"I'm Splinter," one said causing the group of boys around him to groan.
"But I wanted to be Splinter."
"No, you can be Leonardo," said the first boy, suddenly taking the leadership of the group.
It took a few minutes, but the roles were assigned for the game of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This must have been the way it was on many playgrounds in the early nineties.
They had only fleetingly noticed the little girl who had wandered into their game.
That was until "Splinter" said, "Hey, you wanna play Lucy?"
Then of course, all eyes turned to her.
Lucy, mildly interested, nodded her head.
"Okay," Splinter said in a decisive and awe-inspiring voice, "You can be April."
"April," the boys oohed and awed. They hadn't even though about April.
"Who's April?"
Unfortunatley, she did know much about the Turtles.
"Nevermind," one of the boys said, "All you need to know is you're the girl and we protect you from the bad guys."
He pointed to red-headed Johnny Rochester who had been assigned the role of "Shredder". Johnny in turned balled up his fists at her in a feigned threatening manner. Lucy let out a playful squeal to the delight of her playmates.
"Michaelangelo" grabbed her and moved in front of her defensively.
"No Shredder dude, you leave our April alone."
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