The next day Dustin and I were sitting in the back of Scoops Ahoy while Steve and Robin were working. Then Steve came back and gave us both cups of our favorite ice cream.
"Thanks." Dustin and I said.
"No problem." Steve said as he went back to the counter.
I sighed as I stared at the written out code on the whiteboard. "If the Russians are here then where here are they?"
All of a sudden, there was a knock on the back door. Robin ran to the door and opened it. There was a delivery man with a box from a delivery company named Lynx Transportation. She signed the paper and put the box down. She then realized something and ran out into the middle of the mall and started looking around. Steve, Dustin, and I ran after her.
"Robin what are you doing?!" Steve asked.
"I cracked the code." Robin replied.
We ran out and around Starcourt to the delivery place for the Chinese joint. It was raining.
"So that's where the Russians are?" I asked.
"Supposedly." Robin replied. "We just need to find a way to get in there."
Dustin was looking through binoculars.
We walked back inside and tried to figure out how to get inside of the Russian base. While Steve, Dustin, and Robin were arguing, I looked around the room, not paying attention to what they were saying. I looked up at the wall and saw an air vent.
"There." I said, pointing to the air vent. "There's our way in."
A little while later, Dustin slammed a large paper that looked like blue prints onto the table.
"What is this?" Steve asked.
"It's a map of the airways in the building." Dustin replied as he wrote a line from where we are to where we need to go. "If we take these parts of the airways, it should get us inside."
"The only question is how are we going to fit in there?" I asked.
"I have an idea." Dustin said as he grabbed the ladder and set it in front of the air vent.
He climbed up the ladder and opened the air vent.
"Are you sure that you can fit?" Steve asked.
"I can fit. Trust me. No collar bones, remember?" Dustin replied.
"Uh. Excuse me?" Robin asked.
"Oh he's got some disease." Steve replied.
"Are you gonna help me or not?" Dustin yelled.
Steve grabbed Dustin's feet and pushed him.
"Not my feet, dumbass. Push my ass." Dustin said.
"What?" Steve said.
"Touch my butt, I don't care!" Dustin snapped at Steve.
Steve pushed Dustin again.
"Come on!" Dustin said, as it wasn't working.
"I'm just gonna shove you, ready?" Steve said.
"Just shove me?" Dustin said.
"One, two..." Steve said and then he shoved Dustin.
"Shit." Dustin said.
"That work?" Steve asked.
I sat in the corner giggling as I watched.
Steve looked at me and asked, "What? Is this funny to you?"
I shook my head as I kept laughing and they kept trying to shove Dustin into the air duct.
Erica, Lucas's little sister, started ringing the tiny bell on the ice cream counter nonstop. "Ahoy, sailors! All hands on deck! Ahoy! Come on! Get over here and serve me some samples!"
Robin and I both had the same idea. We walked out to the counter and faced Erica.
"Hey Erica, we have a quick question." I said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Erica looked through the air duct and flashed her flashlight around to see.
"Hmm." Erica said as she got down from the ladder. "Yeah, I dunno."
"You don't know if you can fit?" Dustin asked.
"Oh I can fit." Erica said. "I just don't know if I want to."
"Are you claustrophobic?" Robin asked.
"I don't have phobias." Erica replied.
"Okay. Well, what's the problem?" Steve asked.
"The problem is, I still haven't heard what's in this for Erica." She replied.
We sat Erica at a booth and gave her all the ice cream she wanted. Sundays, cups, cones, milkshakes, you name it!
Steve pushed a chocolate fudge, vanilla sunday toward her and then Erica pushed it back. "No fudge please. Go on!"
Steve smiled sarcastically and took the sunday back and got her a new one.
"Alright." Robin said as she got the map out and pointed to the circle. "You see this? This is the route you're gonna take. Then we just wait 'till the last delivery goes out tonight. Then you knock out the grate, jump down, open the door."
"Then you find out what's in those boxes?" Erica asked to reassure.
"Exactly." Robin said as she put the map away.
"Mhm." Erica says. "And you say this guard is armed."
"Yes, but he won't be there." Dustin said.
"And booby traps?" Erica asked.
"Booby traps?" Robin asked, confused.
"Lazers, spikes in the wall?" Erica said.
"What?" Robin asked.
"You know what this half-baked plan of yours sounds like to me?" Erica asked. "Child endangerment."
"We'll be in radio contact with you the whole time--" Robin said until Erica cut her off.
"Ah! Ah! Ah!" Erica said. "Child endangerment."
"Erica? Hi. Uh.." I said. "We think these Russians want to harm our country. Great harm. Don't you love your country?"
"Can't spell America without Erica." She replied.
"Uh y-yeah." I said. "Oddly, that's, uh, totally true. So-so, don't do this for us. Do it for your country!"
"Do it for your fellow man!" Dustin said.
"Do it for America..." Dustin and I said together. "Erica."
Erica was slurping a root beer float the whole time. "Ooh! I just got the chills! Oh yeah, from this float, not y'all's speech. Know what I love most about this country? Capitalism. Do you know what capitalism is?"
"Yeah." All three of us said.
"It means this is a free market system." Erica said. "Which means people get paid for their services, depending on how valuable their contributions are. And it seems to me, my ability to fit into that little vent, is very, very valuable to you all. So, you want my help? This USS Butterscotch better be the first of many. And I'm talking free ice cream for life."
YOU ARE READING
Upside Down Love Part 1 & 2
Fanfiction(The main character in this is Katlyn Byers, but you can pretend that they are y/n) Katlyn Byers, a 17-year-old famous actor who lives in California, visits her hometown, Hawkins. She tries to forget what happened in 1983 when she and her little bro...
