Bill looks back at him. 'Who t –told you and w –w –what did they tell you?'

Eddie licks his lips, wanting to go after his aspirator, not quite daring to. Who knew what might be in it now?

He thinks about that day, the 20th, about how it was hot, about how his mother gave him a check, all filled out except for the amount, and a dollar in cash for himself — his allowance.

'Mr Keene,' he says, and his voice sounds distant to his own ears, without power. 'It was Mr Keene.'

'Not exactly the nicest man in Derry,' Mike says, but Eddie, lost in his thoughts, barely hears him.

Yes, it was hot that day but cool inside the Center Street Drug, the wooden fans turning leisurely below the pressed-tin ceiling, and there was that comforting smell of mixed powders and nostrums. This was the place where they sold health — that was his mother's unstated but clearly communicated conviction, and with his body-clock set at half-past eleven, Eddie had no suspicion that his mother might be wrong about that, or anything else.

Well, Mr Keene sure put an end to that, he thinks now with a kind of sweet anger.

He remembers standing at the comic rack for awhile, spinning it idly to see if there were any new Batmans or Superboys, or his own favorite, Plastic Man. He had given his mother's list (she sent him to the drugstore as other boys' mothers might send them to the comer grocery) and his mother's check to Mr Keene; he would fill the order and then write in the amount on the check, giving Eddie the receipt so she could deduct the amount from her checking balance. This was all SOP for Eddie. Three different kinds of prescription for his mother, plus a bottle of Geritol because, she told him mysteriously, 'It's full of iron, Eddie, and women need more iron than men.' Also, there would be his vitamins, a bottle of Dr Swett's Elixir for Children . . . and, of course, his asthma medicine.

It was always the same. Later he would stop in the Costello Avenue Market with his dollar and get two candy-bars and a Pepsi. He would eat the candy, drink the soda, and jingle his pocket-change all the way home. But this day was different; it would end with him in the hospital and that was certainly different, but it started being different when Mr Keene called him. Because instead of handing him the big white bag full of cures and the receipt, admonishing him to put the receipt in his pocket so he wouldn't lose it, Mr Keene looked at him thoughtfully and said 'Come

2

back into the office for a minute, Eddie. I want to talk to you. ' Eddie only looked at him for a moment, bunking, a little scared. The idea that maybe Mr Keene thought he had been shoplifting flashed briefly through his mind. There was that sign by the door that he always read when he came into the Center Street Drug. It was written in accusing black letters so

large that he bet even Richie Tozier could read it without his glasses: SHOPLIFTING is NOT A 'KICK' OR A 'GROOVE ' OR A 'GASSER'! SHOPLIFTING i s A CRIME, AND WEWILLPROSECUTE!

Eddie had never shoplifted anything in his life, but that sign always made him feel guilty — made him feel as if Mr Keene knew something about him that he didn't know about himself.

Then Mr Keene confused him even further by saying, 'How about an ice-cream soda?'

'Well — '

'Oh, it's on the house. I always have one in the office around this time of day. Good energy, unless you need to watch your weight, and I'd say neither of us do. My wife says I look like stuffed string. Your friend there, the Hanscom boy, he's the one who needs to have a care about his weight. What flavor, Eddie?'

'Well, my mother said to get home as soon as I — '

'You look like a chocolate man to me. Chocolate okay for you?' Mr Keene's eyes twinkled, but it was a dry twinkle, like the sun shining on mica in the desert. Or so Eddie, a fan of such Western writers as Max Brand and Archie Joceylen, thought.

'Sure,' Eddie gave in. Something about the way Mr Keene pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up on his blade of a nose made him edgy. Something about the way Mr Keene seemed both nervous and secretly pleased. He didn't want to go into the office with Mr Keene. This wasn't about a soda. Nope. And whatever it was about, Eddie had an idea it wasn't such great news.

Maybe he's going to tell me I got cancer or something, Eddie thought wildly. That kid-cancer. Leukemia. Jesus!

Oh, don't be so stupid, he answered himself back, trying to sound, in his own mind, like Stuttering Bill. Stuttering Bill had replaced Jock Mahoney, who played the Range Rider on TV Saturday mornings, as the great hero of Eddie's life. In spite of the fact that he couldn't talk right, Big Bill always seemed to be on top of things. This guy's a pharmacist, not a doctor, for cripe's sake. But Eddie was still nervous.

Mr Keene had raised the counter-gate and was beckoning to Eddie with one bony finger. Eddie went, but reluctantly.

Ruby, the counter-girl, was sitting by the cash register and reading a Silver Screen. 'Would you make two ice-cream sodas, Ruby?' Mr Keene called to her. 'One chocolate, one coffee?'

'Sure,' Ruby said, marking her place in the magazine with a tinfoil gum wrapper and getting up.

'Bring them into the office.'

'Sure.'

'Come on, son. I'm not going to bite you.' And Mr Keene actually winked, astounding Eddie completely.

He had never been in back of the counter before, and he gazed at all the bottles and pills and jars with interest. He would have lingered if he had been on his own, examining Mr Keene's mortar and pestle, his scales and weights, the fishbowls full of capsules. But Mr Keene propelled him forward into the office and closed the door firmly behind him. When it clicked shut Eddie felt a warning tightness in his chest and fought it. There would be a fresh aspirator in with his mother's things, and he could have a long satisfying honk on it as soon as he was out of here.

A bottle of licorice whips stood on the corner of Mr Keene's desk. He offered it to Eddie.

'No thank you,' Eddie said politely.

Mr Keene sat down in the swivel chair behind his desk and took one. Then he opened his drawer and took something out. He put it down next to the tall bottle of licorice whips and Eddie felt real alarm course through him. It was an aspirator. Mr Keene tilted back in his swivel cha ir until his head was almost touching the calendar on the wall behind him. The picture on the calendar showed more pills. It said SQUIBB. And —

— and for one nightmare moment, when Mr Keene opened his mouth to speak, Eddie remembered what had happened in the shoe store when he was just a little kid, when his mother had screamed at him for putting his foot in the X-ray machine. For that one nightmare moment Eddie thought Mr Keene would say: 'Eddie, nine out of ten doctors agree that asthma medicine gives you cancer, just like the X-ray machines they used to have in the shoe stores. You've probably got it already. Just thought you ought to know.'

But what Mr Keene did say was so peculiar that Eddie could think of no response at all; he could only sit in the straight wooden chair on the other side of Mr Keene's desk like a nit.

'This has gone on long enough.'

Eddie opened his mouth and then closed it again.

'How old are you, Eddie? Eleven, isn't it?'

'Yes, sir,' Eddie said faintly. His breathing was indeed shallowing up. He wasn't yet whistling like a tea-kettle (which was how Richie put it: Somebody turn Eddie off! He's reached the boil!'), but that might happen at any time. He looked longingly at the aspirator on Mr Keene's desk, and because something else seemed required, he said: 'I'll be twelve in November.'

Mr Keene nodded, then leaned forward like a TV pharmacist in a commercial and clasped his hands together. His eyeglasses gleamed in the strong light thrown by the overhead fluorescent bars. 'Do you know what a placebo is, Eddie?'