Chapter 6

The heat was oppressive, but the tension was even more oppressive. No one was talking and the only noise was the sound of a lawnmower in the distance. El was laying on the grass with her eyes closed and her arm across her face; she could feel the heat searing her skin, but it felt good. What didn't feel good was knowing Mike was sitting next to her staring at her.

"Stop staring at me Mike." She heard him shuffling beside her, but she could still feel the intensity of his gaze. She sighed and sat up. "Look" she said. "I'm not going to try and find him."

"But before, it happened without you trying and you said there was a lawn mower…" He trailed off feeling awkward and somewhere in the distance, the lawnmower fell obligingly quiet.

"That was different; I had a cloth over my eyes, and I was alone and…" she sighed and put a hand onto his leg. "I don't know why it happened, but I know it's not about to happen now okay?" She drew up her legs and hugged her knees. The truth was, she didn't know how she could make it happen again, but it definitely wasn't at that moment with Mike staring at her. She glanced at Max; she was watching her too, but she smiled sympathetically. She would help her if she asked, but she didn't want Mike to know, or Joyce. She laid back down again and tried not to think of Hopper alone and suffering.

A car came to a halt close by. It couldn't be Joyce back again; she had only just left.

"Mike! Will!" It was Dustin and Lucas. They all jumped up and ran to the front of the house; a car was parked there, idling. The man in the front seat waved through the window at them all. It was Steve.

"What's he doing here?" Mike asked.

"First things first, where's Joyce and Jonathan?" Dustin asked looking around.

"Mom's gone to see if Murray knows anything more and Jonathan and Nancy have gone to pay another visit with David Henley" Will said.

"Who?" Dustin frowned.

"The newspaper guy" Mike said. He pointed at the car. "What's he doing here?" he asked again.

Dustin grinned. "Our secret weapon awaits" he said cryptically. "Let's go." He ran around to the passenger side of the car and jumped in. Everyone just stood there for a moment and then Dustin leant over and blasted on the horn.

"We may aswell go" said Max. She walked to the back of the car and jumped in. El followed tugging Mike behind her and then Will squeezed in next to them.

Steve looked at them all through the rearview mirror. He grimaced and sighed and put up a hand in greeting. There was a general, mumbled reply.

Lucas stood there glowering. "Great" he said. "I'll just walk, shall I?"

"Just squeeze in" Dustin said flippantly.

Will was half sitting on Mike. "There's no room this side" he said grinning apologetically at Lucas.

"You'll have to sit on Max's lap" Dustin thumped the dashboard. "Come on guys, we need to go!"

Steve looked over his shoulder at Lucas who was still standing there looking very unimpressed.

"Why does he get to sit in the passenger seat?" Lucas asked.

Dustin turned around. "I'm Steve's special friend" he said.

"Don't say that" Steve said. "That sounds weird."

Lucas rolled his eyes, slammed the door and walked around the car and opened the other door and then he stood there looking at Max.

"I would prefer you to sit on my lap" he said trying to cling on to some pride.

"Why, because I'm a girl?" Max grinned. "Come on Lucas" she said patting her lap. "I'm stronger than you anyway."

"No, you're not" Lucas said belligerently as he climbed in.

"Yes, she is" Mike said grinning.

"Yep" said Dustin.

Will laughed. "Yep."

Lucas sat on the edge of Max's knees with his arms folded.

"You guys ready?" Steve asked. He threw the car into gear and roared away.

Joyce sat in her car down the road from Murray's apartment. She put a cigarette to her lips; her hands shook as she took a drag. She had been sitting there for ten minutes and she was smoking her third cigarette.

Murray wasn't in his apartment. It had been empty. And it had been ransacked.

Nancy and Jonathan stood looking up at the building without speaking. Nancy didn't smoke, but there were times when she wished she did. Now was one of those times. She looked at Jonathan, opened her mouth to speak and then shut it again. She went back to staring at the building.

The entire thing was cocooned in scaffolding. Huge signs threatened trespassers with 'prosecution' and other signs warned of 'danger'. Workmen in bright orange were busy doing what orange-clad workmen did. The one they had spoken to glanced over at them. He wasn't sure why they were still standing there looking at a building that had been closed due to potential dangers in the infrastructure. Eventually they moved off and he went on a well- deserved coffee break.

Nancy and Jonathan continued their silence in the car.

The door opened slowly, and Robin peered out.

"Hi" Steve said.

Robin opened the door wider. "You've bought your friends to say 'hi'" she said. "Interesting, and a bit weird."

Steve leant towards her. "They're not my friends" he whispered.

Dustin shouldered himself in front of Steve. "Except for me." He grinned. "Can we come in?" He looked past Robin. "Nice house."

"Shh" Robin looked over her shoulder. "It's my Nana's and she really wouldn't want a load of kids inside."

"With your genius, this won't take longer than a few minutes." Dustin clapped Steve on the shoulder. "Right Steve?"

Steve grinned sheepishly. "We could really do with your help."

"Do they all have to be here?"

Steve shrugged.

"We'll be quiet" Mike said from behind Steve.

Robin sighed. She opened the door wide to let them all in and ushered them towards a kitchen at the end of a long and gloomy hallway.

"Who is it?" a scratchy voice called out from somewhere else in the house.

"Just a friend Nana." Robin rolled her eyes. "She has to know everything."

"You live here with your nan?" Steve was looking around the huge, but tired old kitchen. Particles of dust hung in the air, caught in shafts of sunlight that shone through the grimy blind at the window.

Robin shrugged. "It's home" she said. "Nana is completely mad, but I'm not invisible here at least." She looked at the kids assembled in the kitchen. "So, why are you here?" she asked, wondering, not for the first time, why Steve kept company with so many kids.

Dustin handed her the newspaper. "We need you to crack a code."

"In Russian?" Robin said taking the paper and sitting down.

"No, not Russian, but there is a clue somewhere in there and Dustin seems to think you can find it for us." El sat down opposite Robin. "It's life and death" she said.

"O-kay" Robin glanced at Steve. "Who's life, who's death?" She looked back at El.

"Hopper's" El said quietly.

"Hopper?" Robin frowned. "But he died." The silence in the kitchen mingled with the swirling dust. "Didn't he?"

Max sat down next to El. "He's alive somewhere" she said. She pointed to the newspaper. "And there's a clue in the personal columns; at least we think it's in the personal columns."

Mike sat down. "Please" he said. "Just do what none of us have been able to do and find it."

Robin looked at Steve who was leaning against the fridge. He smiled at her hopefully.

"I went to his funeral" she said.

Steve shrugged. "I'm just the driver."

Robin nodded slowly. "Okay" she said, but her eyes roved around the room. "Are you all going to just watch me?"

"If that's okay?" Lucas said sitting down.

Will sat too. "We'll be quiet" he whispered.

Robin sighed and turned to the back of the paper. "What information do you have?" she asked as she perused the personal columns.

"It has something to do with Goliath" Max said.

"Or maybe nothing to do with Goliath, but we think Goliath might be a clue." Dustin leant next to Steve.

No one said anything for a while. The only noise came from a grandfather clock sombrely ticking in the hallway and the rustle of the newspaper as Robin turned the pages. Less than five minutes had passed, and she looked up and around at everyone at the table and then she turned to Steve and Dustin.

"Do you guys have any brain cells between you?" she asked. She stabbed the newspaper. "There."

There was a clamour to see what she was pointing at and the paper got torn in the process. Robin stood up; "stop children" she shouted, holding the newspaper to her chest. "Behave." She looked at Steve. "Control your kids" she smirked making him blush. She cleared her throat.

"Help required? Contact David Samson, 6221117"

The grandfather clock interjected with five loud bongs.

"I don't get it" Lucas said shaking his head.

A general murmur of agreement gathered momentum as it went around the kitchen.

"David and Goliath" Dustin said suddenly.

"Isn't that in the bible?" Max asked frowning. She looked at Robin who nodded her head.

"Yep, in the book of Samson and and there's your clue, that apparently, was so hard to find, despite the intelligence in this room being above average, or so I thought." She looked at Steve who had opened the fridge and looked as if he was about to climb in it. "With exception of course."

"So, we call that number" El said squeezing Mike's hand.

"And we find Hopper" he said grinning.

"Here's a question" Steve said closing the fridge. He had a plastic chicken in his hand. He squeezed it and it squeaked mournfully. "Why do you have a plastic chicken in your fridge?"

Robin's nana came to say hello. She was in her 80's with wispy, white hair that danced about her head and a purple shawl over Christmas themed pyjamas. She had diamond rings on her fingers and pearls at her ears and black pencil lines above eyes that were opaque and vacant.

She stood in the doorway of the kitchen and looked around the room in amazement.

"Are you all my children?" she asked. She smiled hopefully. She looked down at Will and reached out with thin talons; she gripped his face and tilted it. "What a lovely girl" she said. She shuffled further into the room bringing a waft of lavender with her.

"What's with the Christmas pyjamas?" Lucas hissed laughing.

"They're my friends Nana" Robin said. "Go back and sit down and I'll make you a cocoa."

But Robin's nana was making a beeline for Steve.

"Are you Rodney?" she asked excitedly.

"Who's Rodney?" Steve whispered out of the side of his mouth. Robin's nana was a little closer than he would like, so close in fact, that he could feel the softness of her boobs somewhere near his stomach.

"My Granddad" Robin replied trying not to laugh. "He's been dead seventeen years."

Steve tried to escape, but the boobs disorientated him, and the flyaway hair had engulfed him.

"Oh, you are Rodney! I can tell from the gleam in your eyes." Robin's nana leant towards him and placed a wet kiss on his mouth.

The whole room descended into stifled laughter and Steve managed to squirm away, gagging as he took refuge behind Dustin who had tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Time for cocoa Nana" Robin said taking the old woman's arm and steering her out of the kitchen.

"Oh Rodney" the old lady called shrilly over her shoulder. "Be sure to put the chicken in the fridge before you come to bed."

Robin put the phone back in the receiver. She pulled a face.

"That was Alice King who is 11 years old. I'm pretty sure it's unlikely Hopper is in her basement; their mom runs a cross stitch class." She sat back down. "So it's not a local number; we need an area code." She looked around at everyone. "Any ideas?"

"Didn't my mom say the Russians have him?" Will looked directly at El. "Maybe the number is in Russia somewhere."

"He was cold" El said quietly. She frowned trying to recall exactly what she had seen, but it hadn't been much, and it had been distorted by the threat of something unseen.

"Russia is cold, isn't it?"

Everyone looked at Max and a heavy silence fell over the kitchen. It was broken by an anguished wail from the rubber chicken.

"Sorry" Steve said blushing awkwardly as the chicken continued to moan. "So, what does that mean?"

Robin stood up and took the chicken from him. "It means" she said, "that he's on his own, because there's no way of finding out where in Russia he is and even if we could find out, how the hell do we all get there?" She opened the fridge and put the rubber chicken back inside.

"We need to go" Will said standing up. It was past 5 o'clock.

"No." Everyone look at El. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She looked at Mike and smiled. "With or without you" she said. "I have to try and find him." She stood up and looked at Robin. "Do you have a radio?"

Author's note

I am unsure whether to carry on with this story, so if you are reading and enjoying my version of ST 4 and want me to continue, please leave a lovely review for me to read and I will try and get another chapter out by the weekend. :-)