I hope you all have the greatest year!
"April!" Leonardo yelled, dashing down the street in a full on sprint. "April, wait up!" He could barely see her now, just a speck in the distance, and couldn't remember a time when she was so energetic. But what was even more confusing was the amount of people out walking the streets so close to midnight. Leonardo slowed down in his run, brothers passing him, as he stared at all the normal people. They wore heavy winter clothes and a lot of them wore big blue hats with 2014 written all over it. Even though Leonardo was deep inside a coat and normal clothes, with a scarf covering most of his green face, he still felt nervous around so much people and began to run again, catching up with his brothers.
"Gee, where is she?" Michelangelo wondered aloud, scanning the area with his hands surrounding his eyes like binoculars. "It's like she just disappeared!" Raphael smacked him on the side of the head and told him to keep running, or else they would fall hopelessly behind her and never find her in time.
"What was it she wanted to show us anyway?" Leonardo asked, speeding up in front of his brothers as they ran. Donatello merely shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, indicating he had absolutely no idea. April had just rushing into their Lair thirty minutes to midnight, when the turtles had been about to go to sleep, and told them to come with her topside. She never told them exactly why.
They rounded one more corner, dodging some drunk partiers strolling out of a bar in their rush to find April. Leonardo knew where they were going now: Main Street. And he could see the crowds of people there, and thought he was hallucinating. Never before had he seen such a sight. How many people were crowded onto this one street? Some of them even spilled into the one he and his brothers were on. Once the turtles got to the end of the street, they pushed through the crowd carefully, trying not to draw too much attention to themselves around so much people. Yet some of the humans still stared as they pushed by, blinking when they saw their three fingers and hints of their green faces behind the scarves.
Donatello said something, but no one could hear it over the roar of the impossibly large crowd. Michelangelo turned to his brothers and shouted at the top of his lungs,"It's like the whole country is packed in this one street!" but Leonardo, right next to him, only heard it as loud as a whisper.
"ONE MINUTE!" shouted a loud, amplified voice. The brothers jumped, startled. The humongous mob of people cheered, waving things in the air in their excitement.
"One minute until what?" Raphael exclaimed, beginning to push through the crowd more forcefully. The others increased their speed as well. They couldn't lose two of their group members in one night. But the huge crowd began to swallow them up. No way could they get out in time to see what was happening. Which way should they even be going?
Suddenly a hand grabbed Leonardo's, its five small fingers curling around his wrist. He looked up, but the person the hand belonged to was hidden behind the crowd. But he had a feeling he knew whose hand this was. With one mighty tug, Leonardo began to be dragged out of the huge crowd. His brothers followed closely in his wake, and with a lot of "excuse me"s, the four brothers made it out.
April brushed her hair of her eyes, sighing with relief. "Sorry I lost you guys!" she shouted, smiling. She brought the confused turtles over to a secluded, yet small, area where hardly anyone stood.
After expressing their gratitude for April freeing them from the mob, the turtles began to look around more, their sharp eyes catching everything. The crowd cheering, the smiling faces, all the swirling, disorienting ads on the buildings. Finally, Michelangelo pointed out the ball, way high up in the air, and so far away. It was humongous, covered with bright blue and white lights. "What's that?" he asked April.
"When the ball drops it is 2014! Happy New Year!" she explained, her blue eyes dancing with excitement. Michelangelo nodded, finally understanding. He turned, pulling his brothers with him, and began to watch the huge ball, waiting for it to drop. Leonardo was a bit shocked.
"Happy New Year? ...It's a new year?"
"Way behind on the times aren't ya, Leo?" Raphael teased, chucking.
"TEN!" shouted a voice. The crowd cheered once again, including April. The turtles hesitantly joined in.
"NINE!" said the voice, along with every other member of the mob. The turtles saw the way couples of men and women were pulling closer to each other.
"EIGHT!" This reminded Donatello of a rocket launch, the way the countdown was happening. He wondered why crowds of a million excited people didn't attend rocket launches.
"SEVEN!" Michelangelo whooped and hollered, really getting in on the excitement. He began to dance, making the most of the small amount of room he had.
"SIX!" Leonardo stood on the tips of his toes to see everything that was happening over the tall members of the crowd. He could hear his brother Michelangelo, as well as April, counting down behind him. And was that Raphael he saw in his peripheral vision, dancing?
"FIVE! FOUR! THREE!" The mob got nearly twenty times more rambuncious. Things flew into the air, arms waving everywhere. News cameras filmed the whole thing. The brothers' hearts raced in excitement. The world began to swirl, the seconds racing by.
"TWO!" There was a short pause. "ONE!" April ran forward and pulled the turtles into a short hug.
Cannons of confetti shot into the air, but none of it made it to the back of the crowd where the turtles and April were. The crowd roared. The brothers, excluding Donatello began to dance, forgetting everything. The ball dropped all the way, a magnificent sight. "WELCOME TO 2014! HAPPY NEW YEAR!" cheered the amplified voice. Fireworks of all sorts of colors burst into the air, reigning in the new year with a bang. A pop singer, so small from this far away, strode onto a stage and began to lip-sync a catchy song.
Donatello was shocked when he saw nearly every couple of men and women pull together and kiss. He turned to April in confusion. "It's a tradition," she explained simply, shrugging. He could see a bit of red running up her face. But she quickly looked away from him and ran over to dance with the other turtles, each of them whooping in excitement.
"Next year for sure," Donatello muttered, looking around uncomfortably at all of the kissing couples, tugging at his itchy scarf again. Quickly, he joined the rest of the group, celebrating.
"Don't tell me you guys never even saw the ball drop on TV?" April said, panting from all the dancing she had been doing. She and the turtles had had to stop when the crowd had begun to churn, heading down the street and spilling out of Main. They'd been pushed along with the crowd for a while but now sat in a small, empty alleyway, standing over a manhole cover.
Leonardo shrugged. "We never knew New Year was such a big thing." He turned to Donatello, who added,"But we always heard these really loud noises at midnight, but we never figured it was a celebration this huge. But we live a couple miles away from Main Street in the sewers so we didn't really hear it this loud before."
April nodded in understanding, feeling a little sorry for her friends that they had never celebrated New Years. She did it every year with her father, attending the ball drop and everything. This was the first year things had happened differently.
Michelangelo chuckled a little. "Remember when that old lady opened her apartment window on Main Street and yelled at the whole partying crowd to shut up and go to sleep?" The turtles broke down with laughter just thinking about it, happy they were fortunate to have been close enough the lady's apartment to hear her shout hopelessly at the crowd. Raphael began to talk about his favorite time of the night, and the conversation took a new route. But after a while they ran out of things to talk about and silence ascended. The only sound was the endless fireworks and Michelangelo muttering the words to the pop singer's song under his breath.
"Well, shall we go?" Leonardo asked, breaking the silence. He squatted down and lifted up the manhole cover. The other turtles nodded unsurely, not sure if they really wanted to go quite yet.
"See ya soon, Ape. Your dance moves were wicked," Michelangelo complimented, beginning to climb into the sewers.
Donatello began to climb down after Michelangelo, hissing at his brother below to hurry up. For a quick moment, the purple-banded turtle looked up at April and said,"I hope you have an amazing 2014, April."
"Thanks, that's sweet. I hope you do, too." She blushed a little. Raphael behind her rolled his eyes and made fun of Donatello with kissing noises. Leonardo laughed and pushed him towards the sewer entrance.
Raphael climbed down, happily pulling off his itchy scarf and trenchcoat. And just as Leonardo was disappearing out of view, pulling the manhole cover back into place, April had an idea. She rushed forward and pulled the cover back out, looking down at Leonardo, still climbing down the ladder with his brothers waiting. All the turtles looked up in confusion.
"New Year's party, anyone?" she asked.
The turtles beamed and cheered. "I'll get out the video games and pizza!" Michelangelo exclaimed, rushing off.
2014 was off to a good start.