After I finished telling Robby about Kyler's relentless tidal wave of middle school bullying, mostly aimed at me, but some at Corey as well, we had to come up with a way to get inside that house. And it was not going to be easy.
"Kyler hates me, so there's no freaking way I'm getting within six feet of that house when he's there." I sighed, sitting back on my heels
"Unless you plan on staking out the house like some kind of stalker," Robby joked "and waiting until he leaves to sneak inside, we are out of luck."
"We aren't going to do that." I said slowly "But you did give me an idea."
A few months ago, Ian had been going out with this guy who was interning at the County Records office. I had no idea what the current status of their relationship was, as my cousin was usually quite secretive about this stuff, but I figured if anybody could get us the floor plans for the Karkaroff house, it was Ian.
I grabbed Robby's hand quickly, pulling him out of my room and down the stairs to the basement, where Ian was sprawled on the couch, a joint between his fingers as he exhaled a cloud of smoke at the ceiling. Harold and Kumar was playing on the TV, but Ian looked disinterested. I mean, he'd already seen it four times.
"Ian." I said, grabbing the remote off the coffee table. "We need your help."
"With what?" Ian frowned, taking off his fog-covered glasses "I'm a little busy."
Robby snorted from behind me, obviously finding some part of this nonsense funny.
"You know dad doesn't like you smoking down here. It smelled like marijuana smoke for three weeks last time." I frowned back
Ian sighed, becoming increasingly more agitated "Do you want something?"
"The building schematics for the Karkaroff house, before and after the Karkaroffs moved in." I said, jumping straight to the point
Ian's eyes widened. "You're going after the money." He said simply "I've been waiting for someone to go after the Karkraoff fortune for years."
"How did he know?" Robby whispered just loud enough for me to hear
"Instinct, I guess." I shrugged "He thinks the pot turns him into a genius."
Without warning, Ian burst into a violent fit of laughter. "I knew some crazy fuck was going to go after that money someday, but I didn't expect it to be my baby cousin."
"Baby? Freddie's younger than me." I frowned
"Yeah, but Freddie is way cooler than you'll ever be, Ringo."
"Listen, Ian." Robby scoffed, tired of my cousin's hazy high ramblings. "Can you help us or not? In case you haven't realized, the dojo is going to close without it."
Ian sighed, putting out his joint on one of those tacky tourist ashtrays that are mainly ceramic boobs. "I might be able to help. But I want in, and I want a cut."
"You what?" I said in disbelief "You're kidding, right? You don't even practice karate. We need you for information, and that is it."
Ian laughed "You're kidding, right? First off, there's more than enough in gold to ave Miyagi-do and then some. Second of all, look at you two. There's no way you're getting inside that house on your own."
I hated to admit it, but Ian had a point. We needed him.
"Fine." I said, giving in. "Your boyfriend in the planning department, can he get us all the floorplans for the Karkaroff house?"
Ian exhaled "We didn't exactly leave off on the best of terms last time." He kissed his teeth, lips pursed as he thought about his next viable move "But lemme see what I can offer him. Give me half an hour at the most."
Robby and I stood there nervously as Ian vanished, unsure of what the older was going to do. I decided it was better not to ask. Seldom did I understand my older cousin, but he definitely had a strange way of doing things.
Twenty-two minutes later ( yes, I counted ), Ian came back, beckoning us into his bedroom. Shoving some manga comics out of the way, he haphazardly threw his two-year old laptop onto the desk, pulling up a document.
"This is everything from when it was built in 1962 to the renovations Kyler's family did three years ago." Ian said "What are we looking for."
"Anything suspicious." I mused
It was deathly silent inside the guest bedroom as Ian kept flipping through the plans on his computer. Everything was perfectly normal in the house, no hiding spots or nooks for anything.
"Wait, go back." Robby said quickly as we scanned the plans from a year after the Karkaroff family had moved in
"Right there." The Keene boy said, pointing to a box on the plans. "That wasn't there before, and it doesn't show up on any plans past 1981."
"A secret room." We all spoke at once, staring at the sharp black lines on the white planning paper.
"I bet you $30 that's where we find the gold." Ian concluded, pressing print on the building plans
NOTES!
this is so damn short omg-
i feel like these chapters might just end up being shorter and for that i will apologize in advance
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