They parted and she opened her beautiful mouth to speak. Mike waited in anticipation to hear her voice. It would be as soft and as sweet as an angels. She spoke.
"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"
Michelangelo blinked and shook his head. He looked at his perfect girl worriedly and asked her to repeat her words.
She smiled lovingly at him and spoke again. "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"
"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"
Mike groaned. How dare his dream of the perfect woman be interrupted by his alarm. He didn't even know he HAD an alarm. He rolled over trying to hit the snooze button, the off button or just the shut the hell up button, but for some reason his stand wasn't where he thought it would be and he rolled right off the bed and onto the floor.
Rubbing his head, Mike reached up and smacked his hand down on the alarm. Blessed silence. He pushed himself up onto his bed and glanced at the clock.
5:00 AM?
"What the hell?" he muttered. "I don't wake up this early. Only LEO wakes up…" He trailed off. "Oh. Right." He glanced around the room and remembered. Splinter insisted that since their reversal day began at dawn, they might as well sleep in each other's rooms. He was in Leo's room.
He remembered laying down last night. The cleanliness of the room bothered him. Everything was right where it was supposed to be. Leo's books were even arranged according to size. It had taken all of ten minutes to fall asleep last night and Mike was the type to sleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. The room was just…eerie.
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Mike fell back down on the bed. Even LEO must take a day to sleep in every now and again. His eyes fell on the paper on the nightstand. The List. The list of things that Leo had been wanting to accomplish for the day. Even his oldest brother's list was arranged nice and neat. Everything had it's own set time. Including waking up.
5:00 AM.
Mike groaned again and sat up. With a weary sigh, he picked up the piece of paper. He had skimmed it last night, but really hadn't thought much of it.
"Meditate at 5:30," Mike read aloud. "Who meditates at 5:30? You just woke up." He smiled a little. Meditation. Perfect time for a cat nap. And no one else was awake to know about it. He got to his feet and fell back down. His body was protesting being up so early. Giving himself a little pep talk, and counting to three, he got to his feet again.
"Ok. Awake at 5:00 AM. Check. Compared to this, the rest of the day's gonna be a snap."
He headed for his door. Leonardo hadn't said what to do from 5:00-5:30, so Mike figured this was Leo's "get ready" time. Since no one else, with the possible exception of Splinter, was awake until almost 7, this was the perfect time to get to the bathroom first, get breakfast first, and maybe even watch a little television without having to fight over the remote.
This getting up early thing might be worth trying out more often. Mike, half sleepwalking, ran straight into the wall. Rubbing his head for the second time in ten minutes, he decided sleeping in was safer.
Leonardo laid awake in Mike's bed. He had been awake when the alarm went off in his room.He had set it for Mike, knowing that his brother's internal alarm clock did not go off so early. He listened wondering if Michelangelo would actually get up or go back to sleep.
He smiled faintly hearing his brother run into the wall. He was up. Not willingly, but he was up. Leo looked over his brother's list for the tenth time. Everything was so hit or miss. Nothing about Mike's day was organized.
"Wake up and practice," Leo murmured. "Wake up at what time?"
He sighed. Usually, he had to drag Mike out of bed for morning practice, so he figured he had best just wait to be woken by his brother in an hour or so. He continued reading.
"Eat breakfast. Watch television. Annoy Raphael."
Leo sighed again. Michelangelo had a gift for annoying them, but he never thought that Mike would actually plan it into his day. This was actually Mike's second list. The first having been vetoed by Splinter, thankfully. It included wonderful things such as, "clean my room."
Leonardo glanced around the room. Even knowing that Mike's room was a disaster hadn't prepared him to actually be sleeping in it. After carefully navigating his way through the mess on the floor without being eaten by anything, he'd had to clear off Mike's bed. The comics, drawing pad, plate of uneaten cheese crackers and empty soda can were balanced precariously on Mike's desk now.
Mike's first list also included something like "do all my chores for the week." Splinter had told Michelangelo these things could be accomplished the next day if he so wished. Mike decided to make a new list.
"Eat lunch. Watch television. Study with Splinter. Annoy Donatello."
Leo shook his head and set the paper down. He knew that Mike had been spending an hour or so each day studying with Splinter. Their formal academic education had ended earlier in the year. Lately, Sensei had been taking them one at a time to hone their more individual skills.
Leonardo had spent time with Splinter studying tactical plans, Japanese culture, and the more mystical aspects of ninjutsu. He knew Mike had been studying herbal healing and poisons. Mike had even joked he would try one of them out one night while cooking dinner. If everyone got sick, he knew he used a poison. He got 20 flips for such a crude joke about his lessons.
Anything that his sensei had to teach Leonardo would interest him, but having grown up on Splinter's herbal cures, he wasn't too keen on learning to use them. He preferred not knowing what it was being forced down his throat. Staring up at the ceiling, Leo tried to understand what it was Splinter was teaching them with this role reversal.
Michelangelo's day was simple compared to his. Mike couldn't possibly do everything he could in a day. Not that Mike wasn't capable, but he knew that his youngest brother just didn't want to do it. Leo didn't think there was anything that he could learn by being Mike for a day. Maybe this was just Splinter's way of giving him a vacation. He closed his eyes. A whole day to goof off. It hadn't been his idea, but he might as well try to make the most of it. Even as he thought it, Leonardo knew he wouldn't be able to do it.
Some disaster was bound to happen and Mike would plead with Splinter until Leo could take over again. Or Splinter would realize how stressful this whole thing was going to be with Mike in command and insist things be the way they always were. He smiled. He just had to wait for some disaster to strike.
