Chapter 5

A few days went by. Claudia’s friends had officially dropped her, they were of course on Daniel’s side. She could never find Robin in school, so instead resorted to spending lunch and break in the bathroom, like the people she used to make fun of.

Her once unreasonably high ego had taken a hit, and sitting in the bathrooms was extremely humbling, but she wasn’t sad. She didn’t mind it, it was better than being around him. She just wished she could find Robin.

Work, however, was a lot better. There was no tension, no worry about Daniel being mad, and Claudia became a lot closer with Steve when he had defended her from Daniel. So close that Robin almost thought they were a thing. They weren’t, but Robin had always been an over thinker.

“Have a nice day,” Robin said, handing ice creams to two customers. Claudia sat on the ledge of the fake window, watching her. She was on break, but had nowhere to go.

Suddenly, a kid wearing a cap, a really dumb shirt and no front teeth approached. “Hi,” he said to Robin.

“Hi,” Robin said.

“I’m Dustin.”

“I’m Robin.”

“Pleasure to meet you. Uh, is he here?”

“Is who here?”

Steve jumped out from behind the door. Claudia didn’t even know he was working today. “Henderson!” He said, jumping in the air as Dustin laughed. “Henderson! He’s back, he’s back!”

“I’m back! You got the job!”

“I got the job!” Steve imitated a trumpet, then the two did some weird lightsaber handshake.

“How many children are you friends with?” Claudia asked, being ignored by Steve. “I can’t believe you think I have a crush on him,” she turned to Robin.

“I begin to doubt my theory more every day. How is he a ladies man?”

“Literally.”

Steve and Dustin sat down at a booth with a bowl of ice cream. Claudia was walking around, cleaning the empty tables when she heard to two discussing Dustin’s girlfriend. “Hotter than Phoebe Cates? No,” Steve said.

“No one is hotter than Phoebe Cates,” Claudia said as she made her way back over to Robin.

“Are you sure?” Dustin asked.

“Well, I can think of one person.”

——————————

“She’s gonna end up running out our ice cream,” Claudia said, watching as Erica Sinclair ate more samples. She was convinced she’d had at least a full buckets worth of samples in the past week.

“Hm,” Erica said, “Can I try the peppermint stick?”

“Haven’t you already tried the peppermint stick?” Robin asked.

“Yes, and I’d like to try it again.”

“Steve!” Robin called. He didn’t answer.

Claudia went to go into the back, where him and Dustin were, and Robin followed, leaving Erica at the counter, without her sample of the peppermint stick.

“All right, babysitting time is over. You need to get in there,” Robin said as she walked in, waving the ice cream scooper around. Claudia followed. “Hey, my board! That was important data, shit birds.”

“Robin, what ice cream shop data is important?” Claudia asked.

“I guarantee you what we’re doing is way more important than your data,” Dusting said.

“Yeah? And how do you know these Russians are up to no good anyways?”

“How does she know about the Russians?”

“I don’t know.”

“You told her about the Russians?”

“It wasn’t me.”

“Hello, I can hear you.”

“We can actually hear everything,” Claudia said, “You’re not very good at keeping quiet.”

“You think you have evil Russians plotting against our country, on tape, and you’re trying to translate, but haven’t figured out a single word because you didn’t realise the Russians use an entirely different alphabet than we do. Sound about right?”

Robin reached for the tape, but Steve grabbed to. “Woah, woah, woah, woah! What do you think you’re doing?”

“I wanna hear it.”

“We wanna hear it,” Claudia said. She didn’t, but she also didn’t want to stay scooping ice cream all day.

“Why?” Steve and Dustin asked in sync.

“Cause maybe we can help. I’m fluent in four languages, you know,” Robin said. Claudia knew Robin had always been good at languages. She sometimes wondered if she was a robot, or some sort of spy.

“Russian?” Dustin asked.

“Ou-yay are-yay umb-day,” Robin said. Steve and Dustin believed that Robin had spoken Russian, and were shocked. “That was Pig Latin, dingus.”

“Idiot,” Steve said, slapping Dustin’s arm.

“But, I can speak Spanish and French and Italian, and I’ve been in band for twelve years. My ears are little geniuses, trust me. Come on, it’s your turn to sling ice cream, my turn to translate.”

“And my turn to just sit and watch Robin like I always do,” Claudia said, making an ‘oops’ face when she realised it sounded more than slightly creepy.

“I don’t even want credit, I’m just bored!”

Steve swapped the tape for the ice-cream scoop and left to tend to the customers. Robin and Claudia didn’t think anything would come of this, other than getting out of work for a bit. Little did they know, the worst was to come.