Starlet

8. Tunnels

The next morning, I go to dance class. I love flying around on the wires. It's so freeing.

Thora, Johen, and Tye come to the house with me after that. They're all in disguises. Thora brought some weird hanging chairs with her. The boys hang them on the porch.

I sit in 1. "This is perfect. Thank you."

Johen check them all. "I'm making sure they're tight enough. So nobody lands on their ass."

Tye laughs. "You still need stuff for the balcony."

"You can always look at a store."

I swing in the hanging chair. "I love these."

A couple of teenage boys come up and admire the seats. Tye tells them about screwing them into the ceiling. He seems amazed by that. They end up on the other side of the porch in the seats. Thora comes out in disguise and looks around. "These are neat."

"We got them for the teen clubs."

"They would be perfect for that." She sits in the 1 beside me.

Tre tries to sit in 1 and nearly gets stuck somehow. "Nope." He walks off.

The boys go back to talking about something. Then another 1 comes up and starts talking to them all. Soon, 5 of them are taking up that side of the porch. Then Tre comes back with a big box. He starts putting stuff together. Tye goes down to the tiny ass yard and helps him.

Johen comes out of the house. "You need a housekeeper."

I blink at him a couple of times. "Is that why it smells in the kitchen?"

"I'll go see what I can find. And you have sopping wet fish clothes everywhere. And towels. I'll be right back." A minute later, he comes back. "This is a housekeeper. She's looking for work. She can help you."

Thora jumps up. "Let's go inside and talk."

We sit in the middle room. "I actually use to clean this house. It's a lot different now. What would I be doing?"

I stare at her. "Cleaning."

"Like cleaning what?"

"I don't know. Johen is complaining about dirty clothes and towels everywhere. The kitchen smells."

"We'd like it not to stink."

Johen perks up. "General cleaning. Sinks, baths, make beds, make sure the kitchen stays clean, pick up random objects, anything else you see that needs attention, dusting weekly."

"Laundry is an additional 20g per week. That would put the total at 50g per week."

"That's 200g a month. We can split that."

I nod and we both run upstairs. "Get 600, and we'll be done for 6 months."

Thora nods. "Do 200 for bonuses. So 800 each."

"Ok."

I get 800 and give it to Thora. She counts it and we go back downstairs.

"We rented for 6 months. So here is 1.6k."

Johen rubs his eyes.

"You're paying me for 6 months in advance?"

"Yes."

"But 6 months is only 1.2k."

I jump on the chair. "You need bonuses though. So we put some in for that."

She nods.

Thora jumps up. "Black box. Do not touch it. Ever. No matter where it is. Clean around it. Don't even move it. No touching. If it's lying in fish guts, leave the fish guts. No touching."

"I can do that."

Johen nods. "If you come up with any issues or something needs reported. Report it to the castle. That's who they are renting it from."

"No problem."

Marcus walks in. "You have a cleaning lady now, but that does not mean you get to be slobs. You still need to try to be neat and clean up. You can get a couple baskets and each of you put your dirty laundry in it. Towels can be hung over the rail in the bathroom to dry. You can wash counters that are dirty and throw away trash. It is not her job to pick up trash from everywhere, it's her job to take the trash to the trash place. You are capable of putting it in the can."

"We can do that."

"Where's the can?"

Johen rubs his eyes and the lady laughs. "It's out the back door."

"I swear that wasn't there yesterday."

Thora nods. "Maybe they just delivered it."

We go to the porch and Tre, Tye, and Johen are sitting at the table. It came with 4 real chairs. "That is so nice." They took down 2 of the hanging chairs at the end though.

Tre nods. "Much less confusing to sit in." He picks up a paper.

Tye goes over to the other side with the teenage boys again.

Thora pulls me off the porch. "Let's go see what's in the furniture place."

"Ok."

"What can I help you girls with today?"

"We need some outside balcony furniture."

"Our outside area is over here."

We find an amazing table that has 6 comfortable chairs. They even have padding. Then it has an umbrella over it. "This is perfect."

She nods. "We need something for the other side too though. That balcony is huge."

"This sitting set does match. It has a couch, 2 chairs and a coffee table. There is also an umbrella that is an add-on. It kind of goes up and over the set. It does not connect to it."

"How much for the table set, the couch set, and the add-on umbrella?" I'm afraid to ask.

"1.4k for all of it."

Thora smiles. "Let's do it. It's 700 each, and we can fish more tomorrow."

"Ok."

Thora looks at her. "Can you get it all ready? We'll go get money and some boys to carry it."

"Of course."

We get to the house and now there are 10 boys on the porch. We go in and get 700g each.

Thora stands on the path. "WE NEED BOYS TO CARRY THINGS. WE'RE BUYING A LOT OF STUFF."

I'll be damned if all of them don't stand up. We get our stuff and they carry it back.

Tye looks at us. "Where is this stuff going?"

"On the balcony."

"It'll be easier to put it together up there."

"That's fine."

Thora and I sit on the porch. Soon the very small front yard looks like a trash can. All the packaging and boxes are in the front yard. We swing and watch trash fall like rain.

Then Dipak, Marcus, and Frode go by. "YOU ARE CLEANING THIS UP WHEN YOU GET DONE WITH THAT."

I hear Tye yell, "WE KNOW."

Dipak shakes his head. "Damn teenagers."

The house lady walks onto the porch. "Oh my."

"Where do we take it? We don't know."

"Most of that can be broken down and used for firewood. I'll show you how to do that fast, and you can keep the bundles in the front yard. Maybe sell them for like 3g each."

"Nice."

We get it done, and the boys come down.

"You 2 did good."

"Can I take a few of these?"

"Sure. Thank you for helping us."

"Can I have a couple too?"

Thora nods. "Of course. You can split them up if you want. No doubt they'll come back to complain about them being in the yard next."

The boys laugh and split them up.

Tre goes back to reading his paper at the table. Tye and Johen start complaining about lunch.

"We should feed them lunch. It is getting to be about that time."

Thora stretches. "I want to go to Tye's island and eat pineapple pizza."

"Well, we can't take them there." Tre smirks.

Thora looks at the boys. "Where do you want to eat? We'll buy it since you put our stuff together."

"There's a restaurant right there."

"That works. We'll get money."

We eat lunch and split the bill. Then I pass out on the couch. It was a good lunch.

I wake up and Marcus is reading the paper. "It's nice in here."

"Yea, I have the brains cooling the place. It's hot outside. I want to move your bedroom out of that room."

"Why? I like the balcony."

"Yea, but with other people going onto it. They don't need to be in your bedroom."

"There's an empty bedroom up there. Move it over, I guess."

"Thank you."

An hour later, Thora and I are in the empty room.

"We should get a card table."

"That's a good idea. A couple of couches and a card table."

"Perfect."

"I need to study my lines."

"I'm going to finish out the furniture we need. I'll get it out of castle stuff. No charge that way."

"I forgot. I have to move my money." I go in the closet.

"You put it in the closet?"

"There's a fake wall in here."

"Really?"

"I was going to get a little table for here. My money is on the floor. But I guess I'll have to find a new spot anyway." I pick it up.

Her and Tye come in the little room and check it out. "This is so different."

"I WONDER IF I HAVE 1." She takes off running.

Sure enough. Her closet has a fake wall too. And it's full of paintings. A lot of paintings and 1 sculpture. "We should probably tell Dipak."

She shakes her head. "Wait. Let's check the other 1. And we can probably sell this stuff. We're normal teenagers. We don't have to tell anyone. We're renting a house, and we're lucky the owners missed this."

We go over to my closet and move the wall. We stare at stairs going down.

Tye opens a box on a shelf. "It's money."

Thora tackles him. "OURS."

"Let's get them out and see how much is in them. But let's see where the stairs go first."

There's a little landing to turn around, then it's down another flight of steps. I scratch my head. "So we're below the house?"

"Yes we are."

"Torches."

Tye nods. "Tunnels. We need to inform Dipak. We could get lost or something could cave in. We don't even know who made them."

"LET US HIDE THE MONEY FIRST." Me and Thora tear back up the steps.

We hide the boxes in the back of my dresser, then Tye's eyes go funny.

Thora smiles. "He's mind linking. I'll show you another time."

"Ok."

It takes 2 seconds and Dipak, Marcus, Tre, and a bunch of others come up the steps. They bring like 30 brains with them.

They go to the tunnels and I grab my lines. It's too much like a dungeon. After a while, curiosity gets the best of me and I sneak down.

I pick a direction and walk about 10 feet before a shadow catches my attention. It doesn't seem right. The wall is a door. I play with it and it pushes open. I see 20 bars of gold on a table. I pull the door shut as best as I can. Dipak is walking towards me.

"Escape tunnels. That way goes out beside the cleaners. That way goes out into the woods. We're going to collapse them."

"Well, you might want to get the gold out first, sir." I push the wall open and there sits the gold.

"Oh shit." He shows Frode.

"DO IT AGAIN. CHECK THE WALLS."

"If you collapse the tunnel, won't the house fall?"

"No. We'll collapse about 25 feet at the ends so no 1 can come in."

Luke comes running down the steps. "I want to help."

"We're checking the walls. They have fake walls."

"Is that real gold?"

Tye yells, "GOT ANOTHER TUNNEL."

Luke goes to run and Dipak grabs him. "Nope. You never search alone. That's why Tye is standing there waiting. You never run into a place you don't know like that."

"Sorry."

"It's alright. You got excited. We have to be smart, so nobody gets hurt."

Thora shivers. "This place reminds me of bugs."

I nod and we run out.