CHAPTER 11
Like moths to a flame
Splinter stood in the middle of the lair, calmly taking in the unusual silence of the area. At this time of the evening, he would expect to find all of his boys gathered in the living space. Between being absorbed in various unfathomable brain dulling activities, there would be the animated banter of the inseparable brothers as they wound one another up unmercifully.
But there was none of this. Instead, the television stood sadly silent and the area was unexpectedly tidy without the encroaching mess of magazines, empty pizza boxes and indefinable electronic devices.
In a way, it felt as if the room had lost its soul, Splinter reflected sadly.
From his own distant experience he knew that the teenage years were far from easy. A turbulent journey of wonder, discovery and hormones that threatened to destabilise even the most steady of individuals. Throw mutagen into the mix, providing an extreme divergence from the impossible normalcy that most pre-adults yearned for, and the degree of difficulty his sons faced was multiplied to an exponential level.
Their connection through blood and the shared fate that had befallen them made their bond as brothers stronger than any he had ever seen. It was unshakeable. Although they often seemed diametrically opposed, as with the natural elements there was a necessary harmony in the way they coexisted together.
Splinter had waited patiently to allow his children the time to realise their mistakes and learn from them. In doing so, the solution would be arrived at independent of his interference so that, hopefully, the problems would then not be repeated in the future.
However there was a limit to patience, and Splinter's had now been depleted.
He had chosen his moment of intervention carefully, having overheard Michelangelo's earlier conversation with April and watched as the two headed out.
Splinter had passed Leonardo meditating furiously in the dojo while he waited for a solution to miraculously present itself. From the occasional frustrated clatter he knew that Donatello was in his lab, while his sensitive rodent ears could hear the distant sound of Raphael as he angrily battled action figures together in his room.
"Kodomo-tachi! Koko ni kinasai!" Splinter barked suddenly, his voice reverberating in a way that not one of his three eldest could possibly claim not to hear from their respective locations. Referring to them as children with the instruction to gather would give them all the warning they needed as to the nature of their summoning.
He could have predicted which of the three would be the first to hurry into the living area, and was not disappointed.
"Hai, Sensei." Leonardo said, dropping into a perfect seiza.
Noticeably slower, the next to appear was Donatello as he reluctantly emerged from his lab and dragged himself unwillingly across the floor to kneel. He didn't bother speaking, but did share a glare with his brother before, at least, waiting attentively.
Lastly, Raphael emerged from his room with both visible and audible frustration. Stomping to the living area, he dropped shambolically to his knees before snapping, "What, Sensei?!"
Splinter just paced before them, dragging out the moment and letting them all stew over exactly why they had been summoned.
He noted as he did that Leonardo had the apprehensive expression of someone who knew exactly what was coming and could not deny that he deserved it. The delay just served to increase the mental self-punishment that his eldest was already performing, alleviating any further disciplinary requirement for the moment.
Donatello had briefly seemed to suspect the inevitable and for a short time Splinter had held his concentration. However, when the moment was elongated, the overactive mind of the most intelligent of his sons had already returned to contemplating whatever project he was using to distract himself. Such inattention would shortly be resolved, but first of all Splinter had another matter to deal with.
This was, of course, Raphael. There was a fire within his son that burned with such ferocity that it could never be extinguished. At times such passion was commendable and even an asset, but frequently it grew to be a destructive inferno that threatened to rage beyond all control.
This was one of those times.
As with any fire, one way to dampen it was the ration the fuel. So, Splinter remained quiet and paced serenely before his sons.
"What do you want?!" Raphael raged against the silence. "If you have nothing to say, I'm going back to my room!"
Splinter eventually stopped in front of his furious son, and carefully twitched one finger slightly as he spoke. "Perhaps, Raphael, you would prefer to spend some time in meditation?" he offered, calmly.
The turtle flinched slightly, anticipating a disabling movement that did not arrive. As seconds ticked by for the uneasy standoff, Splinter could sense a degree of rage dissipating from his most impetuous child.
"No, Sensei." Raphael finally replied, through clenched teeth.
Minor progress, Splinter reflected. He would accept the small victory.
Taking a pace forward to stand before Donatello, he abruptly jabbed one finger to the sensitive and somewhat ticklish spot he had discovered his sons to have at the side of their necks.
The movement brought a predictable "Aah!" as Donatello was rudely jolted from his straying thoughts.
"Perhaps you would also prefer to be elsewhere, Donatello?" Splinter asked, arching an eyebrow dangerously as he withdraw his hand.
"No, Sensei." Donatello quickly said, his attention now firmly focused where it belonged.
Turning away from his sons, Splinter stood straight with one hand upon his walking stick and the other neatly pressed across his back. "Now. Perhaps one of you would like to tell me why you are here."
He couldn't see it, but he could sense the three of them exchanging looks behind his back. Each of them silently daring the others to speak.
"No one?" Splinter prompted, turning back to face them. From the looks on each of their faces, they all had words they were refraining from voicing. Probably a flippant response, in at least one case.
Eventually, as could have been anticipated, Leonardo volunteered a measured answer.
"Lately we, uh… Haven't been working well as a team."
"Continue." Splinter prompted.
Leonardo squirmed uncomfortably. "We've been too busy arguing. About… Stuff that doesn't really matter."
Splinter didn't have to wait long for the inevitable disagreement to erupt.
Raphael growled. "Doesn't matter?!"
"Well maybe it doesn't matter to you!" Donatello also protested. "But some of us-"
"I'm just saying-" Leonardo started, defensively.
Splinter brought his stick down onto the ground with a sharp tap to return his sons to attentive silence.
"It seems to me that you have all forgotten something important." he said, fixing each of them with a steely glare.
"Lunch?" quipped Raphael, earning him a whack on the head with the staff.
"We've forgotten to respect each other?" Leonardo offered, his head tilted boldly.
"Empathy?" tried Donatello, shooting a sideways glare to his brother.
"To not be insufferable jerks?" Raphael stated, pointedly.
Splinter stood in severe silence for several moments. "It is worse than I thought. It seems you have not forgotten. Instead, you are wilfully failing to treat one another with respect and empathy. Being, as Raphael so succinctly put it, jerks."
"Sorry, Sensei." Leonardo reflexively apologised, glaring at the other two as they mockingly mimicked him.
"It is not to me that you should apologise."
Leonardo sighed, then turned to his brothers to offer a genuine apology. "All right. I'm sorry. Raph, I should have been kinder about the thi- about Junior. And Donnie, I should have waited and let you tell April yourself."
"No… You were right. She needed to be told." Donatello reluctantly conceded. "And I… I was never going to tell her."
"I just hope she doesn't hate me." he said, sadly.
Leonardo confidently shook his head. "She doesn't. Trust me, she was really worried about you."
They shared a brief, brotherly smile before both turning to Raphael.
"Raph, I'm really sorry that I didn't find out sooner that Junior was gonna explode." Donatello apologised. "I still don't think there was anything we could have done, but… Well, at least we could have tried to prevent it."
The two brothers then waited expectantly for Raphael's words of reconciliation.
They didn't come. He instead folded his arms and glared as he said, "Well, I'm not apologising. You shouldn't have left me with the egg in the first place."
"Raph…" Leonardo started, in exasperation.
"I think, perhaps, a reminder in the art of teamwork is in order." Splinter cut in.
Beckoning his children, he lead them over to the kitchen. On the table, he placed two lit candles at opposite ends.
"No weapons. Extinguish the flames, at the same time, without touching the candles."
For a moment, the three of them waited expectantly for him to make it more difficult. He fully intended to, but would wait just a moment longer than they did before he added further complications.
As Leonardo and Donatello, seemingly reconciled, moved in to each blow out one candle, Splinter raised one hand to motion them to wait.
"Leonardo. Stand there." he motioned, pointing to the corner of the room. "You are not to move."
With a look of resignation, his eldest did as instructed. For the other two, Splinter stepped forward and grabbed the backs of their masks. In both cases the trailing tails were long enough to bring to the front and knot blindingly in front of their eyes.
"Oh. Great. The whole be guided by teamwork lesson." Raphael snarked.
"Too easy?" Splinter said. "Very well…"
"Nice going, Raph!" Donatello remonstrated, as Splinter deftly tied them shell to shell.
Splinter stepped back, moving several of the chairs into their path as he did. "Now. Continue."
Leonardo sighed. "All right. Guys, step to the left."
"My left or Raph's lef-aah! Wait!"
"We know where the table is, Dork." Raphael said, bodily dragging his brother behind him as he headed obstinately back towards it.
"Wait!" Leo called, clearly itching to rush forward, "Or you'll-"
There was a crash as Raph knocked one of the chairs flying.
"Ow!" Donnie yelped, hopping in pain as it landed on his toes.
Raphael muttered something that might have been an apology.
"Now will you listen?" the eldest asked, impatiently. "Ok, step to Raph's left…"
Splinter watched impassively as the three of them carried out the exercise. Initially it was slow progress as the moving two fought against one another and the instructions being given to them, while the directions became increasingly unclear and harried under the influence of frustration.
"We could just stand here and do nothing." Donnie suggested finally. "The candles will burn down eventually and go out."
"But not necessarily at the same time." Leo pointed out.
Raphael growled. "If I break the table, they'll fall off and go out as they hit the floor."
"Let's just do this properly. Take a tiny step to Raph's right. Donnie, you need to lean forwards a bit more. Yeah, that's it. Now face more to the left. Hold it there."
Splinter watched the progress with increasing satisfaction. After the rocky start, the three were finally starting to work properly together and slip back into a groove of unlikely yet familiar teamwork that would see the task eventually completed.
As it came to pass, a moment or two later. After a cautious test to ensure that everything was lined up correctly, Leonardo gave the order and Raphael blew out one candle as Donatello simultaneously blew out the other.
"Well done." Splinter congratulated, releasing the tied turtles from their bonds. They then reached up to uncover their eyes.
As they did, he re-lit the candles.
Raphael groaned. "Don't tell me we have to do it all over again?"
"No." Splinter said, to brightening faces. "I am simply going to demonstrate a quicker method."
As the three of them waited expectantly, he stepped back several paces. "Leonardo. Please open the refrigerator."
His eldest looked confused, but dutifully reached over to do as instructed.
With a twang, the trap Splinter had observed Michelangelo preparing earlier was triggered. The net fell to one side and fifty water balloons dropped onto the unsuspecting heads of the three turtles. They exploded in a colourful array, drenching the intended targets and the surrounding area with predictable mayhem. The wider splashes were more than adequate to drown the flame of the candles.
Yelps and splutters of indignant surprise erupted from the unwitting targets and Splinter's lips curled into a smile of quiet amusement.
"Sensei!" Donatello protested, wiping the water from his face and wringing out the bedraggled ends of his mask.
Raphael shook himself all over and growled in anger. "This has Mikey's name all over it. I'm gonna use his FACE to mop this up."
"We need to go and find Mikey, right Master Splinter?" Leonardo suggested, picking bits of ruptured balloon off his shoulders and proficiently fathoming the point of the final lesson.
Splinter nodded briefly, then turned and headed back towards the dojo.
His work was done.