Chapter 09: Reading Material

And in the darkness, they waited.

Raph turned the last page of the book with a confused look on his face. He turned back, flipped through the last five pages, but no, he hadn't been mistaken. This had been the last sentence of the book.

He took the book in both hands and shook it as if this would make more pages or letters fall out, but it was of no use. With a groan he put the book aside.

So this was it?

He had spent all his free time of the last three days reading and now it was over? Just like that? He had only come out of his room to join his brothers for meals, he had skipped their "Super Robo Mecha Force Five!"-marathons, he had only asked Donnie for pain killers when he had absolutely needed them and barely lifted his head when his genius brother had come to his room for Raph's thrombosis injections – which from Donnie's point of view surely must have been a relief – and now it was over!?

And really, so many questions were still floating around in Raph's head, questions the book had left unanswered. What was with the shadow zombies, and why had they suddenly started to leave Shadow Woods? And the lost king was back now, but still hadn't gotten his realm back. He was still hiding in the mountains and hadn't even started thinking about a real plan to overthrow the three false kings that had divided the once glorious realm among them after they had killed the lost king's father and made him flee. And why weren't the sorcerers from the Crystal Mountains helping? They had sworn fidelity to the true king, for heaven's sake! Or for the Great Mother's sake, like they would say in the book. And it had been mentioned that the demons had their own plans, but what exactly were their plans?

Raph let himself slump back on his carapace. All these questions unanswered! What was he supposed to do now?

He wasn't blessed with a vivid imagination like Mikey or Donnie or even Leo, so he couldn't come up with an ending all by himself.

He clenched his fists and banged them on the mattress several times.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! If he ever got the chance to put his hands on this author, he was so going to tell him what he thought of ending a story like this!

It was this moment when he heard an all too familiar voice that truly didn't belong to one of his brothers.

April was here!

And with that he grabbed the book, tucked it under his arm, and reached for his crutches.

And then he couldn't get out of his room fast enough.

April sat down on the couch, preparing herself for another "Super Robo Mecha Force Five!"-marathon. Mikey was lying on the ground in front of her like he usually was, Donnie was sitting next to her, and Leo was sitting next to Donnie. She was about to ask if Raph would join them tonight because he had missed the last few ones, when she found the momentarily disabled turtle approaching her on his crutches. He sat down next to her and handed her back the book she had given him some time ago.

"Here," he said. "I finished it."

"Oh great!" April smiled at him. "Did you like it?"

I loved it!, Raph thought, but he quickly bit his tongue before the words made it out of his mouth.

It was one thing to love action movies and animes and martial arts magazines, but loving books was a totally different matter, especially for Raph. He was the tough guy, and anything that could make him look a little bit intellectual was a bit tricky, and even more when he would have to admit it in front of his brothers. It would make him look less cool, he thought, and heck, he had a reputation to keep!

"It was…okay," he replied matter-of-factly. "Didn't like the ending, though."

"Why not?" April asked. "I thought it was a pretty awesome foreshadowing of the next book."

"Next book?" Raph furrowed a brow.

"Yes, haven't I mentioned that?" April replied. "This is the first book in a series. There are five other books in the series so far, with number six following next month. So this wasn't the ending."

"It wasn't!?" Raph asked, his voice high-pitched in excitement, and when he realized that, he quickly cleared his throat.

"I mean, so this wasn't the ending, huh?" he added in a voice he hoped sounded indifferent.

"No, no, far from it," April replied.

"And you have the other books as well?"

"Sure!" April grinned at him.

"Really!?" Again Raph couldn't keep the high-pitched sound out of his voice which lead to another throat-clearing before he added, "Well, could you bring me the next book then?"

"Of course!"

"Or wait, better bring me all of them."

April raised a brow at this.

"I…I mean not that I want to read them that desperately, but it would make sure that I won't run out of reading material so easily," he clarified. "Not that a lack of reading material really would be a problem, it's just…well…uhm…you know…"

"I most certainly do," April said with a smile. "I'll bring you the other books tomorrow after school, okay?"

Raph had to bite his tongue again or otherwise he would have asked her to get them right now or bring them before school tomorrow, so all he managed to say was, "Cool."

He wasn't sure if something had given him away. He had thought he had done a pretty good job in hiding his disappointment by putting an extra-grumpy look on his face, but suddenly April rose to her feet.

Well, it was April, he thought. Sometimes she got a feeling about things.

"Or you know what?" she said. "I could go get them right now. Pizza won't be here before forty-five minutes, so I have enough time for that before we start with our marathon tonight."

"You're amaz…" Raph called out, before he cleared his throat again. "I mean, thanks, April."

"You're welcome," April said, giving his shoulder a quick pat when she passed him as she walked over to the exit.

Raph watched her leave, but when he turned back, he found his three brothers looking at him.

"What!?" he asked a little too loud.

"N-nothing!" they replied in one voice before they turned their attention back to the news-report on TV.

Raph crossed his arms over his plastron, a smirk plastered to his face.

Yeah, he still knew how to do it.