The Call (a TMNT fanfiction)

Chapter 3: Invasion

If someone were to take a photograph of our living room at the moment, that picture would be pretty funny.

I'm lying upside down on the couch, complaining about my splitting headache. Mallory is yelling at me about how if I sat up like a normal person, I wouldn't have a headache. Mom is lying on the ground--propped up with her hands--eyes glued to the TV as she watches her favorite soap opera, White Horses. Benj is sitting next to her, same position, watching intently as well.

Whenever it turns to a commercial, Benj turns onto his back and looks at his phone, crying out every time it drops onto his face. Rose sits on the coffee table, painting her nails and pointing out every little thing she thinks is dumb about the show and the commercials.

I hear a knock on the window, but I don't look up. Rose glances over and then turns back to painting her nails.

"Lexi, it's one of your turtle friends," she says monotonously.

Mallory sighs and gets up to open the window. Mikey had been reckless the night before and stopped by when I had Mallory over at my house. Unable to convince her that what she saw was simply some time of hallucination, one more person learned about the turtles that shouldn't have. She swore an oath not to tell anyone, and as big of a mouth Mallory has, I know she knows that this is off limits.

She unlocks the window and lets Leo in. He thanks her and slowly walks over to our family. He crosses his arms over his chest and raises his eye ridges.

"There's something wrong with this picture," he says, and nudges his head towards the couch, silently asking if he can sit. I nod, and he sits right by me. 

I flip back up so that I am sitting right side up again. "So why'd you drop in? You miss me already?"

"I have to admit, the lair isn't half exciting as this room."

I snicker and lean forward, yawning. "Sunday is our recluse day." The last few minutes of White Horses finishes up. "We all get up at exactly eight in the morning and all sit in the same room doing absolutely nothing for the entire day."

"And you enjoy it?"

"Love it."

Rose finishes her toenails and sits on the coffee table, hugging her knees. Benj turns back upside down and begins texting me, and his phone drops onto his face a few more times. Mom watches the commercials and Mallory yawns.

Rose sighs. "My toe hurts."

"My brain hurts." I yawn, and when I do so, it creates a chain effect and the living room turns into a circle of yawns. First me, then Mallory, Leo, Benj, Mom and then Rose.

"I want a saber-tooth cat," Rose says.

"Go find one," I reply.

"Okay, I'll be right back." She stands up and walks out of the room. It's silent for a few minutes, besides the yawns and commercials. One of the commercials is of a woman -- an ad for a face wash.

"No one can splash water like that and do it without getting their clothes wet," I say.

Benj shakes his head. "She can."

A battery commercial comes on about a girl who loses her dog and can't find it anywhere, but then she finds a flashlight and uses the batteries and finds the dog late at night.