Freddy was being paid to be suspicious, too, but not just by Channel Three News. On a hunch, he followed Professor Perry, and when he saw him talking to two men and sending them off towards a wooded area, Freddy followed them.

He crouched and ran through the grass silently. When the men stopped in a little glade at the edge of the waste site, Freddy ducked behind a rock.

"How could you have missed this?" one of the TGRI workers said to the other.

"I don't know." The other shrugged.

The first man took a measuring tape and began spouting figures. The other man jotted them down on a clipboard.

"Grab some men. I'll go and find the professor. We've got to take care of this now." He sounded urgent.

The two men left.

When they had gone, Freddy crept over to the little glade where they had been. It didn't take any time at all for him to see what had upset them, for there, in front of him, was a dandelion patch. They weren't just dandelions, though. They were each about the size of a volleyball. They were mutant dandelions!

Freddy plucked one very carefully and carried it back to the truck. He didn't want anybody - especially a suspicious news reporter - to see it.

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Professor Perry shook his head in dismay when his assistant showed him the mutant dandelion patch.

"Hmmmm. If the soil's been contaminated this far away, there must be more leaky canisters than we thought."

"But how can that be?" his assistant asked. "They were only buried fifteen years ago."

"Fifteen. Fifty. It doesn't matter. Just make sure the evidence is removed," he said.

"Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to invite the press."

"I don't agree," Professor Perry said. "Sometimes the best way to hide something is right out in public."

"But if any of it fell into the wrong hands..." the assistant said ominously.

"I'm aware of the risks," the professor said sharply.

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In a junkyard, on the other side of the river, the wrong hands held a mutant dandelion. The hands belonged to a man in a purple dogi, with a metal helmet with buzzsaw-style blades, a metal mask, and spikes at his shoulders, forearms, and shins.

Shredder turned the dandelion around and examined it carefully.

"This isn't the reason I sent you to follow her," Shredder said to Freddy.

The tone of his master's voice made Freddy nervous. "No, Master," he said, desperately afraid of Shredder's anger. "But I..."

"Silence!" Shredder commanded.

Freddy was afraid Shredder could hear his heart beating.

"This may be even better..." Shredder said.

Freddy's heart slowed down.

"Whatever caused this mutation may be useful against my enemies. Tatsu!"

Tatsu snapped to attention. "Ngggh," he said agreeably.

"Gather your best men. You have a mission tonight."

"Ngggh!"

Tatsu and Freddy left, and Shredder studied the dandelion again. Then he looked at Rose, who was sitting on a table that was against a wall. He looked again at the dandelion, then approached Rose and held it out to her. Rose smiled at Shredder and accepted the gift, then got down from the table and wrapped her arms around him. He responded in kind.