(Untitled)

[mnr_splinter]

There's a little known fact that if you wish to keep something secret from a ninja the best place to conceal it is in plain sight. This is especially true if what you're trying to conceal are plans for a birthday celebration, and the ninja you wish to keep these plans from is Michaelangelo

Comments

[realmrsreynolds]

Sometimes, unexpected people are easy to see coming, given the fluorescent lights glinting off of silver hair.

"Wèi," Sallie smiles. "You're plottin' something. I can smell it."

[mnr_splinter]

Oh don't talk to Splinter about Silver hair....
He attempts his very best, What? Me? expression. It's easy to see where Mike gets it.

"I don't know what you are talking about."

[realmrsreynolds]

Sallie believes him.

Honestly.

She also sits down without invitation, declaring, "Well at least include me."

[mnr_splinter]

As well she should, he is a pillar of virtue after all.
And you can tell that from the chuckling.

"I am attempting to devise a birthday celebration for Michaelangelo. Or at very least something shaped like it. Tea?"

[realmrsreynolds]

Sallie seems torn, about everything except the tea which she accepts with a nod.

"I want to help but if it's got to be a secret, I'm not sure how much I should. He might pick up hints from me 'n Bar."

Sometimes mental connections get difficult to maneuver.

[mnr_splinter]

With one hand he gives her the tea, with the other he waves away her concern.

"Trust me when I say that Michaelangelo is all too aware that he has a birthday approaching."

[realmrsreynolds]

"And it's April Fool's no less. Bar is already antsy."

So many changes.

And then of course there was last year.

"It will be an interesting experience?"

[mnr_splinter]

"It usually is," he deadpans. "When he was a child it would usually take us until his second birthday of the year to recuperate from the first."

[realmrsreynolds]

Sallie's brow creases. "Second? Why in the 'verse would you get that boy two birthdays?"

[mnr_splinter]

His ears lower, and his whiskers twitch.

"He is difficult to say no to sometimes."

SURELY SALLIE HASN'T NOTICED THIS.

[realmrsreynolds]

OF COURSE NOT.

Boys.

"You're kind of adorable with him."

[mnr_splinter]

His response is to mutter something along the lines of, Infanticide is not yet socially acceptable, before taking another sip from his tea.

[realmrsreynolds]

"Be gruff all you'd like; I've seen worse fathers than you, qin ài de."

[mnr_splinter]

Splinter lowers his head for a momentary bow, which comes complete with thanks made in the softest whisper of Japanese.

"I have merely done the best with what I had available at the time. I was very lucky to be gifted with my boys."

[realmrsreynolds]

"That might be why you and I get along, you realize."

But that, somehow, seems to encroach on a thought Sallie's uncomfortable with. She turns back to the accoutrements across Splinter's table.

"What's all this?"

[mnr_splinter]

If he notices his discomfort, he shows no signs of it. Instead he turns his attention to the papers before them.

"Potential ideas for celebration and gifts. When he was a child Michaelangelo was partial to lists. These pages," he gestures to the pages to the left of the table. "Make up but a few examples of the things he would buy when he became a famous...what ever the occupation of the day was. And over here," he points to the other side of the table. "Are things on television that he saw that he liked."

The pages aren't all actual pages. Some of them are the back of soup cans, flattened cardboard cereal boxes, and ATM receipts.

"Clean paper was a luxury we did not always have."