Home To Hawkins

Chapter 3 - Looking Mighty Fine Sailor

Dustin paused the tape.

"So what do you think?"

We were sitting in the back room of scoops ahoy. I had flicked through the translation book to show Steve, only for him to realise, as we had, that Russian had a totally different alphabet. Dustin had rubbed the 'you rule' 'you suck' chart off Robin's board. It now held a Russian to English alphabet translation on it.

"It sounded familiar." Steve said, through a mouthful of banana.

"Huh?" I asked.

"The music. The music, right there at the end." He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

"Why are you listening to the music Steve?" Dustin demanded. "Listen to the Russian, we're translating Russian!"

"I'm trying to listen to the Russian but there's music playing-"

The door to the back office slammed open and Robin stormed in.

"Alright," she announced, "babysitting time is over, you need to get in there!" She stopped as she saw the board. "Hey, my board! That was important scientific data, shitbirds."

I mouthed a sorry at her.

"I guarantee you, what we're doing is way more important than your data." Dustin said.

"Yeah?" She walked over to the front of the table, facing Steve and Dustin. "And how do you know these Russians are up to no good anyways?" She asked them.

Dustin's mouth fell open as he looked from me to Steve, who had paused mid banana chew.

"How does she know about the Russians?" He whispered to Steve.

Through his banana mouthful he managed to get out a muffled, "I don't know?"

"You told her about the Russians?" Dustin asked me.

"It wasn't me!" Steve added, the banana still in his mouth. Good god why didn't this man just finish his food!

"Wasn't me either." I hissed.

"Hello?" Robin called our attention back to her. "I can hear you. Actually, I can hear everything. You are both extremely loud." She glanced at me. "You don't talk much."

I shrugged. "I didn't have much to add. Once these two get going it's like they never stop."

She sighed. "Fair enough." She turned back to Steve and Dustin, who were staring at her like she'd just told them she knew what they kept hidden in their sock drawers. "You think you have evil Russians plotting against our country, on tape, and you're trying to translate, but you haven't figured out a single word because you didn't realise Russian uses an entirely different alphabet than we do." She didn't even pause for breath, her words just kept flowing. She sounded like she was telling off naughty school children and it looked like that too, with Steve holding half a banana in his hand rooted to the spot like a statue, and with Dustin slowly leaning back in his chair as though he was about to bolt.

The three of us looked at each other. I think I was the only one who looked impressed. The others just looked shocked.

"Sound about right?" She prompted.

"Remember when I said she was cool Steve?"

"Shut up." He muttered, finally swallowing his banana.

Robin launched herself across the table, going to grab the tape. Steve got there first, grabbing it out of her reach.

"Whoa! What do you think you're doing?" Steve asked.

"I think she's trying to listen to the tape Harrington."