TMNT: Raph and The Secret Door

Neighbors

PINK PALACE, ASHLAND OREGON 

(We see an old Queen Anne-style house with tacked-on outside stairs. It's late winter, the sky a damp, grey sponge. A sign in the foreground reads "Pink Palace, Apartment for Rent". Rocksteady- a seven-foot-tall mutant rhino - performs calisthenics on the rooftop, counting in Russian.

Rocksteady-Dras, dva, tri, chetyri. Dras, dva, tri, chetyri. Dras, dva, tri ...

(A beeping sound begins and he pauses. A moving van drives up the muddy driveway. The Shellraiser recklessly passes the truck and disappears around the side of the house. Rocksteady shakes his fist angrily after the car and shouts)

Rocksteady-Mer-sa-vich! (He marches away indignantly. One of the movers, unseen in the truck, to his companion)

Mover 2-We're here. Time to muscle up.

(Angle on the moving truck's rear doors as they're wrenched open by two men to reveal a lot of boxes and beat up furniture. They haul out the loading ramp towards the house)

(Renet Tilly, a little old English lady with bad legs, greets the movers as they pass by her chair-lift with boxes and furniture)

Mover 2-Got it? Almost there, just a few more. Come on, now, lift.

(Front porch)

(The job finished, Mover 2 heads down the front steps while Mover 1 waits for a signature from the unseen-but-for-his-hands new tenant. Papers signed, a tip of a single, grubby dollar bill is placed in the outstretched hand of the disappointed mover, and the door is shut)

(BACK YARD)

(Hiding behind shrubs, we share the POV of a mysterious spy. With a click, a close-up lens is rotated into place to better see the movers quietly pack into the truck and drive away. A mangy black cat walks right in front of the lens and looks at us with concern. Off-screen, a door bangs open. We follow the cat as it races up a tree and out a branch towards the back porch to investigate. Raphael Hamato, a fifteen year old mutant turtle, steps onto the porch)

(The spy clicks to a close-up)

(Raph looks over his shoulder, then walks down the steps and walks away from the house. We watch him head towards the shrub the spy has hidden themself in. He reaches into the shrub and breaks off a forked branch. He removes the stick's red leaves, aims it like a dowsing rod and heads into the garden. We zoom in to shrub as the spy rises up, wearing a three- eyed skeleton mask on their head and skeleton gloves on their hands. The black cat hops into frame, glances at the spy and follows the person)

(Raph explores the drained, crumbling pond. He aims his forked stick once more then follows it up from the pond and out the back gate)

(LITTLE LATER: SPY POV)

(The spy is hidden behind a wall of stones. We see Raph crossing frame on a steep hillside path. He steps on an old railroad tie, and his foot sinks into the rotted wood, stopping him. We lean out for a better view, and dislodge some stones that roll down past him. We duck as he jerks his head our way)

(Unnerved, Raph calls out)

Raph-Hello?... Who's there? (He throws a rock over the wall of stones, and hits the spy, causing a cry of pain. Freaked out, he runs up the trail)

(SPY POV)

(We rise up to watch and the black cat hops onto the stone wall)

(ORCHARD)

(Raph races down past an old tractor and into the orchard. Wind begins to blow. He then walks over to a circle of toadstools in front of a stump and looks out for his stalker. The black cat shoots past Raph in the tall grass. He can't see him but he knows something is there. Already behind him now, the cat leaps onto the stump with a loud, warning 'MEROWWW'! Startled, Raph yells and and puts up his fists. But after seeing his stalker, he's both angry and relieved when it was just some cat.