The girl got everything ready to go and in her bag, before she started walking out.
"Elisa, can I get a word with you?"
Said girl nodded and leaned up against the first row of desks.
"Yes Ms. Walker?" Elisa asked her teacher.
"Elisa, your mind must be elsewhere during class. At the beginning of the year, you had straight A's in this class, but now you dropped to C's. Can you tell me why?"
Elisa looked down, not meeting the teachers gaze. "You were pretty close. Your right about my thoughts not being in class. History really is my favorite class, but things have been going on with my family."
"Elisa, do you want to talk about it?" The teacher asked.
Elisa smiled. "If I told you, you would think that I'm crazy."
"Well, you will be surprised what I have heard over the years."
"And this would take the cake."
"Elisa, I want you to stop with the negativity. Someone your age should be positive. If you don't want to tell me everything, at least tell me bits and pieces."
"Fine, fine. Okay. But, you must swear to not say this to anybody."
Ms. Walker nodded, and faced Elisa as she began to talk.
"Well, let's just say that my family is extremely different than the others."
"How so?"
"Well, we kinda live in the dumps, and we don't have a mother."
"Does your father smoke or something?" The teacher asked, interrupting the girl.
"No. No. No. No. No. Not at all. He is an amazing father, and is very protective of us."
"Elisa, you keep saying 'us' and 'we'. What do you mean?"
"By saying that, I am talking about my brothers and sisters."
"How many siblings?"
"Counting me, there are seven of us, and we are all adopted."
The teacher looked in shock. "Seven of you? Elisa, how do you manage? I had enough trouble with my brother when there were only the two of us."
Elisa smiled. "We are more similar to each other than any other siblings, with the exception of identicals."
"How that is possible, will never know, but please tell me about all of your brothers and sisters."
"The oldest is one of my brothers. His favorite color is blue, and when in a battle, he likes using dual katanas."
"Battles? Katanas? What is going on in your house Elisa?"
"Our father taught and is teaching us martial arts, and we get into little skirmishes. But nothing major."
"Don't you guys get harmed?"
"Sometimes, but nothing major."
"Okay, well, continue on."
"The oldest gets a lot of problems from the second oldest. He always has his dual sai with him, and has the favorite color of red. He has a dry since of humor, and makes jokes at the expense of our other brothers, and continues on with them if another sibling comes up with the joke.
"After him is one of my sisters. She is always wearing something black and always carrying a modified version of the Chigiriki. Instead of one ball on the end, there's two, and there also in pairs, meaning she carries two of them with her every time.
"After her, there is my only other older brother. He is more of the brains of the family, and can fight best with technology or a Bo staff. He creates new things that often help us out more than you would think.
"After him, there's me, and while you think you know me, you really don't. When it comes to target hitting with something like a slingshot or a bow and arrow, they usually have me doing it. At the house, I am normally in pink, and have a small bag of rocks, a y-shaped stick and an elastic band nearby. And another thing, I may be enrolled as Elisa, that is not even my real name. But let me give you fair warning, if you try to pry into any of our family secrets, you will not enjoy them for long. And sorry about being scary, but our father wants to keep our family secrets just that. Secret.
"But anyway, after me is my only younger brother. He may seem crazy, and he really is, you do not want to get on his bad side. He is always armed with at least one of his pairs of nunchucks, and he can dodge blows without thinking, but he does have trouble fighting with thinking.
"After him is the youngest in the family, and that is our littlest sister. She maybe young, but she is an amazing aim with a blow gun and dart. Just like everyone else, she is always carrying it around, along with darts filled with a little bit of amnesia, knocking the target person out for at least fifteen minutes."
"You keep mentioning your siblings as he or she. Why don't you call them by names?"
"For one, you don't know them. Second, I'm not allowed to."
"Elisa, do you expect me to believe this? That your siblings are nameless warriors? You were right. This takes the cake. But, if you give them names and write all of these things down while putting them in a setting kind of like an adventure story, then you would be a fantastic author. I guess since you created such an elaborate story to tell me rather than what is really going on, then you will never tell me. I guess you can go Elisa." Ms. Walker said, walking back to her desk and sitting down to grade papers.
"Yes mam." Elisa said, grabbing her books and walking out again.
The halls were silent, just like Elisa liked. After having six siblings, it can get loud.
She walked out of the building, and into a seemingly empty ally.
She pulled open the manhole cover and jumped in. After making sure it was completely closed and that she didn't drop anything, she walked to where light was glowing.
As she entered the room, her older sister Katerina looked up from the TV. The bored to death look in her eyes disappeared as she saw her younger sister.
"There you are. We were wondering where you went."
Elisa smiled.
"Sorry I was late. My history teacher made me stay after. She asked me about why my grades are going nuts."
"What all did you tell her?" Her oldest brother, Leo, asked.
"Good news, she believes that I am just one of the crazy authors of this world. She thought it was crazy of us to have seven people in one family, and when I said that we kinda live in a dump, she thought Sensei was a smoker or something. I told her the bare minimum, and she said that if I just 'give my characters names, and put them in something like an adventure setting, then I would be an amazing author.'"
Elisa shrugged out of her oversized jacket and sweat pants to reveal a pink and white kimono with matching pink leggings and obi. As she was also getting her conical hat on when her younger sister walked into the room.
"Ellie, what took you so long?"
"My history teacher kept me after."
When she had gotten all of her things, she walked back out into the living room. As expected, Leo was missing, Raph was playing on the pinball machine, Katerina was playing videogames with the youngest brother Mikey, Donnie was doing something with a blowtorch, and Stefani was twirling her blowgun in boredom.
As they were all getting up to get ready for the patrol, Sensei had walked in, followed by Leo.
"Elisabetta." He said, addressing the pink-clad girl.
"Yes, Sensei?" She asked, bowing to her master.
"Leonardo tells me that there was something going on at your school. Tell me, what is it?"
"My history teacher was asking about the family. I was careful not to say names, or to say anything that would give us away."
Splinter looked at one of his three adopted daughters.
"I trust that you did what you could to keep this a secret, but we do not know if she is working for an enemy or not."
Elisabetta nodded. "I understand Sensei. I will try to be more cautious next time."
As her Sensei was walking away, she stood up again, and headed to the others.
"Now we can finally get to that patrol." Stefani said, following Leo, Raph, Donnie, Mikey and Katerina over the turnstiles, and out of another manhole.
