MADMAX
“everyone who goes is annoying”
LAST WINTER
Charlie trudged her way through the snow behind Hopper, turning to look over her shoulder every now and then to check on El. The blonde knew where they headed, but she’d never been to her great-grandpa’s old cabin before. She knew about it because Hopper used to tell her stories about visiting it all the time, but apparently there was nothing really left out there anymore. Though it seemed that the cabin was in good enough shape.
They reached the building, snow piled over the roof, the outside looking pretty disheveled. It made sense why Hopper had opted to live out of a trailer instead of this all this time. Her uncle turned his key in the lock and walked inside, making sure to knock his boots against the doorframe to not trail snow inside. Charlie did the same without much thought. Behind her, Eleven paused for a second — having watched both their actions carefully — before hitting her own shoes carefully against the wood in the same they had.
“My grandad and Charlie’s great-grandpa used to live here,” Hopper explained to Eleven, gesturing to the blonde as he mentioned her. Eleven shut the door behind her as she listened while Charlie glanced over the room, taking in all the boxes and furniture covered in dust and sheets. “I mainly just use it for storage now.”
“Jesus… You got my baby pictures in here?” Charlie asked as more of a joke, walking over to some filing boxes stacked up in one cobwebbed corner.
“It’s possible,” Hopper told her, although once he saw the corner she was digging through, he hurried to intervene. Charlie furrowed her eyebrows as her uncle gently pushed her out the way, picking up two boxes. She could read the name ‘Sara’ on one and understood, however, she couldn’t see any label on the other. She supposed it was just more of Sara. “Lot of history here.”
Charlie watched him push them deeper into the mess, losing track of them somewhere between the ocean of dust and spider nests. When Hopper turned back around, he didn’t meet her eye, deciding to go and glance over at El instead.
“So, uh… what do you think?” Hopper asked, placing his hands on his hips. El turned her head quickly, as if she didn’t expect to be talked to directly. “It’s a work-in-progress. You know, it’s, uh…” He brushed away some cobwebs from in front of Charlie’s face. “It takes a little imagination, but, uh… once we fix it up, it’s gonna be nice. Real nice.” He took a second, looking between both the girls. “This is your new home.”
Charlie smiled faintly as El turned away from where she’d been looking deeper into the cabin. Her eyes widened and then repeated him. “Home.”
Charlie glanced into her room that stood next to El’s, seeing that that too was covered in more cobwebs, more towers of dust and a whole lot of furniture that was piled in a way that threatened to topple on top of her with one wrong move. The living room had been managed to be cleaned up a little, there was at least enough space to move around without falling into a spider’s nest or accidentally tripping into a broken floorboard.
As Hopper busied himself over by the window, Charlie heard a shuffling of footsteps stopping next to her. She turned her head to find Eleven standing by her side, her eyes looking curiously into what would be the blonde’s new bedroom.
“I’ve got some old stuff for you. Like clothes and things,” Charlie told the smaller girl, causing El to look up at her in confusion. “And I’m pretty sure we could find a good color for the walls, a couple lamps, and some posters. I’ll bring some magazines and you can choose.”
“Maga…zines?” Eleven repeated her, turning it into a question.
“Yeah. They’re these book-type things that kind of talk about news,” Charlie explained, but frowned a little. “Well, I guess, it’s not news. It’s more gossip. Rumors. But that’s not what we need from them. There’s posters you can get inside them, they’re of celebrities or movies and they’re pretty wicked. I think you’ll like them.”
“Wicked,” El repeated once more, a small smile reaching her face.
“Yeah, totally wicked,” Charlie nodded in agreement, gaining her own smile.
“Oh, yeah…” Hopper’s low voice spoke from behind them. Charlie and El turned away from the blonde’s bedroom, finding the man pulling out a record from his storage box. He turned around to the two girls, an excited smile on his face. “Yeah, yeah. All right, this… this is music.”
He took the disk out from its cover, lowering it down on the record player. He placed the needle down on it and pressed play, a couple seconds going by until some notes started playing through dusty speakers. Charlie sighed heavily, completely unsure where this was going. El’s eyes widened in shock at the sound, not expecting that to happen.
Hopper looked between the two girls, beginning to click his fingers along to the beat.
“Oh… Oh, no…” Charlie mumbled. She had never seen her uncle dance before.
Hopper just chuckled at her reaction, moving to the beat.
“Okay, you see this,” Charlie said to El, gesturing to the display in front of them. “This is the opposite of wicked. This is very, very un-wicked.”
“No. No! This is the epitome of wicked!” Hopper shook his head, dancing even harder than before. Charlie covered her face as she let out a small laugh, El gaining a bright smile on her face. “All right.” Hopper clapped his hands together. “Let’s get to work.”
“All right, this…” Hopper spoke as they all sat around the cleaned dining room table, three chairs pulled up around it. He gestured to a large machine placed in the middle, showing them a morse code translated on a small piece of card. “You can use this to message Charlie and I whenever you need. You spell out words with those letters on the piece of card.”
“What do… they mean?” El asked, pointing out the dots and dashes laid under every letter.
“Those are part of the morse code,” Charlie explained, pulling her chair a little closer to point to the A. “See that one? That's one dot and one dash. To do ‘A’, you take this.” She picked up the receiver that was connected to the machine. “You press it quickly once for the dot and then hold for at least three seconds more for the dash. Always leave a small amount of time between each so we can understand the message, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Eleven nodded, picking up the paddle from the blonde’s hand.
“Okay, try and spell something out,” Hopper instructed, pushing the translator card towards her.
Eleven looked unsure for a moment, but then looked down at the letters. She pursed her lips together, scanning the card before beginning to tap. “Dot… Dash-Dash-Dot… Dash-Dash-Dot… Dash-Dash-Dash… Dot-Dot-Dot.” She finished by placing the paddle back down, looking up with an innocent expression.
“Eggos, got it,” Hopper sighed, exasperated. “Pretty cheeky, kid.”
“I think we should give it to her,” Charlie suggested, feeling pretty hungry herself. “It’s nearly dinner time, right? I know you have some somewhere around here.”
Hopper sighed once more, but he got up from his chair. “I do not condone this behavior.”
As he walked over to the kitchen, Charlie looked over at Eleven, giving her a conspiratorial wink. El watched it, getting a small bit confused, before trying it herself. She ended up blinking and the blonde hurriedly stopped her, telling her to forget about it.
“Okay, take it,” Hopper instructed Charlie, the blonde taking the wire reel from the man’s hand, walking backwards through the melting snow as carefully as she could. Eleven followed by her side as Hopper took a step back, his eyes watching the girls warily. Charlie crouched down at the other tree in front of the cabin, the mousetrap that Hopper had already nailed into place right in front of her. She held out a hand and Eleven passed her the bolt cutters and the blonde cut the wire, wrapping it to the mouse trap.
“Now, this is called a trip wire,” Hopper explained to Eleven as he lowered himself to the ground beside the two girls. Charlie quickly pulled her fingers away once she’d done, and let the trap sit, unbothered. “It’s like an alarm. You, uh, set it up like this. And then, anybody gets close, it’s gonna make a loud noise like, uh, gunfire. Bang!”
Eleven flinched backwards, her hand touching Charlie’s arm. The blonde rubbed her back, assuring her it was all alright.
Hopper chuckled for a second before looking at the smaller girl. “Those bad men aren’t gonna find you. Alright? Not way the hell out here. We’ll take some precautions. There’s gonna be a couple ground rules.”
“Rule number one,” Hopper began as they all sat around the dining table once again. He slid across a piece of notepad paper in front of the two girls, looking at the two of them seriously. “Always keep the curtains drawn. Rule number two: only open the door if you hear the secret knock.” He tapped his fist against the table twice, paused, tapped again, paused, and finally tapped three more times.
He pointed to Charlie. “You need to remember that. And rule number three: don’t ever go out alone, especially not in the daylight. That’s it. Three rules. I call ‘em the, uh… Don’t Be Stupid Rules. ‘Cause we’re not stupid. Right?”
PRESENT TIME
Back to school. It had been nearly a whole year since everything that happened last year and honestly, Charlie didn’t even think about it anymore. Of course, there were some nightmares. She’d see that thing above her, the demogorgon — or whatever Lucas and Dustin had told her it was called. She still had the scars. The three slashes across her right arm and the cut on her left palm. The memories only really occurred to her when she saw them, so she tended to stand away from mirrors and keep to using her right hand for most jobs.
Even as Charlie rode her motorbike down the road through Hawkins, heading for Hawkins High, she kept her left hand stuck to the handle and her sleeves all the way down to her wrists. She had found riding her motorbike was a more peaceful time than most things, that was apart from playing her guitar. But now she didn’t play her guitar alone, whenever they had the time, Charlie would help Eleven to learn all the chords and just to play in general. They’d managed to get to ‘twinkle, twinkle, little star’, but Eleven was too fixated on the song to move on to anything else.
Charlie turned her handlebars up the hill, the school parking lot appearing in front of her, the engine roaring beneath her as the sound brought everyone’s attention onto her. The blonde pretty much ignored most of it, trying to find herself a parking space, her eyes scanning across the rest of the cars through her helmet. Although, her plan failed miserably as her eyes fell upon a specific car in the corner of the parking lot.
Nancy and Steve sat in the boy’s car, and despite the fact they were just talking, Charlie felt that small tug on her heart strings that she had been experiencing since Christmas. But unlike at Christmas, Charlie was all too sure what it was now. She… liked Nancy Wheeler. Because of course she did, out of everyone in the world, of course she was the one to fall for the all-american sweetheart. She’d been cursing herself for it, the idea that she had practically forced herself into a never ending cycle of pain and yearning torture. Nancy Wheeler was not like her, she’d only ever be her friend, she would never want—
An angry car horn blared out from behind her causing Charlie to tear her eyes away from where Steve’s car was parked, looking behind her to where an electric blue Camaro was burning gas. The driver shouted some unperceivable words that she couldn’t hear through her helmet, but seeing as he was coming down the opposite side of the road, Charlie had a pretty good idea that she had the right of way in the situation.
She sent him the finger that got her one last disgustingly loud blare of the horn before the Camaro dangerously tore around her, dust blowing into her face as it passed. She could feel the heat from under the car against her skin as it skidded into a parking lot, the blonde rolling her eyes in distaste and turning her bike into a parking space a couple feet away.
As she pulled her helmet off, moving her hair away from her face behind her shoulder, she saw Nancy and Steve walking over to her, their eyes taking glances at the blue Camaro across the parking lot. Charlie shoved her helmet under her arm, picking up her guitar case and backpack from the sidecar, falling beside the other two.
“You okay?” Nancy checked, having seen the whole scene from Steve’s car.
“The prick could’ve knocked me over,” Charlie scoffed.
They all saw as a red-headed girl got out from the passenger side of the car, dropping a skateboard to the tarmac and rolling off quickly towards the middle school. From the driver’s side, the door opened as well, this time a boy with a mullet getting out. He looked across the school, denim jacket and jeans tight to his body and Charlie could only raise a disapproving eyebrow. Jesus, this guy even looked like a prick.
Charlie sat in a chair in the front office of Hawkins High, having been called out of her English Lit class, completely unaware of what she was being called in for. She didn’t think there were no rules against motorbikes, she at least hadn’t seen any, so she didn’t think it was about. There was the possibility that that prick from the parking lot that morning had snitched on her for doing absolutely nothing wrong, but the guy looked like a prick, not a snitch.
“Miss Thomas,” the receptionist called from behind the desk called. The blonde hurried up from her seat, walking over, giving her a confused look. “The principal’s waiting for you.”
“Okay, thanks…” Charlie said, unsure what else to say. She didn’t even know why she was here. God, she hated when people were vague.
She slowly made her way down the hallway, past the other offices, before reaching the end where the principal’s office sat. Charlie held her jacket in her arm tightly, knocking on the door before hearing a muffled ‘come in’ and opening it for herself.
Once she entered the room, immediately two heads turned to look at her. One was the principal and the other was a boy — around her age — sitting in one of the chair’s in front of the principal’s desk. The boy had dark hair that was buzzed around the sides, he wore a scale of only gray — gray pants, gray sneakers, gray jacket — that was apart from the vivid green shirt underneath it all. Charlie had no idea what to say.
“Mr Aldridge, this is Charlotte Thomas,” the principal introduced Charlie to the boy with a small gesture to her. “She’ll be showing you around today.” He then turned his head to the girl, the blonde still pretty confused why she was part of this. “Miss Thomas, this is Andrew Aldridge. He’s a new student this year, and seeing as he’s in most of your classes, we were hoping you’d be at least one friendly face for him.”
“Oh, right,” Charlie finally spoke, the puzzle pieces clicking in her mind. She looked down to Andrew with a polite smile. “Hey. It’s nice to meet you.”
The boy didn’t say anything back, he only smiled and nodded his head kindly. Charlie was slightly worried that the boy wouldn’t say a word to her and this whole experience would become very awkward, very quickly.
“Well, all your paperwork is sorted out,” the principal finalized the conversation, picking up a pile of papers and tapping them straight on his desktop. “We really hope you’ll be happy here, Mr Aldridge. I just know you’ll fit in.”
Andrew gave him the same kind of nod to the principal that he had done to Charlie. The blonde narrowed her eyes, noticing how he seemed to have a pattern of keeping his mouth shut.
The principal raised his hand to the door with a welcoming smile and Andrew picked up his bag and walked past Charlie who had kept the door open for him. The blonde paused for half a second before throwing herself head first into whatever was about to happen. However, it didn’t go as she expected because as soon as the office door closed, Andrew let out a deep sigh.
“Oh, my God… I thought he’d never stop talking,” Andrew told Charlie, his eyes wide in relief. He tapped the girl on the shoulder and Charlie grew even more confused as his disposition completely juxtaposed who he was a few seconds ago. “I mean, really? I’m new, I’m not traveling to space. Although, space could be a cool idea. You know, because planets? Well, anyway, thank you for saving me from that living hell.”
“No problem…” Charlie replied slowly, her mouth staying open as she finished her sentence.
Andrew looked down at his feet for a second, smacking his lips and then glanced up at Charlie, realizing she hadn’t said anything back. “Are you good? You seem sort of… I don’t know. You just don’t seem good.”
“I’ll admit I’m slightly confused,” Charlie replied, letting out a breath of a laugh. “You just completely switched personalities in the span of five seconds… It was a little bit of a shock.”
“Yeah, I only do that around adults,” Andrew explained himself, his shoulders dropping. “I’ve learnt a little bit about how to act in front of them. When I talk too much, they get worried. When I don’t talk at all, they get worried. It’s easier to nod and smile and only speak while spoken to when with them. Most adults enjoy having authority.”
“Seems like you’ve really researched this,” Charlie said, still mildly surprised, but she was beginning to get used to it. As much as it wasn’t what she was expecting, it was a lot better than the other things she had thought of.
“I kind of grew up in a few orphanages,” Andrew told her nonchalantly, beginning to walk down the hall. Charlie followed, feeling like the boy’d rather lead the tour than listen to the blonde explain where everything was. “I got put with a foster family a month or two ago and they lived here… in Hawkins. So now I live here… in Hawkins.”
“I mean, yeah, that does add up,” Charlie nodded, fastening her pace to catch up with his quick moving feet. “So, is there anywhere specific you want to go to or do you want the basic tour? Either way, I promise you, I will try and extend this as long as possible so we don’t have to go to class until at least fourth period.”
“I’m good with either as long as you keep that promise,” Andrew smiled excitedly, practically bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.
“You chose correctly,” Charlie replied wisely as she started to lead them towards the music rooms, Andrew making comments about nearly everything they passed.
The bell had rung as Charlie led Andrew down the main corridor of the high school, alerting them that the second period was over. People started spilling out all around them, their conversations causing the volume to rise phenomenally, but somehow, Andrew managed to talk above it all, still able to make conversation about anything. Charlie actually found it all rather refreshing, she didn’t have to use up a lot of energy with Andrew, he mostly kept himself entertained, and most of the time, her too.
“You know, fire extinguishers are nearly two hundred years old,” Andrew spoke, the thought coming to him due to the mere sight of a fire extinguisher hung up on the wall next to the water fountain. “Imagine being the person to create that. You think they set things on fire on purpose and then discovered they could put it out with a couple puffs of white foam?”
“I think that would class them as some sort of pyromaniac,” Charlie chuckled, Andrew making a small hum of agreement as he went to find something else to talk about.
“Hey, Charlie,” a voice called out from the open door of a classroom. Charlie turned towards the source, finding Tina skipping towards her, her mouth moving at the speed of light as she chewed on her gum. “Your motorbike is bitchin’, by the way. Like, super cool.”
“Thanks, Tina,” Charlie nodded with a grateful smile, unsure where this was leading.
“So, I’m having this party tomorrow night,” Tina explained, pushing onwards quickly. She passed over a bright orange poster with halloween silhouettes all across it. The text across the top was inviting Charlie to said party. “You should totally come. There’s gonna be drinks, snacks, hot boys. Only thing: You gotta have a costume.”
“Sounds… interesting,” Charlie struggled to get out a nice response. “I’ll think about it.”
“Come on, Charlie. It’s gonna be so fun,” Tina assured her, shaking her arm. Charlie went to open her mouth, but instead, Tina’s eyes turned to see Andrew who was still at the blonde’s side. It seemed the boy, while Charlie had been talking to Tina, decided to space out, staring up towards the ceiling. “Who’s this?”
“This is Andrew. He’s new here,” Charlie told her, looking over to the boy, but even his introduction didn’t bring him out of his thoughts. The blonde gently nudged the boy in the side, Andrew suddenly jumping into action. “Andrew, this is Tina.”
“Oh…” Andrew spoke, not completely sure why he was being told. And then, it seemed he remembered his manners, bringing a bright smile to his face. “Oh! Hi!”
“Hey!” Tina smiled, giving him the same amount of enthusiasm before pushing one of her party flyers into his hands as well. “Well, seeing as you’re new, you should definitely come. You could meet some people, just remember: No costume, you don’t get in.”
Tina gave them a small smile before disappearing off into the crowd of other teenagers, continuing to pass out her flyers as she went.
“Why are we wearing costumes?” Andrew quickly asked Charlie, looking down at the flier, flipping it over continuously in confusion.
“It’s this Halloween party,” Charlie sighed. “You really don’t have to go if you don’t want.”
“No, no… This sounds cool,” Andrew said, finally reading the text across the top. “I’ve never really got to celebrate Halloween. Do you think we’ll go trick-or-treating?”
“Oh… Oh, no,” Charlie mumbled, touching the boy’s arm gently, not answering his question.
She started taking them further down the hallway, heading for her locker, but instead, they came across Nancy and Jonathan. The small brunette’s eyes immediately found Charlie’s, a smile reaching her lips as she dragged Jonathan to reach the girl quicker.
“Okay, please tell me you’re going to Tina’s party tomorrow night?” Nancy immediately asked, her eyes not leaving Charlie’s and therefore not seeing Andrew next to her. The boy — instead of spacing out this time — paid attention intensely.
“I was actually thinking of… not going,” Charlie replied with a small wince when Nancy’s smile dropped at her words. “You know I don’t like those kinds of parties. I don’t see the point in them.”
“What? Are you politically against them?” Jonathan scoffed humorously.
“Hey, you don’t get to talk when you’re going trick-or-treating instead,” Nancy stopped him with an exasperated sigh.
“Oh, cool, trick-or-treating?” Andrew spoke up, his eyes lighting up as soon as it was mentioned.
Both Jonathan and Nancy grew confused as they turned to see the new boy at Charlie’s side, wondering why a random person they had never seen before had suddenly joined their conversation. Andrew looked between, also confused, but he was confused why no was answering him and only staring.
“Oh, yeah. This is Andrew Aldridge,” Charlie spoke up after a minute, remembering it was her job to get everyone caught up. “He’s new here. I was just showing him around.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Nancy smiled, her usual sweet disposition causing her to put out her hand. Andrew smiled back, shaking her hand a lot more aggressively than the girl expected.
“You want to go trick-or-treating?” Jonathan asked, shoving his hands in his pockets as Nancy recovered with her slightly sore hand.
“I’ve never done it before,” Andrew replied earnestly. “Sounds fun to me.”
“Well, I’m taking my brother tomorrow night, you’re free to join us,” Jonathan offered kindly.
“That sounds amazing,” Andrew’s eyes grew wider in excitement. He quickly turned to Charlie. “I know I said I didn’t like the principal, but he was definitely right that I was gonna like it here.”
“Well, I’m happy for you, buddy,” Charlie patted him on the back in a friendly manner.
“Okay, Lottie,” Nancy interrupted the conversation, bringing it back to the previous subject. “Please come to the party. You’d enjoy it if you let yourself.”
“Everyone who goes is annoying,” Charlie frowned with a small shake of her head.
“I go and I’m not annoying,” Nancy argued.
“Drew…” Charlie gave her a mockingly pointed look. Nancy rolled her eyes, hitting the blonde’s arm teasingly, hiding the faint smile pulling at her lips.
All of a sudden, Nancy got picked up around the waist, the girl letting out a shriek of surprise. Charlie’s eyes widened in surprise, but it immediately dropped when she saw it was Steve who had grabbed her. And cue the burning in her chest… There it was.
“Uh… Let’s give them some space,” Charlie said quietly, gesturing for her and the two boys to walk away. Jonathan took the signal, but Andrew didn’t move an inch. The blonde let out a sigh, grabbing the boy’s jacket and tugged him behind them, the boy letting out a surprised yelp.
Charlie was definitely happy the school day was over. It was exhausting at the best of the times, but today just seemed even worse. She wasn’t sure if it was because it had started off bad or that now that she knew exactly what she was feeling for Nancy, the stinging feeling everytime she remembered it would never be returned had gotten worse. Whatever it was, she could at least let it go for the time being. Especially now. Because right now, she was teaching guitar.
“Okay, you’ve got it,” Charlie nodded once Eleven had expertly played A minor. The girl looked up from the guitar in her hands, the instrument still slightly oversized for her, a smile across her face. “Right. This one’s gonna be a little harder. F chord?”
Eleven nodded, looking back down at the strings with a concentrated expression. She seemed to understand exactly where her fingers needed to be, but it was a struggle to get them like that. Charlie understood, that was the exact same chord she had used to have difficulty with.
“Hey, don’t worry,” Charlie assured her as Eleven’s eyebrows furrowed deeper. The blonde leaned forward and helped El by moving her fingers into the comfortable position she had learnt to use for the chord. “One finger over the first fret, you can keep the two strings down at the same time. Now the next finger on the second fret, third string up. Lastly, a finger on the third fret on the third string up.” She leant back as El kept her fingers in the position she had placed them in. “There you go. Now you can strum.”
Eleven did exactly as she was told, strumming with the pick that Charlie had let her paint in whatever way she wanted. It was currently a bright pink with splashes of blue. The girl managed to play a perfect F chord and Charlie clapped her hands.
“You’re nearly getting better than me,” Charlie told Eleven, the smaller girl laughing brightly. Over the couple of months they’d been living together, Eleven had basically become family. The blonde knew she couldn’t talk about her outside of the cabin walls, but that almost made it better. She had two separate worlds. Her home and everywhere else. She just didn’t know how everything was for El.
“I’m not. You’re good,” El shook her head, passing the guitar back over.
“Yeah, and you’ll become just as good,” Charlie told her confidently, getting up from her bed and placing the instrument back on its stand. “Probably even better. A student always becomes better than their master. It’s in, like, all the movies.”
“If you say so,” Eleven shrugged, leaning back on the girl’s pillows, taking the magazine that sat on Charlie’s bedside table. She opened it up, going through the contents until she got to the posters at the back.
Charlie turned back to catch it. “You can take those if you like. My walls are pretty much full.”
“Really?” Eleven made sure, looking at a specific poster of Nightmare On Elm Street which was coming out in a month or two.
“Yeah, ‘course,” Charlie said, sitting back down next to her. “You like that one?”
“Mhm,” Eleven hummed, beginning to tear it out.
“It’s R Rated, but if you’re up for it, as soon as it comes out on VHS, I’ll get it for you,” Charlie promised her with a small smile. Eleven looked up in excitement. “You just gotta make sure to not bring it up in front of Hop. He won’t be the happiest about it.”
“I promise,” Eleven said quickly, nodding solemnly.
Charlie returned the nod, helping her tear out the rest of the posters inside. As they got the last out of its staples, there was a knock at the door of the cabin. Both the girls turned their head towards it, waiting for the end of the secret knock, and once it came, they knew it was only Hopper.
“You wanna get that?” Charlie asked, piling the posters up, straightening them out on her knee.
Eleven took a small glance over at the door, tilting her head sharply to the side, the locks clicking out of place. Charlie watched it out of the corner of her eye, the ability constantly surprising her despite having lived with it for nearly a year. It was super cool, what else could she say?
The door opened as Hopper walked inside, the two of them hearing him kicking his boots against the frame before shutting it behind him. There was the small shuffling of footsteps as he turned off the TV that had still been playing from when Charlie and El had watched The Scooby Doo Mysteries. The fridge opened and Hopper’s trail led over to the dining table.
“Hey, what’d we talk about?” Hopper’s voice called towards the bedroom and Charlie and Eleven shared a guilty look, knowing exactly what he was referring to.
Eleven dropped her guilty expression as soon as she saw the clock over Charlie’s shoulder. “It’s 8-1-5. You’re late.”
“Yeah, I lost track of time,” Hopper replied apologetically. “I’ll signal next time, all right? But I bet Charlie’s been teachin’ you all that guitar in the meantime. And, uh, it’s 8:15. It’s not 8-1-5.”
Charlie placed the posters to put up in El’s room later on her desk, the two girls wandering out into the cabin, taking their seats at the table.
“Eight-fifteen,” Eleven repeated to make sure she got it right next time.
“Now, I hope you didn’t encourage this behavior,” Hopper said sternly to Charlie, gesturing his eyes to where the half-eaten Eggos sat.
“I didn’t,” Charlie replied defensively before looking down at her microwave meal, muttering when she added, “I took part in the behavior.”
Hopper sighed heavily, but he didn’t have it in him to get mad. “Dinner first, then dessert. Always. You both know this. That’s a rule. Yeah?”
Eleven nodded after checking with Charlie. “Yes.”
“And no more joining. Honestly, you’re meant to be seventeen,” Hopper scoffed humorously as he glanced over at Charlie.
“Yeah, yeah. And you’re meant to be forty-two, but you still watch Scooby Doo with El and me,” Charlie argued in a matter-of-fact way.
“Okay, this one time, I give you permission to throw that metal sheet,” Hopper told El.
The brunette smiled excitedly, ripping it off of the top of her microwave meal and throwing it in Charlie’s face. The blonde groaned as it hit her, rolling her eyes as she tossed it behind her into the trash, Hopper and El laughing at her as they dug into their dinners.