Blame Game

Age: Seven Years

"Daddy! Daddy!"

"Don't listen to him!"

Splinter walked into the living room where he saw Leo sprinting towards him with an angry looking Raph hot on his tail.

Leo ducked behind Splinter, bobbing and weaving as Raph tried to reach around him and grab his slightly older brother.

"Yame!" shouted Splinter, causing both boys to stop their chaotic game of ring around the Splinter. "Now, what seems to be the problem?"

"Raph drew on Mikey while he was taking a nap!" shouted Leo.

"Did not!" shouted Raph.

Splinter pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Michelangelo!" shouted Splinter.

Splinter waited for a few moments before Michelangelo walked groggily into the room, his face and shell completely covered with black marker drawings ranging from the monocle and mustache on his face to the "Raph is cool" graffiti on his stomach.

"Is it lunch time?" asked Mikey, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes completely unaware of his newly painted shell.

"See?" asked Leo.

"Tattletale!" shouted Raph, once more trying to grab his brother.

"Enough!" shouted Splinter. He sighed as he pondered what to do.

Truth be told incidents like these had been occurring all too often. It had been going on for the past two weeks. For some unknown reason Raphael was going through a bit of a trouble making phase. It had started off small when he had hidden one of Donatello's books under his bed, but soon it escalated to things like sticking mud in Leo's toy chest or, most recently, practicing art on his little brother.

As fate would have it though, Raphael's trouble making phase also lined up exactly with Leonardo's new "tattletale" phase. While Raphael was making trouble, Leonardo had taken to reporting on every little infraction of the rules his brothers undertook. And while keeping tabs on Raphael's latest pranks was helpful, reports on Donatello not sweeping properly or Michelangelo not chewing with his mouth closed were not.

"Raphael." said Splinter. "For drawing on your brother you will have no toys for a week and you will arrive an hour early to training tomorrow for extra kata practice."

"What?!" shouted Raphael, however a quick look from Splinter silenced any further objection.

"Now, go to your room."

Raph glared at Leo before stomping off angrily down the hallway.

Splinter turned to Leo.

"Leonardo, while I am thankful that you told me what your brother did, perhaps in the future you can let me know more quietly rather than yelling it down the hallway."

"Yes, Daddy." said Leo with a smile, though Splinter doubted he would in any way attempt to follow his request.

He sighed again before walking over to Mikey.

"Come along, Michelangelo. It's time for a bath."

Mikey yawned, still clearly half asleep.

"Can there be bubbles?" asked Mikey sleepily.

Splinter turned the sleepy child towards the bathroom, revealing a large drawing of a monster attacking a city across the entirety of his back.

"Oh, yes." said Splinter. "There will be bubbles."

SHINK!

Splinter's blade whipped through the air as he performed a kata in the middle of the dojo.

On the side of the dojo sat his four children all staring with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Raphael was the least enthusiastic, clearly burnt out on kata after his early morning hour of extra training.

Donatello was at least a little more excited as he analyzed his father's quick movements.

Michelangelo was usually the most excited of any of his children to see something new, be it a kata, comic, or whatever. He sat on the sidelines in rapt enthusiasm even as the faded marker from yesterday's event continued to decorate his face and shell despite Splinter's best efforts to remove it.

But not even Michelangelo's enthusiasm could match that of Leonardo. Leo loved anything having to do with ninja training. He prided himself on being the most dedicated student of his brothers. But that wasn't why he was staring with wide eyed wonder today.

It was the sword.

The shiny, silver katana in Splinter's hands was one of Leo's favorite things in the whole world. The way it shined as it sliced through the air. The way it sparkled every time Splinter moved. To Leo the katana was the epitome of ninja awesomeness.

Oh, how he wished he could wield a real blade instead of the wooden practice swords that he and his brothers were allowed.

As Splinter finished demonstrating their newest kata for the third time in a row, he lowered the blade to his side and turned to his children.

"That is the new kata we will be learning tomorrow. Think on what I showed you today, and come in tomorrow ready to put it into practice."

"Hai, sensei!" said the children in unison.

"Good. Now go grab your school supplies and wash up for snack time. I will join you in a moment."

The children got up and walked towards the living room with Raph in the front and Leo in the rear.

Just as Leo was about to exit the dojo he watched as Splinter placed the katana in the weapon's closet. He shut the door to the closet, walked into his room at the back of the dojo, and closed the doors behind him.

Normally, this would have been just like any other day. But the thing that made this day different?

He forgot to lock the closet door.

Leo stared at the unguarded closet.

Slowly, he stepped back into the dojo.

He ran across the dojo and hid against the side of the closet furthest away from Splinter's door.

Splinter walked out of his room, strolled across the dojo, and made his way towards the living room to set up for school lessons.

This was Leo's chance. Maybe the only chance he would ever get ever!

He slipped around to the front of the weapons closet, his tiny heart pounding.

Leo was a good boy. And he was the best ninja out of all his brothers. Surely, Splinter wouldn't mind if he just touched the katana, right?

Leo nodded, convinced by his own logic. Slowly, he opened the doors to the weapons closet revealing a giant array of super cool ninja weapons. There were nunchucks and sais and a big mace thing. But there, hanging on the side door, was the coolest of them all: the katana.

Carefully, Leo stood on his tippy toes, trying desperately to reach the handle of the katana inside the closet.

No good. He wasn't tall enough. Still, he would not be denied.

He quickly ran to the wooden practice weapons and grabbed a jo staff.

He sprinted back to the closet and, with the jo staff in hand, he used the staff to poke the katana out of its holding hooks.

Leo jumped back as the katana clattered to the dojo's carpeted floors.

He held his breath, his eyes immediately flying to the dojo entrance.

Ten seconds past. Fifteen.

He let out his held breath. He was safe.

With a look of awestruck wonder he picked up the katana. It was nearly as tall as he was. Way longer than the short, wooden bokken he and his brothers practiced with.

With careful precision, he held the blade just like he had his bokken, his small arms struggling just a little to adjust to the extra weight.

"Hyah." He whispered as he swung the blade slowly through the air.

This was so cool!

He reeled back to try it at full speed.

"Hy—"

Suddenly, Raph walked into the dojo.

"Hey, Leo! You in her—"

"Aaaah!"

Leo SCREAMED at Raph's sudden entrance in the middle of his swing.

He was so scared, in fact, that he completely forgot he was holding a sword!

With Leo's concentration gone the blade FLEW out of his hands and straight through Splinter's bedroom door.

CRASH!

"What was that?!" shouted Splinter from somewhere in the distance.

Leo and Raph looked at the pierced door and then at each other.

Slowly, a smug smile spread across Raph's face.

"Please, don't tell!" shouted Leo in a fearful whisper as he ran over to Raph.

Raph's smile grew even more smug.

"Please, don't tell!" whispered Leo more frantically as Splinter's footsteps grew ever closer.

"Leo's in trouble~" sang Raph softly like it was his favorite song in the world.

The footsteps were almost to the dojo entrance.

"You can't!"

"Now, it's your turn for extra kata practice." whispered Raph, his grin threatening to break the sides of his face.

Splinter walked through the archway.

"What happened?" asked Splinter.

Raph opened his mouth to speak.

"Raph was playing with the katana and accidently threw it through your door!" shouted Leo.

All the joy immediately drained from Raph's face.

"What?!"

Splinter glared at Raph before his eye shifted to his newly sliced door. Why was it that whenever something went wrong in the dojo it was always his room that suffered?

He marched over to his door and opened it, surveying the damage. One broken vase, as he had pretty much expected from both the sound and his past history with vases, and one katana stabbed neatly into his mattress.

He jerked the katana from his mattress, anger burning in his eyes.

"But it wasn't me!" shouted Raph.

"Enough!" said Splinter.

He marched over to the two boys with katana in hand.

"You know very well that touching any of the weapons in the weapons closet is strictly forbidden. You could have hurt yourself or your brothers! What would have happened if this had gone flying into the living room while your little brothers were playing?!"

"It really was an accident." said Leo soberly, his foot twisting anxiously against the carpet.

"While I appreciate you defending your brother," said Splinter. "What he did was wrong and dangerous. Therefore, Raphael, tomorrow you will scrub this entire dojo from top to bottom and you will have no play time at all for the next two weeks!"

"But that's not fair! Leo—"

"Yame! Now, go to your room!"

Raph stood with a mixture of shock, anger, and betrayal burning across his face. He turned to Leo with a furious glare, pinpricks of tears dotting the corners of his eyes before he turned and fled from the room.

Splinter let out a long sigh.

"Go join your brothers for snack time." said Splinter to Leo as the tiny turtle stood with his eyes glued to the carpet. "I will join you after I finish cleaning up this mess."

Leo nodded. He trudged towards the archway, his sullen eyes never leaving the ground.

Raphael stood with his arms crossed as Splinter laid the cleaning supplies down in front of him.

"You are not to leave the dojo until every inch is spotless. Understood?"

Raphael neglected to reply.

"Understood?" said Splinter more firmly.

Raph slowly nodded, his ire fighting him every inch of the way.

"Good."

Splinter turned and walked out the archway leaving the angry turtle to his task.

Raphael stomped over to the bucket of soapy water and grabbed the scrub brush from inside. Splinter had already taken the liberty of rolling up all the carpets in the dojo and moving them to the side of the room, so that just left Raph with scrubbing the concrete floors beneath them. Unfortunately for him the dojo had a large amount of floor space, and Raphael was a very small turtle.

He started scrubbing the floor, working out all his frustration by gridding the brush as hard as he could against the concrete.

After perhaps five minutes of scrubbing in real time and fifty thousand hours of scrubbing in Raph time, he heard a pair of footsteps walking into the dojo.

Raph turned, half expecting to see Splinter come back to make sure he was actually scrubbing.

Instead, he saw Leo standing in the doorway with his arms loaded with coloring books, crayons, and toys.

Raph glared. He stood up.

"Get out of here Leo before I scrub your face off!"

Leo ignored the insult. Instead he walked over to Raph, shoved all the play time implements right into Raph's arms, much to Raph's surprise, and grabbed the scrub brush from his hands.

As Raph stood there with arms full of fun time activities, Leo got down and started scrubbing the floors where Raph had started.

Raph watched him for a moment, unsure what to make of his brother's strange behavior.

"What are you doing?" asked Raph finally. He had hoped to come up with an insult to sling in there as well, but his confusion overwhelmed his desire to put down his treacherous brother.

"I'm scrubbing the floors. Duh."

Raph narrowed his eyes.

"Why?"

"Everyone knows I'm better at cleaning." said Leo dismissively. "You should just color or something. I'll finish the dojo."

Raph glared. A small war waged inside him. On one side was his desire to just let Leo clean the dojo floors. He didn't want to do them, and honestly it was much more fun to watch Leo do his chores than it was to do them himself.

But on the other side was his desire to not be shown up by his smug older brother. And unfortunately for both of them his rebellious nature beat his lazy nature almost every time.

"Hey!" shouted Raph. "Splinter told me to scrub the floors! Not you!"

"You'd just mess them up. Stick to your toys."

Raph growled.

He dropped the armful of toys.

"Give me that scrub brush!"

Raph hurled himself across the dojo right into Leo, knocking both his brother and the bucket of soapy water over.

The two boys wrestled across the flooded floor, crying out as they struggled for control of the cleaning implement.

"It's my chore!"

"I said go play!"

Splinter walked into the room.

"What is…"

He trailed off as he watched two of his children fighting over a cleaning implement.

He had seen a lot of things being a parent, but this…this was a new one.

He shook his head.

"Yame!"

The two boys froze.

Raph scrambled to his feet.

"Leo tried to do my chores!" shouted Raph.

"I'm better at cleaning than he is!"

"Are not!"

"Am too!"

Splinter stared. His children were fighting…over cleaning. Was it opposite day?

"Enough!" said Splinter. "Just…go to your rooms!"

"But—"

"Go!"

The two children stomped out of the room as Splinter stood still trying to process what was going on.

He turned as his children marched down the hallway.

"And no cleaning!"

Later that night Splinter stood in the kitchen boiling a cup of tea. It was almost midnight, and his children had gone to bed hours ago. Normally he would have gone to bed by now as well, but the day's events were still plaguing his mind.

He tried to sort things out step by step.

1) Raphael was supposed to clean the dojo as punishment for playing with the katana.

2) Leonardo tries to clean the dojo instead of Raphael.

3) Instead of letting Leonardo clean the dojo, Raphael fights Leonardo over the right to clean the dojo.

4) Splinter goes insane because his children make no sense.

Splinter shook his head. Whatever happened to the days when a child could just get punished and be done with it?

As Splinter walked towards the living room with his tea his keen ears picked up a strange sound.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

He stopped, perking his ears up in the air as he tried to figure out where it was coming from. Slowly, he moved around the room until he could determine the source of the sound.

The dojo.

Splinter sighed.

Taking a small sip of his tea he slowly trudged towards the dojo entrance, almost afraid of what he would find on the other side.

He walked through the archway.

Nothing.

He walked inside, looking around for the source of the sound.

As he walked across the dojo his foot came in contact with something wet.

He looked down at a spot on the floor where water and a small pool of bubbles clung to the concrete.

His eyes narrowed.

He looked more closely at the floor noticing a small trail of water leading away from the offending spot. He followed the trail of water across the dojo like a blood hound until finally he came to a set of rolled up carpets leaning against the wall.

He pushed away the carpets revealing none other than Leonardo, holding a scrub brush in one hand and a bucket of soapy water in the other.

"Uh..Hi, Daddy." he said with a nervous smile.

Splinter was not amused.

"Is there a reason you are trying to clean the dojo in the middle of the night?"

"I thought if I started now I could get it done before morning training." he said matter-of-factly.

"That's not...I mean, why are you trying to clean the dojo?"

"So it won't be dirty."

Eeeeeeerg! Curse this child and his answers that weren't answers!

Splinter pinched the bridge of his nose. He chose his next words very carefully.

"While I…am grateful that you want to clean, it is Raphael's job to clean the dojo. Not yours."

"Raph stinks at cleaning." said Leo as he walked back over to where he had started to clean. "You should just let him play. I can clean the dojo."

Leo started scrubbing the floors.

Something was wrong. While it was true that Leo liked to clean far more than his brothers, this was excessive even for him.

"Alright." said Splinter slowly. "Perhaps instead I will have Raphael wash the dishes."

"Raph stinks at washing dishes." said Leo. "You should just let me do it."

'Huh.' thought Splinter.

"You know, perhaps you are right. Maybe I'll have him come early to kata practice every day for the next two weeks."

"Kata isn't really Raph's thing." said Leo. "I could do it for him."

"Hmmmmmmm." said Splinter thoughtfully. Slowly the pieces were starting to come together. He smiled.

"Thank you, Leonardo. You have inspired me."

Leo looked up at him. "I have?"

"Yes. I have decided that cleaning and kata practice are faaar too light a punishment for Raphael."

"You have?" asked Leo miserably.

"Yes. For Raphael's punishment he is no longer allowed to be a ninja ever again."

"What?!" shouted Leo.

"As you said, he clearly has no interest in kata."

"But Raph loves being a ninja!"

"He broke the rules and for that he must be punished."

"You can't!"

"And why not?"

"Because…because it was me!" shouted Leo. "I was the one who played with the katana! I blamed Raph because I didn't want you to think I was a bad son! Please let Raph be a ninja!"

Splinter smiled as Leo clung desperately to his robes. Nooooow it all made sense.

Splinter knelt down to look Leo in the eyes.

"I am very disappointed in you Leonardo. Playing with the katana was wrong, but letting your brother take the blame was much worse."

Leo looked away.

"I tried to do his punishment for him. I just didn't want you to know I did something wrong."

"Taking your brother's punishment doesn't make it right. Tomorrow you will clean both the dojo and the entire living room. And you will apologize to Raphael first thing in the morning. Understood?"

"Yes, Daddy."

Leo sniffled as small tears started to form in his eyes. Splinter grabbed him in a hug.

"Do you think I'm a bad son?" asked Leo as he clutched Splinter's robes.

"I could never think you were a bad son no matter what you did." responded Splinter. "I will always love you. No matter what."

Leo tightened his grip on his father, his tears soaking into Splinter's robe.

A new set of footsteps entered the dojo.

Splinter and Leo turned to see Raphael standing in the doorway with a scrub brush and a bucket of soapy water.

Raphael froze, his eyes taking in the entire scene. He saw the bucket of water and scrub brush next to Leo.

His face clouded with anger.

"No fair! Daddy told me to clean the dojo! Me!"

Splinter sighed.

One weird problem down.

And one even weirder problem to go.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

Leo smiled as he happily scrubbed the living room floors, the sound of the brush scrubbing the concrete practically music to his tiny turtle ears.

Raph watched from the side with a smug grin.

"Leo's in trouble~ Leo's in trouble~" he sang, the joy of seeing his perfect brother being punished better than all the cookies in the world…maybe.

"You're just jealous because I'm better at cleaning than you are." said Leo with a superior smile.

"Are not!" said Raph.

"Raph's bad at cleaning~ Raph's bad at cleaning~" sang Leo.

Raph growled.

"Stop singing before I pound ya!"

"Daddy!" called Leo. "Raph says he's gonna pound me!"

"Be quiet!"

"Daddy! Raph's yelling at me to be quiet!"

"Boooooooooys!"

Author's Note: HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

It's the time of year for Hope, Joy, tons of yummy chocolate, and Gratitude for all the amazing Blessings we've been given. And, as it so happens, it's also time for a new chapter of Adventures in Parenting!

I have big news everyone! Adventures in Parenting has been nominated for the TMNT Universal Fanfic Competition! YAAAAAY! It's been nominated for the category of Cutest Chibi. I'm so grateful for this amazing honor and all your absolutely wonderful support! I am so Blessed to have you guys as readers, and I can't thank you enough for being the awesome people that you are. You guys ROCK OUT LOUD!

Let me know what you think of this latest chapter. Thank you so hyper much, and, once again, HAPPY EASTER! LOVE YOU GUYS~!