"... And that is where babies come from," Splinter finished. "Do you have any more questions?"

Eight-year-old Michelangelo screwed up his face in confused thought. Did he have any more questions? Sure! LOTS of them! But he wasn't convinced that he would get an answer that made sense. Take this for example...

"We-ell," he dragged out, and Splinter, carefully keeping his face straight (though releasing a frustrated sigh inwardly; he had hoped that the inquisitive turtle would give it up and go play!), waited patiently for the inevitable. "You see... I think I do, but I don't know what they are at the moment."

Splinter gratefully thanked his ancestors, and nodded.

"Very well, my son. When you know what they are, please do not hesitate to ask me."

Mikey bowed to his Sensei, then raced from the living room in search of his brothers.

Ten minutes later...

"Mikey, I said shut up!" Raph growled, the anger building and threatening his playing card tower competition with Leo. "I been workin' on this for ages, and I don't care where babies come from! 'sides, it sounds like a fairy tale ta me!"

"But it is cool!" Mikey insisted from the other side of the bedroom, where he had been warned under pain of death to remain- NO one wanted him to accidentally collapse their playing card towers at this late stage of the challenge. So far it was a draw; each tower was tall, proud, and sturdy, not to mention intricate- or as intricate as two eight-year-old turtles could make them! "I mean, all that stuff he said. 'Course, some of it I didn't understand. Like the actual part were the father-"

"MIKEY!" Leo chimed in, looking ill; his hand, about to add the next level to his tower, wavered as he felt sick from the talk. "That sounds gross! Stop it at once!"

"But Leo-"

" 'But Leo' nothing! This is worse than when you tried to give us a detailed description of when Donnie threw up all over the bathroom!"

"Yeah, and you ended up making yourself sick, and we got to watch YOU barf up in person," Raph finished the story and his next level. "Ha! I'm ahead of you, Leo!"

Mikey, frustrated, sat on his bed, legs dangling as he swung them back and forth while leaning forward, gripping the edge of the bunk with his hands.

"The thing is, HOW does the father know that the mother is going to be ready to have a baby?"

"MIKEY!" Two voices, loud and promising pain, echoed in the room.

Don, lying on his own bed reading, put his book down and looked across the space to his brother's own top bunk.

"He doesn't know, Mike," Don answered him as if he knew. "He doesn't even really care. All he wants to do is mate."

Now the two older turtles turned their angry attention upon their brainy brother.

"Donnie! I'm gonna tell Splinter what you said!" Leo, shocked, warned him.

"Leo, Splinter is the one to use the word," Don calmly replied. " 'Mate' is not a dirty word. Otherwise, Splinter wouldn't never let us play 'chess'."

Leo thought about that for a moment.

"You're right," he agreed- then he froze in horror. "EWWW! When we say 'Checkmate'- does that mean- that the king is gonna- is gonna-"

"Maybe that's where all them little pawns comes from," Raph, eyes lighting up, commented.

Don sighing in exasperation, favored his elder brothers with a withering stare- a very good trick for an eight-year-old!

"This is why you messed up that test on multiple-meaning words, Leonardo," he wisely pointed out with a superior tone. " 'mate' has many meanings. It can mean to match, or to be someone's friend, or to get together to make babies-"

"EWWW!" Leo felt unclean- how could he ever use that word again? He would never be able to play chess ever again and he loved chess and now he would lose 'cause he will NEVER in a million billion years be able to say "checkMATE" 'cause-"

"Anyways," Mike, not being able to stand being ignored, brought the conversation back to where he wanted it to be, "what I'm wondering is, will it be a boy or a girl?"

At these words, the three others froze in confusion- Raph's hand, about to place yet another card, hovered over the tower like a helicopter; Leo's eyes looked questions at everyone except Mikey; Donatello slowly sat up, an expression of puzzlement crossing his features.

"What?" he said, addressing Mikey.

Mikey, lost in thought, realized that his brothers were now staring at him. He sat up a little taller, grinning.

"The baby- is it gonna be a boy or a girl?"

Dead silence for two, maybe three minutes.

"Wha- what baby are you talkin' about?" Raph finally asked. One of them had to, and Raph was tired of waiting for someone to ask it.

"The one Splinter is gonna have," Mikey announced, pleased that he had information none of them had, not even the mighty Donatello! "Splinter is gonna have one, and I wonder if it'll be a boy or a girl! Personally, I'd like a sister. We gots enough brothers..."

"Mikey," Don finally found his voice. "Splinter can't have a baby. He's a male. Males don't have babies!"

"Seahorsie males do," Mike, distracted from his happy dream of playing with his new sister, teaching her the best ways of annoying Raph, defended. "I saw it on TV!"

"Well, yeah, but the mother seahorse-" Don tried to explain, but Mikey cut him off with a dismissive gesture.

"You're wrong, Mr. Hamato Donatello Brainac! I know! Splinter is gonna have a baby 'cause I asked him where babies come from and he told me, and I figured it out!"

Three confused turtles exchanged glances.

"Mikey, it is impossible-" Don tried once again, but Leo cut him off.

"Mikey, what makes you think Splinter is gonna have a baby?"

"Leo!" Don protested, but Leo warned him with a "be quiet, you KNOW Mikey" look, then turned back to the youngest.

"Well! See, he said that the mommy gets sick in the mornings," Mikey eagerly explained. "I saw it on one of his shows we was watching, how the one person was sick in the morning, and he said it was called 'morning sickness', and it means that she's having a baby, and Splinter's been sick for several mornings now..."

"That's cause he always gets a little sick this time of year," Don pointed out. "Especially in the mornings. It's the weather changes."

"AND then the person on the show wanted to eat strange things even though she'd been sick, and he said it was called a 'craving', when you want something to eat that is weird, like pickles and ice cream."

"What's wrong with pickles and ice cream?" Raph muttered to Leo, but his brother shook his head in warning, keeping his attention on Mikey.

"So?"

"Well, Splinter has been eating weird stuff lately," Mikey pointed out, rather shocked that his brothers had not noticed this about their own father. "All that raw fish and green mustard."

"Mikey, that's sashimi," Don tried again. "He got lucky enough to get really really fresh fish and he made sashimi- lots of people in Japan eat it."

"But alla time? In the morning? So much of it?"

"Lots of people eat fish in the morning for breakfast, and 'sides, it was good," Don defended. "You ate enough of it anyway! And you can't save it for long, so you have to eat it up, otherwise it goes bad."

Michelangelo merely made a face at his brother's know-it-all interruptions. He wasn't the only one around here who could figure stuff out!

"AND the woman was all cranky," he concluded, doggedly ignoring Donatello. "And Splinter said that people having babies get cranky, and I asked him if that meant that Raph was gonna have a baby, and-"

"HEY!"

"And then I asked him where the babies come from, and kept asking him, and then he got cranky- and then he took a deep breath and told me, and that is how I figured it out! All except that part where the male puts his-"

"MICHELANGELO!" Leo nearly screamed. This was all too much; too much! They all had learned the basics about the birds and the bees, when out with Splinter on those rare occasions when they could hide in the park and observe Nature as part of their lessons. They watched nature shows on the TV and even read some (very boring) books about it. But what Mikey was saying was...

"Mikey," Leo tried carefully. "Splinter isn't a 'mommy', you know- he's a 'daddy'. And 'daddies' do NOT have babies-"

But Mikey was not to be dissuaded. He leapt down from his bunk, and stood there, glaring at his brothers.

"Splinter is gonna have a baby, and that is that! I know! And you're all mad 'cause I figured it out first!"

And he slammed out of the room, collapsing two huge towers of cards in the process, ignoring the cries of protest and the threats of death that echoed after him.

:D