Radical Transformation
~
The fire alarm rang loud and shrill through Vinilla High, and all classes stopped for a second, realized what it was and were ordered to line up and prepare to leave the building for the field, which was the only place the whole school could fit in orderly lines.
Outside, already on the field, Leo and Raph stopped trying to outrun each other on the track and turned back to the class. The kids were looking at the building, and this directed Leo and Raph's gaze as well.
Teachers and students were filing out of the doors of the school up near the buildings, and were making neat rows of kids. The PE class started to make their way up, too.
"Hey, guys," Prida called. "C'mon, we have to line up."
They frowned.
"It's a fire alarm! Just a practice, but we still have to line up in our classes," Prida explained, and grabbed their arms, pulling them towards the crowds of kids.
The practice was noisy, and took some time to get all the kids organized and the registers said, to check if everyone was present. They lined up in the classes they were in last, and had to stand in a line in alphabetical order.
In Mikey's class line, he didn't care if there was a real fire or not. This was so cool to be included in school events and thing. He chatted rapidly to his friends, Matt Hill and a new friend whose name was Dean Johnson. They hardly noticed the register being called, and forgot to answer their names. He only looked up when one voice got through his excited head, and he looked up to see Leo, Raph and his friend Prida looking his way. Mikey waved then turned back to his friends.
"Your brother, Mikey, is really talkative, ain't he?" Prida laughed.
"Yeah, it would be a miracle if he shut up for a few minutes," Raph groaned.
Leo smiled and was pushed by the other members of the class into his place in the register line. He was only three away from Prida, who was right next to Raph, who was right next to Roxanne (there were only two 'R's in the group).
Soon their names were read, the alarm turned off, and the nearest lot of classes to the school began to walk back inside.
Mikey and his two friends were talking so much, and lost in their own conversations, that when their class began to walk in, a few minutes after the bells were turned off, they totally blocked life outside their chat and were the only ones left from their class, still talking on the field.
"Mikey!" Leo yelled, aware that a few of the kids around him were laughing at his brother.
Mikey looked up, frowning.
Leo pointed behind Mikey, and his brother turned around, gave a loud 'oops!' and dashed back into school with his friends.
Prida laughed, and started to move back up the field with the rest of the class. She challenged Leo to a race up to the start of the track, and she and him sped off.
//
As that was second class, break time was next. The bell rang, signaling the end of morning lessons, and the kids broke out of the prisons, and ran to their lockers or the break cafeteria.
Donny walked out his Geography room with his friend, Tyson Zera. On his other side was a girl who was about as smart as he was, called Amba Jasins. She was a pleasant girl, who, like Donny, didn't boast about her brightness. But as they got to the locker rows, she said she had to go to the library and left them.
"Hey, here come your brothers," Tyson pointed out behind Donny, who was stuffing things into his locker. He turned around and saw Mikey's orange shirt through the crowd. Also, what was funny, he could see Prida's purple eyes perfectly clear from this distance. She was smiling, walking at the side of Raph. Donny turned back, grinning. Those two had made good friends, which was weird, as Raph's attitude usually pushed people away. But then again, he didn't seem to give her his attitude as strongly as normal.
"Who's who?" Tyson asked, watching them, and smiling apologetically.
"The one in orange is Mikey," Donny said, slamming his locker. "Red, Raph, and blue is Leo."
"Hey, Donny ma man!" Mikey said as he stepped up to his brother. "Wassup?"
"The ceiling," Donny muttered. "Hey Mike, this is Tyson." He nodded to his friend, who was staring at is brothers.
"Yo, dude," Mikey said, smiling.
"Hey Prida," Donny smiled. She'd become a good friend to him as well, he found himself thinking. She had that friendly affect on people, like Mikey.
"Hiya Don," Prida responded, then frowned as she saw someone walking her way through the crowd of kids.
Leo leaned against his locker, arguing with Mikey about something, while Raph started to open his locker. Prida had now disappeared, unnoticed.
"I wish you wouldn't draw so much attention, though," Leo said in an undertone to Mikey. "We're trying to keep low here, and there's you who stands out through everyone, and then there's Raph who's already got detention -"
"Like it was my fault," Raph grumbled.
Leo sighed at him and turned back to Mikey. "It would be best if you kept your noise down a bit."
"What about Donny?" Mikey asked.
Leo frowned, and Donny, who was talking to Tyson, glanced at him, and then turned around again.
"What about Don?"
"He's drawing just as much attention to himself as me," Mikey said, defiantly. "He's already well known by half the classes he's been in because he's smart."
Leo sighed, but as he was about to argue back, he saw something in Raph's locker, that Raph tried to hide from view quickly.
"Raph!" Leo hissed. "Why the hell have you got your Sais in your locker? If anyone saw them -"
"Chill, Leo," Raph frowned at his brother's overreaction. Then he seemed to realize someone was missing. "Where's Prida?"
His brothers looked up too, noticing she was missing.
"She was walking with the guy with black hair," Donny called over his shoulder, then carried on talking.
Mikey looked at Raph. "Aw, looks like she's taken, sorry dude!" And he ducked and sheltered behind Leo, looking over his shoulder.
"Shuddup Mikey!" Raph growled. "If you make one more crack about it, then you're gonna find yourself shell-less!"
His brothers didn't see anything wrong with this threat - until a few seconds later when they realized what he had just shouted out.
"Raph! Just keep your mouth shut! You're gonna make people suspicious of us soon!" Leo frowned angrily.
"Geeze, Leo, you think every damn kid in this school is listening!" Raph raised his voice, so that kids stared a little. "I doubt anyone will want to listen to the moans of -"
"Ah, Mr. Rick." An oily voice said behind him.
Raph spun around. "RAPH!" He bellowed, totally wild and mad that people kept getting his name wrong, and so caught up in his loud tones. And he wished he hadn't shouted when he saw who it was he had just deafened.
Mr. Reily narrowed his eyes evilly and angrily. He looked lost for the right words to accuse Raph with.
Finally he came out with, "well if you feel that way about your name, you can write it one hundred times on my blackboard when you come for the after school detention I set you! And make that a double detention! Tomorrow night as well!" The teacher strode off, and Raph fisted his locker, actually dinting it.
His brothers watched him, and Donny couldn't hide the small smile that was creeping on his lips. Mikey couldn't hold back a snort, and snorted, while Leo crossed his arms and wore an 'it's your own fault' look.
Raph just growled, and avoided Tyson's eye, who was frowning over Donny's shoulder. He slammed his locker shut and leant against it, arms crossed.
The bell rang for third class to begin, and the corridors emptied slowly today. They all had English now, and were all together, along with Prida, wherever she was.
The classroom was a middle-sized old room, with three windows lining the far wall, and four along the back wall, looking out onto the field.
They all chose a row at the back with six seats. The very first seat was taken by a timid looking boy, who had short, brown hair and seemed very shy by the way he kept glancing quickly at them as Mikey sat down next to him. There was one seat left at the end of their row. Raph was sat at the end next to it, and it was taken a few minutes later by Prida, who burst in late.
"Sorry, I got held up," she panted.
The teacher, who was a short, plumb woman with short, blonde hair and a kind face, signaled for them to hush. Her name was Mrs. Daubany, as it said on Prida's English book. She then called the register, and handed out new books to the guys. Someone knocked at the door, and asked for a word with her, and she told them she'd be back in a few minutes.
When she shut the door behind her, the class started to buzz with talk.
Mikey turned to the boy next to him.
"Hi, I'm Mikey," he greeted in his friendly manner. When the boy only smiled but didn't answer, Mikey asked, "ya have a name?" The boy let out a small laugh.
"Yeah, I'm Terry Wesker," he said in a quiet voice.
"Cool." Mikey looked at Terry's exercise book and saw the name 'Terry Jacob Wesker' written in a small hand.
"Hey, cool name, can I call ya TJ?"
TJ smiled. "Yeah, sure."
While Mikey had been introducing himself to TJ, across the row Leo had asked Prida where she had disappeared to and been late.
"Er, oh . . . stupid Jo Tooks got in my way," she shook her head. "I'd rather not talk about him."
"What'd he do?" Raph demanded.
But Prida shook her head, and was saved an answer as Mrs. Daubany entered into the room again, calling for quiet. She set them some work to do off the board, and they put their heads down and did it, Donny's pen was the loudest and fastest in the class, and a few kids turned around to stare in awe as the new kid with the purple top whizzed through the work as though writing his own profile, knowing the answers already.
The class was silent as it started to work, but babble broke out eventually when they knew what they had to do, and Mikey was one of those talking. This distracted Leo slightly, but Donny (who was sat in-between Raph and Leo) didn't seem to notice any noise. A few minutes later he put down his pen and turned to his brothers.
"What were you saying?" He asked, smiling politely, adding himself to Mike and TJ's conversation.
Mikey stared at the three pages of work in front of Donny.
"You finished?"
Donny shrugged. "Yeah, that was easy." He raised his eyebrows as they stared.
"Donny, you're just too brainy," Prida joked.
Donny tried to hide his pleased grin.
"Prida, could you come up here please?" Mrs. Daubany called kindly from behind her desk.
Wondering why she had been called up, Prida stood up, and with a glance at the bros, walked over to the desk.
"Yes, Miss?" She asked, politely.
Mrs. Daubany smiled kindly up and her, and brought forward a piece of paper with the pupils seat arrangements drawn on, (so she could name each student).
Prida bent to look at the paper, and Daubany picked up her pen.
"I was wondering - I just felt strange asking them - if you could tell me who was who out of the quadruplets at the back," the teacher asked in a quiet tone, smiling.
Prida, glad it wasn't something bad, smiled and pointed.
"That's Mikey, Leo, Donny and Raph," she said, and watched as Daubany wrote them down.
"Thank you dear, it would be embarrassing to call them the wrong names."
Prida spotted some felt tip pens in a tray on her desk and grabbed them.
"Here," she said, and dabbed a blue, purple, red and orange spot of ink next to the right names. "There you go."
Daubany laughed. "I don't know how you can tell them apart!"
Prida grinned, and went back to her desk.
"What was that about?" Raph asked, not realizing he was smiling because she was.
"Oh, nothing," Prida said, picking up her pen and getting back to work.
The class ended half an hour later, and they now had to check their agendas to see what they had. They all had chemistry, and Prida said that their room was next to hers, so she'd show them where it was. They followed her all the way out of one building and into the science block, past the Biology Room they had yesterday.
"See ya later," Prida said when she came to the corridor with only two rooms down it. She disappeared inside the first, and the guys, along with TJ, walked into the room next to it.
Chemistry turned out to be an unpleasant lesson, mostly because the teacher, Mr. Hodcroft, was like Reily, and loved to pick on the new kids. Halfway through the lesson, he stopped to ask a question about covalent bonding, and picked on Leo to answer it. He wasn't too happy when Leo gave the correct answer.
"What a sour face," Mikey said as the class ended and the level of noise turned up, drowning Mikey's insult out from the teacher.
His brothers agreed, and they left the classroom into the hallway, where they waited for Prida.
It was now lunchtime, and Leo remembered that he had wanted to go to the gym, as it was Thursday.
"See you guys later," Leo said, and walked off down the wrong corridor, and ended up being lost a few minutes later, but helped kindly by a few older kids.
Back in the corridor, Prida walked out and smiled at them, asking if they had a good class, and where Leo was.
They decided to visit the Music Room, as Prida insisted they go there to eat lunch, after they had gone to the canteen.
Having gotten their food, they made their way to the back of the school, to the isolated rooms at the end.
"Hi Miss!" Prida called as they walked into the long, Music Room.
Already in there was a middle-sized woman with a very kind face, much like Mrs Daubany's.
Hello, Prida!" The teacher, Mrs. Smallwood answered. "Oh, hello, who are your friends?" The teacher stared slightly as she saw the guys walk in after Prida.
"Oh, this is Donny," Prida pointed out. "Mikey and Raph."
Mrs. Smallwood smiled at them, and the told Prida she had to go to a meeting for a short while and could she look after the room while she was gone. She collected her bag and left.
Prida went over and sat on one of the tables, resting her feet on a chair. The guys stood there.
"Sit down then," Prida said, and began to eat her lunch.
After making themselves comfortable, talk turned to friends, and Mikey talked about his new friends. He had already made three good ones.
"Yeah but you want to hear them when they get going," Mikey laughed. "They're as mad as me!" He started gibbering on, and they all found themselves laughing at his happy personality. Sometimes his brothers forgot just how happy he made them when he showed it.
But the conversations darken a bit when Donny asked Prida who Jo Tooks was.
"He's a nobody," Prida said, smiling fading. "Just a stupid, selfish, big-headed snot-ball pig who thinks he too good for everyone."
They all stared, and Donny made a face, regretting he asked her. But Mikey came to the rescue and saved the happy conversations from slipping. Soon, as he was happy to see, he had them laughing again.
But lunchtime ended too quickly, and too soon were they walking back to their form rooms to get registered for the afternoon, where Leo received a late mark for coming in after it was taken.
"Sorry - I was late - "Leo panted, obviously having legged it to registration. " - I was - Caught up - in something."
Raph smirked, glad the perfect brother had got a late mark, and couldn't be perfect at everything. Leo frowned back at him.
The last two classes they had were Business Studies, and the end class was different for them all. Leo went to graphics, along with Donny; Mikey went to Food tech, and Raph took Woodwork, meeting Prida in the room.
Mikey was happy to find TJ in his cooking lesson, but wasn't to thrilled about having the 'big-headed' Jo Tooks in his class.
Tooks was sat opposite him in the room, and kept throwing dark looks at Mikey, who wondered what on earth he'd done to have that kind of attitude thrown at him.
Halfway through the lesson, Mikey didn't have to wonder anymore, as Tooks got up from his seat with his other nasty friends, and walked over to Mikey, heading for the file paper that was on the desk next to him.
"Still hangin' around with my chick?" Tooks asked, giving Mikey the evil eyes.
Mikey stared, wondering what the hell this guy was on about.
"Don't look so dumb, Ralph, I know she's been hanging around with you ever since you came here."
Mikey realized now. "It's 'Raph' you idiot, and I'm not him, I'm Mikey."
Tooks narrowed his eyes at him, then grabbed a sheet of paper and stalked back to his desk, heads low as he talked to his rough-looking friends, staring at Mikey.
"Weirdos," Mikey muttered, turning back to TJ, who had been very quiet. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," TJ said. "I just . . . don't like him. He's not exactly nice."
"Hey, don't let him get to ya," Mikey said kindly, and TJ smiled.
"Who was he on about?" TJ asked Mikey, as they got down to writing some details out of a book about cooking.
"Prida, probably," Mikey guessed. "Thinks Raph's been digging on her. She told us she hates him."
TJ nodded, and started to tell Mikey, timidly, what he had seen between her and Tooks before in school when Mikey and his brothers hadn't been here. Mikey listened, thinking to himself her ought not to tell Raph, or he would be jailed for murder if he heard this.
The class finished nicely, with the teacher babbling on to Mikey about how she had come across triplets and had never been able to tell them apart. When the bell rang, she stood up from her perch on the end of Mikey's desk and shouted over the noise not to forget the work for next lesson.
"Hey, do you walk home?" Mikey asked TJ.
"Yeah, I have to. My dad's at work till six."
As he was saying this, Mikey could see Leo and Donny making their way around the corner of the corridor they had come out into.
"What about your mom?" Mikey then saw Raph behind his other two brothers.
"I don't have a mom," TJ said. "She died when I was little."
"Oh, sorry," Mikey said, sympathetically.
A spiteful voice behind him made him turn around.
"Oh yeah, I heard, you guys don't have any parents at all, do ya? Ha, I thought I'd heard the story of the year."
Tooks was smirking, along with his gang, behind Mikey.
"I guess they killed themselves 'cause they couldn't cope with four identical freaks like you." Tooks laughed.
Unfortunate for Tooks, Leo, Donny and Raph heard as well, and Raph stormed up to him, fire blazing in his eyes, and grabbed Tooks by the shirt collar, lifting him off the ground with one hand.
"Say that again and I'll knock you so far your family won't recognize you!" Raph bellowed angrily.
Tooks' gang appeared baffled as what to do, and only clenched their fists, uncertainly.
Leo quickly pulled his brother and Tooks apart, and Tooks glared angrily at Raph.
"You wanna watch it Raph!" He yelled. "You touch me and I can have you thrown in jail! My dad's a cop! And if I tell him that you even scratched me he'll have your sorry ass behind bars!"
Raph made another attempt to throttle Tooks, but Leo grabbed him and held him back, while Tooks jumped slightly, and he and his gang strode off, casting evil eyes back at them.
"Raph! Will you just control the urge to kill someone?!" Leo shouted. "You're gonna land us in too much trouble! We're meant to be keeping low here." He let go of Raph as his brother jerked away.
"C'mon, let's get home," Leo suggested, eyeing Raph. "Master Splinter will want to know how the day went, and we have to ask him if he found anything."
"Raph can't," Mikey said, stepping closer with TJ at his side.
Leo frowned. "Why not?"
"He's got that detention, and that one tomorrow after school as well."
Raph cursed and turned away from his brothers.
"You should go, we'll tell Splinter where you've been." Leo said, and he motioned for Donny and Mikey to leave, before Raph could argue or refuse to go. The three disappeared around the corner, making their way home.
Raph knew that he would get in trouble with Leo and Reily if he didn't show up, and slowly made his way to the Math block. He thought of all the names he could write about the git-faced teacher on the board, instead of his own name, but knew he'd get a lot more detentions that a week's worth for that. Raph sighed, and found himself in front of the Math door quicker than he would have liked.
The door opened when he stepped up to it, and Mr Reily stared at him, an unpleasant smile on his rotten face.
"Ah, Mr. 'Raph' has arrived." He said. "Come in and start on your words, I have to go somewhere, and will be checking every word to make sure you have spelt it correctly, wrote neatly, and did all one hundred - and it will be up to two hundred if I hear any complaints," he snapped as Raph opened his mouth to complain.
Twisting his mouth into an angry snarl, Raph moved in the room, while Reily walked out.
There was two chalk sticks on the teacher's desk, and Raph was tempted to pick them up, snap them in half, and then crunch the bits up. But he walked over to the desk and picked them up. Holding them tightly, he began to write his name on the board in his untidy scrawl, small enough so he might be able to fit the other ninety-nine on.
He stopped writing and listened, as some voices could be heard in the corridor, around the corner. Raph sighed and carried on writing, but the voices got louder, and now Raph could recognize on of them. He threw the chalk stick back on the desk, and walked over to the door.
"Go away -"
Yes. It was definitely her voice. Raph walked silently out the door and peeped around the corner, hand on the wall.
Prida stood with her back to him only a few meters away, and in front of her stood Ci Ci Harrington, as it said in pink letters scribbled on her bag. Also with her was her other friends. They were stood at an angle to Prida, so they couldn't see Raph, who frowned and listened.
"Yeah but, how is it a weirdo like you can hang around with boys who are just too good for you?" Ci Ci's cruel voice was cold and full of envy.
"Shut up Ci Ci and leave me alone, go home to your wonderful pink room," Prida said in a low voice.
But Ci Ci carried on. "I mean, I have one reason; it's because they're new and they don't really have anyone else to show them around school. They're just using you, they'll ditch you as soon as they've made friends with better material."
Her friends giggled evilly, and Raph growled quietly.
Prida sounded hurt when she spoke. "You're just jealous, Ci Ci. I'm not gonna sink to your level and start saying things like that, but I will say that you're just too tarty to make real friends."
She obviously hit target there.
"Don't start calling ME names! I mean, who's the freak around here? You and those purple eyes! I mean, c'mon! What are they, contacts? No one has purple eyes unless they really are weird! I bet those guys noticed already, and can't wait to ditch you! In the time they've been here, they're already popular around school, and do you really think they'd want to hang around with you?! Totally embarrassing to be hanging around with the likes of you, and be popular!"
Raph stepped out from behind the corner to lean against the wall, arms folded. He cleared his throat and said casually:
"Actually, the only thing I would be embarrassed about would be if I hung around with YOU."
Prida spun around, surprised to see him there. Ci Ci and her gang stared. The girl made a face, surprised he had said that.
"You're new, you'll see who's worth hanging with around here," Ci Ci said, once side of her mouth trying to smile.
"Already have, and I can see you aren't on that list," Raph kept a straight face.
Prida smiled thankfully at him, and turned to see what Ci Ci and co. would react like. They all turned up their noses and strode off. Prida turned back to him.
"Raph . . . thanks," she said quietly, and surprised Raph to see her with tears in her eyes, looking red.
"Hey, forget what they said," Raph said. "They only know how to be snobbish."
The tears fell loose and marked her face as they fell. She sighed, and shook her head.
"They're right," she said quietly. "I'm a freak because I have purple eyes . . . it's just weird and I know that . . ."
Raph suddenly felt really sad for her. Her, a freak?
He walked up to her and lifted her chin.
"Hey, what happened to tough-girl Prida?" He smiled, trying to cheer her up (hey, he wasn't used to this). "You know you're worth more than them . . . I'd . . . much rather hang around with you."
Prida knew he was trying to be comforting, and smiled. Then she looked up at him, and then wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him, letting her tears soak into his shirt.
Totally dumbstruck, Raph stood there for a second, arms held. But he gently put them on her back, resting his cheek on her shoulder, and listened to her quiet sniffs.
"I'm more of a freak than you . . ." he said, without realizing what he was saying. So many times he had felt like this, but couldn't show it. He knew Prida didn't like to be like this either.
Prida opened her eyes and frowned. "Why?" She asked softly, voice muffled a bit as she was pressed into his shoulder.
But before he could make something up, a voice shouted to him from behind, and it wasn't a nice one.
"Raph! Get in this classroom now!" Reily was back, and Raph was in trouble as he had only written one word.
They quickly broke apart, and Prida wiped her tears away with her hand.
The teacher strode up to them, face angry.
"Stop smooching with your girlfriend and get back in this classroom now!" He pointed to the door.
Raph, who was still facing Prida, back to Reily, smiled embarrassedly at her, and she him. Then he turned to Reily, glaring.
"After school detentions do not mean you snog your girlfriend in the hallways!"
"I wasn't snogging her!" Raph shouted, face now bright red, mouth open in anger. But he marched over to the Math door and before he went in, smiled apologetically at Prida. Reily followed him in, and slammed the door after him.
Prida sighed, shaking her head. That little hug had actually made her feel much better. But she felt bad for him now. She remembered what she was in the Math block for, and went to get something she had left in one of the rooms.
()()()()
After the detention, Reily reminded Raph of the one tomorrow as well, and Raph growled, then walked out of school as fast as he could, making his way home on his own. His brothers would probably already be patrolling, as Donny had suggested, so Raph nearly ran, hoping to get in on some normal action. This week was just too weird.
As he walked, he thought about how Prida had been called a freak. To Raph, no human was (except the Shredder), but humans could be so cruel to each other. Surprised, Raph found himself thinking about what he would tell, or not tell, Prida when he and his brothers find a way to turn themselves back and have to leave. He'd have to say he was going back to LA. But he thought to himself that seemed more difficult to say goodbye now than it would when he first met her . . .
~
The fire alarm rang loud and shrill through Vinilla High, and all classes stopped for a second, realized what it was and were ordered to line up and prepare to leave the building for the field, which was the only place the whole school could fit in orderly lines.
Outside, already on the field, Leo and Raph stopped trying to outrun each other on the track and turned back to the class. The kids were looking at the building, and this directed Leo and Raph's gaze as well.
Teachers and students were filing out of the doors of the school up near the buildings, and were making neat rows of kids. The PE class started to make their way up, too.
"Hey, guys," Prida called. "C'mon, we have to line up."
They frowned.
"It's a fire alarm! Just a practice, but we still have to line up in our classes," Prida explained, and grabbed their arms, pulling them towards the crowds of kids.
The practice was noisy, and took some time to get all the kids organized and the registers said, to check if everyone was present. They lined up in the classes they were in last, and had to stand in a line in alphabetical order.
In Mikey's class line, he didn't care if there was a real fire or not. This was so cool to be included in school events and thing. He chatted rapidly to his friends, Matt Hill and a new friend whose name was Dean Johnson. They hardly noticed the register being called, and forgot to answer their names. He only looked up when one voice got through his excited head, and he looked up to see Leo, Raph and his friend Prida looking his way. Mikey waved then turned back to his friends.
"Your brother, Mikey, is really talkative, ain't he?" Prida laughed.
"Yeah, it would be a miracle if he shut up for a few minutes," Raph groaned.
Leo smiled and was pushed by the other members of the class into his place in the register line. He was only three away from Prida, who was right next to Raph, who was right next to Roxanne (there were only two 'R's in the group).
Soon their names were read, the alarm turned off, and the nearest lot of classes to the school began to walk back inside.
Mikey and his two friends were talking so much, and lost in their own conversations, that when their class began to walk in, a few minutes after the bells were turned off, they totally blocked life outside their chat and were the only ones left from their class, still talking on the field.
"Mikey!" Leo yelled, aware that a few of the kids around him were laughing at his brother.
Mikey looked up, frowning.
Leo pointed behind Mikey, and his brother turned around, gave a loud 'oops!' and dashed back into school with his friends.
Prida laughed, and started to move back up the field with the rest of the class. She challenged Leo to a race up to the start of the track, and she and him sped off.
//
As that was second class, break time was next. The bell rang, signaling the end of morning lessons, and the kids broke out of the prisons, and ran to their lockers or the break cafeteria.
Donny walked out his Geography room with his friend, Tyson Zera. On his other side was a girl who was about as smart as he was, called Amba Jasins. She was a pleasant girl, who, like Donny, didn't boast about her brightness. But as they got to the locker rows, she said she had to go to the library and left them.
"Hey, here come your brothers," Tyson pointed out behind Donny, who was stuffing things into his locker. He turned around and saw Mikey's orange shirt through the crowd. Also, what was funny, he could see Prida's purple eyes perfectly clear from this distance. She was smiling, walking at the side of Raph. Donny turned back, grinning. Those two had made good friends, which was weird, as Raph's attitude usually pushed people away. But then again, he didn't seem to give her his attitude as strongly as normal.
"Who's who?" Tyson asked, watching them, and smiling apologetically.
"The one in orange is Mikey," Donny said, slamming his locker. "Red, Raph, and blue is Leo."
"Hey, Donny ma man!" Mikey said as he stepped up to his brother. "Wassup?"
"The ceiling," Donny muttered. "Hey Mike, this is Tyson." He nodded to his friend, who was staring at is brothers.
"Yo, dude," Mikey said, smiling.
"Hey Prida," Donny smiled. She'd become a good friend to him as well, he found himself thinking. She had that friendly affect on people, like Mikey.
"Hiya Don," Prida responded, then frowned as she saw someone walking her way through the crowd of kids.
Leo leaned against his locker, arguing with Mikey about something, while Raph started to open his locker. Prida had now disappeared, unnoticed.
"I wish you wouldn't draw so much attention, though," Leo said in an undertone to Mikey. "We're trying to keep low here, and there's you who stands out through everyone, and then there's Raph who's already got detention -"
"Like it was my fault," Raph grumbled.
Leo sighed at him and turned back to Mikey. "It would be best if you kept your noise down a bit."
"What about Donny?" Mikey asked.
Leo frowned, and Donny, who was talking to Tyson, glanced at him, and then turned around again.
"What about Don?"
"He's drawing just as much attention to himself as me," Mikey said, defiantly. "He's already well known by half the classes he's been in because he's smart."
Leo sighed, but as he was about to argue back, he saw something in Raph's locker, that Raph tried to hide from view quickly.
"Raph!" Leo hissed. "Why the hell have you got your Sais in your locker? If anyone saw them -"
"Chill, Leo," Raph frowned at his brother's overreaction. Then he seemed to realize someone was missing. "Where's Prida?"
His brothers looked up too, noticing she was missing.
"She was walking with the guy with black hair," Donny called over his shoulder, then carried on talking.
Mikey looked at Raph. "Aw, looks like she's taken, sorry dude!" And he ducked and sheltered behind Leo, looking over his shoulder.
"Shuddup Mikey!" Raph growled. "If you make one more crack about it, then you're gonna find yourself shell-less!"
His brothers didn't see anything wrong with this threat - until a few seconds later when they realized what he had just shouted out.
"Raph! Just keep your mouth shut! You're gonna make people suspicious of us soon!" Leo frowned angrily.
"Geeze, Leo, you think every damn kid in this school is listening!" Raph raised his voice, so that kids stared a little. "I doubt anyone will want to listen to the moans of -"
"Ah, Mr. Rick." An oily voice said behind him.
Raph spun around. "RAPH!" He bellowed, totally wild and mad that people kept getting his name wrong, and so caught up in his loud tones. And he wished he hadn't shouted when he saw who it was he had just deafened.
Mr. Reily narrowed his eyes evilly and angrily. He looked lost for the right words to accuse Raph with.
Finally he came out with, "well if you feel that way about your name, you can write it one hundred times on my blackboard when you come for the after school detention I set you! And make that a double detention! Tomorrow night as well!" The teacher strode off, and Raph fisted his locker, actually dinting it.
His brothers watched him, and Donny couldn't hide the small smile that was creeping on his lips. Mikey couldn't hold back a snort, and snorted, while Leo crossed his arms and wore an 'it's your own fault' look.
Raph just growled, and avoided Tyson's eye, who was frowning over Donny's shoulder. He slammed his locker shut and leant against it, arms crossed.
The bell rang for third class to begin, and the corridors emptied slowly today. They all had English now, and were all together, along with Prida, wherever she was.
The classroom was a middle-sized old room, with three windows lining the far wall, and four along the back wall, looking out onto the field.
They all chose a row at the back with six seats. The very first seat was taken by a timid looking boy, who had short, brown hair and seemed very shy by the way he kept glancing quickly at them as Mikey sat down next to him. There was one seat left at the end of their row. Raph was sat at the end next to it, and it was taken a few minutes later by Prida, who burst in late.
"Sorry, I got held up," she panted.
The teacher, who was a short, plumb woman with short, blonde hair and a kind face, signaled for them to hush. Her name was Mrs. Daubany, as it said on Prida's English book. She then called the register, and handed out new books to the guys. Someone knocked at the door, and asked for a word with her, and she told them she'd be back in a few minutes.
When she shut the door behind her, the class started to buzz with talk.
Mikey turned to the boy next to him.
"Hi, I'm Mikey," he greeted in his friendly manner. When the boy only smiled but didn't answer, Mikey asked, "ya have a name?" The boy let out a small laugh.
"Yeah, I'm Terry Wesker," he said in a quiet voice.
"Cool." Mikey looked at Terry's exercise book and saw the name 'Terry Jacob Wesker' written in a small hand.
"Hey, cool name, can I call ya TJ?"
TJ smiled. "Yeah, sure."
While Mikey had been introducing himself to TJ, across the row Leo had asked Prida where she had disappeared to and been late.
"Er, oh . . . stupid Jo Tooks got in my way," she shook her head. "I'd rather not talk about him."
"What'd he do?" Raph demanded.
But Prida shook her head, and was saved an answer as Mrs. Daubany entered into the room again, calling for quiet. She set them some work to do off the board, and they put their heads down and did it, Donny's pen was the loudest and fastest in the class, and a few kids turned around to stare in awe as the new kid with the purple top whizzed through the work as though writing his own profile, knowing the answers already.
The class was silent as it started to work, but babble broke out eventually when they knew what they had to do, and Mikey was one of those talking. This distracted Leo slightly, but Donny (who was sat in-between Raph and Leo) didn't seem to notice any noise. A few minutes later he put down his pen and turned to his brothers.
"What were you saying?" He asked, smiling politely, adding himself to Mike and TJ's conversation.
Mikey stared at the three pages of work in front of Donny.
"You finished?"
Donny shrugged. "Yeah, that was easy." He raised his eyebrows as they stared.
"Donny, you're just too brainy," Prida joked.
Donny tried to hide his pleased grin.
"Prida, could you come up here please?" Mrs. Daubany called kindly from behind her desk.
Wondering why she had been called up, Prida stood up, and with a glance at the bros, walked over to the desk.
"Yes, Miss?" She asked, politely.
Mrs. Daubany smiled kindly up and her, and brought forward a piece of paper with the pupils seat arrangements drawn on, (so she could name each student).
Prida bent to look at the paper, and Daubany picked up her pen.
"I was wondering - I just felt strange asking them - if you could tell me who was who out of the quadruplets at the back," the teacher asked in a quiet tone, smiling.
Prida, glad it wasn't something bad, smiled and pointed.
"That's Mikey, Leo, Donny and Raph," she said, and watched as Daubany wrote them down.
"Thank you dear, it would be embarrassing to call them the wrong names."
Prida spotted some felt tip pens in a tray on her desk and grabbed them.
"Here," she said, and dabbed a blue, purple, red and orange spot of ink next to the right names. "There you go."
Daubany laughed. "I don't know how you can tell them apart!"
Prida grinned, and went back to her desk.
"What was that about?" Raph asked, not realizing he was smiling because she was.
"Oh, nothing," Prida said, picking up her pen and getting back to work.
The class ended half an hour later, and they now had to check their agendas to see what they had. They all had chemistry, and Prida said that their room was next to hers, so she'd show them where it was. They followed her all the way out of one building and into the science block, past the Biology Room they had yesterday.
"See ya later," Prida said when she came to the corridor with only two rooms down it. She disappeared inside the first, and the guys, along with TJ, walked into the room next to it.
Chemistry turned out to be an unpleasant lesson, mostly because the teacher, Mr. Hodcroft, was like Reily, and loved to pick on the new kids. Halfway through the lesson, he stopped to ask a question about covalent bonding, and picked on Leo to answer it. He wasn't too happy when Leo gave the correct answer.
"What a sour face," Mikey said as the class ended and the level of noise turned up, drowning Mikey's insult out from the teacher.
His brothers agreed, and they left the classroom into the hallway, where they waited for Prida.
It was now lunchtime, and Leo remembered that he had wanted to go to the gym, as it was Thursday.
"See you guys later," Leo said, and walked off down the wrong corridor, and ended up being lost a few minutes later, but helped kindly by a few older kids.
Back in the corridor, Prida walked out and smiled at them, asking if they had a good class, and where Leo was.
They decided to visit the Music Room, as Prida insisted they go there to eat lunch, after they had gone to the canteen.
Having gotten their food, they made their way to the back of the school, to the isolated rooms at the end.
"Hi Miss!" Prida called as they walked into the long, Music Room.
Already in there was a middle-sized woman with a very kind face, much like Mrs Daubany's.
Hello, Prida!" The teacher, Mrs. Smallwood answered. "Oh, hello, who are your friends?" The teacher stared slightly as she saw the guys walk in after Prida.
"Oh, this is Donny," Prida pointed out. "Mikey and Raph."
Mrs. Smallwood smiled at them, and the told Prida she had to go to a meeting for a short while and could she look after the room while she was gone. She collected her bag and left.
Prida went over and sat on one of the tables, resting her feet on a chair. The guys stood there.
"Sit down then," Prida said, and began to eat her lunch.
After making themselves comfortable, talk turned to friends, and Mikey talked about his new friends. He had already made three good ones.
"Yeah but you want to hear them when they get going," Mikey laughed. "They're as mad as me!" He started gibbering on, and they all found themselves laughing at his happy personality. Sometimes his brothers forgot just how happy he made them when he showed it.
But the conversations darken a bit when Donny asked Prida who Jo Tooks was.
"He's a nobody," Prida said, smiling fading. "Just a stupid, selfish, big-headed snot-ball pig who thinks he too good for everyone."
They all stared, and Donny made a face, regretting he asked her. But Mikey came to the rescue and saved the happy conversations from slipping. Soon, as he was happy to see, he had them laughing again.
But lunchtime ended too quickly, and too soon were they walking back to their form rooms to get registered for the afternoon, where Leo received a late mark for coming in after it was taken.
"Sorry - I was late - "Leo panted, obviously having legged it to registration. " - I was - Caught up - in something."
Raph smirked, glad the perfect brother had got a late mark, and couldn't be perfect at everything. Leo frowned back at him.
The last two classes they had were Business Studies, and the end class was different for them all. Leo went to graphics, along with Donny; Mikey went to Food tech, and Raph took Woodwork, meeting Prida in the room.
Mikey was happy to find TJ in his cooking lesson, but wasn't to thrilled about having the 'big-headed' Jo Tooks in his class.
Tooks was sat opposite him in the room, and kept throwing dark looks at Mikey, who wondered what on earth he'd done to have that kind of attitude thrown at him.
Halfway through the lesson, Mikey didn't have to wonder anymore, as Tooks got up from his seat with his other nasty friends, and walked over to Mikey, heading for the file paper that was on the desk next to him.
"Still hangin' around with my chick?" Tooks asked, giving Mikey the evil eyes.
Mikey stared, wondering what the hell this guy was on about.
"Don't look so dumb, Ralph, I know she's been hanging around with you ever since you came here."
Mikey realized now. "It's 'Raph' you idiot, and I'm not him, I'm Mikey."
Tooks narrowed his eyes at him, then grabbed a sheet of paper and stalked back to his desk, heads low as he talked to his rough-looking friends, staring at Mikey.
"Weirdos," Mikey muttered, turning back to TJ, who had been very quiet. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," TJ said. "I just . . . don't like him. He's not exactly nice."
"Hey, don't let him get to ya," Mikey said kindly, and TJ smiled.
"Who was he on about?" TJ asked Mikey, as they got down to writing some details out of a book about cooking.
"Prida, probably," Mikey guessed. "Thinks Raph's been digging on her. She told us she hates him."
TJ nodded, and started to tell Mikey, timidly, what he had seen between her and Tooks before in school when Mikey and his brothers hadn't been here. Mikey listened, thinking to himself her ought not to tell Raph, or he would be jailed for murder if he heard this.
The class finished nicely, with the teacher babbling on to Mikey about how she had come across triplets and had never been able to tell them apart. When the bell rang, she stood up from her perch on the end of Mikey's desk and shouted over the noise not to forget the work for next lesson.
"Hey, do you walk home?" Mikey asked TJ.
"Yeah, I have to. My dad's at work till six."
As he was saying this, Mikey could see Leo and Donny making their way around the corner of the corridor they had come out into.
"What about your mom?" Mikey then saw Raph behind his other two brothers.
"I don't have a mom," TJ said. "She died when I was little."
"Oh, sorry," Mikey said, sympathetically.
A spiteful voice behind him made him turn around.
"Oh yeah, I heard, you guys don't have any parents at all, do ya? Ha, I thought I'd heard the story of the year."
Tooks was smirking, along with his gang, behind Mikey.
"I guess they killed themselves 'cause they couldn't cope with four identical freaks like you." Tooks laughed.
Unfortunate for Tooks, Leo, Donny and Raph heard as well, and Raph stormed up to him, fire blazing in his eyes, and grabbed Tooks by the shirt collar, lifting him off the ground with one hand.
"Say that again and I'll knock you so far your family won't recognize you!" Raph bellowed angrily.
Tooks' gang appeared baffled as what to do, and only clenched their fists, uncertainly.
Leo quickly pulled his brother and Tooks apart, and Tooks glared angrily at Raph.
"You wanna watch it Raph!" He yelled. "You touch me and I can have you thrown in jail! My dad's a cop! And if I tell him that you even scratched me he'll have your sorry ass behind bars!"
Raph made another attempt to throttle Tooks, but Leo grabbed him and held him back, while Tooks jumped slightly, and he and his gang strode off, casting evil eyes back at them.
"Raph! Will you just control the urge to kill someone?!" Leo shouted. "You're gonna land us in too much trouble! We're meant to be keeping low here." He let go of Raph as his brother jerked away.
"C'mon, let's get home," Leo suggested, eyeing Raph. "Master Splinter will want to know how the day went, and we have to ask him if he found anything."
"Raph can't," Mikey said, stepping closer with TJ at his side.
Leo frowned. "Why not?"
"He's got that detention, and that one tomorrow after school as well."
Raph cursed and turned away from his brothers.
"You should go, we'll tell Splinter where you've been." Leo said, and he motioned for Donny and Mikey to leave, before Raph could argue or refuse to go. The three disappeared around the corner, making their way home.
Raph knew that he would get in trouble with Leo and Reily if he didn't show up, and slowly made his way to the Math block. He thought of all the names he could write about the git-faced teacher on the board, instead of his own name, but knew he'd get a lot more detentions that a week's worth for that. Raph sighed, and found himself in front of the Math door quicker than he would have liked.
The door opened when he stepped up to it, and Mr Reily stared at him, an unpleasant smile on his rotten face.
"Ah, Mr. 'Raph' has arrived." He said. "Come in and start on your words, I have to go somewhere, and will be checking every word to make sure you have spelt it correctly, wrote neatly, and did all one hundred - and it will be up to two hundred if I hear any complaints," he snapped as Raph opened his mouth to complain.
Twisting his mouth into an angry snarl, Raph moved in the room, while Reily walked out.
There was two chalk sticks on the teacher's desk, and Raph was tempted to pick them up, snap them in half, and then crunch the bits up. But he walked over to the desk and picked them up. Holding them tightly, he began to write his name on the board in his untidy scrawl, small enough so he might be able to fit the other ninety-nine on.
He stopped writing and listened, as some voices could be heard in the corridor, around the corner. Raph sighed and carried on writing, but the voices got louder, and now Raph could recognize on of them. He threw the chalk stick back on the desk, and walked over to the door.
"Go away -"
Yes. It was definitely her voice. Raph walked silently out the door and peeped around the corner, hand on the wall.
Prida stood with her back to him only a few meters away, and in front of her stood Ci Ci Harrington, as it said in pink letters scribbled on her bag. Also with her was her other friends. They were stood at an angle to Prida, so they couldn't see Raph, who frowned and listened.
"Yeah but, how is it a weirdo like you can hang around with boys who are just too good for you?" Ci Ci's cruel voice was cold and full of envy.
"Shut up Ci Ci and leave me alone, go home to your wonderful pink room," Prida said in a low voice.
But Ci Ci carried on. "I mean, I have one reason; it's because they're new and they don't really have anyone else to show them around school. They're just using you, they'll ditch you as soon as they've made friends with better material."
Her friends giggled evilly, and Raph growled quietly.
Prida sounded hurt when she spoke. "You're just jealous, Ci Ci. I'm not gonna sink to your level and start saying things like that, but I will say that you're just too tarty to make real friends."
She obviously hit target there.
"Don't start calling ME names! I mean, who's the freak around here? You and those purple eyes! I mean, c'mon! What are they, contacts? No one has purple eyes unless they really are weird! I bet those guys noticed already, and can't wait to ditch you! In the time they've been here, they're already popular around school, and do you really think they'd want to hang around with you?! Totally embarrassing to be hanging around with the likes of you, and be popular!"
Raph stepped out from behind the corner to lean against the wall, arms folded. He cleared his throat and said casually:
"Actually, the only thing I would be embarrassed about would be if I hung around with YOU."
Prida spun around, surprised to see him there. Ci Ci and her gang stared. The girl made a face, surprised he had said that.
"You're new, you'll see who's worth hanging with around here," Ci Ci said, once side of her mouth trying to smile.
"Already have, and I can see you aren't on that list," Raph kept a straight face.
Prida smiled thankfully at him, and turned to see what Ci Ci and co. would react like. They all turned up their noses and strode off. Prida turned back to him.
"Raph . . . thanks," she said quietly, and surprised Raph to see her with tears in her eyes, looking red.
"Hey, forget what they said," Raph said. "They only know how to be snobbish."
The tears fell loose and marked her face as they fell. She sighed, and shook her head.
"They're right," she said quietly. "I'm a freak because I have purple eyes . . . it's just weird and I know that . . ."
Raph suddenly felt really sad for her. Her, a freak?
He walked up to her and lifted her chin.
"Hey, what happened to tough-girl Prida?" He smiled, trying to cheer her up (hey, he wasn't used to this). "You know you're worth more than them . . . I'd . . . much rather hang around with you."
Prida knew he was trying to be comforting, and smiled. Then she looked up at him, and then wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him, letting her tears soak into his shirt.
Totally dumbstruck, Raph stood there for a second, arms held. But he gently put them on her back, resting his cheek on her shoulder, and listened to her quiet sniffs.
"I'm more of a freak than you . . ." he said, without realizing what he was saying. So many times he had felt like this, but couldn't show it. He knew Prida didn't like to be like this either.
Prida opened her eyes and frowned. "Why?" She asked softly, voice muffled a bit as she was pressed into his shoulder.
But before he could make something up, a voice shouted to him from behind, and it wasn't a nice one.
"Raph! Get in this classroom now!" Reily was back, and Raph was in trouble as he had only written one word.
They quickly broke apart, and Prida wiped her tears away with her hand.
The teacher strode up to them, face angry.
"Stop smooching with your girlfriend and get back in this classroom now!" He pointed to the door.
Raph, who was still facing Prida, back to Reily, smiled embarrassedly at her, and she him. Then he turned to Reily, glaring.
"After school detentions do not mean you snog your girlfriend in the hallways!"
"I wasn't snogging her!" Raph shouted, face now bright red, mouth open in anger. But he marched over to the Math door and before he went in, smiled apologetically at Prida. Reily followed him in, and slammed the door after him.
Prida sighed, shaking her head. That little hug had actually made her feel much better. But she felt bad for him now. She remembered what she was in the Math block for, and went to get something she had left in one of the rooms.
()()()()
After the detention, Reily reminded Raph of the one tomorrow as well, and Raph growled, then walked out of school as fast as he could, making his way home on his own. His brothers would probably already be patrolling, as Donny had suggested, so Raph nearly ran, hoping to get in on some normal action. This week was just too weird.
As he walked, he thought about how Prida had been called a freak. To Raph, no human was (except the Shredder), but humans could be so cruel to each other. Surprised, Raph found himself thinking about what he would tell, or not tell, Prida when he and his brothers find a way to turn themselves back and have to leave. He'd have to say he was going back to LA. But he thought to himself that seemed more difficult to say goodbye now than it would when he first met her . . .