Chapter 3

Sunday, Mundy Sunday

September 15, 1968, Sunday

Mikhail was a heavy sleeper. His mother and sister had presumed him dead on more than one occasion, and moving to America had not changed this fact at all. He could recall being in a warehouse playing poker with a rabbit and a Mexican wrestler before his mother finally woke him up.

"MISHA, YOU HAVE A VISITOR!" His mother bellowed. The rest of Mikhail's morning went much faster than he would have liked, brushed his teeth in thirty seconds, combed his hair in ten, put pants on in five, put his backpack on with a sandwich in ten, kissed mother in two. All the while, Jeremy stood by the door, watching his friend rush around. He barely noticed the preschool-aged girl ambling over to him and pulling on his pants leg.

"Hi…"

"Hi there…"

"Your teeth look funny!" She giggled, taking notice of Jeremy's freshly kicked-in face holes.

"YOU look funny," he replies, sticking out his tongue with an unnatural amount of ease, thanks to the holes in his mouth.

"Misha! Your friend said I looked funny."

"He is right." He replied as he walked out the door with Jeremy.

"So…Misha?" Jeremy asked with his toothless grin.

"Da, Short for Mikhail."

"You know that sounds like a girl's name, right? I like Mick better…"

The pair had been riding on one of Jeremy's brother's bikes through the neighborhood. Blowing past houses, street signs, and pedestrians without a care in the world. They passed their neighborhood sign and onto the open desert road. Mikhail had never seen such a dry, dead stretch of land before. He was used to his hometown's cold, heavily forested streets; there wasn't a tree in sight, a cactus sure, but not a tree.

After a few minutes of riding, Mikhail realized how silly they must have looked. He made Jeremy look even tinier than he already was, akin to a parade with a handler leading an elephant.

"What is in the case?"

After swerving to avoid a pedestrian, Jeremy turned to reply, "Hmm? The Briefcase? I dunno."

"You do not know?"

"None of us do. We can't even open the damn thing." Jeremy turned to look at Mikhail, whose face transformed into a scrunched-up frown right before Jeremy's eyes. "What?"

"I do not believe this…" Misha growled, "You got beat up…for a briefcase…that you can not open?"

"Hey! To be fair, the otha guys can't either."

Both boys rode silently for the rest of the way through the desert. Mikhail would have fallen back asleep if it wasn't for Jeremy's less-than-competent abilities concerning cycling. Eventually, the desert and cacti turned to well-maintained grass and imported palm trees, boarded-up tenants and cracked streets were replaced with clean houses and freshly paved roads, the boys rolled past a lady walking a chihuahua who nearly caused Jeremy to careen into a car.

"Hey? They build treehouses in Russia?" Jeremy asked as he pulled on the handbrake in front of a house with a large tree pointing out from behind the house.

Mikhail hopped off the back of the bike as he replied, "Russia is big place. I do not know."

Jeremy knocked on the pristine white door, his large friend in tow. A short older woman answered a second later with a southern drawl.

"Ah, Jeremy, how are you?"

"I'm alright, Ma'am. Is Dell home? We were gonna hang out today." Jeremy flashed a dumb, toothless grin that Mikhail guessed was supposed to be charming.

"Oh, you know where he is, dear, just. watch yourself on the ladder. You remember what happened last time, I hope.

Jeremy and Mikhail made their way through the house to the backyard. Mikhail had never been in a place so clean! It made his and especially Jeremy's houses look like they lived in dumps, pictures splayed across the wall of a short boy who Misha presumed to be Dell standing with his parents, playing in the front yard, tinkering with his father's tools. To refer to Dell as an intelligent boy would be a disservice; he was wholly and entirely gifted in math, science, and history (At a third-grade level, anyway), making this fact apparent was multiple framed certificates splayed amongst the pictures. His backyard, however, couldn't have been more different. A large, hail-damaged barbeque lay in the corner with the grilling implements splayed amongst the elevated deck. Mikhail had finally realized why Jeremy was talking about houses in trees because it was like nothing he had ever heard about. He'd read about them in a couple of books from the library, but this was closer to a house than the small sheds he'd read about. The giant oak tree's branches strained under the weight of the wood, and Mikhail could practically smell the dying leaves. The most striking object, however, was a small sign hanging off the bottom of the doorway.

Hightower.

"Hey! Dell! You up there?" Jeremy shouted up to one of the windows

"Yeah, one sec, Jeremy. Ladder's round here somewhere…" Dell's drawl was only slightly less intense than his mother's.

Jeremy and Mikhail climbed up into Dell's treehouse, being met by the boy genius himself. Mikhail recognized him from the lunch table on Friday as the one snapping at Jeremy for arguing with him.

"What in sam hill happened to your teeth, Slim? And who's this big fella?"

"Dell, Misha. Misha, Dell."

"Misha? Ain't that a girl's name?" Misha grunted at Dell.

"Mikhail, I am Mikhail."

"Russian?"

"Da." Mikhail wasn't sure if he liked where this conversation was going.

"Cool, welcome to America, big fella!" Dell outstretched a gloved arm which Mikhail took, nearly enveloping Dell's hand with his.

"Though, how you got so big is a mystery to me. Don't they not feed ya over there?" Mikhail chuckled a bit, much to Jeremy's dismay.

"You got a sound dat ain't a grunt out of him? What's wrong with you today?" He said as he turned to Mikhail Dell turned to face him.

"Anywho, where'd your teeth go?"

"Jane and Tavish were jumping our new friend here; I intervened; some banker's kid or something like that was with them. They knock my teeth out; lucky shot, I guess. You shoulda seen what Mick did to Tavish, though!"

"Wait, Mundy was with y'all?"

"No, this guy!" Jeremy jabbed a thumb at Misha, who had taken to staring out the window. "You wanna call him Mikhail each time?"

"Well, we can't have two Micks…"

"Sure we can! Anyway, Big fight. Mick ova here knocks Tavish into next week. I don't think he's gonna be seein' outta his left for a little bit. They snag the briefcase, and we go home and watch TV. Does dat answer your question-"

"WADDAYAMEANTHEYTOOKTHEBRIEFCASE?!"

"Inside voice…"

"Hell to that! Which one of the sissies took it?"

"What is in this briefcase?!"

"WE DON'T KNOW! WE JUST WANT IT BACK!" Jeremy and Dell shouted in unison.

"Boys, are you alright in there?"

"Yeah, mama. Just figuring some stuff out." How Dell went from angry to calm when he heard his mother was impressive.

"Well, I have lemonade if you want to figure it out inside."

"Ok, so," Dell took a sip of lemonade, "Which of them actually took the briefcase?"

"Well, Jane took it, but they all wanted it. I'm not sure which one has it.

"Darn, we need to go get Mundy and figure out who has it; if anyone can figure it out, it's him."

Mikhail downed his second glass of lemonade and decided to interject. "What is in this briefcase?"

"Well, we aren't sure," Dell sheepishly said, "But we found it, and it's heavy enough to have something in it at least; we just need to figure out how to crack it open…"

Dell downed the rest of his glass and ran upstairs.

"It is just suitcase; smash it open…"

"You ain't seen it, pal. It looks like a freakin' tank. Dell's tried just about everything to break it open. I saw him take a chainsaw to it, and it barely scratched the paint. It's gotta be something good, like money or something, and a lot of it."

"Pony up, boys! Dell had returned with a slingshot in each hand, tossing one to Jeremy.

"Let's go grab Mundy and get our Briefcase back…"

Mundy wasn't the type for visitors like Jeremy was. He preferred to hang out in the woods adjacent to the RV park he lived in. Finding him there wasn't easy. But finding them was barely a challenge for the skinny young boy.

"Got you in my sights…Who's the big guy?" He whispered to himself, hiding in a large bush, scooped onto his friend and the stranger. He thought he was well hidden; to someone unfamiliar with his actions, he would have been, but to Dell…

"He stretch, whatcha doin' in that there bush!"

"BLIMEY!"

"Oh, dere he is!"

"You scared me half to death, Dell," Mundy muttered as he crawled out from under his hiding bush, pellet rifle in tow. "Coulda give a bloke a bit of a warning…"

"Sorry, Mundy. But we had to come quickly…the briefcase got taken."

Mundy sat on the dirt, staring at Jeremy before looking at Dell.

"...Before I strangle Jeremey with his own shoelaces…what happened?"

"Well, our new friend here was being jumped-"

"Jeremy, give him the short version."

"Jane, Tavish, and fancy pants took it."

"Who da hell is 'fancy pants'?

"I dunno, I ain't never seen him before. He probably attends Gray's or some other fancy, rich guys' school."

"All we know is that it was taken, and we need to get it back. If those guys crack it, they probably won't be too keen on sharin' whatever's inside."

"Yeah, probably not…who's this guy?" Mundy stood up, being the first person Mikhail had met of comparable height to him.

"Mikhail."

"We just call him Misha!"

"No, we do not…"

"Roight then…" Mundy slung his rifle over his shoulder" Let's go find these wankers…".

Lot of talking this time around, don't worry, we'll get into some shenanigans next time :)