April was definitely having a hard time making up her mind how she felt. For one thing, the Turtles were just about her best friends and being with them was always interesting. Most of the time it was a lot of fun. Sometimes it was downright dangerous. On the other hand, they weren't the tidiest roommates.

Michelangelo removed his swimsuit calendar from the wall and rolled it up.

"But you guys haven't even found another place to live yet."

Leonardo shoved his belongings into a gym bag. "April, it's just too dangerous to stay here with you when The Foot are out there. They might be looking for us." None of them could forget what happened the last time The Foot had discovered the Turtles' hideout at April's apartment. The whole building had been burned down!

"Well, you know," Raph reasoned. "We could go looking for them for a change. I mean, they got the ooze stuff-"

"First we move. Then we look," Donatello said sensibly.

Mike's mind was somewhere else - the same place it usually was. "Well, I don't know about you guys, but I could really go for some-"

"Pizza!" a voice called out from the hallway.

"Whoa, spookular!" Michelangelo said, definitely surprised. Sometimes, his brothers could read his mind, especially when it came to pizza, but this was weird. "Hey, I didn't order any," he said, suspiciously.

Something pushed at the door. "Miss O'Neil?" a voice asked. It was a familiar voice. The Turtles couldn't place it, though. And they certainly didn't want it to place them!

"No, wait," April said, lodging her foot in front of the door.

In an instant the Turtles vanished - as much as a Turtle can actually vanish. Michelangelo dropped on all fours and pulled a sheet over himself: instant table. Raph made himself into a plant holder. Leo and Don dashed for the kitchen and the bathroom. All of them heard the delivery boy enter the apartment before April let him in.

"What's up?" asked the delivery boy.

April glanced back over her shoulder, afraid of what she might see, but there was nothing telltale, just a very odd plant holder and a table with a wrinkled tablecloth on it.

"Uh, we, I mean, I didn't order any pizza," April said. "There must have been a mistake."

The delivery boy looked over April's shoulder, searching the apartment.

"I know, but the guy in 313 did, and now he doesn't seem to be there and I figured, since you order so much anyway, that maybe, you know..."

Then the Turtles realized why they recognized the voice. It was the delivery boy from the alley by the electronics shop.

"Hmmmm," Keno said, looking around. His eyes lit on Michelangelo's nunchakus. "Where'd those come from?" he asked.

April thought fast. "They're mine," she said. She picked them up and began swinging them clumsily. "Yeah, I like to do a little 'chukking' every now and then."

She hit herself with the weapons.

"I'd keep practising if I were you," Keno said.

He put the pizza down on the 'table' and began to examine the plant holder. April was afraid he was on to something. She wanted him to leave.

"Well, you know, why don't I just take the pizza anyway?" She dropped the nunchakus on the floor before she did any more damage to herself. "Let me just get my purse."

"No, no that's OK," Keno said, satisfied with his discoveries. "My mistake. One last thing, though..."

He lifted his right foot and stomped down on the base of the plant holder with his heel as hard as he could.

Raphael couldn't contain himself. "Yeooooooo!" he shrieked. The potted plant crashed to the floor and Raph hopped around on one foot - his good one.

"I knew it!" Keno declared.

Turtles began appearing from the most unlikely places.

"Can I hurt him?" Raph asked April, still groaning in agony. "Please? Please tell me I can hurt him!"

Keno just grinned. He felt pretty clever to have brought the odd creatures out of hiding - until he saw the oddest creature of all, a four-foot-tall rat. His jaw dropped.

"I think you'd better sit down," Splinter said. Keno sat down - right on the potted plant.

Although Splinter believed that the Turtles must always be invisible to the outside world, he knew that there were times when it was impossible. And when those times arose, he shared the story of the Turtles' beginnings. He told about the radioactive ooze that covered them as well as himself, their startling mutations, the way they all learned to talk, and the way he named the Turtles he'd come to think of as his children.

"...and with an old Renaissance art book I found in a storm drain, I gave them all names." Then, one by one, he introduced the Turtles to Keno. "Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael."

"Yeah, and all the good ones end in o," Mike teased.

Splinter stopped Raph from pushing his brother. Then he turned to Mike.

"Michelangelo," he said sternly.

Mike knew what that meant. Without a word, he began doing flips. "One...two..."

"So, basically, what you're telling me is that all you guys were slimed?" Keno asked.

"It wasn't slime. It was ooze," Raph said. He was still upset about his foot.

"And there's more of it out there," Leonardo told Keno.

"Where?" Keno asked.

"Five...six..." They could hear Michelangelo counting. He grunted as he worked out.

"We're not sure," Don answered. "See, there's this sort of 'clan' of ninja thieves, a really secret group that call themselves-"

"The Foot?" Keno supplied.

"You've heard of them?" Don asked, surprised.

Keno nodded. "Well, see, word on the street is that there are these guys looking for anybody they can find with martial arts talent, especially teenagers. Hey, I've got an idea. I could let myself get 'recruited', and guess what that might lead us to!"

"Big trouble," April said.

"No way, Keno," Leo said. "Forget about it."

Raph wasn't so sure, though. "Hey, and believe me, I really hate to say this, but the kid's got a-"

"No," Splinter said.

"Fourteen...fifteen..." Michelangelo droned away in the background.

"Why not?" Raphael and Keno asked at the same instant.

"Too dangerous," Splinter said.

"But..." Raph tried.

"No," Splinter said, closing the subject. Annoyed, Raph stormed out of the room.

"Seventeen...Eighteen..." Michelangelo grunted again. Splinter, April, Keno, Don, and Leo turned to watch him finish his stint of twenty. What they saw was Mike standing in the corner, doing excellent sound effects. "Nineteen...unh...twenty."

The sudden quiet made him look up. He wasn't expecting an audience. He blushed. "Uh-oh," he said. "Just taking a break, see. I'll start where I left off - at, uh, fifteen?"

"One," Splinter said.

"Yes, Master," Mike said. Then, good-naturedly, he began at the beginning.

"One...two..."