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November 24, 1995

ANNA:

Michaelangelo the Kitten moven from room to room. There was not a more loved animal in the world. Michaelangelo the Turtle also frequented the rooms we stayed in. I'd never seen anyone with as much energy as he had. He could play for hours with those girls, and still be just as wired afterward as he was when he showed up.

Leonardo came by a few times, too, though he had been by a lot less since the crime wave. It had already claimed more than two dozen lives, and more of the Turtles' time with each passing day. Police blamed a few key gangs, and Leo blamed himself for each death. It was a side of him I hadn't seen before. Maybe he hadn't felt it as strongly when the orphanage was bombed, or maybe he just hadn't allowed me to see it. At any rate, he had certainly grown more serious over the past few days. Mike assured me that he would be back to normal soon, and I took comfort in that.

But up until a week ago, he had come to see me almost nightly, even two months after the bombing. We'd sit for hours by the window and talk about whatever subject came up. I'd never met anyone as firmly grounded in his belief system as he was, and I looked forward to his visits. Now that my apartment was cleaned up, there was actually a place to sit.

"This is a lot of work," Kristie sighed, dropping the sponge back into the bucket of bleach.

"Yes, but think of when it's all done," I reminded her. "You'll have a room of your own again."

She slid to the floor, groaning. "I feel like I've been cleaning walls for half my life."

I smiled. "Well, the paint won't stick if they're not clean," I reminded her.

She hunched over her legs and I smiled sympathetically. I knew she was tired of this. We all were, really. We'd been cleaning this building for the past two months, day after day. It was being remodled one floor at a time, and it was a lot of work.

"Miss Anna! Miss Anna!" I looked toward the open door. "Miss Anna there's a snake in our room!"

"Close the door and stay away from there," I advised, not really fully comprehending what they were saying.

"But Miss Anna, what if it gets out and comes to bite us while we're sleeping?"

"What's the problem?"

I turned toward the unexpected voice at the window. "Mikey!"

He was rushed by four young girls. Kristie wiped her hands on the front of her dress before she scrambled to her feet and joined them. He smiled as they hugged his waist. "Mike, there's a big ugly snake in our room!"

"Will you get it outta there?"

"Please?"

"We don't want it to bite us."

Michaelangelo glanced up at me. I forced a smile. "Good morning, Mike."

"'Morning," he grinned back.

"What're you doing here?"

"I was bored," he shrugged. "Figured I'd come give you guys a hand. If that's okay with you." He smiled knowingly. I had no problem finding work for him to do in a building where half the occupants were afraid to get their hands dirty.

"Mikey, come kill this snake."

"What?" he laughed. "What snake?"

"The snake in our room."

"There's a snake in your room?" he teased.

"That's what we're trying to tell you!" LeAnne whined.

"Well, how'd it get there?"

"We don't know."

"Just kill it, Mikey, pleeeease?"

He pushed past them. "We don't need to kill it," he mumbled. "What kind of snake is it?"

"I think it's a Boa Constrictor."

He froze. "Then again, maybe we do," he reconsidered, jokingly.

They tugged on his hands and he smiled. "Mikey, come on."

"Be right back," he called over his shoulder as he disappeared.

I smiled after him and went back to scrubbing the dirt and tar off of the walls. Whoever had lived here had been a heavy smoker. I hated cleaning rooms like this. I didn't even hear Mike when he walked back in. But I heard the muffled snickers of the girls at the door. I turned toward them.

"What are you... Omigod!"

I jumped back, dropping the sponge on the floor and tripping over the bucket of bleached water. It spilled over the tile floor. The girls laughed. Mike smiled and lowered his arm. The snake was wrapped around his wrist and he was holding its head carefully. It was very much alive.

"Tell me that thing's not poisonous," I pleaded.

"Nah," Mike smiled. "Just a garden snake." He studied it for a moment. "Not quite sure where he came from though."

The snake's tongue flickered in and out. I watched it, frozen. "Okay, okay, he's very... nice. Can you take him somewhere else?"

"Aw, don'tcha wanna hold him?" Mike teased, raising his arm.

I jumped back. "No, no, that's okay," I protested. "Really."

Michaelangelo laughed. "Alright. Got a box or something I can put him in? I'll take him with me when I leave. Put him in the park or something."

"Will this work?" Kristie asked, finding a shoebox in the pile of abandoned garbage we'd found in the apartment.

"That's perfect," Mike answered.

He deposited the snake in the box and once the lid was safely in place, I knelt down to clean up the spilled water. Mike dropped to his knees to help me. "Sorry," he chuckled. "I couldn't resist."

"S'okay," I mumbled sarcastically. "I needed to clean the floor anyhow."

"Mikey, will you come play with us?" Raeanne asked.

Michaelangelo looked up. "I'll play with you in a little bit, girls. Right now I'm gonna help Miss Anna clean for a while."

"You can take a break if you want," I offered.

Kristie was the only one who stayed. She knelt down beside me and began mopping up the mess. "This is gonna be my room," she grinned. "Mine and Amy's and LeAnne's and Jenny's."

Mike smiled. "Sweet. Can't wait to see it when it's all done."

Kristie sprang to her feet. "You want something to drink?" she offered. "I can go get it for you. The fridge here doesn't work, but the one in Mandy's room does."

"Sure, Kris, that'd be great."

"Whatcha want?"

He shrugged. "Whatever you got."

She disappeared quickly and I stood up and walked to the sink, taking the bucket with me. "So you guys are almost done, huh?" Mike observed.

"Yeah, only two more floors to go," I sighed. "But I guess it's good considering how many floors there are to this building."

He smiled. "It looks really good," he mumbled. "What's done, I mean. I like how you knocked the walls out."

"Yeah, and we put extra closets in, too," I added.

Each apartment consisted of a bathroom, a large room that had once been the living room and the bedroom, but wasn't separated anymore, and a small kitchen. We'd taken out the stoves and the refridgerators, as a safety precaution. Too many children had died playing hide and seek in air-tight fridges and freezers, and the gas stoves were obviously a danger. We also took the front doors off of the younger girls' rooms, as a safety precaution.

Each floor would have two refridgerators that worked, one in the supervisor's apartment and one in the "lounge" apartment, which was open to everyone and had a TV and sofas. People had donated all kinds of things when they found out about this building. We had pool tables and air hockey, and even a few arcade games. They all went into the lounges. The girls could use that fridge, and the older girls could use the stove.

The donations were enough to have all the electric and plumbing fixed, and we'd been doing fundraisers to get the money for paint and cleaning supplies and equipment. One company had donated entire rolls of carpet, another had given us tile. People gave us lamps and desks and beds, and one by one, we finished the rooms.

"How many girls do you actually care for?" Mike asked.

"Over six hundred," I sighed.

His eyes widened. "That many?" he cried, obviously shocked.

I nodded. "Why do you think we needed such a big building?" I smiled. "We can fill this up, Mikey. We had the younger girls three or four to a room in the old building, and the older ones were two to a room."

He let that sink in for a minute. "They weren't all in the hospital..." he guessed.

"They were sent to different hospitals and homeless shelters," I explained. "They tried to keep people with their floors, but it wasn't always possible."

"So how many apartments are in this complex?"

Kristie ran back into the room and handed Mike a can of Sprite. "Thanks, kid," he grinned. She smiled and turned to me. "You want one, Miss Anna?"

"No, I'm okay," I assured her.

She looked away briefly. "Is it okay if I go play Pac-Man with Amy?" she asked. "She's trying to beat my high score."

I smiled. "Go ahead," I approved. "But no fighting with her about it, okay?"

"I promise, Miss Anna!" she called over her shoulder as she darted out into the hallway.

I stared after her. "There's six apartments on each floor, and thirty-two floors," I informed Mike. "So that's almost two hundred apartments."

"Wow," he mumbled. "That's a lot of work."

"Yeah, two months worth," I laughed. "And believe me, I've felt every minute of it."

He smiled. "I bet."

"There's also a large dining room area at the top," I continued. "Like a banquet hall. It's going to be a big cafeteria when we get through with it."

"What are you guys doing in the meantime?" he asked.

"We're all in charge of a floor, just like it'll be when it's all finished. But right now we all have to make meals for all the girls on our floor."

He considered that for a moment and took a long drink from the can in his hands. "How's Marie?" he asked, staring blankly at the wall.

"She's doing pretty well," I answered. "The doctors fitted her with a prosthetic foot, so she's going through therapy to try and re-learn how to walk."

He smiled and snapped out of his trance. "I should go see her. I haven't talked to her in, like, three weeks."

"Yeah, I'm sure she'd like to see you," I agreed. He was quiet for a minute, looking around the apartment. "How's Clarisse?" I asked.

"Oh, she's fine," he sighed. "Things are starting to get a little tense, you know. She doesn't like being locked up in the sewer and I don't blame her. But then, she doesn't want to leave either, so I don't know what the hell is going on." He turned back to me. "It's only a matter of time before it gets messy."