A Turtle That Was Hidden (TMNT Book 2)

Way Back When (Mii-wa's POV)

At my young age of 13, a few weeks after my birthday party had passed, I was carrying Mikito and Naomi, both of whom were still normal turtles in their small shells, not knowing any ninjitsu.

I had passed a guy on the street carrying a cylinder with glowing blue-green goop. Like all young kids, I was curious, so I decided to follow. The guy went in an alley and after a few minutes, began heading out. I was very determined to figure out what that ooze was, so I rammed into him on purpose.

The cylinder cracked and broke as we collided. It shattered and I avoided the ooze as the guy ran off. I didn’t know, however, that the goop had touched Naomi and Mikito. All I knew was that the bowl I was holding them in contained the fluid and they stepped on it.

When I got home, they were the way there were now, only smaller and had no traits or ninjitsu skills. I thought about how they came this way when I remembered the goop. I took out the two turtles and set them gently on my dirty clothes pile. They fell asleep, so I decided to look inside the jar where I had the two. It was glowing slightly still.

The next day, I went to a pet store and received one more turtle. I put it in the ooze to see if I’d have the same reaction as Naomi and Mikito had. It did. I decided to call this turtle Sophia.

I knew that if my parents saw any of them, they’d flip out and tell me to get rid of them. I didn’t want that, so I hid Sophia in my closet, giving her leftovers every now and again. The issue was, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with Naomi and Mikito. If I put her with Sophie, Naomi might beat her up.

So, I snuck out with Mikito and Naomi out one night and ran around town, trying to find a good spot to hide them when I stopped on a manhole cover because Naomi was trying to get away.

“Hey. Hey.” I whispered, trying to keep her under control. She looked at me with wide blue eyes. “Calm down.” she nodded and sat by Mikito who looked at her and smiled.

I looked down and saw the cover and then looked around to see if anyone was watching, then decided to crawl down it. When I landed, I was in a nice and roomy space with three extra areas connected to it.

Naomi started moving in my arms and she jumped down, landing on her shell. She rolled over as I leaned down to help her up. Glancing at Mikito, who was also trying to get out of my grip, I let her down and they started walking around.

That’s when it hit me: I’ll let them stay here and over time, I’ll teach them like a mother would their children. But in the meantime, I still didn’t trust Sophia alone in my room.

Looking at the two young turtles, I said, “Stay here. I’ll be back later.”

They nodded and began exploring.

Without another word, I went up to check on Sophia at my house. She was sleeping soundly on my dirty laundry pile. More specifically on my blue-green ribbon. I tilted my head and picked up Sophia carefully without waking her and then my ribbon.

Sophia awoke anyway and looked at the ribbon I was holding. She was looking at it with happy brown eyes. I watched as she took it from my hands and put it around her eyes playfully like she wanted to play peek-a-boo with it.

Laughing, I looked around and found a pocket knife. I poked holes in the ribbon and then tied it carefully around Sophia’s head. She fixed it better for me then smiled, raising her arms up happily.

Then I looked through the rest of my ribbons and found a multitude of colors. I decided to poke holes in at least one of every color so Naomi and Mikito could choose which one they liked the best. At least this way I could tell them apart.