âYou're fifteen?â April says.
It's such a nothing question in the face of the complete rearrangement her reality has gone through in the last hour. Walk me through it one more time. You're ninjas? The very polite rat is your father? You've been living underneath New York City this entire time and no one ever noticed and now I'm going to have to spend the rest of my life wondering what else might be looking back at me from the other side of my bathroom drain?
Also, not to belabour a point, but - ninjas?
She really is working on not fighting what her eyes and ears are telling her, though, and the dual swords strapped to the back of the large humanoid reptile standing next to her haven't stopped being dual swords the last few times she snuck a glance at them. The empirical evidence is strong, and an April O'Neil who is not half-mad with fear and adrenaline is an April OâNeil who accepts rational conclusions - therefore, ninja mutant turtles it is.
This particular ninja mutant turtle's head turns towards her, and she marvels at how easy it is to read the awkward wariness on features that have so little in common with her own.
âYes,â he says simply.
âOh,â April says, and tries a smile, tucking loose hair behind one ear. Perhaps the dog years rule applies. They're much shorter than she'd realised while down on her knees in filthy sewer water, and certainly they're a little rowdy and she could have sworn she heard one of them complain about the threat of being grounded, but it's not as though high school sophomores of any species should be waving around ancient weapons and declaring eager readiness to launch corporate sabotage on megalomaniacal ex-bosses, soâŚ
No. Surely not. Fifteen?Â
As if he can hear her thoughts, the turtle shoots her another little sideways glance, and shuffles on his feet, tightening the arms crossed over his chest and tilting his chin up.
âWe'll be sixteen in four months,â he says, faintly defensive, his voice pitched a semitone lower than it had been before, and in that moment April knows dog years have nothing to do with it - can hear her own little sister like it was yesterday, I'm twelve and three-quarters, April, that means I'm PRACTICALLY thirteen - and with the addition of this one last piece of empirical certainty thinks, Ohhh no.
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