Dirty Little Secret

Everything changed the day I found out my brother's dirty little secret.

I never would have expected it; Leo, the fearless leader, the diligent student, the guy who would rather spend all day meditating or practicing ninjitsu than do anything fun, would actuallybe into something likethis.

It was too good to be true.

I guess my suspicions started when I started wondering what Leo did for his down time, I mean really wondering, cause one can't sit on his butt all day and think about nothing, despite what he tells us. I know what I do; I'm Mikey, I watch t.v. or play video games or, when the Emeril Lagasse surfaces, I cook. Raph beats the living crap out of everything and Donny tinkers with junk all day. But Leo, now that's a mystery for any turtle or human for that matter, the guy is so quiet, it's hard to tell what he thinks about. So I made my decision.

It was time to enter forbidden territory, a.k.a. his bedroom.

Actually, all my brother's rooms are forbidden territory for me. They make that clear in their endless threats of violence that under no circumstances am I to enter any of their rooms, even if it was life or death. In Mikespeak, that means to go in whenever I feel like it.

So who am I to refuse their generous invitations?

I made my move one day when Leo was out, as he was going on a training walk with our sensei, which, to me, means they were going to talk about boring ninja stuff and meditate…again.

Like father, like son.

I entered his room, dark, quiet, and immaculate. Really immaculate. An army sergeant would have been pleased to see this room, and would uphold it as an example of perfection for all the trainees in boot camp for years to come. If we were human and not mutant turtles, that is.

I inspected all the usual hiding places: drawers, shelves, secret treasure boxes; you name it, I've looked in there.

Nothing.

This search was beginning to frustrate me; maybe there was nothing more to my boring brother after all. Maybe all he does is meditate all day; it certainly explains why some of his stuff looked like it has never been touched at all. It was time to face facts, Leo has no life.

As I stood there stewing all this over in my head, my eyes wandered over to his closet. I don't know why I didn't look there, it just seemed too obvious to me, you know? But now that I have set my sights on it, I was drawn to it like some kind of invisible magnet, beckoning me to open its doors and explore inside.

I did, and found nothing but books, books, books. I swear, Leo reads more than Donny does, and he's the nerd of this family. I also found some clothes, used to disguise ourselves, of course, and various other trinkets that I didn't take a second glance at. Sighing, I pulled down one of his books, a collection of Confucius sayings, and proceeded to open it. Maybe there was something in those books that made my brother the uptight leader that he is; after all he was always the one telling me I could learn a thing or two from him.

What I found in that book was not what I expected at all.

I just hit the jackpot of all blackmail material.

I opened it to the middle, where all the good stuff is, and almost fell to the ground in shock. So this is what my brother has been doing all along, I knew one cannot meditate forever, and at last here is the proof. I can't wait to tell Raph and Donny, they are going to go out of their minds when they see this. I carefully tucked the book into my belt and was about to head off to my room with my prize when I heard someone clear their throat behind me. I jumped at the sound of it, obviously guilty for having been caught, and turned around to face a stern Leo standing at the doorway. I couldn't help the grin on my face at the sight of him, although I knew he was angry, but the knowledge of what I found kept playing in my head, and it took all I can muster to keep from laughing out loud. Leo's eyes narrowed in suspicion at my smile, and I fought hard to try to keep it down, but it just wouldn't go away, and he stepped up close to my face. I gulped, I was in serious trouble now, messing with Leo is a whole new ball game.

"You know you aren't allowed in here." He whispered in a deadly tone, his eyes practically looking into mine. If his look could kill, I'd be a goner right now; in fact I should have been dead a million times over with all the death glares given my way. I tried to keep serious, but eventually the laughter won out, and that made Leo all the more angrier, nothing was a worse pet peeve than laughing during a lecture, and I had just broken the most serious rule when it came to handling Leo.

He growled at me, "What's so funny, Mikey?" My sides were hurting, but I knew I couldn't keep it from him any longer, he would have found out sooner or later, and now was the best time if anything, so I took out the book and waved it in front of his face.

"I know your little secret." I told him in a singsong voice, a tone the usually signifies that I got some kind of dirt on one of them. Things like that become predictable in a family like ours, especially when you spend every waking moment with them. How do you think I knew each and every single reactions of my brothers so well?

Leo looked confused for a moment as he analyzed the book I was waving in front of him. Then with a jolt of recognition, he leapt towards me; I easily maneuvered out of the way, the result of years of practice with Raph. He landed on his plastron on top of the bed, he growled low

"Give that book back." He demanded, getting up on all fours.

"Why should I?" I asked him, it was childish, I know, but when I got a good thing to tease someone about, there is no stopping me.

"It's mine, Mikey, you had no right to snoop through my stuff." Leo told me, whirling around to face me.

"You should have picked a better hiding place, the closet honestly, you think none of us would ever know?" I retorted, doing a little victory jig on the floor. Unfortunately, that was a mistake, because the next thing I knew I was in a headlock on the floor with Leo on top of me. He tried to make a grab for the book in my hand, but I kept moving it out of the way, frustrating him. He looked ready to pound me, and I believe he was about to do so, until a sound like a fog horn cut through our little wrestling match.

"Hey, what's goin on in here?" Raph asked us, hey, his voice does remind me of a foghorn, I can't help that.

"Yeah, what up with all the noise in here, I can barely think." Now Don is in here too, good, then I don't have to waste my time trying to find them. I would have loved to tease them about what I found, but as Leo is really close to taking his book back, I couldn't afford to take the risk, it was now or never…

"Hey, Raph, think fast!" I called out, throwing the book his way, I hope he catches it before Leo does. I felt like I was watching The Matrix all over again, as I watch the book sail across the room. Leo leaped up to catch it, and I thought that my worst fear was about to come true, that he would get it before Raph does, and then a miracle happened, Leo fell flat on his face, courtesy of Raph's foot. And Raph had the book in his hand; he was looking at the cover with a bit of disgust.

"Mikey, why the shell did you give me this?"

"Open it! Open it!" I managed to yell out before Leo tried to choke me, tried, mind you, he really wasn't going to kill me, at least I don't think…

Anyway, Raph opened up the book to the first page, and I watched his face go from disdain, to surprise, to satisfied smirk as he looked at the contents, Don peered over to see what he was looking at, and his expression was one of shock too.

"Well, whaddya know?" Raph said as he pulled the cover off the book, "An anime lover, or as they would call people like you, otaku."

It was a manga of one of my favorites, Inuyasha, a story about a half demon living during the Japanese feudal era. It was one of the best comics I've seen, and I haven't had a chance to get the latest copy, and all this time my brother had it.

"That's just one, one! There are no others, I just found it one day!" Leo cried trying to give himself an out, but of course, Raph never lets Leo have an out, he just strode over to his closet and took down all of his books. It turned out that there was more than that one manga, there were many, all kinds of series hidden in the covers of strategy, history, and wisdom books. Of course, he had those too, but the manga outweighed the rest of them. Looking deeper into his closet, we found tapes and DVD's of anime too. I wondered when he got the time to watch those, if we went out, we were usually together. We looked up at Leo, and he was looking at ground, shuffling his foot back and forth, guilty and embarrassed by the looks of it too. I felt kind of bad, I didn't mean to oust him like that, so I did the best thing to make it up to him. I picked up the Inuyasha and went to Leo.

"Hey, bro…?" I asked him gently.

"Yeah?" He responded to the ground.

I lifted up the comic and said, "I'm going to borrow this for a while, I'll give it back when I'm done."

Leo's head shot up, murder evident in his eyes, "No you won't! I haven't finished that yet! Hey, where are you going? Get back here with my manga, now!" But it was too late, I was already out that door, and Leo had to chase after me, with the rest of my brothers cheering him on.

Okay, okay, so the secret wasn't too dirty after all. I say not too dirty because there can be some pretty wild stuff in these animes, but all in all, I'll never see my brother the same way again.

Leo does have a fun side after all.

A/N: um...surprise? Hey I tried to make a funny story, can't be negative all the time you know.