They looked back at him, pale and solemn. No one said no. Eddie fumbled his aspirator out of his pocket and took a long whooping gasp at it.

'Gimme some of that,' Richie said.

Eddie looked at him, surprised, waiting for the punchline.

Richie held out his hand. 'No fake, Jake. Can I have some?'

Eddie shrugged with his good shoulder — an oddly disjointed movement — and handed it over. Richie triggered the aspirator and breathed deep. 'Needed that,' he said, and handed it back. He was coughing a little, but his eyes were sober.

'Me too,' Stan said. 'Okay?'

So one after another they used Eddie's aspirator. When it came back to him, Eddie jammed it in his back pocket, where the nozzle stuck out. They turned to look at the house again.

'Does anybody live on this street?' Beverly asked in a low voice.

'Not this end of it,' Mike said. 'Not anymore. I guess there are still bums sometimes. Guys that come through on the freights.'

'They wouldn't see anything,' Stan said. 'They'd be safe. Most of them, anyway.' He looked at Bill. 'Can any grownups at all see It, do you think,

Bill?'

'I don't nuh-know,' Bill said. 'There must be suh-suh-some.'

'I wish we could meet one,' Richie said glumly. 'This really isn't a job for kids, you know what I mean?'

Bill knew. Whenever the Hardy Boys got into trouble, Fenton Hardy was around to bail them out. Same with Rick Brant's dad in the Rick Brant Science Adventures. Shit, even Nancy Drew had a father who would show up in the nick of time if the bad guys tied her up and threw her into an abandoned mine or something.

'Ought to be a grownup along,' Richie said, looking at the closed house with hs peeling paint, its duty windows, its shadowy porch. He sighed tiredly. For a moment, Ben felt their resolution falter.

Then Bill said, 'Cuh-cuh –home a-a-a-around h-here. Look at th-this.'

They walked around to the left side of the porch, where the skirting was torn off. The brambly, run-to-the-wild roses were still there . . . and those It had touched when It climbed out were still black and dead.

'It just touched them and it did that? ' Beverly asked, horrified.

Bill nodded. 'Are you guh-huys s-s-sure?

For a moment nobody replied. They weren't sure; even though all of them knew by Bill's face that he would go on without them, they weren't sure. There was also a species of shame on Bill's face. As he had told them before, George hadn't been their brother.

But all the other kids, Ben thought. Betty Ripsom, Cheryl Lamonica, that Clements kid, Eddie Corcoran (maybe), Ronnie Grogan . . . even Patrick Hockstetter. It kills kids, goddamit, kids!

'I'll go, Big Bill, 'he said.

'Shit, yeah,' Beverly said.

'Sure,' Richie said. 'You think we're gonna let you have all the fun, mushmouth?'

Bill looked at them, his throat working, and then he nodded. He handed the tin box to Beverly.

'Are you sure, Bill?'

'Sh-Sh-Sure.'

She nodded, at once horrified by the responsibility and bewitched by his trust. She opened the box, took out the slugs, and slipped one into the right front pocket of her jeans. The other she socketed in the Bullseye's rubber cup, and it was by the cup that she carried the slingshot. She could feel the ball tightly enclosed in her fist, cold at first and then warming.

'Let's go,' she said, her voice not quite steady. 'Let's go before I chicken out.'

Bill nodded, then looked sharply at Eddie. 'Cuh-Can you d-d-do this, Eh-Eh –Eddie?'

Eddie nodded. 'Sure I can. I was alone last time. This time I'm with my friends. Right?' He looked at them and grinned a little. His expression was shy, fragile, and quite beautiful.

Richie clapped him on the back. 'Thass right, senhorr. Anywhunn tries to steal your assipirator, we keel heem. But we keel heem slow. '

That's terrible, Richie,' Bev said, giggling.

'Uh-Uh-under the p-porch,' Bill said. 'A-A11 of you b-b-behind me. Then into the suh-suh-cellar.'

'If you go first and that thing jumps you, what do I do?' Beverly asked. 'Shoot through you?'

'If y-you have to,' Bill said. 'But I suh –suh –suggest y-y-you try guh –hoing a-around, first.'

Richie laughed wildly at this.

'We'll g-g-go through the whole puh-puh –place, if we have t-to.' He shrugged. 'Maybe we won't find be a-a-anything.'

'Do you believe that?' Mike asked.

'No,' Bill said briefly. 'It's h-h-here.'

Ben believed he was right. The house at 29 Neibolt Street seemed to be encased in a poisonous envelope. It could not be seen . . . but it could be felt. He licked his lips.

'You ruh-ruh –ready?' Bill asked them.

They all looked back at him. 'Ready, Bill,' Richie said.

'Cuh-come on, th-then,' Bill said. 'Stay cluh-close behind me, B-Beverly.' He dropped to his knees, crawled through the blighted rosebushes and under the porch.

8

They went this way: Bill, Beverly, Ben, Eddie, Richie, Stan, Mike. The leaves under the porch crackled and puffed up a sour old smell. Ben wrinkled his nose. Had he ever smelled fallen leaves like these? He thought not. And then an unpleasant idea struck him. They smelled the way he imagined a mummy would smell, just after its discoverer had levered open its coffin: all dust and bitter ancient tannic acid.

Bill had reached the broken cellar window and was looking into the cellar. Beverly crawled up beside him. 'You see anything?'

Bill shook his head. 'But that d-doesn't m-m-mean nuh-huthin's there. L-Look; there's the c-coal-pile me and R-R-Richie used to get ow-out.'

Ben, who was looking between them, saw it. He was becoming excited as well as afraid now, and he welcomed the excitement, instinctively recognizing the fact that it could be a tool. Seeing the coal-pile was a little like seeing a great landmark about which you had only read or heard from others.

Bill turned around and slipped lithely through the window. Beverly gave Ben the Bullseye, folding his hand over the cup and ball nestled in it. 'Give it to me the second I'm down,' she said. 'The second.'

'Got you.'

She slipped down as easily and lithely as Bill had before her. There was — for Ben, at least — one heart-stopping instant when her blouse pulled out of her jeans and he saw her flat white belly. Then there was the thrill of her hands over his as he handed the slingshot down.

'Okay, I've got it. Come on.'

Ben turned around himself and began to wriggle through the window. He should have forseen what happened next; it was really inevitable. He got stuck. His fanny bound up against the rectangular cellar window and he couldn't go in any further. He started to pull himself out and realized, horrified, that he could do it, but was very apt to yank his pants — and perhaps his underpants as well — down to his knees when he did. And there he would be, with his extremely large ass practically in his beloved's face.

'Hurry up!' Eddie said.

Ben pushed grimly with both hands. For a moment he still couldn't move, and then his butt popped through the window-hole. His bluejeans dragged painfully up into his crotch, squashing his balls. The top of the window rucked his shin all the way up to his shoulderblades. Now his gut was stuck.

'Suck in, Haystack,' Richie said, giggling hysterically. 'You better suck in or we'll have to send Mike after his dad's chainfall to pull you out again.'

'Beep-beep, Richie,' Ben said through gritted teeth. He sucked his belly in as much as he could. He had never really realized just how big his stupid stomach was until this supremely embarrassing moment. He moved a little further, then stopped again.

He turned his head as far as he could, fighting panic and claustrophobia. His face had gone a bright sweaty red. The sour smell of the leaves was heavy in his nostrils, cloying. 'Bill! Can you guys pull me?'