Robby got to my house in record time. I managed to sneak him in through the back door: Corey was too invested in some dumb Mark Whalberg movie in the living room, Ian was playing Call of Duty in the basement, Freddie was at soccer practice with mom and my dad was still at work
"What could possibly be so important?" Robby hissed as I dragged him up the stairs
"Please." I snorted, closing the door to my room behind us "You weren't doing anything."
"I have a job." The Keene boy pointed out
"You live with your boss, I think he'd understand." I shot back
Robby sighed, settling himself among the pillows and stuffed animals on the bed. "I know you're upset, but I don't think we can save Miyagi-do. I'm sorry."
"You don't understand, Robby." I protested, opening the girl scout box. "Without kata, I have nothing. It kept me sane, gave me a place to belong."
On top of the box sat the blue canvas dress I had worn to each of my scout meetings. I had been a girl scout from when I was six to when I was twelve. Scouts took up a good six years of my life, and now I hoped it would help me out one last time.
"Wow." Robby mused, diverting the conversation by pointing out all of the changes I had made to my bedroom since the boy had last been up here. "You watched one J-Drama. I bet you listen to J-Pop now too, don't you."
I chuckled, continuing my root through the box. "Very funny. I started watching some Japanese gangster movies the other night, but I was tired so I think I fell asleep. They were really good, and the soundtrack was actually really good."
Robby snickered "You can't use 'really good' twice in a sentence like that."
"Since when did you care about grammar and sentence structure?"
"Since now."
"Whatever."
We went quiet again as I continued to look through to box for the map. I could have sworn it was there earlier. Robby looked like he was about to say something, but I cut him off with a harsh glare as I pulled the crumpled paper out of the box. Unfolding it, I slammed it on the bed. "This is my plan."
"Your plan is a girl scouts map of the Hollywood Hills with lines scrawled in crayon?" Robby looked at me with raised eyebrows
"No, stupid." I said, pointing at a house scratched out with bold red crayon. "Have you heard that old urban legend? The one about the Karkaroff house?"
The Keene boy shook his head "Care to enlighten me?"
"Gladly. When I was in girl scouts, there was one house we always avoided when we did cookie sales, or lemonade stands in the neighborhood. I remember just how terrified of it I was when I heard the story the first time. One of the older girls, Violet, she told us the story when I was about seven years old."
"The Karkaroff house looks unassuming from the outside, but the legend goes that Stasia Karkaroff bought the house in the late seventies after she and her husband Vladimir immigrated from Russia. There are people around who remember the Karkaroff's and their kids, so we know that much is true. They had three kids: Daria, Irina and Viktor."
"Okay, so it was owned by some crazy Russian lady." Robby looked unimpressed "So what?"
"Vladimir killed Stasia because she was set to inherit one of Russia's largest and wealthiest businesses, and the fortune behind it." I said, skipping many details just to please Robby's short attention span. "But nobody ever found the money she smuggled into the country. The kids spent years looking for it afterwards, and it drove one of the daughters mad. Irina Karkaroff threw herself off the roof after finding her mother's corpse in the basement freezer."
"That's morbid."
"What's more, both Vladimir and Viktor died under mysterious circumstances while looking for the money. Daria sold the house and moved to Kansas City, where she died of lung cancer. But she never smoked. There are a lot of weird things connected to that house."
Robby sighed, raking his fingers through his hair. "How much money is it? Like, American dollars?"
"Seven million. Half in solid gold, the other half pure cash."
"That's a lot of money." The boy exhaled, reaching for his phone. "What's the address? I know a way to find out who lives there now."
"A postal directory." I offered, typing the address into my own phone "I tried to look it up earlier but then you got here."
My fingers danced across the plexiglass protector on my screen as I typed, the incessant clicking of the keyboard ringing in my ears as I pressed the blue enter button. We waited with bated breath as the small blue circle spun. I think we both hoped the house would be empty, that we'd be able to get in there and actually search for the money.
But alas, we weren't to be so lucky.
I cursed, throwing my phone into a stuffed animal that looked like Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc.
"What's up? Who lives there?" Robby asked nervously, taking the lid off the melted ice cream on my floor, I watched, horrified as he took a large gulp.
"I was eating that!" I protested
"It's melted!" He defended himself
"Whatever." I sighed, getting up to look for last years West Valley yearbook. I opened to our class, pointing dejectedly at one of the rectangular photos.
"Have I ever told you about an asshole named Kyler?"
NOTES!
'sup guys, i'm back from the dead.
THANK YOU SO MUCHH FOR 1K ON THIS BOOK SO FAST IM ACTUALLY SHOCKED!! THIS MEANS A LOT AND I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE STORY TO REALLY START
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