Saga of the Next Generation
By Red Turtle
AN: Now I know you all are reading this. That's good.
I felt I should say something before Mikey fans read this chapter, but I don't want to give anything away. Basically, Mike isn't doing so well in the future at this point, but I can 95% guarantee that if you keep reading this story, it will become one of your favorite Mikey stories ever, so don't be discouraged by what's going on here now.
I guess I should put a word in for Donatello fans too. Yeah, Donatello doesn't do very well either right now, but don't worry.
And for everyone else, well, Raph and Leo are doing great, right now. Maybe you all should be worried.
Now we have JB's part of the story:
I can't seem to put them down. I just keep holding them in my hands, fingering the metal links and running my hands over the wooden ends and examining how beautiful it all is. I could steal some of Romea's scented oil, and I could rub that on the wood, and then it would be even better. Plus it would smell good. Nothing too girly, but cinnamon would work.
I must have spent twenty minutes on them, and this is after practice. I might as well have stayed with Christopher, but I couldn't appreciate them like I can here by myself. I figured, if I'm going to seriously take them up I need to really love them. I want to be better at them than my Dad was.
Finally, I have to relinquish them to their shelf. I have homework. I have to construct a family tree. It's due tomorrow, and it's going to be a huge project.
I had three weeks to do this. I've been putting it off. Well, I did all the preliminary research, like how to do the format, the coloring, and the accompanying essay on Family Trees. I just haven't done the part where I have to write everyone down and connect them to me.
You see, I hate thinking about my family. I don't hate them, exactly, but I hate everything about them. I hate that there's so many, that's its so complicated, that we're so different, that my father and uncles had such difficulties. And most of all, I hate what happened to my one uncle.
My uncle was murdered in a very brutal way. I saw it happen. I was with William at the time; he was home sick with the flu. I don't remember why I was home; I think there was a report card day or something. We were watching the award ceremonies on TV, William was barely awake but it was this big deal so we were all watching it, me, him, Anna and Marie, and their mother (who is not William's mother, so complicated). We were all watching, it was live, big ceremony, and then he was shot. And not once, like in a movie, but a lot. I don't how many times. And the guy got away with it, uncle Leo was there and he still got away. And as I saw this happening before me, as I realized my uncle was dead, my first thought was...why couldn't it have been my father? Why did that have to happen to William not me?
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that, I really wanted it to happen to my father. It wasn't fair, Donatello and William and their siblings loved their dad, and I don't love mine. And now in addition to everything else, I hated him for remaining alive.
Why do I hate him? Teenage angst, I suppose, but I felt this way for as long as I can remember. Since I learned my name was Jellybean. That's when I first lost respect for him, because what kind of man names his kid Jellybean? And my younger brother got Michelob. Sure, I got two cousins named Chicken and Pie, but that was their mom, and their names seemed to come from love, where as me and Mickey, our names seemed to come from whatever was lying on the floor when he woke up and we were born.
I don't see him much. Some years ago, uncle Raph tried to talk to me about it. He told me all the great things my dad had done when they were younger, that he was his best friend and he loved him and it pained him the way me and Mickey felt. Uncle Raph rarely talks about things like that, so I know it was important to him, and I respect him, but I couldn't change the way I felt. Sometimes I think I can see what uncle Raph is talking about, sometimes I see a glint of something heroic, but it never lasts. I have never known my father to be anything but an alcoholic looser.
So, all this makes it hard to do a family tree. There are some kids in my class I can relate to, there's a Chinese girl with black parents and a white sister, and one kid with six separate step-brothers, and another who somehow is his own uncle (he explained it to me once but I forgot). Most of the kids at school don't have fathers. And we're not the only mutant family, theirs about ten others, but none in my class.
I start with the easy part of the tree, grandfather Splinter. Having a rat at the head of the tree really adds to the whole oddness of the family. He's the only rat in it. My father and uncles are turtles. Most of our mothers are human; some are turtles, and one fox.
I do uncle Raph, his fox wife Nantia, Romea, Julian and Rowdie next. Romea and Julian, I don't care for them much personally but their parents put a lot of thought into their names. See, it's the reverse of Romeo and Juliet, because uncle Raph and his wife love each other. I wish I had that kind of thought into my name. Rowdie, well, it's an okay name, but I think they could have done better.
Now I lay out Uncle Leo, his wife, Christopher and Katlin. Christopher and Katlin are good, normal names. Leo's wife is a mutant turtle but a different species than he is, she's a pancake tortoise. Her name is named Ronique. If I was a girl, I would like that name.
I spend a lot of time on this part of the family. We're supposed to use pictures but that would be too hard for me, and there aren't any pictures of grandfather Splinter, so I have to draw him anyway. Might as well draw everyone else to make it uniform. I'm a good artist. Uncle Raph said that was like my Dad, that he drew pictures and he wrote poetry. He even showed me some drawings.
There are tons of pictures of my uncle Don, but I will never use them. I let all his kids keep the pictures. I don't even want to look at them. But I don't want to draw him either. I color the square in black. The teacher knows what happened, she better not give me points off.
I manage to do all of uncle Don's kids. Donatello and William, I like their names. They're twins, but they don't have dumb rhyming names. Donatello is named after uncle Don, of course, but he always insists we call him Donatello, we can't shorten it. William's that way to; always call him William, not Will or Willy or anything like that. Their identical, so I make them look the same in the drawings. Their mother is hard, since I never met her. She was human, blond, and wore glasses and she writes poems to them sometimes. She broke up with uncle Don before I was born.
Then theirs Chicken and Pie, the cousins with the names almost as bad as me and Mickey. Their identical too. No one knows why, uncle Don always had twins but no one else did (Romea and Julian don't count, they were manufactured, which I didn't put in the family tree but everyone can see that). Their Mom is different than Donatello's and William's and I barely remember her. She was really nice, she was loud, she was part turtle, but mostly human, like three fourths. She left Uncle Don too, not sure why.
Last are Anna and Marie, and their mother Tatiana who still lives with us and she's human. I don't really like Anna and Marie, they're just babies so it's wrong not to like them, but I don't. I don't think they should be here. They're kind of like Romea and Julian, they're manufactured.
I eat dinner and do everything I can do before I have to put in my Dad, me and my brother. I can't bring myself to draw him, so I put a red square instead. I don't know my mother. I don't know Mickey's either. I'm only four years older than Mickey, one day he just showed up to live with us. So I put blank squares where they should be. I'm assuming their human, me and Mickey look like we're part human. Mostly we look like turtles, but our skin textures different, our shells and eyes are different. Drawing me I can do okay, just wish it didn't have to be under my Dad. And I can draw Mickey, I like him okay. He likes baseball a lot right now, so I draw him with a baseball bat.
There, it's done. Now I'm going to play with my nun chucks some more before going to bed. Some practice might release all this tension this homework built up. My uncles told me a lot of stories about how they wish they could have gone to school, but it's not all its cracked up to be.
To be continued...
AN: Now I know you all are reading this. That's good.
I felt I should say something before Mikey fans read this chapter, but I don't want to give anything away. Basically, Mike isn't doing so well in the future at this point, but I can 95% guarantee that if you keep reading this story, it will become one of your favorite Mikey stories ever, so don't be discouraged by what's going on here now.
I guess I should put a word in for Donatello fans too. Yeah, Donatello doesn't do very well either right now, but don't worry.
And for everyone else, well, Raph and Leo are doing great, right now. Maybe you all should be worried.
Now we have JB's part of the story:
I can't seem to put them down. I just keep holding them in my hands, fingering the metal links and running my hands over the wooden ends and examining how beautiful it all is. I could steal some of Romea's scented oil, and I could rub that on the wood, and then it would be even better. Plus it would smell good. Nothing too girly, but cinnamon would work.
I must have spent twenty minutes on them, and this is after practice. I might as well have stayed with Christopher, but I couldn't appreciate them like I can here by myself. I figured, if I'm going to seriously take them up I need to really love them. I want to be better at them than my Dad was.
Finally, I have to relinquish them to their shelf. I have homework. I have to construct a family tree. It's due tomorrow, and it's going to be a huge project.
I had three weeks to do this. I've been putting it off. Well, I did all the preliminary research, like how to do the format, the coloring, and the accompanying essay on Family Trees. I just haven't done the part where I have to write everyone down and connect them to me.
You see, I hate thinking about my family. I don't hate them, exactly, but I hate everything about them. I hate that there's so many, that's its so complicated, that we're so different, that my father and uncles had such difficulties. And most of all, I hate what happened to my one uncle.
My uncle was murdered in a very brutal way. I saw it happen. I was with William at the time; he was home sick with the flu. I don't remember why I was home; I think there was a report card day or something. We were watching the award ceremonies on TV, William was barely awake but it was this big deal so we were all watching it, me, him, Anna and Marie, and their mother (who is not William's mother, so complicated). We were all watching, it was live, big ceremony, and then he was shot. And not once, like in a movie, but a lot. I don't how many times. And the guy got away with it, uncle Leo was there and he still got away. And as I saw this happening before me, as I realized my uncle was dead, my first thought was...why couldn't it have been my father? Why did that have to happen to William not me?
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that, I really wanted it to happen to my father. It wasn't fair, Donatello and William and their siblings loved their dad, and I don't love mine. And now in addition to everything else, I hated him for remaining alive.
Why do I hate him? Teenage angst, I suppose, but I felt this way for as long as I can remember. Since I learned my name was Jellybean. That's when I first lost respect for him, because what kind of man names his kid Jellybean? And my younger brother got Michelob. Sure, I got two cousins named Chicken and Pie, but that was their mom, and their names seemed to come from love, where as me and Mickey, our names seemed to come from whatever was lying on the floor when he woke up and we were born.
I don't see him much. Some years ago, uncle Raph tried to talk to me about it. He told me all the great things my dad had done when they were younger, that he was his best friend and he loved him and it pained him the way me and Mickey felt. Uncle Raph rarely talks about things like that, so I know it was important to him, and I respect him, but I couldn't change the way I felt. Sometimes I think I can see what uncle Raph is talking about, sometimes I see a glint of something heroic, but it never lasts. I have never known my father to be anything but an alcoholic looser.
So, all this makes it hard to do a family tree. There are some kids in my class I can relate to, there's a Chinese girl with black parents and a white sister, and one kid with six separate step-brothers, and another who somehow is his own uncle (he explained it to me once but I forgot). Most of the kids at school don't have fathers. And we're not the only mutant family, theirs about ten others, but none in my class.
I start with the easy part of the tree, grandfather Splinter. Having a rat at the head of the tree really adds to the whole oddness of the family. He's the only rat in it. My father and uncles are turtles. Most of our mothers are human; some are turtles, and one fox.
I do uncle Raph, his fox wife Nantia, Romea, Julian and Rowdie next. Romea and Julian, I don't care for them much personally but their parents put a lot of thought into their names. See, it's the reverse of Romeo and Juliet, because uncle Raph and his wife love each other. I wish I had that kind of thought into my name. Rowdie, well, it's an okay name, but I think they could have done better.
Now I lay out Uncle Leo, his wife, Christopher and Katlin. Christopher and Katlin are good, normal names. Leo's wife is a mutant turtle but a different species than he is, she's a pancake tortoise. Her name is named Ronique. If I was a girl, I would like that name.
I spend a lot of time on this part of the family. We're supposed to use pictures but that would be too hard for me, and there aren't any pictures of grandfather Splinter, so I have to draw him anyway. Might as well draw everyone else to make it uniform. I'm a good artist. Uncle Raph said that was like my Dad, that he drew pictures and he wrote poetry. He even showed me some drawings.
There are tons of pictures of my uncle Don, but I will never use them. I let all his kids keep the pictures. I don't even want to look at them. But I don't want to draw him either. I color the square in black. The teacher knows what happened, she better not give me points off.
I manage to do all of uncle Don's kids. Donatello and William, I like their names. They're twins, but they don't have dumb rhyming names. Donatello is named after uncle Don, of course, but he always insists we call him Donatello, we can't shorten it. William's that way to; always call him William, not Will or Willy or anything like that. Their identical, so I make them look the same in the drawings. Their mother is hard, since I never met her. She was human, blond, and wore glasses and she writes poems to them sometimes. She broke up with uncle Don before I was born.
Then theirs Chicken and Pie, the cousins with the names almost as bad as me and Mickey. Their identical too. No one knows why, uncle Don always had twins but no one else did (Romea and Julian don't count, they were manufactured, which I didn't put in the family tree but everyone can see that). Their Mom is different than Donatello's and William's and I barely remember her. She was really nice, she was loud, she was part turtle, but mostly human, like three fourths. She left Uncle Don too, not sure why.
Last are Anna and Marie, and their mother Tatiana who still lives with us and she's human. I don't really like Anna and Marie, they're just babies so it's wrong not to like them, but I don't. I don't think they should be here. They're kind of like Romea and Julian, they're manufactured.
I eat dinner and do everything I can do before I have to put in my Dad, me and my brother. I can't bring myself to draw him, so I put a red square instead. I don't know my mother. I don't know Mickey's either. I'm only four years older than Mickey, one day he just showed up to live with us. So I put blank squares where they should be. I'm assuming their human, me and Mickey look like we're part human. Mostly we look like turtles, but our skin textures different, our shells and eyes are different. Drawing me I can do okay, just wish it didn't have to be under my Dad. And I can draw Mickey, I like him okay. He likes baseball a lot right now, so I draw him with a baseball bat.
There, it's done. Now I'm going to play with my nun chucks some more before going to bed. Some practice might release all this tension this homework built up. My uncles told me a lot of stories about how they wish they could have gone to school, but it's not all its cracked up to be.
To be continued...