Meeting The Turtles By: Yvette "DaPrincess" Griffith I was your average 16-year-old girl living in an average apartment in Manhattan, New York with a divorced, full-time working father. It was summer vacation from school, and I was bored. I sat on the old living room couch in my pajamas lazily flipping through the channels as I ate my breakfast of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. My dad rushed around like that rabbit whose always late on Alice In Wonderland. He finally got done with whatever he was doing, and ran straight for the door. "See you later, Andrea!" he shouted as he left. "Okay." came my usual late reply. I sat there feeling bored as ever, and turned the TV off. I had finished my cereal, and put the bowl in the sink. Then I washed up, and changed into some day clothes. I looked out the dirty window in the apartment and saw the city life go on below. People hustling, taxis who didn't give a what about how they drove, and road rage at its finest. Manhattan wasn't a bad place to live really, unless you lived in a crumby apartment like we did. We had rats (and who in Manhattan didn't?), roaches, and plumbing issues like you wouldn't believe. We weren't poor or anything, it's just that my dad didn't really care about where we lived. It wasn't a big issue to him, as long as we had a roof over our head. I often wondered when in the world my mom would come back from her trip to London and realize that she had a daughter waiting to visit her, instead of being here in this vast wasteland called, "Daddy's house." A little while later, I got tired of just sitting there looking out the stupid dirty window, so I decided to get out of the house. My dad wouldn't mind, he never found out anyway. So I got a small backpack that I always carried around, with the essentials, like something to drink, a cream cheese and grape jelly sandwich (weird, but delicious), some snacks, subway map, street map, and my beeper, just in case my dad forgot our phone number again and didn't use the telephone. I then exited the apartment, passed the crazy people yelling at each other in whatever-language-they-called-that, and went outside. It was so hot outside, and I wished that I had brought some more ice in my drink. But anyway, I continued down the street, passing the usual city people. I walked around for a good while, and then decided to walk off the beaten path, and accidentally ended up in the not-so-nice part of town. I then turned around, hoping to walk back to where I was before. But I saw a gang up the street, just where I had to walk. "This sucks." I said to myself. I knew that I couldn't walk that way. I was a girl all alone in the worst part of town, and knew that I didn't belong around here, so I just walked deeper into town. It was a couple of hours later, and I knew my dad would be home soon. Can ya say, "busted"? I just turned a corner, and saw another gang there breaking into a car. Now these guys get pretty ticked off if someone sees what they do. They all looked at me. "Yo, whatcha lookin' at?" asked one of them. "I ain't see nothin'." I said as I backed away. Then I turned to run. They began chasing me down streets and everything. I didn't know this part of town at all, so I ran down all the wrong streets and ended up in the worst part of the city that I'd ever seen. I mean, the police were actually conversating with the drug dealers! I kept running, the gang still close behind me. Then I did the stupid thing of turning my head around and looking to see if the gang was still there. I didn't see where I was going, and the last thing I remember was just falling down a huge hole. I woke up what seemed to be like hours later, and I felt sore. My head hurt, and it was too painful to move my left arm. Good thing I was right-handed. Then I noticed something that made me really scared, I couldn't see a thing! Only white. I sat up quickly. "I'm blind!" I exclaimed. Then I heard someone laugh a bit. "You're not blind. You're wearing a blindfold." another one said. I was nonetheless shocked to hear a voice, so I reached for the blindfold on my face with my right hand. I was just about to pull it off when whoever was there stopped me. I felt a large hand grab mine, and gently pull it down from my face. "You really don't want to do that." they said. "Why not?" I asked, wondering why in the world they didn't want me to see. "We have our reasons." another one with a rougher-type voice said. "What, y'all don't want me to see when you throw me in the river or somethin'?" I asked sarcastically. The same one from earlier laughed. He had a funny-type laugh that sounded kinda cute. "No, we're not harmful. We actually rescued you. But we just don't want you to see us, that's all." said the one that had been doing most of the talking. I sighed. I ached all over, and decided to sit back on this thing, whatever it was, that I was laying on. It sure smelled funny though. "So, what's this junk about you rescuing me?" I asked, not really remembering what happened before I woke up. "You were lying on the ground unconcious in the sewer. You must've fallen down the manhole right above you or something." said another one that I hadn't heard talk yet. "Sewer? Manhole? Yo, where the heck am I?" I asked, attempting to sit up again, but the pain didn't allow me to. "You must rest. Your fall was quite bad." said someone with a female voice. "What were you doing in this part of town? It ain't safe for you kid." said the one with the rough voice. "I was, I was . . . " I said, trying to remember what happened, and then I did. "I was runnin' from this gang. I didn't want to be up in my dad's house, so I walked around the city for a while, then ended up in the part of town where the gang was." I said. Then it hit me, that part where I blacked out. I guess I had a pretty bad fall after all. "So, I'm in a sewer right now?" I asked. "Yeah." said the one who'd been laughing the other times. "Mikey!" said someone else who apparently didn't want me to know that I was in a sewer. "So if I'm down here, how come y'all are too?" I asked. No one spoke, there was just dead silence. But I could tell that they were thinking of an answer. There was one sitting right by me, and I knew that they'd try to stop me from taking the blindfold off, but I had to try. So with one quick move, I pulled it off with my right hand. I couldn't believe what I saw next. There were 5 huge Turtles that stood upright, and there was a rat that also stood upright. I was either too shocked or too afraid to scream, so I didn't. Quite frankly, they looked more frightened than I did. "Whoa." was all I managed to say. "Busted." said one wearing an orange bandanna. "Wha, what are you?" I asked, even though the answer seemed pretty obvious . . . well, to some extent anyway. "Well, we're what we look like. Five Turtles and a rat." said one with a blue bandanna. "That don't explain why y'all can talk, and stand up like that. Now I know I ain't seen no turtle or rat like any of y'all." I said, somewhat shakily. I wasn't that scared though. If they were so bad, they could've killed me already, instead of laying me on this dirty couch. So the one with the purple bandanna went into a whole explanation of mutation and all that. It was interesting, and like a good movie, but only with words. I could picture some of the stuff in my head, but not everything. After he was done, I just sat back on the sorry-excuse-for-a-couch (that reminded me of my dad's) that I was on. "That's cool." I said, and it was. I mean, animals, being able to talk and everything like a human was no doubt cooler than doing what they normally would've done. Which is eat worms and scurry about the sewers of New York eating garbage. "So, now that you know who we are and what we're all about, how about you?" asked the one with the aqua bandanna, who was named Venus. "Well, my name is Andrea Jonson, but folks call me Andre for short. I'm 16, and I live with my dad in this pretty crumby apartment above West 32nd street." I said. "What about your mom?" asked the one with blue bandanna, Leonardo. "My parents are divorced, so my mom travels a lot now. She's in London right now. I get to visit her sometimes, but she's too busy with her rich life to even notice me." I said. I tried not to let it bother me, but it did. "Gee, that's too bad." said Michealangelo, the funny one that did all the laughing earlier. "Yeah, seeing some big clock in London is a lot more important to her than spending time with her daughter." I said, sounding pretty bitter. I didn't want them to know how much it bothered me, but they could tell. Especially the rough-voiced one with the red bandanna that looked like a dog chewed it up, Raphael. He kinda looked at me differently, like he was figuring out what I was all about or something. I sat up on the couch, my sneakers finally feeling some ground underneath of them. The rat guy they called "Master Splinter", brought me some tea in this bowl-like cup. "Thanks." I said as I took it from him. I then looked at the tea for a moment, just to make sure that nothing was swimming in it or anything. I mean, this is sewer food, I didn't expect it to be completely sanitary. But didn't want to be rude or anything, so I drank it. It tasted pretty good, unusual, but good. |
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