Girls Just Want To Have Fun | Robin Buckley

not caught

July 1, 1985

A bright bolt of lightning spread across the sky and Jill somehow found herself on the roof of the mall with Dustin, Robin, and Steve. After Robin had cracked the code they had made the decision to stay at the mall past its normal closing time of eight. When blue and yellow met in the west it would be roughly at 8:45 and they were just minutes away from it. Jill shivered as the cool night time rain hit her.

All four of them had put enough money together to send Jill and Dustin to go buy rain ponchos earlier in the day. With all the money they put together they could only buy three ponchos, and Steve had decided to be "the man" and not take one. Despite the fact that Steve was the only one not wearing one they were all being absolutely soaked by the heavy downpour.

There were multiple guards that were heavily armed watching the area. Many of them had guns that they proudly held close to their bodies. Some of them didn't have any obvious weapons on them but it was clear that they didn't just come outside to stand there.

Dustin had brought his binoculars to help watch the crates as they were hauled out of the truck. The truck was still backing up, and they were all trying to squint through the rain to watch everything that was going on. All Jill could make out was how many guards there were and that the color of the truck was a yellowish color, which didn't really help in any way.

"Look for Imperial Panda and Kaufman Shoes," Robin said, just loud enough for them all to hear her over the rain but not loud enough for anyone else to hear.

A man in a yellow poncho stepped out of the back of the truck, pushing three large crates on a fairly large sized dolly. He was whistling as he did so, and not quietly either. The guards all watched him as he went by and Jill made a frustrated sigh as she tried to make out the prints on the crates, but couldn't see more than the scribbles of words, no matter how hard she squinted.

"They're with that whistling guy, ten o'clock," Dustin told them. Jill watched the whistling man as he moved towards the guards. More men came out of the truck and building, all wearing identical ponchos or guard uniforms. It was impossible to make out anything about the men in ponchos, other than maybe their height or weight.  Jill had to admit that this was the perfect night for them to be doing something like this.

"What do you think's in there?" Steve asked, rubbing water from his eyes that was instantly replaced with more water.

"Guns?" Dustin asked.

"Bombs?" Jill offered.

"Chemical weapons?" Robin answered.

"Whatever it is, they're armed to the teeth," Dustin observed.

"No shit? I couldn't tell," Jill sassed. She had only known Dustin for a few hours but she could tell that he had rolled his eyes at her comment.

"Great," Steve told them. "That's great."

The guards began to shift around and one of them moved towards the building. He scanned a keycard and the heavy looking double doors swung open. One of the men in a poncho began to push his load of crates through the open doors.

"Hey, what's in there?" Robin questioned as she squinted to try to make out what was through the doors.

"It's just more boxes."

"Let me check it out," Steve said, attempting to steal the binoculars from Dustin.

"No, I'm still looking," Dustin argued back, pulling the binoculars back towards him.

"Lemma see," Steve argued further.

"Hang on."

"Stop arguing before one of you gets us caught," Jill hissed. Both of them ignored her, and maybe even began to fight more as she muttered that.

Jill shook her head as she watched them argue and try to rip the binoculars from each other's grip. Suddenly, the binoculars went flying over the edge of the building. They all went dead silent for a second until the clank of the binoculars hitting the ground caused them to all jump and then duck as the guards all looked in their direction.

They all lay flat against the roof, leaning their heads against the concrete edge. Jill could hear Robin's heavy breathing from beside her and looked at her. Jill and Robin had somehow grabbed each other's hands through the chaos, and Jill squeezed Robin's hand as she gave a small shake of fear.

Although she couldn't hear the guards she knew they were looking by the way the silence was loud amongst the rain. She heard someone walking from dozens of feet below them and then a loud voice suddenly rang out below.

"Stay here! Watch the door!" The man spoke in Russian. She could hear more people rushing around and she held her breath as if they could hear her breathing.

Robin looked at Jill, who motioned towards the door they came through. Robin looked towards the door and back before nodding. Both of the girls turned and slowly sat up, still staying crouched so they weren't in the view of the Russians below. They hurriedly made their way to the door, still holding hands. As soon as Dustin and Steve realized what they were doing they followed.

Once they were all through and the door was shut quietly and quickly they rushed back through the hall towards Scoops Ahoy. Jill's heart was racing and she could hear it thudding against her skull. Her breathing was closer to normal than it was earlier, but judging by the fact that she could still hear the breathing of Steve in front of her she didn't think of it as much of an issue.

"Well, I think we found your Russians," Robin told Steve, still not dropping Jill's hand.

Jill sighed, "Screw the Russians. I'm just glad we're not dead. "