(A note stapled to a battered three-ring binder that was taped and worked over with tread to keep together)

This is another book from my quietest of sons. I believe it was the next one, though I am surprised at it. It was a full three subject notebook. I am surprised that Donatello didn't bring it to be shared, as it had a great deal of paper, and would have most assuredly kept the four of them writing for much longer that year. But I believe I now understand what then would have been great selfishness. I remember well the time he and I had that talk, that He wrote about in the earlier book. He wanted a book to write his most secret thoughts. Perhaps, just perhaps, finding the notebook proved too much temptation. It would also explain why all the pens I had stashed away kept vanishing that year…

I am bad. I am a very bad boy. But I found it. I wanna keep it. I found a notebook all by myself! It was very thick and full of lots of paper! The paper was wet, and spotty. I snuck it in my bag, that I like to carry around, in the secret pocket. I never shown anyone the secret pocket, not even Daddy. When we got home, I went to my secret room, and took the notebook out carefully. Some of the pages already tored out. I gave them to Mikey when they were dried enough. I felt really bad by then for keeping the notebook, and this made me feel better. Because Mikey likes paper even more than me. He draws and the drawings are always good. So I felt good over my investerment.

The notebook is dry now, and I can write in it without tearing it. Don't ask me how I know that now. I don't want to say.

Now I found a place for it. It is in the storage room, in the back. There is a box there nobody goes to. I can hide it inside the box. I want to be a good boy, and share. But I have to share everything I have. Why is it bad to have something just for me? I think sharing toys is right. We don't have many. Sharing food is right, we always are hungry. I think sharing blankets is right, everyone is warmest that way. But I need someone to talk to! I will talk my thoughts to you, notebook. YOu wont tell me not to be a pain, like Raph, or not to be a tattletale knowitall, Like Leo, or tell me I make his head hurt, like Mikey. Even Daddy says go away, I'm busy. I don't like that. So I go away and be by myself. Then Everyone asks why I'm so quiet. I can't win. People are confusing lots of times.

I just counted the pages. It has more than I can count! And I can count to 200. I know I can count more, but I lost where I was afterwards. Countings not that big a deal anyway. I feel silly just writing to you and you just being a thing. It makes you not a friend. I want you as a great friend. Someone I can tell everything to. So I'm going to name you, and only I and you will know it. I don't know any names yet, but when I get one, I'll let you know.

I got a good name! I was looking through a big book of science, and found it. You will be Newton. He found out about lots of stuff. like gravity Gravity is what makes us fall and keeps us all from flying off the earth, while it spins on its axcess that is not really a stick poking through the middle of the earth. If there was one, it would be a really big stick. About a hundred miles thick, and many of a thousand miles long! Oh, and it will to resist heat, because the middle of the earth is full of hot stuff. The more in the middle it is, the hotter it is. Untill it ended up being really hot gasses. If you managed to get there, I bet you will burn up before you knew you were in a really hot place!

Anyway, you are my best friend who is not a brother, Newton. And I will tell you everything I know and everything that goes on around me and everything.

I got to go train. Bye for now.

Hello Newton,

Today we are all six years old. Nobody else has a notebook but me, but they don't seem to want to write. Well Mikey wants to draw. But he seems to not mind if he can't, so long as he can make something, and cook a lot. Daddy did find us all coloring books. I gave mine to Mikey. I felt mean to take one, after keeping my notebook to myself. Besides, coloring is only kind of fun now. I rather read.

Newton,

I just read a book on plants. It was very interesting! It can make sunshine into energy! I wish we could. Then we won't have to eat nasty things like worms. We would just live on sunshine. Which would be great, because, you know, it's free and all. They don't have the same kind of cells as we do either. They god square cells. We have squishy sells. The book said so. That's why plants are more rigider.

Newton,

Father made us write and read about our favorate book. I wrote about Little Women, and it was the longest I wrote and read out loud ever. I don't know if I liked it. Father got really misty-eyed for some reason and Raph threatened to pound me if I ever compared him to a girl ever again. I believe he would. But I don't know why he was so mad. Jo is really cool. She is a writer and wants to be a boy and is not very girly at all. I tried to explain it, but all he hears is she is a girl. Grrr...He is so thick headed sometimes!

But I do really like the book, not because it's a girl's book but it's so much like us. Other than all of the characters in the family are girls and we are all boys. So it's like, flipped. But they act a lot like us, and they get to live out in the world. They get to do all kinds of stuff that I can't. I really do want to go to school for real, and make friends, and play music and get a job and chop wood and everything! But I got to stay down here, away frome verybody because we are monsters.

Newton,

Father found a book today that might make it possible to give everyone a notebook too! Yay. I don't have to feel mean no more. And Mikey can have a new book to draw in and be happy with too. I think, even though he and I are as different as night and day, that he needs a place to be by himself too. I think he needs it to spend time to be creative and get his thoughts in order. I need it to find a place to keep my thoughts before a whole bunch of new thoughts croud them out.

I'm going to go back to help with mashing up the stuff to make paper now. I want to read the new book. Father said that it is full of things to make! YAY! He said he don't understand some of it. But it shows how to make candles, and paper, and sew and all kinds of stuff.

I can't wait.

Newton,

We have some paper in the making on the rack, in the water now. I think all the soaking helps make it into mush, and that helps it stop being bits of plants and rags and strats making it into paper. Neat, huh? Now we are on a mission to find anything that can be made into candles. Good news is, Dad already found a can of crisco fat. He put a rag through it's contents and now it's a candle.

Newton,

Today, I want to change your name. I been reading my history book. And I think I like Franklin better than Newton. It's a cooler name. And he did stuff I like to do better than sit under a tree and get hit in the head with an apple. Even if Newton did discover how gravaty worked because he got hit in the head with an apple. It seems like sloppy research to me.

Franklin build things that are practical. I want to do that too. I took apart the toast box yesterday. Father was very mad, because it worked. But I needed to know how it looked on the inside. I don't know why. But I needed to know! Besides, I bet Franklin would have done so too. If he had a toast box.

Franklin also invented electricity. I want to learn more about that. And how it works. If I can figure out how electricity works then I can figure out how we can have lots of power and not a little bit for the heater and toast box only. Well now its only the heater now. I need to make up for that.

Franklin,

Mikey painted a picture on a piece of cardboard today, with some paint Father and Leo found yesterday at the junkyard. It was of all of us. He only used red, yellow and orange. But that was because those were the only colors they found. Raph was red. Leo was yellow. Mikey and Me was orange. And father was some kind of orange-brownish color. And we were in this bright yellow place that he made by painting a large circle around everyone. Father hung it up on the wall that he puts all our art pictures on. Mikey has the most pictures. But Raph and Leo has some too. I have one. But I don't like my drawings and I tear them up. Father don't like that because it's a waste of paper. I agree. But I don't like my drawing. They don't look like what I have in my head.

Leo helped Father make candles. We have lots again. We make them out of crisco, and we make them out of wax. And we make them out of pelted crayons even, which is also wax. Ooops I meant melted, not pelted. Sometimes when we find a lot of oil, we make lamps instead. We fill glass jars of them and in either case we have a cotton string that he calls a wick. That's how we got light.

Raph did a hundered push-ups. I know because I counted. I'm the very best counter. And even I couldn't believe he did so many. Raph is strong. He can pick me up. He was bragging about it all the rest of the day.

I helped Mikey with his painting. I counted push-ups for Raph. I helped make candles by cutting wicks. So I didn't have any time to do anything for myself, till now. And Now I wrote about today, and now I'm done.