Turtle Power

"We have to tell Master Splinter about this." Leonardo set his unconscious brother in his bed before stepping back.

"Why should we do that?" asked Raphael.

"He needs to know, Raph," said Leonardo. "Would you rather..."

"Of course not!" Raphael cut him off. "But I..." He fell silent.

"You don't want him to know that it was your idea?" asked Donatello shrewdly.

Raph shook his head.

"We know you didn't mean for him to get like this," said Donatello.

"But you should have known there was a..." started Leonardo.

"Reason we never get anchovies." Raph hung his head.

"Master Splinter said turtles would get sick from eating fish," said Don. "Understand?"

"It was a mean joke," said Raph.

"You said it," said Don. "You're lucky he yakked it all up already."

"Gross, dude..." came a mutter, and the others gathered around Mike's bed. He didn't say anything else though.

"He must be talking in his sleep," said Don, stroking his chin, and turning to Leo. "You think he's delirious?"

Leonardo shook his head. "No, I think he's just dreaming. Sleep talking."

Don nodded. "He used to do that a lot after a bad spill."

Leo grinned. "Remember when I taught him how to skate?"

Don rolled his eyes. "That was me. No wonder he had so many bad spills."

Leo looked at Raphael, who still looked torn. "Don't look so down, Raph. It'll be alright."

Raph didn't look up, but reached out with a napkin to wipe some spittle coming out of Mike's mouth.

Don spoke up again. "How about this? We tell Master Splinter the pizza place messed..." but Leo cut him off. There was a lot of that happening today.

"No. We're not gonna lie. Not to him."

"Lie to who about what, my son?" said a voice.

"Master Splinter!" Leo sprang back from the bed. "Mikey just ate some bad pizza."

"It's not a big deal," Don cut in. "It's out of his system now."

Their teacher said nothing in response, but moved to the side of Michelangelo's bed and felt his forehead. He looked back at Donatello.

"The pizza place put anchovies on it. Mikey just ate it."

"And why did they put anchovies on the pizza?" asked Splinter, his eyes moving slowly from Donatello to Raphael. "They have never made that mistake before."

"I asked them to, Master," said Raphael.

"Knowing full well that I have made it clear that none of you are to ever eat fish of any kind?"

Raphael nodded.

"Don't blame him, Master Splinter," said Donatello. "It was just supposed to be..." he trailed off.

"A joke, yes, I see." Splinter sighed. "Well, Michelangelo, how are you feeling?"

"Not radical," came the weak response.

Splinter nodded. "Well, you'll be all right in time. I'll have some words with your brother about jokes that get out of hand." Raphael winced at this, but said nothing. "In the meantime, where is the rest of this pizza? Anchovies are my favorite!"

---

This one was tough to write. My idea, as you may have guessed, was to limit each character to a certain number of lines and words they used in each line. Splinter I used as an extra character to ease things up a bit for myself. Hopefully I kept things interesting.

Thanks to Bobby, Alicia, Chris, Emily, Chris, Susan, Solange, Tom, Kelsey, Jennifer, Denise, Fay, Adam, Rikki, Rudy, Cyndi, Darrell, Stephanie, Renee, Thomas, Guillermo, Renay, Elizabeth, Terry, Chuck, and Jon for the challenge. Who knew that Donatello would inadvertently be the favorite ninja turtle?

For next week, what is the dumbest superpower you can think of? Post your submissions in the comments section below, and show your support by subscribing.