Chapter 6- Not An Ordinary Bluenotes

April had just finished telling the Turtles' "origin story" and I felt like an idiot, frozen with my jaw dropped and my icy-blue eyes left in wonder. April finished off her diet coke with a slurp and said, laughing at my facial expression, "Pretty neat story, huh?"

"Yeah, it is! I mean, it went from orphans, to ninja training, from ninja training to romance, from romance to jealousy, from jealousy to vengeance, and from vengeance to mutation! I mean…. it sounds like a story from the children's section at the library! I can't believe that's all real! It's just so… wow!"

"I know right! Master Splinter named the turtles after the four renaissance painters that he saw in a book in the sewer. Leonardo is the leader of the four, Donatello is the mastermind behind the team, Raphael is the muscle and attitude of the group, and Michelangelo is the humor that keeps them all from being so tense all the time."

All I could do was lean back in my chair and let these thoughts deprive me of words. It was so amazing how everything and everyone in the story all had such big roles, and if you took any one of them away, all of their futures would be different. April threw her empty cup on her tray, stood up, and picked up her tray. "Wanna hit some stores now?"

"Yeah", I said, still half lost in my thoughts. I looked down and realized that I had only taken three bites out of my poutine. I shoved three fork-fulls of fries into my mouth and stood up, picking up my tray and throwing my purse strap over my shoulder. I speed-walked over to April, who was throwing away her trash at a garbage bin. I threw the remains of my poutine away and grabbed my iced-tea before it could land in the trash can; I only had one little sip and I figured I should get my money's worth and drink it as we walked.

We went to several stores: Bath and Body Works, Garage, Hollister, Banana Republic, Reitman's, Suzy Shier, Aeropostale, Old Navy, JCPenny, and last but not least, Bluenotes. We both hardly had any money left, and we both already had several bags. But we decided to go in anyways, since Bluenotes occasionally has racks of clothes which are three to five dollars each.

We made our way to the back, where the sale racks were, and found three sale racks! We excitedly searched the racks and each found about four items. Two of which, I needed to try on. I told April I would be in a change room, and she nodded, saying she would be outside looking at clothes.

I looked around to try and find someone that worked there to open a change room for me. A man in all black startled me from behind and said with a deep, baritone voice, "Can I help you?" I spun around on the balls of my heels quickly to see who it was. He had a sticker name tag that said "Hello, my name is Joey". But above the name 'Joey', there was the name 'Jonny' that had been crossed out.

Well, that's suspicious.

"Uh… yeah. I would like to use a change room to try on a couple of things." He grinned, almost devilishly and escorted me to the change rooms. He opened one up and drew a number 2 on the door with a black, permanent marker.

Okay, then...

Something felt really off about him. Once I went in and closed and locked the door, I put on the pants and shirt and did the math to see how much it would cost.

Let's see… the total would come to… $6.50. Not bad. I'll ask April what she thinks.

I stepped out of the change room to find the store screen doors closed and locked. I looked around and saw April fighting the "employee" with a metal fan. She was good, and fast. I got down so that neither of them would see me and crawled over to April's bags and purse. I grabbed them and crawled back to the change room I was in. I dropped the bags on the floor and dug in my purse to find the Shell Cell that Donnie gave me. I turned it on, and managed to retrieve the memory of Donnie teaching me how to make phone calls on this thing. I pushed the blue button and pushed the phone icon. I put the phone to my ear and waited for Leo to pick up.

"Hey Ash! How's you're shoppi-","Leo", I interrupted him, beginning to panic a bit. "I'm in the change room in Bluenotes right now. April's out in the store fighting the employee with a metal fan. Neither of them know I'm still in here and I don't know what to do!"

"Alright, Ashley, just calm down. I want you to take slow, deep breaths and relax." I began to calm myself down, following Leo's instructions to a "t".

"Now, I want you to give me a verbal layout of the store. Do your best to tell me exactly where everything is."

"OK. Well, the change room I'm in is exactly in the back middle of the store. There are racks going up the walls on both sides and the cash register is smack in the middle of the store."

"Okay, good. This shouldn't be too hard. I imagine you wouldn't want to lose your bags, so here's what your gonna do. Take the biggest back you have, and put all of your other bags in the biggest one. Do you

know where April's bags are?"

"I have them in the change room with me."

"Okay, so do the same with April's bags."

"Okay, done. I put our purses in the bags too. What now."

"Good. Okay, now I want you to slowly crawl out of the change room and make your way to the door"

"But they closed and locked the screen door."

"Hmmm… Oh! Get to the door and I'll tell you what to do from there. Just stay on the phone and walk me through what's happening."

"Okay. I'm crawling out now. I'm going toward the cash register…. Okay, now I'm ripping the tags off the shirt and pants I never paid for and putting the tags and money for the clothes I'm wearing in the desk drawer. Now I'm crawling towards the exit, almost there. Okay, I'm at the screen door. What now?"

"Do you feel a switch on the side of the phone?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, hold the top end of the phone away from yourself and push the switch in, and then up, still pushing it down." I held the top end of the phone away from me and flicked the switch. A dagger then popped out of the top of the phone. Realizing what he was going to say next, I carefully cut through the screen a hole big enough to crawl through and threw the bags through, and then crawled out. As I crawled out, a piece of cut metal sticking out pierced deeply into my right arm. I hissed in pain, but managed to ignore it for the time being, knowing there was more important matters at hand. Still crouching, I retracted the dagger back into the phone and said to Leo, "Okay, I'm out."

"Nice work. You did really well. Now, carefully look in and call for April, tell her 'I have our bags, let's go'"

So, I cautiously stuck my head in to see April finishing off the "employee". I did exactly what Leo told me. I yelled, "APRIL! I HAVE OUR BAGS, LET'S GO!" She gave a finishing spin kick to his stomach and ran towards the hole in the screen.

"Okay Leo, what now", I asked into the phone. "You did really well. Now give the phone to April and I'll tell her where you guys can meet us." As soon as April got out, I handed her the phone and simply said, "Leo."

She took the phone and said, "Leo, what do we do now?" she listened to what he was saying, nodded a couple of times and began running down the hallway that eventually leaded to the east parking lot. I grabbed the bags and we both ran as fast as we could until we got outside. The nice, spring evening was hard to enjoy as I was losing a lot of blood fast.

We ran to a two-way alley and found a graffiti-covered subway car on wheels. "Get in!" April yelled back to me. My sight began to get fuzzy as I ran to the door of the subway car. April got in first, helped by Leo. He immediately saw my arm and jumped out of the car to help me. He literally swept me off my feet, holding me bridal style, in his strong arms. Seeing me becoming woozy, he laid me down gently on the cold, hard, floor of the subway car, as I slowly closed my eyes, unable to fight the darkness taking over.