The Silver Balloon

Lights

バストークン! バラのつぼみ! …か。何!

Hallo, everyone. Forgive me for taking so long...bit of family and school drama running about, but I believe I'm alrighty, now.

This chapter is a bit of a silly one....something perhaps a bit more lighthearted then the others. None of us want to see Mikey in trouble, so he's just going to take it easy for a little bit.

In the meantime, please, take care, everyone.


Quote:

"To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart." ~Phyllis Theroux

~*~*~

Don's hand closed over a small stone that was resting on the bay nearby. Squinting ever so slightly, the turtle examined the small piece of stone, then slowly turned to face the canal once again, holding the little rock inbetween the tips of his index finger and thumb.

....well, he liked to believe it was a thumb, but as no one was quite sure, they opted it was one, anyway.

With a light thrust, the little scientist sent the rock flying into the air, watching it skid lightly on the dark waters of the canal, skipping lightly, once, twice, three times-

Ploonk!

Awww. Don's face twitched in disappointment, but the turtle shrugged it off, opting to instead toss another nearby rock that lay at his feet into the water, listening to the satisfying ploonk! that reverberated throughout the tunnel as the stone sank to the canal bottom, light ripples spreading across the surface of the still churning rapids of the water. Don peered into its depths for a minute or so-his murky, quite wavery reflection staring back-but the stone had already beeen slipped away in pace with the current.

Splinter's voice echoed from somewhere to his right.

"Donatello. Do not lean in so close, my son. You will fall in...again."

Wrinkling his nose at the memory, Don hesitantly took a step or two back, peering about himself with a light frown.

"Hey. Where'd Mikey go?"

Raph made a sound caught between a snort and a sigh. Don frowned at him.

"It's been a good twenty minutes, already." Don's voice began to rise ever so slightly.

"D'you suppose he's okay?"

Raph scowled absentmindedly before grabbing a discarded piece of bark, and hurled it into the churny foam of the sewage rain canals.

"That bozo? Leave him alone for five minutes and ya get worried." Raph's face scrunched up slightly.

"....m'not sayin' that's not without good reason, Donny, but-"

Leo started lightly from somewhere on Raph's left. The sound of scurrying feet began to echo throughout the faded rock of the tunnel, and Splinter's head pricked up lightly before relaxing and exhaling.

"Michelangelo," he commented dryly, before returning to tie the small sack still at his feet shut once again. "That's his step."

And, sure enough, Mikey soon appeared from the next corner, hood flapping oddly from behind him as he amiably rushed over, something tightly clenched within his fist. Splinter finished tying his bag in a neat and steady knot, and slowly stood to his full height, dark eyes trailing over to a now sheepish Michelangelo, who was now walking rather then jogging.

"S-Sorry, Sensei," the small turtle squeaked anxiously after coming to a full stop in front of the rat, yellow crest on his chest still heaving as the turtle struggled to take a breath, face slightly flushed as he at last wordlessly opened his fist, and extended it to the bemused rat in front of him.

Leo curiously took a tentative step forward, his face becoming slightly confused as Splinter bent over the small object in Mikey's hand. Raph skeptically peered at the small object once before casting Mikey an incredulous look.

"You stayed behind for THAT little thing?"

He cocked his head to one side, then the other, squinting slightly.

"....whatever...."that" is?"

Donny stopped his stone skipping, and began to make his way over, just as Mikey finally regained enough breath to speak once again.

"M-Master Splinter? What's t-this?"

Splinter's fingers closed over the small object in Mikey's hot little palm, and turned it over carefully. As Don made his way to their side, brown eyes flickered curiously over at the odd object-and then brightened with slight recognition.

"Ooh! I know! I know! That's an, uh..."

He paused.

".....um....."

Most unlike him, the turtle followed, face slightly scrunched up as he tried to recall where on Earth he had seen the thing. Splinter blinked for a moment or two before, at last-recognition began to flicker into midnight orbs.

"Oh."

His voice sounded surprised-and Leo crowded around him to poke at the small object.

"So...what'd Mikey find, Master?"

Splinter held the small object between the tips of his fingers under the dim lighting that maintenance had placed over this now abandoned shifting canal.

"Oh," he said once again, still sounding lightly surprised. "I am....surprised that you managed to find one of these underground, my son."

Was it just him, or did Splinter sound slightly suspicious? Mikey swallowed past the lump in his throat, and managed a nervous chuckle.

"Yeah. Just luck to find one of these beauties underground." He paused.

"....what is it, again?"

Splinter cracked a smile.

"This, my sons, is a bulb."

Raph blinked for a moment or two, then shot a bewildered glance at the buzzing, flickering lights above them. At this, Splinter let out a small chuckle.

"No, my son. A rose bulb. A seed."

Donny smacked his forehead with a groan. Oh. So THAT had been where he'd read about them. One rainy afternoon-with nothing better to do, Donny had fished out a copy of Better Homes and Gardens to read. It hadn't been particularly interesting, but it beat watching Mikey aimlessly through pingpong ball after pingpong ball directly at the wall.

Leo turned the small, shriveled seed about in Splinter's clawed hands.

"Was this what you stayed for, Mikey?"

The orange-clad turtle shrugged, one hand still wrapped around the as of yet unread scrap of white paper still deep within his pocket.

"I dunno. I though there might be some cool stuff-and I didn't know what this thingie was, so I asked." He shrugged again.

Rose bulb. Rosa. Heh. I get it, now.

Raph, already bored, picked up a small rock beside his ankle, and hurled it into the canal.

"So....what's it do?" he asked dully, doing his best not to sound interested as Splinter chuckled.

"The same thing as a seed does, Raphael. Grow." The rat turned the little object about, scanning it skeptically.

"It has been awhile seince I have seen one of these...." he mused aloud. "I...believe this one will still be alright..."

Much to Mikey's disappointment, Splinter tucked the object within his pocket, but not before winking at Mikey.

"Much beauty can come from such a small thing, my son," the rat commented, before patting Mikey briefly upon the head, and reaching for his nearby bag.

"When we get home, let us plant it. I have a small pot still in my dojo..."


~*~*~

In the midst of socking a minion upside the head with the console controller, Mikey uncertainly turned his head about to face an old, cracked pot on the other side of the room.

There, he knew-the bulb was now resting comfortably under a large amount of warm, moist potting soil Splinter had found unopened and discarded in the sewers, under a nearby lightbulb.

But the rat had decided that he would leave the small plant underneath a sewer grate for awhile-as he insisted "artifical sunlight" was no sunlight at all-and that the plant needed fresh air in order to thrive. Mikey exhaled slightly.

It seemed everyone did, at one point or another.

Mikey turned his face back to the screen, where he was now half-heartedly engaged in combat with a small zombie. Pausing his level, Mikey stretched, stood up, and then ambled over to the couch, where his zip-up jacket was waiting.

Don was reading a book on the easy chair, and not taking too much in. Raph was playing with chalk outside the home (Hopefully not breaking said chalk once again) Leo was busy "helping" Master Splinter with dinner (Though the rat assured him that the best way for him to help was to set the table, and then help clean up afterwards.) Stomach churning at the memory of when Leo had attempted to make each of his brothers breakfast in bed-he hadn't even known it was possible to ruin cereal-he shook the thought off, and pulled out the small scrap of paper that still rested in his pocket, though by now, he had read a multitude of times:

Ooops. Forgot this, dear. Just a token of what you may stumble upon when you venture beyond altitude.

....literally.

Do take care.

~Rosa.

Hopefully, she would soon get his next letter. Though it seemed decent to leave a small note himself....

Flicking the television off, Mikey reached for his small, cluttered box of markers, and a woebegone sketchpad. Flicking amiably through the pages, he at last found one clean on both sides, and began to scribble:

Thanks, Rosa. I had to go to Mas....

He paused, scrubbed out the M-A-S letters with a black marker before resuming.

"-my dad to see what it was. We don't see too many rose seeds or stuff 'round here. Not very often, anyhoo.

Mikey tapped his marker against his chin for a moment or two, then dipped his marker down once again:

My Dad says that the bulb will probably grow. Do you think it will? I hope it does. Do Magnolia trees come from bulbs? Do you have skyscrapers in Vermont where you live? I don't get to see them very much myself-but at night, every office building and dumb insurance company window sparkles, because there are lights everywhere. My brother Donny once said there's no need to be scared of the dark when New York City uses more then a metric ton worth of elek...alleacktici.....elllletric....

He scrubbed the words out.

"-lighting each year. Everything glows at night, and it goes all red, gold, and yellow, with bunches of red taillights from the cars below. If you squint, the colors run into each other, and they become a blur of everything, especially when you look over a building or somethin', and get the whole view of the city underneath you, like it's the whole world under your feet. Sometimes, it makes you dizzy, and you hafta hold onto something, because then the world seems very, very large, and ready to swallow you up from so high. Or sometimes you ask, "Is this it?" and feel sad. But mostly, I like New York. You don't see too many stars near the big city at night, but my dad says people try to make stars on the Earth. It's not the same, but they're still pretty. Like on Christmas and stuff, when Times Square is decorated for the holidays. Or for New Year's Eve. I've seen it on TV when they count down till midnight. Sometimes, they set off fireworks. It's really, really cool to see all the colorful explosions booming around the place. My Dad says that me and my brothers are his own piso...persi-personal stash of ones that go out with a big bang. :D A lot of times, they'll send fireworks on Ondependanse or something day on July Fourth."

That sounded good. Mikey watched Don flick a page of his book, and began to scribble once again.

"Take care, Rosa. My Dad planted the bulb. I hope it grows soon. What color will it be? I hope it's not red. I would like to see an orange rose, but any other color-then red-would be okay, I guess. Do roses just come in red, white, and pink? I saw something like that on TV during Valentines Day.

If roses CAN come in other colors, can they be orange or blue or purple? That would be pretty weird, if they were natural flowers, and not paper or somethin'."

He pondered his words once again.

"Well-orange wouldn't be fake or weird. Roses probably want to look their best-and orange is the best way of doin' it, I think. Orange is happy and sunny. If I leave the bulb underneath a lot of sun, will that make it orange or yellow? My brother Donny talked about somethin' that had to do with as....accid...acidac...acidic and basic soil affecting the color, but it all looks like dirt to me.

See ya!"

Mikey

Mikey smiled absentmindedly, and began to fold his letter up. He paused for another second, then scurried to a nearby drawer, and tugged it open. Don turned another page of his novel as Mikey eagerly pulled out a small bus token.

The Hamatos had found an overturned box of the things just last week. But, seeing as they would never use a bus to begin with, what worth were they? Still, Mikey and Leo had decided to take a few home to play TiddlyWinks with.

He hurried back to the rug, plopped back down onto his stomach, and began to scribble on the page again:

P.S: You left me something from the country, so you can have this. Can you guess what it is? I bet you can't! ^^

The turtle dropped the small, irregularly shaped coin into the envelope, and winced at the taste as he licked the seal. Yeeeuuucchh. Gross Post office glue.

At last, Donny looked up as Mikey carefully shut his letter into a drawer, and closed his book.

"Hey, Mikey? Whatcha doin'?"

The orange-clad turtle simply shrugged as he pushed against the drawer with his shell to reshut it.

"Meh. Doodling."

Mikey feverently hoped his voice was reasonably nonchalant. He'd always been a rotten liar. To waver from the slightly skeptical look in Don's eyes, the turtle quickly gestured towards the TV.

"Feel like watching a movie?"

Don cast him a look, but said nothing as Mikey nervously pressed an old videocassette into the player, and settled down next to Mikey on the rug against the couch. The turtle heartily released his breath into a relieved sigh as Disney commercials airing for movies already long since shipped in 1993.

~*~*~*~

Again, it was evening. Something scuttled away from Mikey as he carefully crept towards the nearby mailbox once again, breathing heavy.

A few days had passed. Mikey had thought it best not to make so many frequent risks as he did. It would only make Sensei and the others suspicious, and he feared it would only be a matter of time before one of his brothers commenced with following him.

Carefully tucking his hood more tightly about himself under the dim, buzzing streetlight, Mikey carefully placed the small envelope into the old wood, slamming the lid shut before carefully moving the little red flag up once again.

Smiling lightly, the little turtle began to turn around for the alley, but hesitated in mid-step. Large eyes swiveled to face the dark sky.

A dog barked somewhere in the distance as Mikey inhaled the muggy air. A siren screamed its shrill whistle somewhere. For a second, the turtle hesitated under the opaque clouds, and closed his eyes.

Sometimes, they set off fireworks. It's really, really cool to see all the colorful explosions booming around the place....

Opening his eyes, Mikey exhaled. It'd be wicked awesome to actually GO to one of those celebrations....

Mikey's shoulders drooped for a moment, and then straightened.

Well, TV wasn't the same thing, but it wasn't half bad. Speaking of which-!

The orange-clad turtle started.

What time was it? Oh, crud....

Mentally smacking himself about the face, Mikey made a beeline for the nearby alley, relieved that no cars were currently passing by.

He and his brothers had agreed to watch a scary movie tonight-though, hopefully, Splinter wouldn't find out. Mikey heaved the great disk away from the chasm, and cheerfully lowered himself within the darkness that was home.

Hopefully, he still had a few minutes before it started. He was in the mood for popcorn-and lots of it.