'Sure, kid, EV-ery day,' he says in a Richie Tozier Voice, and laughs again.

It had been Bill's idea to make the dam in the Barrens, and it was, in a way, the dam that had brought them all together. Ben Hanscom had been the one to show them how the dam could be built — and they had built it so well that they'd gotten in a lot of trouble with Mr Nell, the cop on the beat — but it had been Bill's idea. And although all of them except Richie had seen very odd things — frightening things — in Derry since the turn of the year, it had been Bill who had first found the courage to say something out loud.

That dam.

That damn dam.

He remembered Victor Cris: 'Ta-ta, boys. It was a real baby dam, believe me. You're better off without it.'

A day later, Ben Hanscom was grinning at them, saying:

'We could

'We could flood

'We could flood out the

2

whole Barrens, if we wanted to.'

Bill and Eddie looked at Ben doubtfully, and then at the stuff Ben had brought along with him: some boards (scrounged from Mr McKibbon's back yard, but that was okay, since Mr McKibbon had probably scavenged them from someone else's), a sledgehammer, a shovel.

'I dunno,' Eddie said, glancing at Bill. 'When we tried yesterday, it didn't work very good. The current kept washing our sticks away.'

'This'll work,' Ben said. He also looked to Bill for the final decision.

'Well, let's g-give it a t-t-try,' Bill said. 'I c-called R-R-R-Richie Tozier this m-morning. He's g-gonna be oh-over Mater, he s-said. Maybe him and Stuh-huh –hanley will want to h-help.'

'Stanley who?' Ben asked.

'Uris,' Eddie said. He was still looking cautiously at Bill, who seemed somehow different today — quieter, less enthusiastic about the idea of the dam. Bill looked pale today. Distant.

'Stanley Uris? I guess I don't know him. Does he go to Derry Elementary?'

'He's our age but he just finished the fourth grade,' Eddie said. 'He started school a year late because he was sick a lot when he was a little kid. You think you took chong yesterday, you just oughtta be glad you're not Stan. Someone's always rackin Stan to the dogs an back.'

'He's Juh-juh –hooish,' Bill said. 'Luh –lots of k-kids don't luh-hike him because h-he's Jewish.'

'Oh yeah?' Ben asked, impressed. 'Jewish, huh?' He paused and then said carefully: 'Is that like being Turkish, or is it more like, you know, Egyptian?'

'I g-guess it's mo re like Tur –hur –hurkish,' Bill said. He picked up one of the boards Ben had brought and looked at it. It was about six feet long and three feet wide. 'My d-d-dad says most J-Jews have big nuh-noses and lots of m-m-money, but Stuh-Stuh-Stuh — '

'But Sta n's got a regular nose and he's always broke,' Eddie said.

'Yeah,' Bill said, and broke into a real grin for the first time that day.

Ben grinned.

Eddie grinned.

Bill tossed the board aside, got up and brushed off the seat of his jeans. He walked to the edge of the stream and the other two boys joined him. Bill shoved his hands in his back pockets and sighed deeply. Eddie was sure Bill was going to say something serious. He looked from Eddie to Ben and then back to Eddie again, not smiling now. Eddie was suddenly afraid.

But all Bill said then was, 'You got your ah-ah-aspirator, E-Eddie?'

Eddie slapped his pocket. 'I'm loaded for bear.'

'Say, how'd it work with the chocolate milk?' Ben asked.

Eddie laughed. 'Worked great!' he said. He and Ben broke up while Bill looked at them, smiling but puzzled. Eddie explained and Bill nodded, grinning again.

'E-E-Eddie's muh-hum is w-w-worried that h-he's g-gonna break and sh-she wuh-hon't be able to g-get a re-re-refund.'

Eddie snorted and made as if to push him into the stream.

'Watch it, fuckface,' Bill said, sounding uncannily like Henry Bowers. 'I'll twist your head so far around you'll be able to watch when you wipe yourself.'

Ben collapsed, shrieking with laughter. Bill glanced at him, still smiling, hands still in the back pockets of his jeans, smiling, yeah, but a little distant again, a little vague. He looked at Eddie and then cocked his head toward Ben.

'Kid's suh-suh –soft,' he said.

'Yeah,' Eddie agreed, but he felt somehow that they were only going through the motions of having a good time. Something was on Bill's mind. He supposed Bill would spill it when he was ready; the question was, did Eddie want to hear what it was? 'Kid's mentally retarded.'

'Retreaded,' Ben said, still giggling.

'Y-You g-g-gonna sh-show us how to b-build a dam or a-are you g-g-gonna si-hit there on your b-big c-c-can all d-day?'

Ben got to his feet again. He looked first at the stream, flowing past them at moderate speed. The Kenduskeag was not terribly wide this far up in the Barrens, but it had defeated them yesterday just the same. Neither Eddie nor Bill had been able to figure out how to get a foothold on the current. But Ben was smiling, the smile of one who contemplates doing something new . . . something that will be fun but not very hard. Eddie thought: He knowshow — I really think he does.

'Okay,' he said. 'You guys want to take your shoes off, because you're gonna get your little footsies wet.'

The mind-mother in Eddie's head spoke up at once, her voice as stern and commanding as the voice of a traffic cop: Don't you dare do it, Eddie! Don't you dare! Wet feet, that's one way — one of the thousands of ways — that colds start, and colds lead to pneumonia, so don't you do it!

Bill and Ben were sitting on the bank, pulling off their sneakers and socks. Ben was fussily rolling up the legs of his jeans. Bill looked up at Eddie. His eyes were clear and warm, sympathetic. Eddie was suddenly sure Big Bill knew exactly what he had been thinking, and he was ashamed.

'Y-You c-c-comin?'

'Yeah, sure,' Eddie said. He sat down on the bank and undressed his feet while his mother ranted inside his head . . . but her voice was growing steadily more distant and echoey, he was relieved to note, as if someone had stuck a heavy fishhook through the back of her blouse and was now reeling her away from him down a very long corridor.

3

It was one of those perfect summer days which, in a world where everything was on track and on the beam, you would never forget. A moderate breeze kept the worst of the mosquitoes and blackflies away. The sky was a bright, crisp blue. Temperatures were in the low seventies. Birds sang and went about their birdy-business in the bushes an d second –growth trees. Eddie had to use his aspirator once, and then his chest lightened and his throat seemed to widen magically to the size of a freeway. He spent the rest of the morning with it stuffed forgotten into his back pocket.

Ben Hanscom, who had seemed so timid and unsure the day before, became a confident general once he was fully involved in the actual construction of the dam. Every now and then he would climb the bank and stand there with his muddy hands on his hips, looking at the work in progress and muttering to himself. Sometimes he would run a hand through his hair, and by eleven o'clock it was standing up in crazy, comical spikes.

Eddie felt uncertainty at first, then a sense of glee, and finally an entirely new feeling — one that was at the same time weird, terrifying, and exhilarating. It was a feeling so alien to his usual state of being that he was not able to put a name to it until that night, lying in bed and looking at the ceiling and replaying the day. Power. That was what that feeling had been. Power. It was going to work, by God, and it was going to work better than he and Bill — maybe even Ben himself — had dreamed it could.

He could see Bill getting involved, too — only a little at first, still mulling over whateve r it was he had on his mind, and then, bit by bit, committing himself fully. Once or twice he clapped Ben on one meaty shoulder and told him he was unbelievable. Ben flushed with pleasure each time.