teenage tragedy (Max Mayfield)

3. four

Cammie walked into Scoops Ahoy the next afternoon, after having skated Max home to see her mother for a few hours before Max, inevitably, returned to Cammie's house for the night again. Cammie had decided to see Steve, and Robin, and get some free ice cream.

"Rob!" Cammie smiled as she reached the counter.

"Hey, love. Want your brother?" Robin asked.

"Yeah," Cammie said.

"Dustin's here, too. They're in the back. Come on," she said. Cammie nodded and followed her into the back. "All right, babysitting time is over. Your sister is here and you need to get in there. Hey, my board. That was important data, shitbirds," Robin whined, seeing the data on her board had been wiped off.

"Hey, Cams," Steve said. Dustin nodded his hello.

"Hey," Cammie said.

"I guarantee you, what we're doing is way more important than your data," Dustin said.

"Yeah? And how do you know these Russians are up to no good anyways?" Robin said.

"Russians?" Cammie asked.

"How does she know about the Russians?" Dustin said.

"I don't know," Steve shook his head.

"What Russians?" Cammie said.

"You told her about-"

"It wasn't me,"

"Hello, I can hear you. Actually, I can hear everything. You are both extremely loud. You think you have evil Russians plotting against our country, on tape, and you're trying to translate, but haven't figured out a word because you didn't realize Russians use an entirely different alphabet than we do. Sound about right?" Robin said.

"Wait, what?" Cammie said.

Robin reached for the tape but Steve grabbed it first.

"Whoa! What do you think you're doing?" he shouted.

"I wanna hear it," Robin said.

"Why?" Steve and Dustin said.

"'Cause maybe I can help. I'm fluent in four languages, you know," Robin said.

"Russian?" Dustin asked.

"Ou-yay are-yay umb-day," Robin said. Steve laughed and turned to Dustin.

"Oh-ho-ho!" he said.

"Holy shit!" Dustin smiled widely.

"That was Pig Latin, dingus," Robin rolled her eyes, making Cammie giggle.

"Idiot," Steve slapped Dustin's arm.

"But I can speak Spanish and French and Italian, and I've been in band for 12 years. My ears are little geniuses, trust me," Robin said.

"Uh..." Dustin trailed off.

"I'll supervise," Cammie said.

"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 said. Steve swapped Robin's scoop for the recorder and walked out to the front of the shop, a pout on his face.

Cammie stared at the Russian alphabet she'd wrote onto Robin's board, eyes wide and confused. Dustin was handling the tape, while Robin was doing the translating. It wasn't going very well, if Cammie was being honest.

"Wait, that last part, just one more time," Robin said.

"Okay," Dustin rewinded the tape.

"Okay, that word. Um... It's pronounced...dly-nna-ya." Robin frowned.