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THE LION, THE CAT AND THE TURTLES
Chapter Two:
Talking Cats and Strange Phonecalls


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"So ya mean to tell me that none of you ever understood a word that I said before now?!" said Klunk, staring up at the two Turtles and one rat with a shocked expression. "Man. Well, that does explain why nobody ever laughed at my jokes."

"You were telling jokes? Awww, and I missed them all?" said Michelangelo with a disappointed look on his face.

"You're a joke, Mikey," said Raphael. "Can we focus on what's important here?"

"Jokes are important!"

"No, they aren't!"

"They are to me!"

Splinter held up a hand. "Enough, my sons. I am not completely sure what has happened, and why, but apparently this Aslan is of the opinion that a talking cat will help us convince his daughter to help us enter this world where Leonardo is currently trapped. We have not yet asked Klunk whether he wants to aid us, though."

Klunk cocked his head and looked at Splinter. "Sure I'll help," he said. "I like Leo. He sometimes tosses me snacks when he thinks nobody's looking. Just like you do, Raph."

"Uh..:" Raph looked like he was going to say something, but apparently thought better of it and just shook his head instead.

"This is so cool, though," said Mike, reaching down to stroke Klunk's fur. "We got a talking cat! I bet nobody else in the world has a talking cat!"

"Maybe not in this world, Mikey," said Donatello, who just emerged from his room with a sheet of paper in his hand. "In other worlds, though... who knows?" He handed the sheet of paper to Splinter, who took it and glanced at the printed text. "I believe this is our woman. Susan Palmer, formerly Pevensie. It was easy enough to find her on the 'net -- here's the address and the phone number."

"Thank you, Donatello," said Splinter, studying the paper. "She lives over in Brooklyn, I see."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" said Raph. "Let's take Klunk and go see her, and get her to help us find Leo!"

"I think it would be better to phone her first," said Donatello. "Three giant turtles, a huge rat and a talking cat might not be the best thing to have drop in on you completely unannounced."

"Hey, if her daddy's a talkin' lion, she should be used ta stuff like that."

"Still," said Splinter, "I do believe Donatello is right. It would only be common courtesy to at least notify Mrs. Palmer of our visit."

"Ooooh, can I be the one to call her?" said Mike eagerly.

"If you wish, Michelangelo," said Splinter.

"All right!" Mike scooped up Klunk and bounced over to the phone. "C'mon, Klunk, you can help me!"

The others watched as the cat climbed up on Mike's shoulder to perch there like a parrot. "I never understood how so many people could fit into that tiny little phone in the first place," the cat commented.

"Well, ya see, Klunk, it's like this," Mike began. You dial the right number, and..." he paused, and then, looking sheepish, hung up and came back to them to take the paper with Susan Palmer's phone number from Splinter. "Heh... forgot... yeah."

Raphael rolled his eyes, but surprisingly enough didn't comment. Instead, he waited until Mike and Klunk were over by the phone again (Mike beginning to explain to a curious Klunk just how a phone worked) before he turned to Don and Splinter. "By the way, am I the only one here who's wonderin' why we're not freaking out more over the fact that the cat suddenly talks? I mean, I can accept that Mike just thinks it's cool, but Don, I'd almost have expected you to go off on some long rant on why it's scientifically impossible for a cat to talk and then present five different theories as to how that could be."

Don smirked. "No, I wasn't planning on that, Raph. Look, we've all experienced stuff over the years that makes no sense scientifically. We've encountered gods and demons and spirits and several kinds of magic... and while some of it was all due to alien technology, there was always a lot of it that wasn't. After a while, you just have to accept that there are there are some things that just can't be explained that easily, or else you'll just go insane. Klunk is just the latest in a long line of strange happenings. If it helps us find Leo, I won't be the one to complain."

"Well said, Donatello," said Splinter. "Leonardo is our primary concern. Skepticism is not."

The three fell silent just in time to hear Michelangelo from over by the phone: "Susan Palmer? Formerly Susan Pevensie? Yeah, hi! My name is Mike! Look, this is kind of a long and extremely weird story, but your father told my father that we should contact you, because..." he paused. "Your father's dead. I see. Well, it's probably not your biological father I'm talking about... you see, the one I'm talking about, his name is Aslan, and..." another pause. "No, this isn't a joke! Look, this Aslan told us that we should contact you, because... Hello? /Hello/? Was it something I said?"

Raph and Don exchanged glances.

Mike dialed the number again, taking a deep breath. "Hello, Mrs. Palmer? Mike again here. Please don't hang up... Please don't hang up! She hung up," he sighed, putting the receiver down.

"Major daddy issues," Raph muttered.




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Susan Palmer, formerly Susan Pevensie, stared at the phone as it rang once again, but this time she made no attempt at picking it up.

It wasn't possible. It just wasn't possible. She hadn't spoken, or heard, the word "Aslan" for more than fifty years, back when she was still young and living in England, and anyone who might have heard her mention it before that time were long dead and gone.

Her eyes wandered over to the far wall, where hung a framed photograph. It was old and faded, but still clearly showed herself at the age of nineteen, together with a group of other young people; her siblings Peter, Edmund and Lucy, her cousin Eustace and Eustace's friend Jill, who'd had a curious tendency of always being around whenever Eustace was as well. I often thought she had a bit of a crush on him...

Peter, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, Jill... even Professor Kirke and Aunt Polly. They had all died in that horrible train wreck so many years ago, along with her parents and hundreds of other people. And they were the only ones, the only ones other than Susan herself, who had ever mentioned the name "Aslan."

Until now. Who was this mysterious "Mike," and how had he gotten to know about...?

The phone stopped ringing; apparently Mike, or whoever else it was on the other end of the line had given up. Susan let out a breath of relief, only how becoming aware that she had held her breath while it rang.

Honestly, Susan, she scolded herself. You're acting like a little girl. Jumping at your own shadow just because someone mentions...

But it is strange... and after more than fifty years... Could it be...? No, the voice on the phone was a young voice, probably only a teenager.

Was it possible that one of the others, Lucy for example, had mentioned it to someone else before she died... and that this "someone else," whoever they might be, had told Mike, who for some reason had decided to call Susan about it? But how much sense did that make? Whoever heard of someone memorizing other people's childhood dreams and fantasies and then telling them to others?

And whoever heard of these others afterwards phoning up the original dreamers (whom they didn't even know) and pretending to play along with the dreams, so long afterwards? "Ha ha, we know that fifty years ago, you used to fantasize about a land called Narnia and a talking lion called Aslan"?

But it made no sense! What was the point?

"Stuff and nonsense," said Susan to herself. "I'm too old for this. And don't you be saying anything either," she added, looking sternly at the picture on the wall. "It's been more than half a century."

She decided to go into the kitchen and make herself a cup of tea, and then maybe turn on the television to see if there was anything half-decent on that she could watch. If the phone rang again, she just wouldn't answer it.

I really can't be bothered with people who phone me up just to be silly at me, she thought firmly, ignoring the tiny little voice in the back of her head that said that maybe she should at least try to find out what was going on.




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Mike tried calling Susan Palmer twice more, but both times nobody answered. In the end, he gave up, and together with Raph, Don, Klunk and Splinter, decided there was nothing to do but to visit this Susan Palmer in person.

At first, they briefly discussed whether it was necessary for all of them to go, or if some of them should stay behind, but given that Klunk more or less had to go (if Splinter's assumption about a talking cat being needed to help them convince Mrs. Palmer was correct), and that Michelangelo insisted on accompanying his cat, and Donatello claimed that he'd be the best at locating Mrs. Palmer's apartment, and Raphael threatened bodily harm to anyone who tried making him stay behind... they ended up deciding that it would be best for all of them to go anyway.

Mostly for Klunk's benefit, it was decided that they should go there by car.

Mike called April to let her in on the situation (and it was probably to the woman's credit that she only needed a minimum of convincing before she believed that Leo was in another world and that a talking lion had told Splinter to go see a woman called Susan Palmer to show her Klunk, who could now talk), and less than an hour later they were all gathered in April's van, April herself driving as they set out on the short trip from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

Klunk was enjoying himself immensely, still perched on Mike's shoulder (having found a fairly comfortable place near the Turtle's neck, partly resting against his shell) and partly following the landscape outside as it speeded by and partly talking to everyone.

"Okay, here's another one," he said. "How many cats does it take to change a light bulb? You give up? None, because they don't know what a light bulb is!"

Only Mike laughed. But then, he was the one who had asked the cat to go through some of his jokes in the first place.

"This is going to take some getting used to," April commented from the driver's seat. "Klunk actually talking..."

"I'm not sure I wanna get used to it," said Raph from beside Mike. "Hey, cut the comedy, Klunk! Yer not gonna help Leo by sitting here and tellin' bad jokes!"

"Which is why I'm not telling bad jokes," said Klunk, making sure to have his voice sound as if this was something that should be completely obvious to everyone in the world with the possible exception of Raph. "I'm telling good ones."

"Besides," said Mike, serious for a moment, "we wouldn't help him by sitting here and moping either. When we get in a position where we can do something to help Leo, we will. But there's nothing we can do while the van is in motion, so..."

"Never mind." Raph leant back in his seat. "But that cat has definitely spent too much time around you, Mikey."

"Well, he is Mikey's cat," said Don calmly, from the opposite side of Mike. "Anyone thought about what exactly we're going to say to Mrs. Palmer?"

"I believe," said Splinter after pausing for a bit, "that we should let Klunk take care of that part of things."

"What?!" said Raphael.

"Klunk knows who Aslan is better than any of us," said Splinter. "When we met Aslan last night, Klunk clearly recognized him, even before he started talking. He also knew his name, even though we were never given it. I believe he would be the best to talk to Aslan's daughter."

Raphael muttered something about melting the woman's heart with bad cat jokes, but Klunk ignored that, instead feeling pretty proud that he would be the one to talk to Aslan's daughter and by so doing possibly save Leo from whatever world the Turtle had wandered into by mistake and not been able to get out from again (kinda like the time Klunk himself had wandered inside a closet and someone had shut the door by mistake).

"But Klunk, how do you know this Aslan?" said Mike curiously.

Klunk gave a cat-shrug, which consists of a sort of flick of the tail. "Oh, everybody knows Aslan," he said. "He's a lion, y'know, king of the animals and all that... Never actually met him before, though."

"Did someone tell you about him?" said Mike. "Like, before I found you or something?"

"I don't think so."

"Then how do you know him?" said Don.

"Huh. I... never really thought about that," Klunk answered.

In fact, if he was to be perfectly honest, he had never really thought very much about anything before his meeting with Aslan. Mostly, he just hadn't bothered about it. Cats didn't need to think all the time -- that was what humans, or to a lesser extent, mutant turtles, were for. Cats just needed to know what they wanted, and Klunk had always been good at that.

He'd always more or less assumed that everyone knew exactly what he was saying to them at any time, but now that he actually thought about it, he realized that they were probably telling the truth about never having understood him before. It just hadn't occurred to him to think about it before.

Ever since he had met Aslan, though, it seemed like he was beginning to think more and more. He didn't actually feel all that different from before, it was just that his mind seemed more active. Thoughts were forming in his head at an alarming rate, much more quickly and more concisely than they had ever done before. Whereas before, it had usually been enough to keep one thought, or one desire, in his mind at a time, now he found that he could easily hold two or three different thoughts, on different levels, in his head at the same time.

He might have told Don all this, but somehow he just couldn't think of the words. So he just contented himself with saying: "I think I've always known him, in some ways."

And no more was said about the subject during the car ride.

Not long after, the van pulled up beside a tall brick building and shut its engines down. April looked out the window and nodded. "This is it, guys," she said. "Why don't I go and check to see what floor our woman lives on before you come after me?"

"First floor," said Donatello.

"Oh. You're certain about that?"

"All on the Great Information Super Highway," said Don. "Long as you know where to look. But I think you should be the first to go, anyway. Give her a bit of time to collect herself before we launch everything on her."

"What if she just slams the door in April's face, though?" said Mike. "Like she slammed the phone receiver in my ear?"

"You have ears?" said Klunk, surprised.

"Mrs. Palmer is not our enemy," said Splinter. "And we are hoping to ask a favor of her. It would still be wise to approach her with courtesy." He nodded at April. "Go, my child."

"I wanna come too!" said Klunk, jumping off Mike's shoulder and landing, fairly elegantly, between the two front seats. "I want to see what Aslan's daughter looks like!"

"Well...all right," said April, unfastening her seat belt and opening the car door. "But I'm carrying you."

"Deal."

"And if yer not out again after five minutes," said Raph, lifting his head and looking at them, "I'm comin' in after you, no matter what anyone else says."

April smiled. "You're not exactly giving me a lot of time to parlay, Raph."

"Yes, I am," said Raph calmly. "I was only gonna give you three minutes."

"Raphael...!" said Splinter, with a hint of a warning in his voice.

Klunk didn't hear Raphael's answer over the slam of the car door as April shut it and walked up to the building with him in her arms.

It only took a few seconds for April to find the right doorbell and press it. It took almost a minute before anything happened -- but instead of the door opening, like April had clearly expected, the window directly above them opened instead, and the face of an old woman peered down at them. She seemed to Klunk to be older even than Splinter, even if he wasn't sure how she might compare -- her long hair was gray and her face was wrinkled the way it got for humans when they grew old. Her eyes were clear and sharp, though, and there was something else about her as well, something undefinable.

"Yes?" she said.

"Are you Mrs. Susan Palmer?" April asked, tilting her head upwards to meet her gaze.

"I am. What can I do for you?" said the old woman, in a curious accent that Klunk had never heard before, other than on TV (it was, in fact, a British accent, more specifically a somewhat watered-down London accent, but Klunk had never been very good at geography).

"Well, my name is April O'Neil," April began, "and I was hoping that you could help me track down a friend of mine. My other friends say that there's this lion, Aslan --"

The woman's face hardened. "Another one?" she snapped. "Who are you people? Where have you heard that name? Why do you insist upon mocking an old woman like me?"

Klunk twisted his head to look at April. "I dunno," he said. "Do you really think this is Aslan's daughter? Because if she is, I can't see the family resemblance. She must take after her mother or something."

The old woman's expression changed into one of shock and disbelief. "Did -- did that cat just talk?" she said in a small voice, all of a sudden seeming much younger than she had before.

"Yeah," said Klunk. "Mike and the others tell me that it's not usual for cats to be able to talk, but --"

He didn't get any further before the woman did something that he hadn't expected in the least.

She gave a small, strangled squeal, and then began to cry.




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To be continued....
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Author's Notes: Raph was being extremely sullen in this chapter, even for him, huh? Well, mostly it's because he's worried about Leo and doesn't think the others are acting quick enough in order to help him. Many fanfics describe Leo and Raph as little better than rivals, but I really think there's a stronger brotherly bond between the two than either of them would care to admit.

Oh, and because I