Disclaimer: I am not a product of Ninja Turtles. Oops...I mean, Ninja Turtles are not a product of mine.
A Discover Is Made
It had been months since the Shedder burnt down April's antique shop that use to belong to her father. But with the reward money she had acquired from returning stolen jewels found at an amusement park, she was able to build the shop up and have it running once more.
One day the young red head was bustling about the shop, dusting and straightening the merchandise she had collected, when the phone rang. April hurried over to the counter where the cash register and two phones were. One was a white French style phone with gold trimming around the edge and where the rotary dial was. The other phone, the one that was ringing, was a black cordless.
"Dump On Us!" April said in a warm, welcoming voice. "We'll take everything and anything off your hands for the right price." She couldn't help but roll her eyes when she said this. 'I can't believe I let Casey talk me into saying that.' April thought as she listened to the customer on the other end.
Let us take a step back for a moment, back to when April worked at getting her shop back up into working order. Casey had come to her one day with, what he thought, was a brilliant idea. "Why not start a dumpin' business?" He had been reading about how rare antiques and priceless artifacts were found in yard sales people had and in boxes given to charity or auctions. "Think about it Ape. If we offer ta clean out people's attics and basements, shift through da trash, we might find some treasure fer yer shop."
"I dunno." April said with an uneased look. "Starting a new business is expensive and I already have this shop to take care of."
"Don't worry." Casey said with a laid-back shrug. "I'll do all da labor and you just keep da books." April was still skeptical, but with a lot of prodding and begging she finally agreed to give it a try.
In the beginning, serious doubts started to rise as April looked at the bills piling up in front of her. All were from the new business that didn't seem to fair too well. Before it was even started they were already in the hole by quite a sum of money. Casey had bought an old armor car from a police auction and with the help of the turtles, remodeled it to look like moving van. Ads were placed in newspapers, and a second line with new phone was added to keep the antique business and dumping business separate. Then when the business did start, the few calls that came in brought in meager pickings. A china doll here and new age modern art done by an artist out looking for themselves there, but nothing really worth selling to pay off even the smallest bill.
Soon doubt started turn to regret for April, because it was starting to make her antique shop suffer. The profits coming from that business went into keeping the new business running. But after a couple of weeks, things started to pick up.
Although the dumping business was not bringing in any priceless artifacts or as many antiques one would hope for, it was becoming a huge success. By word of mouth from other satisfied customers, the new phone was ring off the hook with people who wanted to have their homes become clutter-free. Soon all the bills from the new business were paid off and a heavy profit started to come in. In fact, so much work was coming in, there was talk about hiring a second set of hands and another van to keep up with the demands.
What made the dumping business work and so popular, was what April offered with their service. Not only did the business clean out the clutter people wanted to be rid of, but it also took great care of what was to happen to the 'junk'. After Casey brings everything to the shop, April sorted through the stuff and separated it into the appropriate piles. There was a pile for recycling, charity, and rare finds. Anything given to charity and recycling was record for tax deductions; these were passed back to the customer for their records. As for any rare finds, it would be agreed (by a signed wavier) that anything sold, the customer would get half.
Now back to the current situation. April scribbled down the where from the customer she had on the phone. The man on the other end was very adamant about when and how fast they could empty a certain room. "Everything, and I mean everything, must go." He told her. "I don't care what you do with it all, but get it out of my house."
"How does tomorrow work for you?" April asked politely.
"No!" The man yelled suddenly. He cleared his throat before continuing. "I want it all gone today." He demanded. "I've had this junk taking up important space for far too long."
"But we have other people to take care of first sir." April told him.
"I'll pay double your price to get rid of this junk today." The man said with persistence.
"Double!" April replied with surprise.
"Triple if you can come within the next hour." The man added quickly and with more insistence in his voice.
"Triple…" April's voice trailed off. Something didn't feel right about this. "Sir, for that offer I have to ask what it is we'll be dealing with."
"I rather not say over the phone right now." The man said anxiously. "It's nothing dangerous or illegal, if that's what you're worried about."
April was still skeptical about the whole thing, but she says, "Alright, we'll have someone there within the hour."
"I'll be waiting." The man hung up the phone quickly.
The red head heaved a heavy sigh when Casey entered the 2nd Time Round shop. He was carrying in a large box loaded full of junk. It was one of many he had out in the van from the last place he was just at.
"Yo Ape, what's up?" Casey greeted in his heavy Brooklyn accent voice.
"I told you not to call me that." April growled, casing the black haired man to reply with an idiotic 'uh'. She shook her head in annoyance. "There has been a schedule change."
Casey arched an eyebrow at her. "Eh?"
"Yeah. A guy just called in." April explained. "He wants us to clear out a room ASAP. Willing to pay triple if we do it right away."
"Triple!" Casey exclaimed. "Woo-hoo!" He threw his arms up in the air, causing the box he carried to open up. The contents went up in the air and rains down on him.
"Oh Casey!" April put her hands on her head as she looked at the mess around them. "Haven't I told you to watch the antiques?"
"Oops." Casey's face flashed an embarrassing grin before he dropped to his knees and gathered everything back into the box. "But ya have ta admit, triple our askin' price…"
"That's what worries me." April sighed. "I've got a bad feeling about this job."
"So why didn't ya turn it down?" Casey asked as he stood back up and placed the box on the counter.
"And listen to you complain about turning down a high paying job on the account of having the willies?" April gave him a 'come on' look.
"Guess ya have a point." Casey replied while he rubbed the back of his head.
"Just use caution on this job." April warned. "If this is as fishy as I think it is, leave."
"Ok." Casey nodded before heading outside. "I just have ta finish unloadin' da van before I go." He yelled into the shop.
"Alright." April called back out. Heaving one more sigh, the red haired young woman began dialing up customers to inform them of the change in schedule. She finished just as Casey brought in the last of the boxes. "We're in luck." April told him. "No cancellations. In fact, some of our customers wanted to reschedule anyway."
"Nice." Casey chuckled. "Well, I'm off." He took the slip of paper April wrote the address on.
"Right." April nodded. "Remember to be careful." Casey raised a hand in acknowledgement to her warning as he left the shop.
After watching the van take off, April set to work on the boxes that were brought in. She got part way through the first box before quitting. Through Casey was not worried about this latest job, it didn't mean she couldn't. Time seem to slow to a crawl as April waited for her dark hair business partner to return. She was dying to know what the customer want to get rid of and why.
Barely an hour went by when Casey returned. April didn't even wait for him to bring in anything. She rushed out of the shop into the alley where he parked and threw open the back doors once they were unlock. To her surprise, the van was filled with stuff from a young boy's room.
"I don't get it." The red head muttered.
"Ya had ta be der." Casey sighed. "I've been in awkward positions, but dis was da worse." April looked at him with some confusion on her face. "I pull up ta dis rich lookin' place and da man meets me at da door. He drags me ta dis kid's room and says dump it all. He didn't care if we find anythin' or nothin', he just wanted it all gone."
April had the look of disbelief on her face. "Why?"
"Dunno." Casey shrugged. "So anyway, I start emptyin' da room and half way through dis woman comes runnin' at me. She demanded ta know what I was doin'. Before I could answer, da man gathers her up in his arms and leads her away. Turns out he was her husband. So she starts hit 'em and screamin', (he raises his voice to mimic a woman's) 'Dat's our son's room. Don't get rid of our son's room. It's all I have left.' (he makes his voice normal again) And he's goin', (he lowers his voice to do the man) 'We don't have one, we never had one.' (back to his) Then she's like, 'Don't say dat you bastard. Just cause you hate him doesn't mean…' And he's like, 'Our son is dead in dis house. We'll have no more talk of him. His stuff must go NOW!' Eventually da guy gets his wife out of der and I finish up. It was a pretty easy job too. Everythin' was already in boxes and ready ta go. Dat's why it didn't take me so long ta do it."
"That's harsh." April said as she took one of the boxes from the van.
"Da kid must've done somethin' bad ta get on his old man's bad side." Casey commented as he took another one. The two walked into the shop and placed the boxes by the counter.
"I wonder who the son is." April pondered as she looked at the side of the box. There was no name, just a letter and an age, 'JJ age 11'. She opened it and shifts through the contents. "Would you look at the toys in here." There were action figures, cars, trucks, remote control airplanes, and puzzles.
Casey opened his box and empties it out onto the floor; books scattered all over. "Would ya look at dat?" He laughed as he picked one off the floor. "I haven't read dis book in ages." The dark hair man flipped through the book, skimming it over. In the process, a paper flew out of it and lands at on the scattered books. "Eh?"
April picked up the paper and looks at it. "No way." She gasped while reading it over.
"What?" Casey asked after closing the book.
"You are so not going to believe this." April turned the paper around to show him.
At the top of the page, in big capital letters and written with crayon, was the word 'Missing'. Below the word was a messy drawing of four small turtles; each turtle was colored a different color. There was a purple one, a blue one, a red one, and an orange one. Below the picture was a small blurb written in color pencils.
"Missin', four baby turtles. Names are…" Casey read aloud; those words were in black. "Shellock," this was written in purple, "Shellot," written in blue, "Shellinator," written in red, "and Shellington." written in orange. Casey cocked an eyebrow at this as he read on. "Shellock and Shellot are twins, Shellinator is in da middle, and Shellington is a runt. Please handle him with care cause he tends to get sick. If found, please contact Jeffery Johnson at…" The rest of the message contained a phone number and an address.
"You don't think this could mean our turtles…could it?" April asked him.
Casey scrunched up his nose and rubbed his right temple with the knuckle of his index finger on his right hand. "I dunno…maybe."
"What do you think we should do?" April asked as she took another look at the paper. "Do you think we should tell them we found this?"
"Is dis really a can of worms ya wanna open?" Casey asked. "I mean, what if dis starts somethin'?"
"Well we just can't just throw it away and forget all about it." April declared.
"If ya already made up your mind to tell them, why ask me?" Casey snapped to thin air, cause April was already up and gone.
"Are you coming or not?" The red head bellowed to the dark head.
"Y…yes." Casey scrambled after April. "Hang on." He made it out of the door just before she closed and locked it.
To April's dismay, Casey brought out his bike for them to ride over to the turtles' lair.
A/N: Ho-Kay, so here is the first chapter of my first TMNT fan fic. I don't know if this kind of plot has been done before, but if it has then this is my version. I hope to have a steady stream of chapters coming out, it all really depends on what life will throw my way.
Until then, thanks for reading.
