The punchline of that joke is 'carefully'; it also happens to be the truth.

"Making sure he was fed and socialized, mostly," Gene says. "It's a big job. Most of the turtles started out with two or three people to take care of them. By the time we went to fight Malicant, I was the only one left to take care of Kalliel."

He really hopes the turtle hadn't felt abandoned. He's not sure if he'll ever know.

And the less said about the turtles that were murdered, the better.