how you get the girl
chapter 2
secret russian communication
stranger things s3 e2
In the break room of Scoops
"And then she scoffed and walked away." Steve was telling Nora about an interaction he had with a customer earlier that day.
"It seems like you need girl advice, little Stevie." Steve rolled his eyes. "Yeah, like I need your advice. How many girlfriends have you had?" Steve stared at Nora waiting for a response. "Yeah, that's what I thought." Oh, if only he knew how wrong he was.
"Listen, all I'm saying is that girls don't like to be hit on before you even form a relationship. Have you tried asking them to be your friend?"
"Yeah Elly, because that doesn't sound pathetic at all."
Elly was Nora's childhood nickname. She was hoping she would outgrow it, and she did. But, Steve never stopped calling her Elly. And when other people heard Steve call her Elly, they started calling her Elly. She wasn't a fan.
"It won't sound pathetic! Have you considered that maybe a break from relationships would do you some good? I mean you were a total dick before you and Nancy broke up and now you're tolerable. People like tolerable, and not just people who you're trying to bang."
"Thank you for that, but-" Steve stopped talking when he heard a voice at the cash register.
"Is who here?" Nora and Steve heard Robin from the front, when Steve ran out of the room.
"Henderson." Steve and Dustin laughed. "Henderson! He's back! He's back!" Nora walked out of the break room to see Steve's reaction. "I'm back! You got the job!" "I got the job!" Nora walked over to Robin and stood beside her. "How many children are you friends with?"
"He doesn't have friends his own age." Nora whispered to Robin.
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Dustin, Nora, and Steve sat at a booth near the entrance of Scoops.
"No, no. No way. Hotter than Phoebe Cates? No." Nora sat on the edge of the booth next to Steve, watching Dustin eat his sundae. "Mhm. Brilliant, too. And she doesn't even care that my real pearls are still coming in. She says kissing is better without teeth." Nora and Steve exchanged a confused look. "Wow. Yeah, that's great. Proud of you, man. That's ro-- that's kinda romantic. That's like.. wow." Nora looked at Steve. "Don't lie to him Steve." Dustin side-eyed Nora. "Seriously?" "Listen-" Dustin cut her off. "So do you really just get to eat as much of this as you want?" Dustin said as he continued to eat his sundae. "Yeah. I mean, sure. It's not really a good idea for me, though. I gotta keep in shape for the ladies."
"Yeah, and how's that working out for you?" Robin interrupted. Nora glanced up at her and they shared a smile. "Ignore her."
"Steve has gotten absolutely no ladies." Nora said as she stole a spoon full of Dustin's sundae.
"She seems cool." Dustin smacked Nora's hand and took his spoon back. "She's not. So, where are the other knuckleheads?"
"They ditched me yesterday." Dustin said. "What?" both of the Harringtons had a shocked-sad expression on their faces.
"My first day back. Can you believe that shit?"
"Whoa. Seriously?"
"What could they have to do that would possibly be more important than Pearls here?" Nora pointed to Dustin, looking at Steve. They were his "children", after all.
"I swear to God. They all left to go make-out or some shit. They're gonna regret it, though. Big time. When they don't get to share in my glory."
"Glory? What glory?" Steve questioned.
Dustin scooted closer to Steve and Nora whispering, "So, last night, I was trying to get in contact with Suzie... and uh", Dustin looked around, "I intercepted a secret Russian communication."
"What?" the Harringtons said in unison. "I intercepted a secret Russian communication." They still couldn't hear him. "Dude, speak up."
"I intercepted a secret Russian communication!" Dustin shouted, everyone looked at him. "That's what I thought you said." Nora whispered. "Yeah," Steve hit Nora's arm, "that's what we thought you said." Nora hit him back. "Stop it, Elly." Nora rolled her eyes. "Uh, what does that mean?"
"It means, we could be heroes. True American heroes."
"Okay, cool..." Nora was still confused. "American heroes." Steve was intrigued. "Just think, you could have all the ladies you want and more." Dustin was obviously saying this to Steve. "More?" Steve questioned. "More.", "I like more."
"What does that even mean?" They both ignored her. "What's the catch?" Steve asked. "No catch, I just need your help."
"With what?" Dustin reached in his bag and pulled out a Russian to English dictionary. "Translation."
Nora looked between Dustin and Steve. "Have either of you taken a language class that wasn't English?" They both looked at her. "Uh, I'm supposed to take Spanish next year." Dustin replied. "So you want to translate Russian although you've never learned another language?" Nora's eyes widened.
"Pretty much, yeah."
"How hard could it be?"
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Dustin and Nora were sitting as Steve paced back in forth while they listened to the Russian recording.
Dustin stopped the tape. "So, what do you think?"
"It sounded familiar." Steve put a banana slice into his mouth. "What?"
"The music. The music right there at the end." He continued with his mouth full. "We're not translating the music, Steve." Nora rolled her eyes. "Listen to the Russian! We're translating Russian!" Dustin shouted. "I'm trying to listen to the Russian, but there's music--" Steve started shouting back until the door opened.
"All right, babysitting time is over. You need to get in there." Robin bursted through the door. "Hey, my board. That was important data, shitbirds." Robin turned to face the three. "I guarantee you, what we're doing is way more important than your data." Dustin said, Steve agreeing with him, though his mouth was still full. "Yeah? And how do you know these Russians are up to no good anyways?" Dustin turned to Nora then to Steve. "How does she know about the Russians?" Steve shared the same expression as Dustin. "I don't know." Dustin turned to Nora. "You told her about--" Nora looked offended. "It wasn't me!" She threw her hands up. "Hello, I can hear you. Actually, I can hear everything. You are all extremely loud."
Nora didn't really care that Robin heard them talk about the Russians. She cared more about their kiss. Neither of them had acknowledged it. "You think you have evil Russians plotting against our country, on tape, and you're trying to translate, but haven't figured out a single word because you didn't realize Russians use an entirely different alphabet than we do? Sound about right?" Robin looked at Nora, who didn't realize she had zoned out while looking at Robin.
Robin reached for the tape, but Steve noticed and grabbed it before she could. "Whoa, whoa! What do you think you're doing?" Steve held the tape. "I wanna hear it."
"Why?" Steve and Dustin said in unison. "Cause maybe I can help. I'm fluent in four languages, you know."
"Russian?" Nora asked. "Ou-yay are-yay umb-day." Nora rolled her eyes, knowing it wasn't Russian. Apparently Steve and Dustin weren't aware, because they both laughed in an impressed way. "Holy shit!"
"That was Pig Latin, dingus." Steve hit Dustin's arm with his banana peel. "Idiot."
"But I can speak Spanish, and French, and Italian, and I've been in band for 12 years." Robin sat down next to Nora. "My ears are little geniuses, trust me." Steve seemed unconvinced. "Come on, it's your turn to sling ice cream, my turn to translate. I don't even want credit. I'm just bored." Robin slid her arm across the table with her hand out holding the ice cream scooper, to which Steve took the scooper and gave her the tape.
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Nora was still in the Scoops break room as Dustin and Robin translated Russian. But, she got bored so she put her walkman on and read her book.
"Wait, that last part, just one more time." Robin pointed to the tape. "Okay." Dustin rewinded it.
"Okay, that word. Um, it's pronounced 'dly-nna-ya'."
"Dly-nna-ya." Dustin repeated but completely butchered it.
"Which is spelled.. D.." Dustin walked over to the board as Robin sat down. "The chair, the chair looking thing." Nora put her walkman and her book in her bag as Robin went over to the window to tell Steve about their progress.
"Pearls, how's the translating going?" Nora looked at Dustin. "Good, I mean, we have our first sentence." Dustin pointed to the paper.
"Impressive. I mean, you wouldn't have gotten anywhere if it weren't for Robin, but still impressive."
Robin closed the window and looked to Nora. "Thank you, my dear." She bowed and Nora fake applauded.
"Do you want to help us this time?" Dustin looked at Nora. "Yeah, I mean how interesting can your book be?"
"Pretty interesting actually. Do you read?" Nora asked. "A little bit."
"Don't distract us, Nora. We're translating. So help us or keep reading." Dustin was annoyed.
"I'll help, I will. Jeez." Nora sat down next to Robin and smiled at her.
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"The week is long, the silver cat feeds, when blue meets yellow in the west." Robin, Dustin, and the Harringtons said together.
"I mean, it just, it just can't be right." Steve said as he closed Scoops. "It's right."
"Honestly, I think it's great news."
"Great news? Yeah, because Russians plotting against our country is great news."
"How is this great news? I mean, so much for being American heroes. it's total nonsense."
"It's not nonsense. It's too specific, it's obviously a code." Dustin rolled his eyes. "What do you mean, a code?" Steve questioned. "Hm, I don't know Stevie, what is a code?" Nora said sarcastically. "Like a super secret spy code." "That's a total stretch."
"I don't know, is it?"
"You're buying into this?"
"You're not?" Nora let out a laugh and then Dustin stared at her.
"Listen, just for kicks, let's entertain the possibility that it is a secret Russian transmission. What'd you think they were gonna say, 'Fire the warhead at noon'?"
"Exactly." Dustin said, staring at Steve this time. "And my translation is correct. I know that for sure, so.."
"I love confident women." Nora mumbled, nobody heard her.
"'The silver cats feeds.' why would anyone talk like that unless they're trying to mask the true meaning of their message?" Robin continued. "Exactly." Dustin repeated. "And why would anyone mask the true meaning of their message unless the message was somehow sensitive?" Continuing, "Exactly." Dustin repeated again. "So I guess that confirms your suspicion--" "Evil Russians." Dustin finished her sentence for her. "I can't believe I'm about to agree with this strange child, but, yeah, totally, evil Russians."
"I'm still confused how your cerebro could pick up a signal all the way from across the world." Nora said, puzzled. "The magic of cerebro!"
"So how do we crack it?" Nora looked at Robin, since she was obviously the most intelligent. "Well, I guess we translate the rest and hopefully a pattern emerges."
"A pattern. Right, like maybe 'silver cat' is a meeting place?"
"Or a person?"
"Or a weapon."
"It's probably gonna take a super genius to crack it, but--"
"I believe in you." Nora put her arm around Robin. "Where's Steve?"
All three of them turned around to see Steve in front of the Indiana Flyer.
"Hey, Steve. What are you doing?"
"Uh, it's a quarter. I need-- Nora give me a quarter!"
The three ran over to Steve. "Sure you're tall enough for that ride?" Robin laughed. "Quarter!" Nora grabbed a quarter out of her pocket and tossed it to him. She always kept her money in her pockets.
He put the quarter in and the horse started.
"You need help getting up, little Stevie?" Dustin chuckled. "Shh!" Steve shushed them. "Would you guys just shut up and listen?" The music continued when Dustin's smile dropped and he looked over at Nora who was confused. "Holy shit." Steve looked up at Dustin. "The music." Dustin took his backpack off and pulled out the tape. "The music!" Dustin pulled the tape out and played it, revealing the same music in the background.
"I don't get it." Nora and Robin shared a look before they both looked back to Dustin. "It's the exact same song on the recording."
"Maybe they have horses like this in Russia?"
"'Indiana Flyer'? I don't.. I don't think so. This code, it.. didn't come from Russia." Steve looked up at Nora and Robin. "It came from here."
All four of them looked back at the horse as if it was going to give them all the answers they needed.
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this chapter was significantly longer than the first one, but do you guys like longer chapters or shorter ones?
i'm trying to make each chapter one episode with extra scenes like the first chapter was the scene with robin and nora and this one had steve and nora so lmk how you like it.
word count: 2144