I need to stop looking at turtlecest. I take one little peek and it gives me weird nightmares. It did get me thinking about under what circumstances my version of the boys would kiss each other. Don't worry. Not remotely cest. Like Leo I am also an oldest child and remember doing evil things to my younger sibling. It doesn't matter how gallant you end up as an adult. We all start out as evil and manipulative children. I borrowed the "ask the little kids if we can stay up story" from my friends. Thought I should give credit.

Dear Diary,

I guess you get up to some pretty strange stuff to amuse yourself when you're teenagers. Especially when you live underground and grow up only knowing your brothers and father. I think shame becomes a foreign term.

Saw another display of this bizarre behavior. It was cute, but still… bizarre. But I joined in so…

I went down to the lair to check on Don's head yesterday. I haven't been checking on Mikey really. I think he only had the flu because he's almost fully recovered. Don still has some headaches and sensitivity to light. He's such an angel though and doesn't complain at all. Whereas Mikey just laid there on the couch for three weeks like he was dying and ordering everybody around.

So I entered in the lair and what did I find? Raph was sitting on the couch watching a Modern Marvels episode about the history of soda and Mikey was crawling around on his lap, trying to kiss him. Raph had his hand stretched out on Mike's plastron, holding him back at arm's length and was totally ignoring him.

"Hey, you two," I said, hoping they would cut out this disturbing behavior.

"Hey, April," Raph said. Neither stopped.

"Is something that will cause Splinter to kill himself?" I asked.

Leo was at the computer and said, "No, they've always done this."

"So, Mikey, do you try to kiss your brothers often?"

"No, just Raph," he said.

Raph shoved him on the floor and Mikey landed on his shell.

"You're going to have to explain so that I don't have nightmares. Where's Don?"

"In his room," Leo said, turning off the computer. He's the gentleman and always tries to divert his attention to the house guest. "The sound of the TV was bothering him."

"I'll go check on him after I hear this horror story," I said sitting next to Raph on the couch.

Mikey was still lying on his shell, rocking back and forth slightly. He looked up at me and said, "Okay, when we were toddlers we all kissed each other goodnight."

Leo had to interrupt. "You kissed us goodnight. We didn't necessarily all stand there kissing each other."

"Whatever. I kissed them all goodnight. Well, I kissed Donny and then Leo. And I would kiss Raphie here and he would cry."

I elbowed Raph, who was scowling and trying hard to ignore us. "That's so cute."

Mikey jumped up and sat on the coffee table right in Raph's line of vision. He recognized the danger of this and hopped up onto the couch on my other side. "Well, I stopped kissing Raph after he was big enough to beat me up. But I kept kissing Leo and Don till I was about…"

"Six," Leo said loudly.

"Funny. I thought I was more like eight or nine," Mikey said scratching his head.

"Five." Leo was looking uncomfortable.

"Well, anyway, I told Raph that I'd kiss him someday and I've been trying ever since. Nobody's kissed him since he was about four. I'm going to do it someday too. And not when you're knocked out or anything. You're going to be awake. And neither of us will be in danger of dying either. No pity kisses. You're going to get kissed, buddy, and I'll be there to see it happen."

"We don't sit around kissing each other," Leo had to add unnecessarily, like I would get the wrong impression from this story.

"Yeah, it was a really racy story," I said to him. "You guys kissing each other as little children."

Raph was manfully ignoring the whole conversation.

I got up to check on Don, who was sitting in his room with the lights off. "You okay in here?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." He didn't look fine. He looked really tired.

I turned on the light and he said urgently, "Oh, no don't do that," and shut his eyes.

I turned the lights off again. "Sorry. I thought you were getting better."

"So did I. But I think it gets worse first. But it's not that bad. We've all been worse off than this." He managed a pained smile.

I sat next to him on his bed and saw that he was reading a big book about Mendel. "Casual reading huh?"

He threw the book aside. "Hurts my eyes too much."

So I'm kind of worried about him. But he keeps saying that the symptoms get worse in the weeks after a concussion and then get better and that it's perfectly normal. I hope so. I feel bad that he just sits in the dark alone all the time.

I sat with him and we had a long talk about… something… can't remember. And then I noticed that he was looked strained so I put him to bed and left the room.

I had a really evil idea as I came out into the lair. I rub my hands together even now as I think about it.

Mikey was making dinner and Raph was sitting with Splinter playing Mancala on the coffee table. So I went up to them and said, "Well, I'm going home now."

They all mumbled goodbye.

Then I grabbed Raph's head and kissed him. I'm shocked that he didn't dodge me. I suppose it was the shock.

Leo was looking at the computer monitor again and said, "The king is dead," without looking away.

Mikey let the meat fall out of the frying pan, he was laughing so hard.

Raph wiped his mouth and said, "I feel so cheap. You didn't even buy me dinner first."

Mikey ran up to me and said, "Kiss me too!" So I kissed Mike.

Then Don came out of the bedroom, rubbing his eyes and said, "What's going on? I have a major headache…"

"Kiss Donny!" Mikey commanded.

"What? Huh?" Don asked as I swooped down on him. I kissed him and then he just said, "Whatever. I'm going back to bed, you sickos."

I moved on to Leo, who backed away with a "kiss me and die" kind of look.

And I even kissed Splinter to make it even. I worried for a second that he would be really mad or put off, but he laughed at me. Splinter's so easy going. I still think he should adopt me.

"I remember when Raphael cried when Michelangelo kissed him goodnight," Splinter said, eyes glazed in reminiscence.

"Sensei, please," Raph said. He was already embarrassed enough, I guess.

"I believe it was Leonardo's fault."

"It was not!" Leo said from the computer, with feigned indignation. "I'm totally guiltless here."

Raph pointed dramatically at him. "Hey, it was too your fault. I remember now! You said he was giving us all the kiss of death and that I would die in the night!"

"I did no such thing," he said with a very suspicious smile. "I was a little angel."

Mikey was gathering the meat off the floor and ran it under the sink. "And remember when Leo had me doing his chores for a whole month because he told me that they passed a law that the oldest son is exempt from chores and that I would go to jail if I didn't do them?"

Raph was losing his Mancala game, but didn't seem to mind. He said, "I remember a lot of nights where me and Leo would be in that far bedroom at the old place and then we would send Don or Mike out to ask if we could stay up after bed time and then we would hear him getting paddled."

Leo laughed loudly. "Yeah, I remember that. Sensei, can we stay up? Waaaah!"

"You guys were tyrants, weren't you?" I asked.

"Nah, they liked it," Raph said. "They did it every time we asked anyway."

Leo said in a whispered voice, "Hey, Raph. I want to stay up. Let's get Mikey to ask if we can stay up."

Raph played along and said, "Hey, Mikey. Why don't you go ask Master Splinter if we can stay up? I'll let you play with my fire truck." Then he imitated Mikey's voice and said, "Okay, Raphie. Master Splinter, can we stay up late? Waaaah!"

"You guys were so mean to us," Mikey said as he looked in the fridge. "Sensei, why did you always paddle us when we asked?"

"Because I was glad to be rid of you for a few minutes before I went to bed myself," he said with a mischievous smile. He had this blissful good-old-days expression.

Don wandered back out of the bedroom to join in. "I couldn't help but overhear the conversation and I wanted to tell you all a very traumatic story that involves Mr. Perfect."

"Oh, do tell," I said and patted the couch next to me.

He sat down heavily and said, "Well, when we were little kids I remember asking you, Sensei, where our mother was."

"I do recall that," Splinter said as he made a move in his game.

Don put his feet on the coffee table and Raph pretended to faint. "So anyway," Don said, swatting at him with his foot. "I remember asking Leo if he remembered our mother and he said…"

"These are malicious likes, April. Lies." He was smirking.

He said, "Oh, we have different mothers. Me, Raph and Mikey all have the same mother and she died. She was married to Master Splinter, so he's our real father. Your parents traded you to him. Ever wonder why we don't have a TV? We had one until you came along."

I gaped at Leo who was having a fit of evil giggles at the computer screen. "That's awful!"

"You said that Sensei needed a fourth kid so that we could have even sparring matches," Don said.

"That's ridiculous," Raph said as he lost the game.

"Yeah, like we'd ever trade away the TV for you," Leo said. "His real parents were probably like, 'Suckers.'"

He and Raph laughed.

"Hey," Mikey said, leaning on the open fridge door with a foggy expression. "Do you guys remember when you used to have me crawl through that passage in the east tunnel?"

"Oh, yeah!" Leo said, turning to look at him with sudden memory. "We used to tell you there were kittens at the other end."

"Yeah, I remember when Raph shut you in there," Don said, rubbing his aching head.

Mikey looked confused. "You guys never shut me in there."

"Yeah, he did," Don said. "I remember somebody getting katas for it."

"You locked me in the cupboard," Mikey said. "You said it was haunted."

"I remember that," Raph said. "You were so gullible."

"I still can't believe you two were so mean to us," Mikey said. "I was shut up in that cupboard at least once a week."

Raph said nostalgically, "I went by that little passage this week and I looked in there. It's about a foot and half wide. I can't believe we were ever so small that we could fit in there. I wish we still could."

"We used to make sandwiches and eat in there," Leo said. "And I would carry spiders in a tissue and drop them on Raph when he wasn't looking."

Raph shivered with the memory.

Splinter looked around at Mikey. "Michelangelo, do not leave the door standing open."

"Oh, sorry."

Boy, I like hearing stories about their childhood.

Dear Diary,

Hope I didn't spread Mike's flu around.

Dear Diary,

Don's doing better now. He's still got headaches, but isn't sensitive to light and sound anymore and he's training in the dojo again, although his eyes are watering at the end of the sessions. Mikey's been calling me a slut lately. I tell him that it takes one to know one.