Never-NeverLand – Chapter 5
"So this all happened when we were about the same age as Sterling: 3 or 4 years old."
"Name your target Mike." Raphael muttered at him through clenched teeth.
"Seriously, Mike. I wanna know if I get to enjoy this or if I should get ready to travel on the roof the rest of the way home." Donatello was acutely aware that he was the one who had most recently called Mikey 'stupid'.
"Paranoid much? Now shut up; you're ruining the set up." Mikey shook his head and resumed his place in the center of attention. "I'd been sick with the flu or something for about a week. Splinter had me quarantined, and I was miserable. I felt like shit. I was bored. I was lonely. Food tasted bad. I could hear my brothers playing, but I couldn't join them. I felt like I'd done something wrong and was being punished."
"Then Splinter said I was well enough to join him in the living room. He told me that my brothers had a surprise for me—"
"Oh NO!" Leo's eyes were wide open. "Mike, I know where you're going with this! Please don't." He buried his face in his hands and groaned.
Raphael glared at Leo, willing him to make eye contact. "Where's he goin' with this, Leo?"
Donatello seemed to focus on something on the ceiling. He squeezed his eyes shut as he asked, "The play?"
"BINGO!" Mike was all smiles. "My brothers were so cute when we were little, they did a 'Get Well Mikey Show' for me!"
"Splinter held my hand, I had a box of Kleenex in the other and my teddy bear tucked up under my arm. He settled me on the couch, propped me up with pillows, and tucked a blanket around me."
"My brothers had set up a stage using the backs of two tall chairs to hold a bo staff with a pair of mismatched shower curtains on it. After the curtains opened, you could see that they'd cut a cardboard box open and colored a forest-looking scene on the background. They acted out a couple fairy tales, but my favorite was their rendition of 'Little Bunny Foo-Foo.'"
Pipes snuck a glance at Raphael. He was so tense he was shaking. "…Must control Fist of Death…." She made a mental note to duck if he attacked Mike.
Donatello's blush was so dark green; he almost looked brown.
Leonardo's eyes were closed, his posture relaxed. He might have been mediating except for the occasional grimace that passed across his face.
Mike, however, was clearly having the time of his life. "Okay. So I want you to picture little Raphael with a pair of construction-paper bunny ears taped to either side of his head. He's carrying some stuffed animals and a pair of drumsticks. He walks to center-stage and just dumps the toys in front of the 'forest.' He takes the drumsticks and exits."
"Now little Donnie, in a plastic top hat that's way too big for him, stands to the side of the stage." Mike's voice goes up an octave as he impersonates Donatello at three. "'Eh-hem. Lil' Bunny Foo Foo.'"
"I did NOT sound like that."
Raphael snorts, "Dude, you still do."
"What'd you know, Mr. Foo Foo?"
Raphael started looking for something to throw.
"Guys, I'm not done yet."
Leo had the look of man who execution had just been re-instated.
"So anyways, 'Little Bunny Foo Foo hoppin' through the forest…' Little Raphael enters with a drumstick in each hand and approaches the stuffed animals, but he's not hopping. He's stomping, like Godzilla-style. You can hear little Leonardo from offstage."
Once again, Mike pitches his voice stupidly high, "'Raph! You're s'pposed t' HOP!'"
"'Scoopin' up the field mice and boppin' 'em on the head.' By this point, Raph-chan is wailing on the stuffed animals. 'Down came the Blue Fairy and She said:'"
'HE said, Donnie! I'm a BOY!' Now, I don't know where they found it, but little Leo has a bent tiara with the comb-spikey bits broken off taped to his head. He's also got every blue bit of cloth he owns tied to his body somehow. He looks like a rejected blue muppet. Anyways, he jumps from off one of the chair seats backstage and lands in the middle of Raph's rampage. 'Little Bunny Foo Foo, I don't wanna see you pickin' up the field mice and boppin' 'em on the head. I'll give you three chances and if you don't behave, I'll turn you into a goon!' He darts off stage, and you can see the chair on that side wobbling as he climbs back up, ready to jump in and scold Raph again."
Mike paused, "Funny how you never notice the patterns in life until later." He shakes his head, "So anyways, Raph-chan has yet to quit savaging the stuffed animal collection, but one of his paper bunny ears has fallen off and he's thrown the drumsticks down. He's using his fists. Don-chan looks nervous, and he's having trouble with his hat, but he keeps going. 'The next day. Lil' Bunny Foo Foo HOPPIN' through the forest, scoopin' up the field mice and boppin' 'em on the head. Down came the Blue Fairy and HE said:'
"'Raph knock it off! You don't have to be so mean! You're gonna break my toys!'"
Mike's impression of Raph-chan sounds like Marlan Brando on helium, "Or what? You're gonna turn me into a goon?"
"Of course, they started fighting, just wrestling really. But that was the end of the play. Donnie joined me on the couch, and let me wear the top hat." Mikey sighed and smiled. "I've watched my brothers fight so many times, I can't even begin to count. But my all-time favorite battle had to be when Raphael, the one-eared Bunny Foo Foo, Scourge of the Stuffed Animals called out Leonardo, the Midget Blue Fairy Princess from the Bag-Lady-Section of the Costuming Department. Dat's why my brudders ur soo ca-ute!" He made kissy-faces at Leonardo and Donatello. He used Pipes as a living shield to keep Raphael back.
+"Ack! No! NO! BAD MIKEY!"+
Cabbage raised an eye-ridge at Leo. "The Blue Fairy, huh?"
Shima and Donatello were too busy laughing to help Leo, but he let loose a shot in the dark. "I wouldn't talk. I don't know any British songs." The look on her face told him he'd scored a direct hit. "You'll have to sing it some time! I'd play nice until then, huh?"
She pouted and attempted to copy Mikey's falsetto impersonation of Leo, "You don't have to be so mean!"
Across the van, Sterling had halted Raph's assault on Mike with a short-lived but distracting volley of tickles. Raphael had her wrists pinned together in one hand before she knew it. He smiled. "Ninja. Heh."