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When April met Splinter and the turtles, she immediately felt a certain sympathy for them and their situation. It was touching to her that Splinter had managed to create such a warm, clean, welcoming home in New York City’s sewer system, but the fact that he had to broke her heart. She’d never met such a caring and warm father, of four teenage boys no less, but he had fought tooth and nail for everything they had, that much was clear.
So when the opportunity presented itself for her to give them a taste of normalcy—a fridge full of food, a TV and a warm, clean couch without any patches or holes or suspicious stains—well, she didn’t exactly jump at it so much as it showed up unannounced on her doorstep, but she was eager to do it anyway. She repeatedly told the five of them to make themselves at home. At first it was just something you say to guests, please, make yourself at home, and then it morphed into a kind of command when nearly ten hours had passed since they first crossed the threshold of her apartment and no one had so much as step foot in the kitchen. It took a few days and a very firm statement that she had enough money and she could just go to the store whenever she needed to, but they eventually did bust the fridge and cabinets open while she was working in the shop downstairs.
When she came back upstairs that evening, her kitchen looked…apocalyptic. The fridge and cabinets were just empty, everything from Hostess cakes to frozen vegetables were absolutely destroyed. She poked at the wrappers in the trash and found that even though they were abundant, there wasn’t a speck of food left on any of them. They must have used dishes too, but there weren’t any in the sink. They must have cleaned and put them away.
When she moved into the living room, she found four near-comatose turtles sprawled out across the carpet. Michelangelo had his hands resting contentedly on his stomach as he lay on his shell, feet propped on a pillow; Donatello and Raphael were sharing the couch somehow, even though they were both big enough to lay down on the couch and monopolize it by himself; and Leonardo was in the armchair with his mouth hanging open, snoring softly. Splinter sat between the couch and the coffee table with a book open in front of him—on closer inspection, April found that it was one of her trashy romance novels that she wouldn’t admit to liking if she was asked at gunpoint.
Splinter looked up from the book and smiled so wide that his eyes almost closed. “Miss O’Neil. I cannot thank you enough for your hospitality, though I’m afraid I must apologize for the state of your cupboards. My sons have not known such abundance in their lives and may have over-indulged.”
The statement broke and warmed her heart at the same time. “Oh, don’t even worry about it. I was planning on going to the grocery store soon anyway,” she lied.
After poking around the kitchen a little more, she found that she would actually have to go to the store if she wanted dinner. There was little more for a meal than a few lonely pieces of lunchmeat and some canned soup.
She usually shopped on a pretty strict budget. She was lucky enough to not have any more college debt since she’d had ample access to scholarship money, but the loss of the Stocktronics job hit her finances pretty hard. The antiques business wasn't exactly booming, though she did have the advantage of her father's reputation and existing clientele. She usually didn't indulge in excess food but just this once, she decided to dip into her emergency cash-stash. She didn't know how long the little family would be staying, but she was determined to keep their bellies as full as she could afford.
She knew that the turtles had a fridge, but she also knew that the inside of it was usually bare. Community pantries and garbage cans didn’t take well to perishables, so those are what she focused on first. Fresh fruits, ice cream sandwiches, frozen breakfast burritos, whipped cream, carrots, cucumbers, a huge bag of salad, fresh snap peas, and enough frozen pizza to feed a small army. Which, essentially, they were. She also grabbed up a tub of premade cookie dough on impulse. She didn’t like to assume anything about their position or what they had available, but she was willing to bet money that they'd never had a chocolate chip cookie fresh from the oven. She was no baker, but luckily in this day and age, she didn't have to be. Just scoop and bake, said the package.
By the time she returned from the store with more groceries than she'd bought since Robin moved out, the boys had recovered from their food coma. They must have spotted her struggling from the apartment above, because the apartment door was mysteriously already unlocked and propped open when she and her armloads of bags got to it.
She very firmly shooed them out when they asked if she needed any help, and that was enough to ward off three-fourths of them. Mikey, bouncing with barely contained excitement, chose to stand on the threshold and watch as she emptied bags onto the kitchen table. She could practically see his mouth watering, but he was uncharacteristically silent.
Once she had everything on the table and out of the bags, she looked up to Mikey. “Well, what’s for dinner?”
He squealed and waved his hands in excitement. “Is all of it an option? This is more food than I’ve ever seen in my life!”
April tried not to let the sadness in her eyes show. She must have done a poor job of it, because he rushed forward to reassure her. “I’m just joshin’—it’s, uh, hyper-bowl.”
She laughed, surprising both herself and Mikey. “You mean hyperbole?”
He grinned. “Tomay-to, tomah-to. Umm, how ‘bout pizza? Donnie really likes supreme, but Raph’s more of a meat lover’s kinda guy.”
She pushed aside one box to reveal the one below it.
“Of course you got both, you the bomb diggity, girl.”
“Don’t I know it! Okay, go ahead and pre-heat the oven while I get a cookie sheet.”
The turtle moved to the stove and did as he was told even while he questioned it. “Uh, Apes, I don’t think pizzas fit on top of cookie sheets?”
“I don’t think so either. Good thing the cookie sheet is for cookies,” she quipped.
She pulled a spoon out of the drawer to scoop the dough, and Mikey stood at her shoulder (on his tip-toes) to watch. The dough was so sticky, she had to use her finger to get it off the spoon each time. She refrained from licking it until there were one dozen dough-blobs lined up on the sheet. The oven beeped, so she handed the sheet to Mike to put in the oven with the pizzas while she put away the rest of the groceries.
The last thing to be put away was the cookie dough, still sitting on the counter with the spoon stuck in it. She carved out a sizable bite studded with chocolate chips, then gave the loaded spoon to a salivating, awe-struck Michelangelo.
He took the spoon with great reverence and looked at her with stars dancing in his eyes. “You’re my new favorite sibling,” he whispered.
April leaned against the counter and watched as he stuck the whole big scoop in his mouth at once.
He closed his eyes and rolled it around in his mouth. “Mmm-mmm.” He pulled the spoon out of his mouth and smacked his lips obnoxiously, then popped it right back in his mouth.
April and Mikey both froze up as Donatello rounded the corner into the kitchen.
Mikey pulled the spoon out of his mouth with a pop and turned around. “Nothing,” he said preemptively.
They watched Donnie survey the scene, eyes rolling first over the two of them, and then the container of cookie dough. Donnie locked gazes with April and narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, then they widened.
“April, is that chocolate?”
She blinked. “Umm…yes?”
All at once, Donatello lunged forward and smacked the spoon out of his brother’s hand. In the same moment, he grabbed Mike by the back of the neck and pulled him into his plastron, clutching at him like he’d float away. April gasped at the sharp sound of the spoon clattering to the floor.
“We can’t have chocolate,” he hissed. “We’re severely allergic!”
April’s hands flew to clamp over her mouth as she stared. “I didn’t know! I’m so sorry—what do we do?”
Don’s grip on Mikey was tight, holding him like he was going to fall over dead if he didn’t. Mikey had stopped struggling in his grasp.
“How did you not know? We’re turtles. You wouldn’t give a dog chocolate, would you?”
“No!” She cried. Anxiety gripped her tight. “Do we need to go to the ER? What do we do?!”
Donnie’s expression flickered for half a second, like he was trying to process what she’d said. “The ER? Are you insane?” Mikey started struggling again—was he crying? “A VET, April! We need a vet!”
April was about to turn on her heel to grab the corded phone by the fridge and stopped cold when Splinter came in behind Donatello. He held his walking stick between his hands, looking at his sons with a quirked eyebrow and his ears laying halfway to flat against his head.
“Boys,” he said, tone low and fraught with a warning of thinned patience. “I hope you are behaving and being kind to our gracious host.”
April crumpled on herself, balling her hands into fists and about two seconds from dropping to her knees to beg Splinter’s forgiveness. She had to tell him she poisoned his son. What was she thinking? She never gave children food without asking their parents first, never! That was like, the cardinal rule of handing out samples at the supermarket and she had somehow forgotten it already. How was she going to live with herself if Mikey DIED—?
Donnie released his brother and clasped his hands over his stomach as he totally dissolved into giggles. Mikey, now released from the chokehold, was also giggling. April could only stare at them with open-mouthed shock. Were they having some kind of breakdown?
Splinter’s head dropped to his hand.
“I’m just pulling your leg April,” Don gasped out between bouts of laughter. “We can eat chocolate just fine.”
She couldn’t do anything besides stare at the two turtles growing steadily more hysterical in her kitchen. So it was a joke? He was…fine? Michelangelo was just fine? Her heart was still beating like a hammer in her chest. It was a joke??
These boys, these kids that she barely knew, but already loved so much…these children whom she swore to protect by taking them, as they were hunted by powerful and dangerous enemies, into her home...they were the little brothers that she used to want so desperately, as the youngest child of only two. She never had a younger sibling to love and care for, nor did she have one to tease her. Due to the unavoidable naïveté of circumstances, she never knew that the true nature of little brothers was just one thing: evil.
Donnie wiped tears from his eyes.
“I’m so sorry Miss O’Neil, I’m afraid my boys are prone to what they call practical jokes—”
April turned opened a drawer. She had her heart set on the big, wooden soup spoon her Mom always gravitated to in times like these. She found it easily and grasped the thick handle.
“Donatello…” she withdrew the spoon and turned back to them, holding it where they could see it. “run.”
Two green blurs dashed past Splinter without wasting a moment. As April followed hot on their heels, she caught his mutter of, “I hope you catch them.”
She intended to make him proud.