It

by Stephen King

  "They'll all pinch my cheek and tell me how much I've grown," Eddie said.

  "That's cause they know how cute you are, Eds--just like me. I saw what a cutie you were the first time I met you."

  "Sometimes you're really a turd, Richie."

  "It takes one to know one, Eds, and you know em all. You gonna be down in the Barrens next week?"

  "I guess so, if you guys are. Want to play guns?"

  "Maybe. But ... I think me and Big Bill have got something to tell you."

  "What?"

  "It's really Bill's story, I guess. I'll see you. Enjoy your aunts."

  "Very funny."

  His third call was to Stan the Man, but Stan was in dutch with his folks for breaking their picture window. He had been playing flying-saucer with a pie-plate and it took a bad bank. Kee-rash. He had to do chores all weekend, and probably next weekend, too. Richie commiserated and then asked Stan if he would be coming down to the Barrens next week. Stan said he guessed so, if his father didn't decide to ground him, or something.

  "Jeez, Stan, it was just a window," Richie said.

  "Yeah, but a big one," Stan said, and hung up.

  Richie started to leave the living room, then thought of Ben Hanscom. He thumbed through the telephone book and found a listing for an Arlene Hanscom. Since she was the only lady Hanscom among the four listed, Richie figured it had to be Ben's number and called.

  "I'd like to go, but I already spent my allowance," Ben said. He sounded depressed and ashamed by the admission--he had, in fact, spent it all on candy, soda, chips, and beef-jerky strips.

  Richie, who was rolling in dough (and who didn't like to go to the movies alone), said: "I got plenty of money. You can gimme owesies."

  "Yeah? Really? You'd do that?"

  "Sure," Richie said, puzzled. "Why not?"

  "Okay!" Ben said happily. "Okay, that'd be great! Two horror movies! Did you say one was a werewolf picture?"

  "Yeah."

  "Man, I love werewolf pictures!"

  "Jeez, Haystack, don't wet your pants."

  Ben laughed. "I'll see you out in front of the Aladdin, okay?"

  "Yeah, great."

  Richie hung up and looked at the phone thoughtfully. It suddenly occurred to him that Ben Hanscom was lonely. And that in turn made him feel rather heroic. He was whistling as he ran upstairs to get some comics to read before the show.

  8

  The day was sunny, breezy, and cool. Richie jived along Center Street toward the Aladdin, popping his fingers and singing "Rockin' Robin" under his breath. He was feeling good. Going to the movies always made him feel good--he loved that magic world, those magic dreams. He felt sorry for anyone who had dull duties to discharge on such a day--Bill with his speech therapy, Eddie with his aunts, poor old Stan the Man who would be spending the afternoon scraping down the front-porch steps or sweeping the garage because the pie-plate he'd been throwing around swept right when it was supposed to sweep left.

  Richie had his yo-yo tucked in his back pocket and now he took it out and tried again to get it to sleep. This was an ability Richie lusted to acquire, but so far, no soap. The crazy l'il fucker just wouldn't do it. Either it went down and popped right back up or it went down and dropped dead at the end of its string.

  Halfway up Center Street Hill he saw a girl in a beige pleated skirt and a white sleeveless blouse sitting on a bench outside Shook's Drug Store. She was eating what looked like a pistachio ice-cream cone. Bright red-auburn hair, its highlights seeming coppery or sometimes almost blonde, hung down to her shoulderblades. Richie knew only one girl with hair of that particular shade. It was Beverly Marsh.

  Richie liked Bev a lot. Well, he liked her, but not that way. He admired her looks (and knew he wasn't alone--girls like Sally Mueller and Greta Bowie hated Beverly like fire, still too young to understand how they could have everything else so easily ... and still have to compete in the matter of looks with a girl who lived in one of those slummy apartments on Lower Main Street), but mostly he liked her because she was tough and had a really good sense of humor. Also, she usually had cigarettes. He liked her, in short, because she was a good guy. Still, he had once or twice caught himself wondering what color underwear she was wearing under her small selection of rather faded skirts, and that was not the sort of thing you wondered about the other guys, was it?

  And, Richie had to admit, she was one hell of a pretty guy.

  Approaching the bench where she sat eating her ice cream, Richie belted an invisible topcoat around his middle, pulled down an invisible slouch hat, and pretended to be Humphrey Bogart. Adding the correct Voice, he became Humphrey Bogart--at least to himself. To others he would have sounded like Richie Tozier with a mild headcold.

  "Hello, shweetheart," he said, gliding up to the bench where she was sitting and looking out at the traffic. "No sensh waitin for a bus here. The Nazish have cut off our retreat. The last plane leavesh at midnight. You be on it. He needsh you, shweetheart. So do I ... but I'll get along shomehow."

  "Hi, Richie," Bev said, and when she turned toward him he saw a purple-blackish bruise on her right cheek, like the shadow of a crow's wing. He was again struck by her good looks ... only it occurred to him now that she might actually be beautiful. It had never really occurred to him until that moment that there might be beautiful girls outside of the movies, or that he himself might know one. Perhaps it was the bruise that allowed him to see the possibility of her beauty--an essential contrast, a particular flaw which first drew attention to itself and then somehow defined the rest: the gray-blue eyes, the naturally red lips, the creamy unblemished child's skin. There was a tiny spray of freckles across her nose.

  "See anything green?" she asked, tossing her head pertly.

  "You, shweetheart," Richie said. "You've turned green ash limberger cheese. But when we get you out of Cashablanca, you're going into the finesht hoshpital money can buy. We'll turn you white again. I shwear it on my mother'sh name."

  "You're an asshole, Richie. That doesn't sound like Humphrey Bogart at all." But she smiled a little as she said it.

  Richie sat down next to her. "You going to the movies?"

  "I don't have any money," she said. "Can I see your yo-yo?"

  He handed it over. "I oughtta take it back," he told her. "It's supposed to sleep but it doesn't. I got japped."

  She poked her finger through the loop of string and Richie pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose so he could watch what she was doing better. She turned her hand over, palm toward the sky, the Duncan yo-yo tucked neatly into the valley of flesh formed by her cupped hand. She rolled the yo-yo off her index finger. It went down to the end of its string and fell asleep. When she twitched her fingers in a come-on gesture it promptly woke up and climbed its string to her palm again.

  "Oh bug-dung, look at that," Richie said.

  "That's kid stuff," Bev said. "Watch this." She snapped the yo-yo down again. She let it sleep for a moment and then walked the dog with it in a smart series of snap jerks up the string to her hand again.

  "Oh, stop it," Richie said. "I hate show-offs."

  "Or how about this?" Bev asked, smiling sweetly. She got the yo-yo going back and front, making the red wooden Duncan look like a Bo-Lo Bouncer Richie had had once. She finished with two Around the Worlds (almost hitting a shuffling old lady, who glared at them). The yo-yo ended up in her cupped palm, its string neatly rolled around its spindle. Bev handed it back to Richie and sat down on the bench again. Richie sat down next to her, his jaw hanging agape in perfectly unaffected admiration. Bev looked at him and giggled.

  "Shut your mouth, you're drawing flies."

  Richie shut his mouth with a snap.

  "Besides, that last part was just luck. First time in my life I did two Around the Worlds in a row without fizzing out." Kids were walking past them now, on their way to the show. Peter Gordon walked by with Marcia Fadden. They were supposed to be going together, but Richie figured it was just that they lived ne
xt door to each other on West Broadway and were such a couple of assholes that they needed each other's support and attention. Peter Gordon was already getting a pretty good crop of acne, although he was only twelve. He sometimes hung around with Bowers, Criss, and Huggins, but he wasn't quite brave enough to try anything on his own.

  He glanced over at Richie and Bev sitting together on the bench and chanted, "Richie and Beverly up in a tree! Kay-Eye-Ess-Ess-Eye-En-Gee! First comes love, then comes marriage--"

  "--and here comes Richie with a baby carriage!" Marcia finished, cawing laughter.

  "Sit on this, dear heart," Bev said, and whipped the finger on them. Marcia looked away, disgusted, as if she could not believe anyone could be so uncouth. Gordon slipped an arm around her and called back over his shoulder to Richie, "Maybe I'll see you later, four-eyes."

  "Maybe you'll see your mother's girdle," Richie responded smartly (if a little senselessly). Beverly collapsed with laughter. She leaned against Richie's shoulder for a moment and Richie had just time to reflect that her touch, and the sensation of her lightly carried weight, was not exactly unpleasant. Then she sat up again.

  "What a pair of jerks," she said.

  "Yeah, I think Marcia Fadden pees rosewater," Richie said, and Beverly got the giggles again.

  "Chanel Number Five," she said, her voice muffled because her hands were over her mouth.

  "You bet," said Richie, although he hadn't the slightest idea what Chanel Number Five was. "Bev?"

  "What?"

  "Can you show me how to make it sleep?"

  "I guess so. I never tried to show anyone."

  "How did you learn? Who showed you?"

  She gave him a disgusted look. "No one showed me. I just figured it out. Like twirling a baton. I'm great at that--"

  "No conceit in your family," Richie said, rolling his eyes.

  "Well, I am," she said. "But I didn't take classes, or anything."

  "You really can twirl?"

  "Sure."

  "Probably be a cheerleader in junior high, huh?"

  She smiled. It was a kind of smile Richie had never seen before. It was wise, cynical, and sad all at the same time. He recoiled a little from its unknowing power, as he had recoiled from the picture of downtown in Georgie's album when it had begun to move.

  "That's for girls like Marcia Fadden," she said. "Her and Sally Mueller and Greta Bowie. Girls who pee rosewater. Their fathers help to buy the sports equipment and the uniforms. They got an in. I'll never be a cheerleader."

  "Jeez, Bev, that's no attitude to take--"

  "Sure it is, if it's the truth." She shrugged. "I don't care. Who wants to do somersaults and show your underwear to a million people, anyway? Look, Richie. Watch this."

  For the next ten minutes she worked on showing Richie how to make his yo-yo sleep. Near the end, Richie actually began to get the hang of it, although he could usually only get it to come halfway up the string after waking it up.

  "You're not jerking your fingers hard enough, that's all," she said.

  Richie looked at the clock on the Merrill Trust across the street and jumped up, stuffing his yo-yo into his back pocket. "Jeepers, I gotta get goin, Bev. I'm supposed to meet ole Haystack. He'll think I changed my mind or somethin."

  "Who's Haystack?"

  "Oh. Ben Hanscom. I call him Haystack, though. You know, like Haystack Calhoun, the wrestler."

  Bev frowned at him. "That's not very nice. I like Ben."

  "Doan whup me, massa!" Richie screeched in his Pickaninny Voice, rolling his eyes and flapping his hands. "Doan whup me, I'se gwineter be a good dahkie, ma'am, I'se--"

  "Richie," Bev said thinly.

  Richie quit it. "I like him, too," he said. "We all built a dam down in the Barrens a couple of days ago and--"

  "You go down there? You and Ben play down there?"

  "Sure. A bunch of us guys do. It's sorta cool down there." Richie glanced at the clock again. "I really gotta split for the scene. Ben'll be waiting."

  "Okay."

  He paused, thought, and said, "If you're not doing anything, come on with me."

  "I told you. I don't have any money."

  "I'll pay your way. I got a couple of bucks."

  She tossed the remains of her ice-cream cone in a nearby litter barrel. Her eyes, that fine clear shade of blue-gray, turned up to his. They were coolly amused. She pretended to primp her hair and asked him, "Oh dear, am I being asked out on a date?"

  For a moment Richie was uncharacteristically flustered. He actually felt a blush rising in his cheeks. He had made the offer in a perfectly natural way, just as he had made it to Ben ... except hadn't he said something to Ben about owesies? Yes. But he hadn't said anything about owesies to Beverly.

  Richie suddenly felt a bit weird. He had dropped his eyes, retreating from her amused glance, and realized now that her skirt had ridden up a bit when she shifted forward to drop the ice-cream cone in the litter barrel, and he could see her knees. He raised his eyes but that was no help; now he was looking at the beginning swells of her bosoms.

  Richie, as he usually did in such moments of confusion, took refuge in absurdity.

  "Yes! A date!" he screamed, throwing himself on his knees before her and holding his clasped hands up. "Please come! Please come! I shall ruddy kill meself if you say no, ay-wot? Wot-wot?"

  "Oh, Richie, you're such a fuzzbrain," she said, giggling again . . . but weren't her cheeks also a trifle flushed? If so, it made her look prettier than ever. "Get up before you get arrested."

  He got up and plopped down beside her again. He felt as if his equilibrium had returned. A little foolishness always helped when you had a dizzy spell, he believed. "You wanna go?"

  "Sure," she said. "Thank you very much. Think of it! My first date. Just wait until I write it in my diary tonight." She clasped her hands together between her budding breasts, fluttered her eyelashes rapidly, and then laughed.

  "I wish you'd stop calling it that," Richie said.

  She sighed. "You don't have much romance in your soul."

  "Damn right I don't."

  But he felt somehow delighted with himself. The world seemed suddenly very clear to him, and very friendly. He found himself glancing sideways at her from time to time. She was looking in the shop windows--at the dresses and nightgowns in Cornell-Hopley's, at the towels and pots in the window of the Discount Barn, and he stole glances at her hair, the line of her jaw. He observed the way her bare arms came out of the round holes of her blouse. He saw the edge of her slip strap. All of these things delighted him. He could not have said why, but what had happened in George Denbrough's bedroom had never seemed more distant to him than it did right then. It was time to go, time to meet Ben, but he would sit here just a moment longer while her eyes window-shopped, because it was good to look at her, and be with her.

  9

  Kids were ponying up their quarter admissions at the Aladdin's box-office window and going into the lobby. Looking through the bank of glass doors, Richie could see a crowd around the candy counter. The popcorn machine was in overdrive, spilling out drifts of the stuff, its greasy hinged lid jittering up and down. He didn't see Ben anywhere. He asked Beverly if she had spotted him. She shook her head.

  "Maybe he already went in."

  "He said he didn't have any money. And the Daughter of Frankenstein there would never let him in without a ticket." Richie cocked a thumb at Mrs. Cole, who had been the ticket-taker at the Aladdin since a time well before the pictures had begun to talk. Her hair, dyed a bright red, was so thin you could see her scalp beneath. She had enormous hanging lips which she painted with plum-colored lipstick. Wild blotches of rouge covered her cheeks. Her eyebrows were drawn on in black pencil. Mrs. Cole was a perfect democrat. She hated all kids equally.

  "Boy, I don't wanna go in without him but the show's gonna start," Richie said. "Where in heck is he?"

  "You can buy him a ticket and leave it at the box-office," Bev said, reasonably enough. "Then when
he comes--"

  But just then Ben came around the corner of Center and Macklin Streets. He was puffing, and his belly joggled beneath his sweatshirt. He saw Richie and raised one hand to wave. Then he saw Bev and his hand stopped in mid-flap. His eyes widened momentarily. He finished his wave and then walked slowly to where they stood under the Aladdin's marquee.

  "Hi, Richie," he said, and then looked at Bev briefly. It was as if he was afraid that an overlong look might result in a flash burn. "Hi, Bev."

  "Hello, Ben," she said, and a strange silence fell between the two of them--it was not precisely awkward; it was, Richie thought, almost powerful. And he felt a vague twinge of jealousy, because something had passed between them and whatever it had been, he had been excluded from it.

  "Howdy, Haystack!" he said. "Thought you went chicken on me. These movies goan scare ten pounds off your pudgy body. Ah say, Ah say they goan turn your hair white, boy. When you come out of this theater, you goan need an usher to help you up the aisle, you goan be shakin so bad."

  Richie started for the box-office and Ben touched his arm. Ben started to speak, glanced at Bev, who was smiling at him, and had to start over again. "I was here," he said, "but I went up the street and around the corner when those guys came along."

  "What guys?" Richie asked, but he thought he already knew.

  "Henry Bowers. Victor Criss. Belch Huggins. Some other guys, too."

  Richie whistled. "They must have already gone inside the theater. I don't see em buying candy."

  "Yeah. I guess so."

  "If I was them, I wouldn't bother paying to see a couple of horror movies," Richie said. "I'd just stay home and look in a mirror. Save some bread."

  Bev laughed merrily at that, but Ben only smiled a little. Henry Bowers had maybe only started out to hurt him that day last week, but he had ended up meaning to kill him. Ben was quite sure of that.

  "Tell you what," Richie said. "We'll go up in the balcony. They'll all be sittin down in the second or third row with their feet up."

  "You positive?" Ben asked. He was not at all sure Richie understood what bad news those kids were ... Henry, of course, being the worst news of all.