A million thank-yous to accioturtur Tumblr who stayed up all night with me one night serving as a soundboard and cheerleader. I couldn't have worked out the conclusion to this story without her.
XOXO
Winny
FAILED & SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENTS - PART 2
Even with the loss of the specimen… experimentation continued.
Oh, man. Did it ever.
I'm probably deluding myself with the idea that real scientists would ever read my log of Failed and Successful Experiments. But at this point, I kind of don't want them to. I look back over the past few weeks of experiments I've dutifully recorded, the many pages of pointless data gathered, and I am ashamed. I see now that it is worthless. It is a thinly veiled excuse to keep on exploring this pleasurable phenomenon, and I'm just kidding myself by pretending that what's going on has anything at all to do with science.
And the thing is, I'm not sure I should be ashamed by this. I think it is natural, one of the many gifts of having a body, of growing up, and being alive. So I will redact these worthless pages, and simply let myself enjoy it. I will not clutter this log with any more personal indulgences and let this book continue to be a place where real science is recorded and meaningful discoveries are made.
Donatello, signing off.
I'm really annoyed at my brother. This is supposed to be our favorite show. He ALWAYS watches it with me, but tonight he was nowhere to be found. Something is definitely up with him. He disappears all the time lately, and no one else seems to notice. But it wasn't until he completely missed the X-Files that I knew for sure something was wrong.
I wouldn't want to say so, but it was way less fun watching it without him. It sucked not having my brainy brother there to explain the really confusing parts. I even sort of missed his ridiculous favoritism, worshiping the stupidly skeptical Sculley, even though Mulder was OBVIOUSLY going to be proven right again, just like always.
I am a much bigger fan of Agent Mulder. He's just… Man! He's so awesome. So brave and clever, always getting to the bottom of what's going on no matter how crazy his theories sound to everyone else. He doesn't even have to be doing anything special. I could spend a whole episode just watching him be troubled and brooding over stuff. I would still be completely entertained.
By the time the episode ended, I was pretty fed up with Don. Whenever Mulder wasn't on the screen, I'd been barely able to concentrate on the episode because I just kept wondering where the heck Don had gone. Now the credits were rolling, and I barely understood what I'd just seen. I thought about starting the episode over and watching it again, but instead I got up to find Don and give him a piece of my mind.
I checked his room first. That's where I figured he would be, but it was empty. That seemed pretty weird, because earlier he had definitely implied he would be stuck in there for some time doing science. He'd said he would try to get finished in time for X-Files, but that had been a lie. So where in the world could he be? I checked the dojo and the kitchen next, but I couldn't find him anywhere.
Weird possibilities began to jump into my brain, like maybe Don had been abducted or accidentally turned himself into a crazy monster with experiments gone wrong. I don't know where these ideas kept coming from, but they wouldn't go away no matter how hard I tried to think rationally.
Then, just when I had worked myself up and started to despair that maybe we would never see him again, I ran into Don. Literally! We nearly knocked each other over. "Where are you going in such a hurry?" I demanded. "Where have you been, for that matter? I got really worried after you missed X-Files. I searched every room in the lair and you weren't anyplace I looked!"
"Leo! Sorry, did I miss it?" Donatello frowned, which struck me as laughable. He learned how to tell time before any of us. "That's why I was hurrying."
Then he went on to say that we must have just missed each other, insisting that he didn't leave the lair at all. Yeah, right! I decided that I didn't care anymore if Don didn't show up for X-Files. I didn't want to watch TV with somebody who was being sneaky and telling lies. I narrowed my eyes at him, and then turned and stomped back to my room to think.
I tried to put Don out of my head after that, but over the next week it became more and more obvious that something weird was going on with my brother. He didn't want to talk about his latest experiments, which was super weird. I began covert surveillance, but he was too clever and would elude me no matter how closely I tried to keep tabs on him. I even snuck into his room and put a teeny tiny piece of string on that science book he usually carries around with him. He hadn't been carrying it lately, in spite of science being his excuse for being distant. Two days later, the piece of thread was still where I had left it. This proved the book had not been open or moved in days, which was not just super weird. It was UNHEARD OF.
This was it, the best proof I had uncovered so far. What he was working on must be BAD EXPERIMENTS! Too awful to record in his book! He knew better than to leave any evidence!
My imagination started to torment me. What if Don wasn't even in control of whatever was going on? Maybe some evil probe or scary serum was compelling him to lie and disappear and do bad experiments in total secret. Because if Don himself were doing the experiments, they would be done carefully and responsibly and he would be proud of them! He would NOT be neglecting his log book or his sacred duty to uphold the Scientific Method, which was a pretty big deal apparently, like Bushido for super nerds.
I decided to take drastic measures. I would do something I had sworn not to do: I would sneak into his room again and read the latest entries in Donnie's science log book. Even if he wasn't writing in it anymore, maybe reading the last entries he made would help me to understand why he stopped. I told myself that a logbook for science was nothing at all like a diary. I wouldn't be able to spy on it if it were a diary or a journal or even if it said KEEP OUT on the cover, because that would be an act of true evil and a betrayal. Nobody should have to go through that pain and suffering, not even for the greater good. But Donnie's book didn't say any of those things, and anyway I was only doing it because I loved him and I was worried.
Feeling sick and conflicted anyway, I picked up his book that had 'Failed & Successful Experiments' handwritten on the cover. The book was pristine, logically ordered, dutifully dated, and clearly well loved. I flipped through the pages, flipped through what must be YEARS worth of entries, still looking for the end of them.
Then I stopped and stared. The entries ended abruptly… and after that, it was plain to see that a big section of pages had been violently removed from Don's precious book. My skin got cold and pebbly with fear as I fingered the jagged evidence of torn out pages.
I slammed the book shut and fled Don's room, more convinced than ever. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong indeed.
The Truth was out there. But I was not getting any closer to finding it because Don was so damned smart. Plus, nobody was going to buy it if I tattled on Don for being a big sneaky liar because he's never been that way before! I wasn't ready to explain to Master Splinter any of my theories about evil probes or government engineered serums. I was afraid sensei might suggest I was watching too much X-FIles lately.
Which, okay. I've been watching it a LOT. Sometimes even sneaking out of my room late at night and firing up the VHS to watch reruns of past episodes. It was educational though. I was pouring over Mulder's methods relentlessly and seeking new inspiration for what might really be going on with Don.
Sometimes I would try to do as I was told and go to sleep, but then I still wouldn't be able to get there. I would lie awake and stare at my ceiling, my mind filled with dark possibilities.
Unfortunately my performance in the dojo began to suffer because of this. Splinter caught me off guard, demanded to know why my form was so much poorer than last week. I was appalled at myself for lying to him. I just blurted out an excuse, a completely fake one, being a sneaky liar just like Donatello for no better reason than to cover my tracks. It was completely unacceptable. I vowed to myself that from now on I would be a better student and a better son.
Awesome as he was, I began to doubt that Fox Mulder was the key to solving the mystery of what was going on with Don. Fox Mulder was able to solve many incredibly hard cases, but he rarely did it alone. There was something else I needed, I realized. I needed a Sculley.
My first thought was to recruit Raphael. He is not just strong but stubborn and skeptical. He is also pretty brave. So long as Don's Bad Experiments didn't involve bugs, I figured Raph would be perfect.
Unfortunately, he turned out to be a little TOO skeptical. Worse yet, he was not at all concerned about ripped pages in books. When I tried to explain what I had learned, he grabbed the nearest book and began ripping out pages right before my eyes. "Ooooo, aliens have taken control of my braaaain!" he crooned. "Better hurry! Soon there'll be no more pages left to tear out, and I can take over the world!"
At this point I had no choice but to wrestle the book away from him. I waited for him to wander off, then hurried to find the tape. Because the sad thing was, I LOVED this stupid book, even if I didn't really want Raph to know that. I stayed mad at him for the rest of the day, and not just because he had ruined one of my favorite books. As he was leaving, he'd rolled his eyes and said that I was way too in love with the X-Files. I knew then that I needed to make a new plan, because Raph was a terrible stand-in for Sculley, and a terrible person, and obviously no help at all.
Unfortunately, that left Mikey as my only potential accomplice. There were good things and bad things about this. One bad thing was that Mikey was no longer even ALLOWED to watch X-Files, ever since a particularly gross episode gave him night terrors. Which, as far as I could understand it (in spite of Donnie's show off medical babble on the topic) is just a nightmare that makes you wake everybody up with really bad screaming. I couldn't help scoffing a bit at my younger brother's cowardice and talent for creating drama. Both seemed like pretty big checks in the bad agent column. On the plus side, at least Mikey wholeheartedly understood and respected the possibility of evil serums and alien probes.
Another worrisome thing about Mikey was that he loved to tease people and not take serious matters seriously, just like Raph. Sometimes way MORE than Raph, even if he tended to be less mean about it. I thought long and hard about it, and finally decided that the best approach was to not make it seem like what we were doing was serious in the first place. Mikey would not be enthusiastic about investigating a serious threat... especially not if the worst case scenario was fending off aliens by ourselves, and the best case scenario was being tattletales over what turned out to be nothing.
Mike wouldn't actually want to BE an agent, but he might enjoy playing a GAME about being agents. He would get to be nosy and spy to learn other people's secrets. It wasn't really a LIE, I decided. Just a good strategy…
And it was all a moot point, anyway. Mike was the only potential Sculley left for me to work with.
Excerpts from the Super Secret Case Notes of Agent Megamojo
As soon as Agent Ryan recruited me for this very important mission, I had my suspicions. I was mainly surprised because Agent Ryan has had a pretty big head lately and mostly thinks himself too GROWN UP for fun stuff like super secret pretend missions. It's pretty hard to get this guy to be adventurous and silly at all. I was pretty sure this 'game' of his was actually about That Show. Mostly because Agent Ryan is completely in love and obsessed with That Show, even if he's decided to pretend otherwise. But, whatever. This game is all about being ordinary, generic and nonspecific secret agents, which means we get to make up our own Secret Agent Names and use code words and play around with walkie-talkies, all of which sounds great. So I was thrilled to be recruited.
When he announced the subject of our case, it pretty much confirmed that Agent Ryan had ulterior motives for suddenly seeking me out as a partner. I wasn't one to discourage anyone from super secret pretend missions, even if we we were only playing because Don's been acting super weird and disappearing lately. Shell yeah, I've noticed! I thought I was the only one. Seriously, what IS up with these latest experiments? Normally I have to find reasons to escape from Donnie when he has that Let's Talk About My Experiments look in his eye. But when Donnie suddenly DOESN'T want to talk about them, well… that's pretty interesting. I realized that the whole thing might be some new evil genius effort on Don's part to use Reverse Psycho Therapies on me, but, oh well. It was too late because it was clearly working. Suddenly I wanted Donnie to talk to me about his experiments more than I ever have in my entire life!
Okay, so Agent Ryan thinks we ought to spy on Donnie, and continues to play up the fact that we are totally playing, haha! This is a fun game about us being agents, isn't it, Leo? Let me tell ya, it's kind of hilarious to watch his desperate efforts to act like a fun guy who is just having so much fun right now. Yep, he just suddenly rediscovered his love of playing games with me - games where we PLAY PRETEND, no less! Those games are sooo good. Why, yes, Mike - I do think Agent Megamojo is a great name, and will address you as such repeatedly over open comms, because, well, that's protocol.
He needed my help, it was obvious. And this meant I had leverage. Agent Ryan was happy to give me the role of senior agent. He also agreed that Agents must always wear dark sunglasses if they expect to be taken seriously as secret agents.
It was a little awkward at the kitchen table when Donnie sits down to eat lunch and just winds up staring at the two of us. "Okay, I'll bite. What's with the glasses?" he wants to know. "Fashion statement, or did the two of you catch pink eye?"
"It's part of a game-" Leo starts to explain.
At the same time, I blurt out cheerfully, "Sunglasses are AWESOME!"
This case is going to be SO much fun.
It was a pain in the butt to keep all of Mikey's gross and ridiculous code words straight. But I grit my teeth and referred to my standard issue notepad regularly, determined to regurgitate them perfectly. Because at the end of the day, our combined efforts WERE more effective. We could cover more exits, and Mike was surprisingly CHOCK FULL of great new surveillance tactics. We were a good team, even if Mike was a brat and I was fun-impaired by nature. These things that divided us mean less as we got caught up in the thrill and excitement of real life secret escape hatches and the urgency of a trail gone cold. It only took us a couple days of having oh so much whimsical fun together before we learned the method Don was using to leave the lair, even if we were immediately foiled by the brilliant trap he laid to prevent the possibility of being followed.
I was so impressed with Mike on the second day. We were crawling through the ventilation shaft (the right one, this time) and after we emerged from it, we accidentally crossed a tripwire that sent a huge manhole cover dropping down on us from somewhere above! It was probably meant to be a noisemaker, which would have alerted Don and let him get away again. So Mike bravely dove onto his plastron and managed to catch the manhole cover with both hands and with his FACE! I couldn't believe it. It hurt both his hands and smashed his beak pretty bad, but he didn't make a sound! Unfortunately I was so upset by seeing him get hurt, and so mad at Don for setting dangerous traps to begin with, and wound up making too much noise fussing over Mikey. So Don got away anyway.
I thought Mike would quit after that, but he was such a trooper! He said it was almost like a D&D dungeon now, except instead of being armed with swords we just had sunglasses. It was like pretend games on hard mode, Mike told me, which meant he was totally in! I was genuinely grateful. So grateful that I didn't bother pointing out that I did, in fact, have two swords strapped to my back as well as the sunglasses. I was pretty sure this was still Hard Mode we were playing, regardless.
The next day we got around Don's first trap and were on high alert for another one. Then we both nearly wet ourselves at something we both initially THOUGHT was a trap, but really it just turned out to be a sewer rat scurrying across the tunnel in front of us. Mike immediately launched into speculation that our subject has gone to the extreme effort of training guard rats to foil us, talking like he actually believes it, probably just to spare my pride. I couldn't bring myself to correct him. It was so embarrassing to have cried out in surprise. Mike's outcry was worse, of course, though not a full Typical Girlyscream. Quiet by his standards, but was it quiet enough? Could Don have heard?
There was no way to know. After some worried hesitation on my part, we decide to press on.
What finally stops us is not a trap. It is… a noise.
And brave as he has proven himself to be up until this point, Mikey couldn't handle it. He went very still and wouldn't respond to my urgent hand signs, eyes wide in the gloom of the tunnel and the automated pump control room we were closing in on. There was a lot of other noise, the thrum of machines and nearby rushing water. I hissed my little brother's name, his actual one, and made a bunch of lets-get-moving head jerks. Finally I roll my eyes and change tactics. Coming closer, I take him by the shoulders and lean in close to insist, "Agent Megamojo, we are closing in on the target! Please respond with your orders, over!"
Mike made a face at me and finally said, "You don't gotta say over, except if we're using the walkie talkies, Leo..."
"If we're worried about protocol at this point, then I must insist that you address me as Agent Ryan!"
Mikey looked me in the eye, dead serious. Then he quietly ordered, "Agent Ryan, abort mission."
My face fell at these words. I look down, then up again, and managed to summon a grin. It was a really lame one, full of pleading. "Listen to me. I don't know what that sound means. I don't know what's happening, but it's happening to Donatello." My hands on Mike's shoulders squeeze hard as I look into eyes. "The target, our brother! And we have come so far. We can't just back down from the mission before we even know what's going on. We have to understand-!"
Mike frees himself with a violent shake and gives me a shove. "Whatever is going on in there?" He stabs his walkie talkie toward the pump room and declares, "The target seems to like it just fine." He shoves the device into my hands, then tears off the sunglasses and tosses them onto the concrete between us. "Sorry, dude. This game's no fun anymore. I'm out."
Then Mikey turns to leave.
I wanted very badly to come clean in that moment: tell Mike that this wasn't a game after all, and it never was. I very nearly erupted with completely honest, completely weak and pathetic, knee-jerk responses. First I nearly shouted, "Coward!", and then something equally awful like 'Please wait. I need you', or 'You turned out to be the best Sculley after all.'
Impossible. So… what? If I couldn't say that, then maybe… "The thing is, Mikey, how do we know for sure that's him? Does that really sound like Don to you?"
But Mike would probably just insist that it did.
Restate the threat in a way that makes sense. Reiterate the impact. "I don't know if it's him or some demon that has got ahold of him, or some alien, but the WHAT doesn't really matter. Whatever he's doing is CONTROLLING him, making him act different and lie." Surely that would work.
Success, proceed. But if it failed? It couldn't possibly. But if it did...
I followed the line that shot like an arrow from that failure to the next best counter, but this is where the chart in my mind began to scatter and fall apart. I kept coming up with options that were more immediate failures, more impossible words. "I don't know what it is, or if I'm even right!" "I'm scared, I've been so scared for weeks," "I know how crazy I sound. Believe me, I know! But you are the best believer of crazy things that I have ever seen…"
That last one was very likely to work. If I could only make myself say it.
There was still one possible failure. Mike could easily trump all my worst fears by suggesting that I had been watching too much of That Show.
That was where the chart bottomed out, because if Mike said that to me right now I would definitely drop to my knees and start to cry.
The chart was a blur by now anyway. I was fast, but not fast enough. I said nothing. By now, Mike was long gone.
I was doubled over and was furiously wiping at my contorted face when I realized that the horrible sound was gone. I knew without turning to look that Donatello was standing behind me, gazing down at me. "Leo! You infuriating butthead, what are you doing here?"
I had been terrified to turn around, but on the other hand, it's hard to stay scared at a demonic alien invader who uses insults like 'infuriating butthead'. That really did sound a lot more like something the real Donnie would say.
And all it takes is one look before Don is on his knees beside me, saying, "Oh my God, are you crying? Leo, why are you so upset? Tell me what's the matter!" Well, that was proof positive. I was wrong after all. Probably wrong about everything. I must have been crazy after all, or at least I was the best believer of crazy things. The turtle who was now hugging me and pleading for an explanation was definitely the real Donatello.
It was a while before I could answer. Once I could speak, the only explanation I could come up with was: "Me and Mikey, we... we had a fight."
Donatello frowned and immediately asked if either of us was hurt.
I was hurt. I was still hurting, but it wasn't the kind of hurt that Donnie meant.
Donnie was relieved to hear it, but also less consoling and more suspicious as he went on to deduce, "So before that, the two of you decided to come all the way out here. Together. You just thought to yourselves, this looks like a great place to shout at each other. And the fact that I like to come to this place lately has nothing to do with it."
There it was. The challenge was clear. I rose to my feet and squared off with my brother, raised my chin, and stated, "We know you've been sneaking out of the lair without permission and keeping secrets from us."
Donnie threw up his hands and spat, "So you two creeps HAVE been spying on me. I knew it! I couldn't find any proof, but I knew!"
But before I could demand to know more about the secret experiments, Don had turned bright red and was hiding his face in his hands. It took me several shocked beats to realize that it was not just to hide his shame. He was laughing. "Just... just tell me how much you heard, or... saw? You didn't see anything, right? O Great spaghetti monsters who art in Pasta Heaven. Please tell me that MIKEY, at least, didn't see anything."
"Mike couldn't handle hearing that sound you were making. That's why he chickened out and had to leave. Nobody SAW anything."
"Uh-huh." A speculative smirk ticks the corner of Don's mouth, and he is back to deducing. "So you came here and heard something that you didn't understand, a sound that made you both uncomfortable."
I normally appreciate Don's remarkable ability to accurately deduce things. Not so much when the skill is being used against ME. I can find nothing to say as Don goes on, relentless.
"And apparently it was a sound that neither of you could identify. Because otherwise Mike would be the one who stayed, so very eager to make fun of me. YOU would be the turtle who ran away - or at least, you would come at me now with a VERY different line of questioning."
I was starting to get truly pissed off by the know-it-all smugness that was lurking in my brother's tone. I hated being made to feel young, or clueless, or ill-prepared, and Don was accomplishing all of this without actually telling me a thing. It was beyond infuriating, and I felt my hands become fists. I managed to keep myself in check, but it was quite a struggle. "Donatello, I have no idea what you are trying to tell me right now. What you said must have either been useless or just so very smart that your meaning flew right over my head. Kindly try again," I requested through gritted teeth, "and speak slower, for those of us less gifted."
This badass retort was concluded with a stiff and sarcastically formal bow. For half a second I was pretty proud of myself. Donnie's eyes began to twinkle and he flashed a self-depreciating smirk to acknowledge that he, too, was impressed. "Touche. My bad! I will always respect you for being the Other Smart One in this band of turtle brothers, and nothing about tonight's revelations can change that."
That was a little bit better, but I still felt compelled to gripe, "Revelations? Have there been some already? Because I feel like I'm still waiting."
"All right! I swear, I am trying!" Don's palms flashed up as if to beg for mercy. "This isn't the easiest thing to just... start lecturing about, especially to someone like you. Not that there is anything wrong with you! Nonono." Don put his hands up again quickly as he saw my eyes begin to widen. "I think it's just that we were raised as brothers, and that makes it hard. What I have been coming here to do, it is just not something normally done... together. Well, I mean, wait. That's not entirely accurate, because of course two people - two preferably non-related people - could certainly-that's actually the norm? So..." Don stopped to cringe and rub at his face before mumbling, "Can I start over? That probably wasn't very, uh... I should definitely start over."
"No," I decided, making a slash with one hand. "You may not. That has got to be the worst explanation I ever heard out of you. That was a barely coherent hot mess."
"I told you, it isn't so easy! What do you expect me to say?"
"Maybe you won't have to explain anything. Let's just go in there, and you can show me-"
"SHOW you?" Don echoed immediately. His eyes were now huge and incredulous. "You cannot mean that."
"Yes, I do! I really do, especially if the only other option is to stand out here all night watching you blush and babble."
Don's gestures and tone became sharp with anger and embarrassment. "Just... whip it out and show you? Right here, just like that? Leo, are you insane?"
"Not yet, but I am getting there so quickly, Don. If you keep up this stalling, I swear to you..."
"Wow. You know, I am really almost tempted. It would certainly be the faster route out of this nightmare, but..." Donnie thought about it for a moment and then immediately cringed, retracting his willingness. "Nope! No way. I am not about to be responsible for psychological damage to one or both of us."
Without another word, he lead me to his secret pumping station to reveal what was inside.
I was immediately suspicious. "Where is this secret experiment you have been working on? There's nothing here!"
"Correction. There is very little in here. There is a small tablet turned off but charging, sitting on that ledge right there. It's a device which someone thought was broken. It has no sim card but was still able to get working. It has no built in privacy controls and Splinter doesn't even know it exists. Also, there is a very faint wifi signal coming from the hotel just above this place. I looked up the phone number of the hotel, and... well, it totally worked. Now it's pre-programmed to connect automatically. More importantly, there is privacy and enough noise to cover awkward sounds. And then there's you, and there is me, except I am leaving. You are REALLY the only necessary tool you need to learn what you want to know. And if all I have said still doesn't give you all the clues you need, there is ONE more thing in here which can surely guide you."
As Don was talking, I had already been scrutinizing the sparse contents of the pump control room, my gaze having lighted upon a small stack of pages which had been torn from a certain notebook.
"You already know what that is, don't you?" Don sighs as I pick up the papers and look over the first page.
"I've never seen this before," I admit with distraction, already starting to read. "But you must have tore it out of that book you always used to be scribbling in..."
"I must have torn it out, yes. Gotta watch that verb tense if you want to be taken seriously as a secret agent."
But I didn't particularly care about using proper verb tense right now, or even that Don had mocked me. I was reading notes that mention findings under a microscope and a possible unknown infestation and all of this is sounding straight out of X-Files so far. I look up from reading to widen my eyes at Don. "But what does all this mean? If it's so harmless, why would you feel the need to tear it out of your book? Why would you hide and lie to us about it? That actually worries me more than biological threats showing up in the lair."
Don makes a face and waves a hand at the rejected pages. "Just... keep on reading, Padawan. Skim the first half if you want, and try following the steps outlined on some of the later procedures. The ones marked "Successful'. There should be, ahh... several procedural variants to choose from. More than several. Y'know, options. Which, ah, worked for me." He looked at me suddenly and widened his eyes. "Oh, geez, and don't feel like you have to do any of the last steps, the data recording stuff! You don't have to pick a rating for your reaction or measure the volume of, err…don't measure things.. Don't write things down. Just, don't." Don has turned bright red again. "Also, don't judge me. I am trusting you to be honorable about this, so please don't judge me. And for the love of Darwin's finches, do NOT tell the others. In fact, do me a favor and burn those pages when you are done. We can both pretend they never existed. That would be swell. You have fun, now. I'm gonna go."
Then he left. And I stayed.
I was quick to grasp exactly what Don had learned, but struggling to replicate the steps. I followed his methods to the letter and even tried several of the "variant procedures". But in spite of all the variety and all the video links he left behind (some of which were PERFECTLY HORRIFYING), the material Don gathered just… wasn't quite doing it for me. None of my own first attempts were successful, not even close.
It's hard - so very awful to go back to Don admit this, but I do! Donatello just snickers and declines to provide any further direct assistance. All he will say is the following tip: "Go back. Try again. Ignore my links this time. Just navigate back to the homepage of those sites and from there find material that works for you. When it starts to feel weird? Even... scary weird? Keep going, because you're on to something. Good luck, Godspeed, and get out of my room please."
Eventually success does come, but not while I was in Don's dank and noisy little hideout. It finally happens - late at night, alone on the couch, as I am watching reruns of the X-Files.
Don comes running as soon as he hears the sound, throws a pillow at me, and demands that I stifle myself before I wake the whole house.
I was humiliated, of course, but Donatello was pretty cool about it. He even seemed to approve of my chosen material, commenting, "Sculley, huh? Oh, yeah! Definitely. She's a total fox!"
Speechless and completely mortified, I could not find the courage to correct him.
