship, shore, ship, shore, ship, ship, Mikey your out," Leo said, as his younger brothers ran about the room. Mikey accidentally ran back to the shore end of the room.

"Pooy!" Mikey walked over to where Leo was, as Leo joined the other two in their game.

"Sip, snore, snip, snip," Mikey cried as he struggled with the words.

Raph went skidding on the carpet and crashed into the coffee table. He got up rubbing his leg.

"You okay Raphie?" Donnie asked.

"Yeah, continue Mikey," Raph said, as his brothers waited to see if he was alright.

"Snore!" Mikey cried out and his three brothers raced across the room. Mikey jumped up and down excited at watching his big brothers.

CRASH!

"What was that?" Mikey squeaked, as he ran to his brothers.

"It came from the kitchen," Leo whispered.

The three little turtles crept towards the kitchen, Raph found their practicing batons and picked them up and each brother took his. Mikey held onto Donnie's shell, as he sucked his thumb. He had a habit of doing that when he was scared.

"Raph, you and Donnie go that side, while Mikey, you stay with me," Leo whispered. He always felt a greater responsibility for Mikey when events like this happened. Mikey quickly let go of Donnie and ran to hide behind Leo's shell.

"Whatever it is, it's making lots of noise!" Donnie hissed.

"Let's get it," Raph announced, as all four turtles peeked into the kitchen to see a furry tale sticking out of the cupboard.

"What is that?" Leo asked looking at his brothers to see if they had any idea.

"It's some kind of mammal," Donnie said.

"What's a mammal?" Mikey asked.

"Splinter's a mammal," Donnie informed Mikey, thinking it was the best explanation his littlest brother could understand.

"I thought he was a rat?" Mikey looked confussed.

"He is, rats are mammals," Leo told Mikey.

"How come?"

"They have fur," Raph replied, just as Leo and Donnie were about to speak.

"Hey it's looking at us," Mikey informed his brothers, as they all turned to see the creature was indeed looking at them. The creature scratched at them.

Raphael growled at it, "It's that dumb monkey again!"

"What monkey?" Leo racked his brains to think of the last time they had a monkey in their home.

"The one that ate our party food," Mikey informed Leo.

"And bite me! Its pay back time you stupid monkey!"

"Wait Raphie, you can't harm it," Donnie grabbed his brother.

"Yes I can!"

"It's probably just as scared of us, as we are of it," Leo told his brothers.

"It bite me Leo! I'm goner get it back! I'll teach it not to bite me!"

"But Raphie it might be back to finish you off. Maybe it eats turtles." Mikey began to cry.

"Oh stop crying Mikey!" His older brothers said at once.

"Yeah we can't be ninjas and have you crying when we need to fight someone," Leo said.

"Look what I want to know is, what on earth is a monkey doing down in the sewers?" Donnie said.

"Who cares, it won't be here when I finish with it," Raph growled. The monkey eyed them with it's red eyes. Mikey held onto Leo's shell as a young child clings to his mother's skirt.

"Mikey get off me!" Leo hissed, he couldn't fight a monkey with Mikey holding onto him. He managed to wriggle free of Mikey's grasp.

"Maybe we should try catching it and letting Splinter deal with it?" Donnie said, remembering the amount of blood Raph dripped all over the lair last time.

"No I want to get it!" Raph cried.

"I'm scared," Mikey cried.

"It won't hurt you if you don't hurt him," Leo tried to comfort his brother.

"Mikey and I both know that it's dangerous, remember last time Mikey, it attacked you for no reason," Raph reminded his brother. Mikey gulped and sucked his thumb harder. It was true, Mikey was just trying to get a cookie from the cookie jar on the top shelf when that animal attacked him.

"I don't think we have time to argue about this guys, it's not too impress we've crashed it's party," Donnie said, just as the creature's red eyes slanted at them, hunched it's back and let out a deafening screech.

"Arhhh!"

Oh a cliff-hanger! I'm sorry dear reader, but you will have to come back for seconds to hear how this story ends. It is about six months after the first Monkey story takes place.

Just so all know – I am not the owner of "hungry hippos", "Beetle" or the other games I mentioned.

For those who might not know – as I do not know if you play Ship to Shore in America or the UK or anywhere else. You might even call it something else.

Most of the kids I work with love it –simply you have a line for the ship and another one for the shore. You say ship or shore and keep saying it and you try to trick the players by saying ship, ship. The person or people to run off the ship towards the shore – is out. If there is a limit of players, the person who is out becomes the caller (just like the turtles did). It's a fun game if you have a big group of kids who need to burn off energy!

PS. Hope you all liked Mikey's snip, snore part – because I just loved it! But then again – I spend a lot of time with little kids – so decoding their talk is kind of like knowing a second language to me. I just thought it was cute!