The next day me, Donnie, Cathie, and Raph were sitting in the "living room" when an overjoyed April came squealing into the room. Casey was right behind her but he looked more annoyed then excited.
"Cathie! Mon! Guess what!" she commanded. I paused my episode of Space Heroes and Cathie looked up from an equation which she was solving. "We are having a school dance tonight and the cutest guy in school asked me to go with him!"
Donnie had been sitting on the "couch" working on a turtle pod but now he stiffly fell to the floor. Raph just glanced from his magazine to his brother. Casey sat between the brothers. "Exactly my reaction," he clarified, crossing his arms.
We girls were too busy in our excitement to notice Donnie. Just as April squealed again, Beth entered with a pizza slice in hand. "What are we squealing about?"
Cathie was the one to reply. "Carter Wesly asked April to a dance."
"Is he hot?" Beth asked while she sat on the floor in front of the "couch". Donnie was still on the ground and Beth gave him a questioning look.
"The hottest in school," April replied. At this Casey threw his arms up and Donnie let out a groan.
"I'm sitting right here!" Casey emphasized the 'right here' part.
"Sweet," Beth took a bite of her pizza.
"I am very nervous so I was hoping that all four of you girls could come to my place and help me get ready. It starts in two hours," April said. She looked at me knowing that I was the one to ask.
"Sure," I gave in. "If Master Splinter says we can."
"I'll go ask," Cathie offered before running into the dojo to find the Sensei.
"April, you do realize that we have like no fashion sense at all," Beth reminded while taking a magazine that Raph handed her.
April rolled her eyes. "Your opinion still matters."
Donnie sat back on the "couch" and Casey started mumbling. "Stupid dance."
"Who are you going with?" I asked, looking at him.
"No one," he replied. "I think every girl should get the chance to dance the Casey Jones."
Cathie came back with Leo. "He said we can but we have to be back by supper."
I nodded. "I'll find Izzy." I turned the TV off and walked into the kitchen. This was always the first place to look for the pranksters. "Izzy," I called as I stepped inside the door. The sight before me gave me a shock.
Flour, eggs, milk, and frosting were splattered all over the kitchen. There was a mixing bowel sitting on the counter with vanilla batter in it. Mikey and Izzy were no cleaner then the room and when I walked in, they were just putting a peperoni pizza into the blender.
"What are y'all doing?" I asked in disbelief. "Beth was just in here a minute ago. How did you get it so messy in here?"
"We got the best idea for a cake for Casey's birthday in two days. This is a testing faze," Izzy explained while Mikey tried to stuff the large pizza into the small blender. "Cooking is messy."
"Usually not this much," I replied. "Izzy, April wants us to come over and help her get ready for a dance."
Izzy started jumping up and down. "Fun!" She turned to Mikey. "Can you finish this without me?"
"No problem," the young brother was now jamming the lid on the blender. "Just be back by supper so you can taste it."
"Okay," Izzy grabbed a near by towel and whipped all the mess off of her. She and I went back to the "living room" then left with April, Cathie, and Beth.
"Are you sure that your Dad isn't home?" Cathie asked as April took the lead.
"He knows about the turtles," she replied. All four of us turtles were shocked. And April spent the rest of the way there explaining.
Meanwhile...
"Hey Leo," Raph started, not looking up from his magazine. "Are you ever gonna tell Mon about Karai?"
"What do you mean?" Leo asked as he put another Space Heroes in. "She knows about Karai. She even said that they were really good friends."
"And that would make it all the more interesting if you would tell her," Casey put his hands behind his head and leaned back.
"Tell her what?" The blue-clad turtle was confused.
Donnie poked the pod with a tweasers and a spark flew into the air. "The spark between you and Karai."
"There was no 'spark' between me and Karai," Leo defended and Space Heroes theme song started playing. "I just wanted her to know who her real father was."
"And I'll believe that when Casey wears a dress," Raph huffed. He set his magazine aside. "Mon is way better suited for you then Karai."
Leo started turning red, partially blushing and partially angry. "Okay first off there was nothing between me and Karai," he lied. "And second, there is nothing between me and Mona Lisa!"
"Hey," Raph put his hands up in surrender. "I'm just doing what a brother does."
"Play match-maker?" Leo asked sarcastically. He turned his attention back to the show.
"No," Raph simply put. He was about to say more when they heard a loud crash come from the kitchen. Leo, Raph, Donnie, and Casey ran in to see the mess that Mon had seen before with blended pizza added into the mix. Mikey just smiled cheesily.
Later...
Me and my sisters were sitting in April's room waiting for her to get done changing. Izzy and Cathie were looking threw her sketch book, Beth was playing with a large, funny-looking squishy ball, and I was looking at all the books on her bookshelf.
"Wow," Izzy said. She and Cathie had gotten permission to look at the sketches and were now at the last five pages. "Is that...?"
She didn't finish her sentence which caused Beth and I to become curious. We walked over to the bed where they were sitting and looked over their shoulders. The first thing that I noticed about the picture was how accurately it was drawn. I then noticed who it was. Donnie. Cathie flipped to the next page and saw Casey. The next two pages were pictures of Mikey and Raph but the fifth page was what shocked us. The was a picture of Leo and Karai. The girl was holding a opened box in one hand while she tightly hugged Leo, who was blushing.
April chose that time to walk out of her bathroom. "I am not sure what necklace I should wear," she stopped as she noticed all of us staring at her book. "My drawings aren't that good."
Cathie just turned the art towards her. The humans eyes got huge. "I forgot that was in there."
"Okay," Izzy started. "Either you have an extreme imagination or there is something that Karai never told us."
April knew that there was no more pictures in the book so she thought it would be useless to take it away from us. She sighed. "It's not my place to tell you."
After sitting in silence for a minute, Cathie closed the book and set it on the nightstand. "I think you should go with the baby blue cross."
April piped up and opened a jewelry box. She pulled out a necklace with a blue cross charm hanging off it. She put it on and looked in the mirror. Her hair was up in a messy bun and and she was wearing a light yellow dress that reached just past her knees.
"Oh! One more thing," Izzy walked over to April's open closet door and pulled a belt of the hook. She brought it over to April.
"That's perfect!" she exclaimed taking the accessory from Izzy. "It matches the necklace spot on. And Beth claims that y'all don't have fashion sense."
"April!" her dad called from the other room. "Carter Wesly is here to pick you up!"
April squealed one more time. She had her handle on the doorknob when Cathie spoke up. "Would you mind if I borrowed a book?"
"Of course not! Take whichever one you want," April replied as she stepped outside her bedroom. "Close the window on your way out." She said right before the door closed behind her.
Cathie grabbed the sketch book from the nightstand. We gave her questioning looks. "What? She said take whichever one I want. I just want to observe some of her work."
I knew that it was no use arguing. I looked at the clock. "It's almost six thirty. We had better go."
The walk back to the layer was silent for the most part. We rushed into the "living room" and saw that everyone was just sitting down to eat. Master Splinter grabbed his box of pizza, nodded to us, then went into his room to eat.
We walked forward to collect our share. "That was cuttin it a little close. Don't ya think?" Raph asked. He tossed a box to Beth.
"We left as soon as April did," she replied as she sat on the "couch". "Speaking of which, did Casey already leave?"
As if on cue, he walked out of the bathroom in a tux. "Well there's something that I never thought I would see," Cathie commented. "Casey in a tux." At that moment she remembered the book in her hands. She quickly stood and ran to put it in her makeshift room.
They had decided that the sleeping situation was not exactly convenient so they cleaned out the spare room for Mon and Izzy. Beth got her own room which was also a spare room. But in the other two rooms the walls needed to be mended before anyone could sleep in them. Beth's room only had a single twin sized bed at the moment so Cathie decided to sleep in a supply room.
Casey left for the dance and the rest of us finished supper. We did some more training, went on patrol, and were now doing random stuff. Leo and I were in the dojo practicing some fighting techniques that Master Splinter had just taught us.
Leo swung a katana at me. I ducked and it hit a vase. The impact caused the vase to shatter into pieces on the floor. "Oops," Leo commented as we both looked at the mess. "I'll get the broom and dust pan."
He ran off and I picked up a large piece. Master Splinter's voice sounded behind me. "Mona Lisa. Explain."
"We were just practicing and the vase got hit," I replied. "Leo went to get the broom."
Master Splinter nodded in understanding and disappeared into his room. At that point Leo returned with the dust pan and broom. He looked shocked and confused. "Mon, does Cathie draw?" He asked while sweeping.
I froze, knowing that he had seen the book. "No. Why?" I asked trying to sound as normal as possible.
"There was a sketch book in the closet," he continued as he finished sweeping the broken vase into the dust pan that I was holding.
"Well none of us draw," I informed. "You could always ask Cathie where it came from."
The rest of the night Leo was acting a little distracted. All eight of us went to bed at the same time. When Leo passed the open door of Cathie's "room" he looked inside. I was standing close by and saw him take one last look then go into his room and close the door.
Cathie came up from the opposite direction as Leo. She stepped inside her room. I quickly slid in before she could close the door. "Leo saw the book," I stated bluntly. "He wouldn't go snooping so the book must've been open."
Both of us looked to the nightstand and saw that it was indeed opened. What makes it worse is what it was open to. Of all the pictures in that book it was the one of Leo and Karai. Cathie looked back at me. "What are we going to do? April didn't even want us to see that. Imagine what she's going to do to me when she finds out Leo saw it because I borrowed the book!"
I tried to think on the positive side. "Calm down. Maybe Leo was just shocked at how good of a drawing it was. April might not mind."
"So it's April's book," Leo's voice came from behind us and that was when I remembered that the door was still open.
We turned to him. "Yes," Cathie replied. "She draws all of you guys." She picked up the book as Leo walked closer. She flipped a page back to show Raph holding Spike in the air like a baby. She went on to show the picture of Mikey making pizza, Casey playing hockey, and Donnie fixing a machine.
Leo studied the pictures of his brothers and Casey. "I see," he finally spoke. "Well good night girls." And with that he walked out and to his room.
"We're going to have a lot of explaining to do in the morning," I commented. We bid good night to each other then went to our own rooms. 'I should try drawing sometime,' I thought to myself as I crawled into bed. Izzy was already asleep and snoring like Rocksteady.
After training the next morning, Cathie decided that she would take the book back. Donnie needed to find some parts so he accompanied her to the surface. Mean while Raph, Beth, Leo, and I were drug into the kitchen by Mikey and Izzy.
"Now," Mikey began once we were all seated around the bar table. "You might be wondering why we have gathered you here today."
"Get on with it," Raph commanded. "I have stuff I need to do."
It was Izzy who spoke next. She and Mikey were standing with something behind their backs. "We have created the best cake ever." They pulled a half eaten red-ish cream colored cake from behind themselves. "We have already tested it but we need others opinions."
They set the cake in the middle of us and gave us each a fork. We looked at each other not really knowing if we should try it. "On three," Beth said. We all nodded and she counted. "One. Two. Three!"
All four of us stuck our forks into the cake, scooped some up, and put it in our mouths. We chewed for a bit. 'It's not half bad.' No sooner had I thought that then a disgusting taste hit my tongue. From the looks of the others, they were experiencing the taste too. All at the same time, Raph, Beth, Leo, and I ran to the sink and spit the cake out. We grabbed rags and started scrubbing our tongues. The taste was getting worse.
"What is in that?" Beth said in between wipes. "It's the worst thing that I have ever tasted!"
"It's just vanilla cake and cream cheese frosting," Mikey replied. He picked up the cake.
"Then why is it red?" Leo asked. He soaked his rag and began scrubbing again.
"We put pepperoni pizza in it," Izzy stated as she stuck her finger in the frosting before licking it.
We stopped scrubbing and looked at our youngest siblings. Beth growled and jumped at Izzy but Raph grabbed her shell and pulled her back. "And you let us eat it?!" I asked in disbelief. "How could pepperoni pizza be good in cake?"
"We thought it was good," Mikey stated simply. "You're just jealous because you didn't think of it first."
Raph started growling now and released Beth. Both the hot-heads flew at Izzy and Mikey. The two younger turtles started yelling and ran out of the kitchen followed closely by Raph and Beth. In his haste to get out, Mikey dropped the cake upside down on the floor.
I walked over, picked it up, and threw it in the trash can. Leo soaked a rag before getting on his knees and wiping up the mess. I picked the forks off the table and put them in the sink. "I'll tell April to pick up a cake at the bakery," I informed as I washed my hands.
Leo stood and brought the rag to the sink. "Good idea." He rinsed it and set it on the counter. At that moment Donnie and Cathie came in, looking over their shoulders.
We're gone for thirty minutes and this is what happenes," Cathie stated as she and Donnie looked at us. "What happened?"
"One word. Cake," I replied. I dried my hands on a towel before giving it to Leo so he could do the same. "How'd it go?"
"Great!" Donnie piped. He motioned to a bag that was thrown over his shoulder. "I got all the parts I need and Cathie returned the book."
"April was home?" Leo asked in shock. "It's 10:00 on a Monday. I thought she'd be in school."
"She was but her window was cracked open," Cathie informed. "Does she and Casey usually come over after school?"
Donnie was the one to answer. "Yep. Didn't y'all have any human friends?"
"Besides Karai, no," I replied. "Shredder didn't know everything about you guys. Including y'all having human friends."
"How did he figure this stuff out about us?" Leo asked. He hadn't really thought about it before.
"At every battle that he fought against you, he had one foot ninja take pictures and gather information," I explained. "Sometimes that ninja would get destroyed in the battle but he would just sent one in for the next battle."
"Donnie! Cathie!" We heard Raph and Beth call at the same time. Worry was edged in their voices.
