It

He drew a deep, shuddering breath, feeling something like a rock — something he hadn't even known was there — go rolling off his chest. All at once he felt better, better about everything.

He opened his mouth to tell Richie this and burst into tears instead.

Alarmed, Richie put an arm around Bill's shoulders (after taking a quick glance around to make sure no one who might mistake them for a couple of fagolas was looking).

'You're okay,' he said. 'You're okay, Billy, right? Come on. Turn off the waterworks.'

'I didn't wuh-wuh-want h-him t –to g-g-get kuh-hilled!' Bill sobbed. 'TH-THAT WUH-WUH-WASN'T ON MY M-M-M –MIND AT UH-UH-ALL!'

'Christ, Billy, I know it wasn't,' Richie said. 'If you'd wanted to scrub him, you woulda pushed him downstairs or something.' Richie patted Bill's shoulder clumsily and gave him a hard little hug before letting go. 'Come on, quit bawlin, okay? You sound like a baby.'

Little by little Bill stopped. He still hurt, but this hurt seemed cleaner, as if he had cut himself open and taken out something that was rotting inside him. And that feeling of relief was still there.

'I-I didn't w-want him to get kuh –kuh-killed,' Bill repeated, 'and ih –if y-y-you t-tell anybody I w-was c-c-cryin, I'll b-b-bust your n-n-nose.

'I won't tell,' Richie said, 'don't worry. He was your brother, for gosh sake. If my brother got killed, I'd cry my fuckin head off.'

'Yuh-Yuh-You d-don't have a buh-brother.'

'Yeah, but if I did.'

'Y-You w-w-would?'

'Course.' Richie paused, fixing Bill with a wary eye, trying to decide if Bill was really over it. He was still wiping his red eyes with his snotrag, but Richie decided he probably was. 'All I meant was that I don't know why George would want to haunt you. So maybe the picture's got something to do with . . . well, with that other. The clown.'

'Muh-Muh-Maybe G-G-George d-d-doesn't nuh-nuh-know. Maybe h-he th-thinks — '

Richie understood what Bill was trying to say and waved it aside. 'After you croak you know everything people ever thought about you, Big Bill.' He spoke with the indulgent air of a great teacher correcting a country bumpkin's fatuous ideas. 'It's in the Bible. It says, "Yea, even though we can't see too much in the mirror right now, we will see through it like it was a window after we die." That's in First Thessalonians or Second Babylonians, I forget which. It means — '

'I suh-suh –see what it m-m-means,' Bill said.

'So what do you say?'

'Huh?'

'Let's go up to his room and take a look. Maybe we'll get a clue about who's killing all the kids.'

'I'm s-s-scared to.'

'I am too,' Richie said, thinking it was just more sand, something to say that would get Bill moving, and then something heavy turned over in his midsection and he discovered it was true: he was scared green.

4

The two boys slipped into the Denbrough house like ghosts.

Bill's father was still at work. Sharon Denbrough was in the kitchen, reading a paperback at the kitchen table. Th e smell of supper — codfish — drifted out into the front hall. Richie called home so his mom would know he wasn't dead, just at Bill's.

'Someone there?' Mrs Denbrough called as Richie put the phone down. They froze, eyeing each other guiltily. Then Bill called: 'M-Me, Mom. And R-R-R-R-R — '

'Richie Tozier, ma'am,' Richie yelled.

'Hello, Richie,' Mrs Denbrough called back, her voice disconnected, almost not there at all. 'Would you like to stay for supper?'

'Thanks, ma'am, but my mom's gonna pick me up in half an hour or so.'

Tell her I said hello, won't you?'

'Yes ma'am, I sure will.'

'C-Come on,' Bill whispered. 'That's enough s-small talk.'

They went upstairs and down the hall to Bill's room. It was boy-neat, which meant it would have given the mother of the boy in question only a mild headache to look at. The shelves were stuffed with a helter-skelter collection of books and comics. There were more comics, plus a few models and toys and a stack of 45s, on the desk. There was also an old Underwood office model typewriter on it. His folks had given it to him for Christmas two years ago, and Bill sometimes wrote stories on it. He did this a bit more frequently since George's death. The pretending seemed to ease his mind.

Th ere was a phonograph on the floor across from the bed with a pile of folded clothes stacked on the lid. Bill put the clothes in the drawers of his bureau and then took the records from the desk. He shuffled through them, picking half a dozen. He put them on the phonograph's fat spindle and turned the machine on. The Fleetwoods started singing 'Come Softly Darling.'

Richie held his nose.

Bill grinned in spite of his thumping heart. 'Th-They d-don't luh-luh –hike rock and r-roll,' he said. 'They g-gave me this wuh-one for my b-b-birthday. Also two P-Pat B-B-Boone records and Tuh-T u h – Tommy Sands. I keep L-L-L i t t l e R u h –Richard and Scuh – hreamin J– J a y Hawkins for when they're not h-here. But if she hears the m-m-music she'll th-think we're i-in m-my room. C-C-Come o-on.'

George's room was across the hall. The door was shut. Richie looked at it and licked his lips.

'They don't keep it locked?' he whispered to Bill. Suddenly he found himself hoping it was locked. Suddenly he was having trouble believing this had been his idea.

Bill, his face pale, shook his head and turned the knob. He stepped in and looked back at Richie. After a moment Richie followed. Bill shut the door behind them, muffling the Fleetwoods. Richie jumped a little at the soft snick of the latch.

He looked around, fearful and intensely curious at the same tune. The first thing he noticed was the dry mustiness of the air — No one's opened a window in here for a long time, he thought. Heck, no one's breathed in here for a long time. That's really what it feels like. He shuddered a little at the thought and licked his lips again.

His eye fell on George's bed, and he thought of George sleeping now under a comforter of earth in Mount Hope Cemetery. Rotting there. His hands not folded because you needed two hands to do the old folding routine, and George had been buried with only one.

A little sound escaped Richie's throat. Bill turned and looked at him enquiringly.

'You're right,' Richie said huskily. 'It's spooky in here. I don't see how you could stand to come in alone.'

'H-He was my bruh –brother,' Bill said simply. 'Sometimes I w-w-want to, is a-all.'

There were posters on the walls — little –kid posters. One showed Tom Terrific, the cartoon character on Captain Kangaroo's program. Tom was springing over the head and clutching hands of Crabby Appleton, who was, of course, Rotten to the Core. Another showed Donald Duck's nephews, Huey, Louie, and Dewie, marching off into the wilderness in their Junior Woodchucks coonskin caps. A third, which George had colored himself, showed Mr Do holding up traffic so a bunch of little kids headed for school could cross the street. MR DO SAYS WAIT FOR THE CROSSING GUARD!, it said underneath.

Kid wasn't too cool about staying in the lines, Richie thought, and then shuddered. The kid was never going to get any better at it, either. Richie looked at the table by the window. Mrs Denbrough had stood up all of George's rank-cards there, half-open. Looking at them, knowing there would never be more, knowing that George had died before he could stay in the lines when he colored, knowing his life had ended irrevocably and eternally with only those few kindergarten and first-grade rank-cards, all the idiot truth of death crashed home to Richie for the first time. It was as if a large iron safe had fallen into his brain and buried itself there. I could die! his mind screamed at him suddenly in tones of betrayed horror. Anybodycould! Anybody could!