((for those like me who have to look things up- imouto is younger sister, and ani is older brother, and Machi really is ten thousand according to the online baby book, and not an attempt to flatter any certain writer out there... which is just as well, as at the online English to Japanese site, Machi means Street or Road...))

Splinter could not figure out what Michelangelo was up to. And his brothers were NOT offering their father and Sensei any clues at the moment.

That first night, after he had talked Splinter (correction: NAGGED Splinter) into telling him where babies came from, he had been acting differently. NOT in a bad way, but definitely something was troubling the young turtle. He had come out of his room, chased by the threats of his brothers over some incident, and had climbed up on the couch, leaning into his father but not crying or pouting or doing anything to otherwise indicate the need for fatherly comfort.

Indeed, he had carefully hugged Splinter, and then sat there the rest of the night, resting up against him as if he had become attached at the hip.

"Something the matter, my son?" he had asked, but Michelangelo had shaken his head and hugged him lightly again.

Something was definitely going on. Michelangelo seemed distant from his brothers, but was clinging to Splinter at every possible moment, offering to help with dinner, with cleaning up, with scavenging, with training...

"Nothing, Sensei, sorry, Sensei," he had bowed and then had remained quiet the rest of the lesson.

The other three seemed to be ignoring Michelangelo a lot lately as well. There seemed to be no animosity, but they did not play with him as they normally did.

And he did not seem to care.

Splinter occasionally overheard the odd sentence or two, but he had never been one to blatantly eavesdrop on them. He used to listen in sometimes when they were younger, but that was because either they were plotting mischief or were playing some game and they sounded so funny and cute he could not resist. But for the most part he allowed them their privacy.

Still, he was beginning to wonder if he should put his stealthy parent skills to good use and get to the bottom of this...

Mikey sat at the kitchen table, notebook in front of him, pencil poised, deep concentration on his face. His brow was wrinkled into many thought frowns, and his tongue peeked from the side of his mouth as he considered his list.

His battered bear, Mr. Growly, was perched on the table just in front of the book, looking for all the world as if he were reading what his owner had written- only upside down.

With a determined movement, he crossed out something... tapped his pencil lightly on the table as he stared at the ceiling... then his face smoothed out into the brilliant smile of divine inspiration, and with ah audible "ah HA!" he quickly scribbled something on his pad.

When he finished, he looked at it, beaming as if he had solved the hardest problem Splinter could assign him in math.

"Doing school work?" the slightly disbelieving voice of Leo came pushing its way into his happy thoughts, and Mikey, quickly turning the notebook over protectively, glared at his oldest brother.

"Gee, Mr. Growly, did you hear someone speak?" he said sarcastically to his bear. "I thought there were only two of us in here."

Leo sighed inwardly. He had to admit, he had been ignoring Mikey lately. But truth to tell, Mikey had been giving all of them the cold shell as well, ever since they had tried to convince him that there was no sister coming, that he was mistaken in his assumptions, that he was wrong...

That all this talk of Splinter having a baby was so dumb!

And he had said so.

The three had frozen, exchanging puzzled looks. None of them could quite bring themselves to go to Splinter and say "are you having a baby?" NO one wanted to look stupid in Father's eyes.

"Mikey, this is just ridiculous! We've shown you the stuff in the books," Leo, interrupting his quest for a glass of milk, said in an exasperated tone of voice, trying once again to convince his brother of the impossibility of such an act.

Mikey pretended that only he and Mr. Growly were in the room.

"I hope you won't be too jealous of the new baby, Mr. Growly," he said deliberately. "I will still play with you, but I'll have to help Father with him or her... you know, I think it's going to be a girl! YEAH! Definitely a little sister for me to play with. Sisters has gots to be more fun than dumb head old brothers."

"Yeah, at the moment, a sister would be better than a brother!" Leonardo snapped, milk forgotten in the sting of his little brother's words, and he stormed out of the kitchen.

"Huh!" Mikey snorted, looking at Mr. Growly. "He's probably jealous of the new baby- probably thinks that Splinter will not pay him any attention any more. But I know that he will still pay us all attention! After all, there are four of us, and he always pays us each a lot of attention! Especially Raph, when he gets in trouble! Hahahahaha!"

Then he returned to his list, and sighed happily at the latest entry: Hamato Machi! Yes! What better name than one that comes from the word ten thousand in Japanese? She would bring the family ten thousand times the happiness.

And the best part? He would finally be an ani, with an imouto to care for!

He grabbed his sketchbook that was on the table next to Mr. Growly, flipped open to a clean page, and began to work on his current drawing. Now that he had the perfect name, he had to work on the perfect "Welcome to the Family" picture.

He had done okay with drawing himself, but the coming sibling was a puzzlement. He knew that she would not be a turtle, but would she be all rat? After all, there were so many gaps in his knowledge. Well, of course she would be a rat, but would she be a mutated rat, or would she be like the normal rats that ran around the sewers?

Hmmm... if only Don weren't so grouchy at the moment, I could go ask him... he's smart... well, except for not believing me when I say Father is having a baby... still, it's a shame... oh well! He'll see that I was right when she arrives, and then he will apologize. All of them will... I might forgive Don, at least he didn't call me a doo-doo brain like Raph did... dumb old Leo agreed with him, so he can wait forever for a forgiveness as well, but Don will definitely get one from me... WHEN he admits that I was right all the time, that is...

Mikey looked at his work, admiring his own skills! He had learned to draw himself from looking in the mirror, and even Splinter had been pleased with his progress in being able to capture the images of his brothers and father. Maybe he would be a famous artist someday!

But now came the hardest part: creating something from imagination and making it look real. He thought and thought and thought of all the movies and cartoons he'd seen and stories he'd read and comics he'd collected... and finally set to work, laboring upon this vision of a little sister with as much dedication as his long-ago namesake must have labored on that painting on the ceiling... I should try painting on the ceiling... maybe Father will let me paint the baby's room... once we decide where that room is...

In the bedroom, Leo was recounting his "conversation" with Mikey to Don and Raph, who were sitting on the floor, their own projects for the moment interrupted by the "urgent meeting" their brother had convened.

"We gotta put a stop to this craziness," Leo concluded. "It's not right, him acting like this and believing this junk! It's not good for him."

Don furrowed his brow, and looked at Leo.

"Why isn't it good? Who is it hurting? Sooner or later he's gonna find out from Splinter the truth, and then that'll be the end to it," he reasonably pointed out, going back to his latest invention: a remote-control car that could turn into a robot! Ever since he'd seen that cartoon show...

Leo looked at the smart turtle, and shook his head.

"Don!" he said, grabbing the screwdriver from his brother to get his attention. "Don't you ever watch daytime TV? I've seen those talk shows. Mikey is in denial..."

"Denial?" Raph interrupted, glancing up from his book that Splinter had assigned for a geography report (which was due upon Splinter's return from scavenging, and Raph had only now just started reading). He looked at the page he was on, then back to Leo. "What's a river in Egypt got to do with-"

"DE-nial" Leo enunciated. "NOT 'THE NILE'! It means that he doesn't want to believe the truth, so he believes what he wants to believe."

"Ya mean like you believing that you're stronger than me?" Raph could NOT help saying that. "Wow, Leo is in 'denial'!"

Leo smacked his own forehead. NOW he had two problems, namely Mikey believing that Splinter was pregnant and the fact that he had inadvertently taught Raph a new word to use against him.

"It's not healthy for Mikey to keep believing in something that isn't true," Leo tried again, only to be blind sided by his brainy brother.

"Oh, you mean like your believing in the Monster of the Sewers?" Don innocently inquired, earning a startled look from Leo and suppressed snickers from Raph.

Leo grew red in the face.

"HEY! I saw that thing! I wasn't making it up!" Mikey for the moment forgotten, Leo now felt the need to defend himself against his brothers.

"Now, Leo," Raph chided, wagging a finger at his oldest sibling. "Splinter told you that thing doesn't exist. You're not living in denial, are you?"

"Certainly sounds like it," Don agreed, grabbing his screwdriver back from Leo and then jumping up to his bunk with his project. He grinned down on his eldest brother wickedly. "But then, I don't watch many daytime TV talk shows."

Leo was now caught between Raph on the floor and Don on the top bunk. Whom to thump first? Both were capable and willing to attack from behind once he went for either of them. He'd learned that the hard way.

"OOOH!" he fumed, as the suppressed snickers from both of them continued. "Mikey was right about one thing: a sister WOULD be better than brothers at the moment!" And he once again stormed out of a room.

Meanwhile, in the sewers, Splinter was heading home. He had had a good evening of scavenging, and had even managed a trip to the Sakais grocery, slipping in immediately after closing time for once instead of waiting for later. They were entertaining relatives, and the noise of their happy family gathering was such that it made it possible for him to risk entering so soon.

Now, home to his happy family. He hoped they liked the special treat he had managed to get for them.

Entering the lair, he was greeted by four sons coming from different rooms. He thought little of it as they came scurrying to welcome him home and relieve him of his bags.

"Careful, Michelangelo," he warned. "There are eggs in that bag."

"Eggs? But we already have two dozen," Mikey pointed out as he carefully began to empty the contents onto the kitchen table.

"Well, I got more because I wanted to bake something special," he replied, removing his "topside" clothing as the others also began putting things away. "Lately I have been wanting some deviled eggs, so I thought I would make some tonight."

Mikey, in the midst of his work, paused, and with a significant smirk at Leo, grinned at his father.

"You mean you've been craving them?" he asked innocently.

Splinter, paying no attention to any significance this comment had, nodded his head.

"Yes, I guess you could say so," he replied, sitting down at the kitchen table and opening up another bag, beginning to pull clothing from it. "We haven't had any since Mrs. Sakai made some for us a few months ago. They were delicious."

Mikey wore a grin the entire time he put away the rest of the food. Leo merely ignored him. After all, they all got cravings for certain foods! That didn't mean anything!

Then his attention was caught by the clothing. Splinter was holding up a very small, very pink sweater, admiring it.

"I remember when you were all small enough to wear such items," he sighed, seeing them as tiny turtle tots again for a few brief seconds. "This is in very good shape. I wonder why it was discarded."

Absently he folded it, and put it on the table with the other items of clothing he had scrounged- and to Leo's horror and Mikey's delight, he had placed it in the "keep for clothing" pile, not the "save for rags" pile!

Leo gulped, then looked at Don and Raph.

They, too, seemed just for the moment unsure.

Was Mikey right?

NO! He couldn't be right! He just COULDN'T be!

Could he?