"I am glad we had this conversation, my sons," said Master Splinter, as he stood easily from seiza. "It has been a burden keeping my new pastime secret. Thank you for allowing me to enjoy it in the open." And he swept out of the room, leaving the four Turtles in stunned silence.

In short order, that silence was broken by the sound of the Shellraiser's door slamming, and then by the Shellraiser's engine revving even more than was strictly necessary for the hulking truck to get underway, and then by the Shellraiser's triple-walled tires squealing as Master Splinter peeled out of Donatello's lab-cum-garage.

"How did we not hear that before?" Raphael said faintly, and then silence descended again. Dust motes floated gently in the light that filtered through the branches, then were sent spinning and twisting by the backdraft from the Shellraiser's rapid departure.

That interim of silence lasted for a few moments, before Don rounded on his youngest brother with an expression of severe unhappiness. "Well, that went fantastically, Michelangelo."

"Why are you blaming me?" Mike said, almost before anyone had actually blamed him. "I told you guys not to say anything! You messed up my plan!"

"Really?" said Leo. "What exactly was the plan, Michelangelo?"

"Uh," said Mikey, who Leo increasingly suspected had never had a plan as any halfway-competent leader would have defined it. "We have a nice talk and everyone feels better?"

"This is why you don't get to make the plans," said Leo. "I make the plans. I'm the leader."

"Oh, blah, blah," said Raph. "What makes you think you would have done any better?"

"Yeah!" said Mike, taking that as a vote of support for his own performance. "I'm telling you, Leo, that was way harder than it looked." He threw his hands in the air, the pitch of his voice rising along with them. "He used all my best moves against me! I didn't know I had trained him so well!"

"Who'da thunk," said Raph.

"Wait," said Mike, his hands still hanging in the air. "I thought you were on my side."

"What sides?" said Raph, pushing to his feet. "I just can't believe he admitted to it at all. What an amateur."

"I can't believe he's doing it at all!" Leo said, trying to keep them all focused on the point.

"What if he isn't?" Don asked, causing three Turtles to look at him as if he had totally lost his mind. To the contrary, he was deep in thought, a hand propped under his chin. "I mean, wasn't. What if we just gave him the idea?"

"Well, Mikey is a bad influence like that," Raph allowed.

"I am not!" Mike said.

"Remember that time you convinced us all to eat a pizza topped with nothing but melted sugar?" Leo said, and didn't wait for a response. "Yeah. Not a good idea."

"Well, either way," said Don, abandoning his own musings, "I hope we all agree he's doing it now. So… what are we going to do about it?"

Leo pressed a fist into the opposite palm, his eyes narrowing. "Wait for him to get home."


One hour later…

Raph bounced a tennis ball off the blank stretch of Leo's wall to the right of the mass-produced scroll bearing the kanji for Patience, to the left of the cheaply-made scroll stamped with the kanji for Wisdom, and below the neatly crossed pair of bokken. He didn't say anything.

"Isn't this the part where you're supposed to say, 'Now I know how Master Splinter feels when I don't come home'?" Don suggested.

"Dunno," said Raph. "Do you really think he feels vaguely bored? 'Cuz that's how I feel right now."

"Come on, you guys," said Leo. He hated being forced to wait to deliver a lecture. He kept writing and rewriting it in his head. Which, on the upside, meant that it was going to be a great lecture. But on the downside, the world had to wait longer to hear it. "Get serious. How are we going to stop Master Splinter from joyriding in the Shellraiser?"

Mike flopped backwards onto Leo's bed, staring upside-down at the huge Space Heroes poster that had pride of place above the headboard. "Can't we put some parental controls on it?" he asked.

Don looked down at him - both literally and in condescension - from where he was leaning against Leo's neurotically tidy desk. "You know parental controls are controls set by parents," he said.

"What if we stopped putting more gas in it?" Leo suggested.

Don shook his head. "Gas isn't that hard to get. Master Splinter would be able to refill it himself."

Raph bounced the tennis ball again. "We could take the Shellraiser apart," he proposed.

"Well, it would work," Don conceded, "but it's kind of extreme. Does anyone have any better ideas?"

Leo rubbed his chin in thought. "We could hide the Shellraiser."

Don's brows lowered. "I said, does anyone have any better ideas?"

"What if," Mikey said, levering upright almost as if he was levitating, his outstretched hands leading the way, "every time Master Splinter goes out with the Shellraiser, we have a bangin' party right here, until he decides he has to stay home all the time and keep an eye on us?"

"Wow," said Raph. "For once, Mikey, I like the way you think."

"Absolutely not," said Leo. "I'm vetoing this right now."

"Aw, come on!" Raph said. He caught the ball and didn't bounce it again. "Donnie, you're on our side, right? Outvote the veto!"

"There is no outvote the veto!" Leo snapped. "That's what 'veto' means!"

"Really?" Raph said, dropping the tennis ball in favor of reaching for his sai. "You want to talk about what 'veto' means?"

"Gladly," said Leo, drawing a katana.

Don and Mike didn't try to stop them.


Two hours later…

"Okay," said Raph, who had bested Leo in the fight but then been forced to surrender to the dictionary app on Don's T-Phone. "Now maybe I understand how Master Splinter feels."

"How do you think he feels in general?" asked Mike, who had become increasingly pensive as they awaited their father's return. He had also, not unrelatedly, increasingly wrapped himself in Leo's blankets. "I mean, why would he do this?"

"Well, according to my psychology app," said Don, who had spent much of the preceding time absorbed in his electronic device, "he may be experiencing what's called a midlife crisis. It's an episode that people - especially men - go through when they reach middle age and begin to doubt or regret their life choices. This entry says that the sufferer can be supported by helping them recognize all the good and valued things they've achieved so far, and also by helping them see that they still have opportunities for constructive new adventures, and shouldn't act out in ways that could jeopardize what they already have and what they might still enjoy." He pressed a couple of buttons. "I've downloaded scripts for those conversations."

Mike blinked at his older brother. "Did you just replace me with an app?"

Don shrugged. "I've replaced pretty much everything with an app. If only I could get my T-Phone to eat for me."

"Is there an entry in your psychology app for that?" Raph muttered.

"Well, I guess we'll try it," Leo said. He shot a disapproving look at each of his team members in turn. "Since none of you has a better plan." Before Mike could insubordinately point out that Leo had very recently ordered them to stop making plans, the leader continued. "Don, let's practice those scripts."

"Could you be any more boring," Raph muttered, slightly more loudly.

Leo could not. He had perfected that skill long ago.


Four hours later…

Three Turtles lay on the floor - not from exhaustion, although Leo had made them practice the script one more time, with feeling! at least sixteen times - but rather from sheer, stultifying boredom. Those who had not long since perfected the skill regularly underestimated how taxing boredom was.

The one who had perfected the twofold art of being boring and withstanding boredom sat upright on a cushion, meditating.

And listening.

Master Splinter did not pull into the garage with the same gusto with which he had pulled out of it, but it was hard to disguise the arrival of a six-ton vehicle. A subtle mode of transportation, the Shellraiser was not.

Leo opened his eyes, his calm unruffled by the exit from meditation. His brothers stirred, lethargically.

"Is that the Shellraiser?" Raph asked from his prone position.

"Do you think some other armored truck with a diesel-powered six-cylinder flat engine is being driven into our garage?" Don replied.

"It could be our armored truck with a super-powered five-star curvy engine being driven into our garage by a carjacker," Mike said.

The Turtles all weighed this possibility. Then, as one, they moved to the door of Leo's room, which resulted in an uncomfortable jam-up within the narrow frame.

"Boys!" Master Splinter shouted from the steps in front of the lab, when he saw them. "The Shellraiser needs a complete tune-up before I can drive it again! The satellite TV package must be upgraded! The snacks must be replenished! And the vomit stain must be removed!"

So saying, he paced into his room and slid the shoji doors shut with a decisive snap.

Again, silence was the only possible response. Until:

"Donnie," said Raph. "I knew I was going to say this someday. I just didn't know it was going to be in this context: You have created a monster."

"How is this my fault?" Don shrieked.

Leo didn't stick around to hear that argument.


"Sensei?" He inched the elaborate doors open just a fraction.

Inside, Splinter was contemplating an object Leo had never seen before. It appeared to be an item of clothing, but it was nothing like Splinter's usual robe. Leo was no judge of outfits, but in his opinion, the garment didn't suit his sensei at all.

"What is it?" Splinter said brusquely.

Leo edged into the room through the smallest possible crack, which was not very small, given the mass of his carapace. Sometimes, being a Turtle made it hard to pull off a dramatically appropriate entrance.

"Is it our fault?" he asked softly. "Are you doing this because of us?"

Splinter looked at him, then seemed to look through him, then looked away again, stuffing the strange new clothes into a trunk.

"No," he said. "This has nothing to do with you, Leonardo. Or your brothers. This is what adults do. There is nothing to discuss."

Leo thought about the lecture he'd been preparing all day. He thought about the scripts he had rehearsed. He felt very young, and totally unequipped to deal with any of this.

"Okay," he said quietly. "Good night, Sensei."

And, knowing that all of his younger brothers had called 'not dibs' on cleaning the vomit stain - or shortly would - the dutiful son went to do as his father had asked.