10

The balcony was okay. During the first reel of I Was a Teenage Frankenstein Richie spotted Henry Bowers and his shitkicking friends. They were down in the second row, just as he had figured they would be. There were five or six of the m in all — fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-graders, all of them with their motorhuckle boots cocked up on the seats in front of them. Foxy would come down and tell them to put their feet on the floor. They would. Foxy would leave. Up went the motorhuckle boots again as soon as he did. Five or ten minutes later Foxy would return and the entire charade would be acted out again. Foxy didn't quite have the guts to kick them out and they knew it.

The movies were great. The Teenage Frankenstein was suitably gross. The Teenage Werewolf was somehow scarier, though . . . perhaps because he also seemed a little sad. What had happened wasn't his own fault. There was this hypnotist who had fucked him up, but the only reason he'd been able to was that the kid who turned into the werewolf was full of anger and bad feelings. Richie found himself wondering if there were many people in the world hiding bad feelings like that. Henry Bowers was just overflowing with bad feelings, but he sure didn't bother hiding them.

Beverly sat between the boys, ate popcorn from their boxes, screamed, covered her eyes, sometimes laughed. When the Werewolf was stalking the girl doing exercises in the gym after school, she pressed her face against Ben's arm, and Richie heard Ben's gasp of surprise even over the screams of the two hundred kids below them.

The Werewolf was finally killed. In the last scene one cop solemnly told another that this should teach people not to fiddle with things best left to God. The curtain came down and the lights came up. There was applause. Richie felt totally satisfied, if a little headachy. He'd probably have to go to the eye-doctor pretty soon and get his lenses changed again. He really would be wearing Coke bottles on his eyes by the time he got to high school, he thought glumly.

Ben twitched at his sleeve. 'They saw us, Richie,' he said in a dry, dismayed voice.

'Huh?'

'Bowers and Criss. They looked up here on their way out. They saw us!'

'Okay, okay,' Richie said. 'Calm down, Haystack. Just caaalm down. We'll go out the side door. Nothing to worry about.'

They went down the stairs, Richie in the lead, Beverly in the middle, Ben bringing up the rear and looking back over his shoulder every two steps or so.

'Have those guys really got it in for you, Ben?' Beverly asked.

'Yeah, I guess they do,' Ben said. 'I got in a fight with Henry Bowers on the last day of school.'

'Did he beat you up?'

'Not as much as he wanted to,' Ben said. 'That's why he's still mad, I guess.'

'Ole Hank the Tank also lost a fair amount of skin,' Richie murmured. 'Or so I heard. I don't think he was very pleased about that, either.' He pushed open the exit door and the three of them stepped out into the alley that ran between the Aladdin and Nan's Luncheonette. A cat which had been rooting in a garbage can hissed and ran past them down the alley, which was blocked at the far end by a board fence. The cat scrambled up and over. A trashcan lid clattered. Bev jumped, grabbed Richie's arm, and then laughed nervously. 'I guess I'm still scared from the movies,' she said.

'You won't — ' Richie began.

'Hello, fuckface,' Henry Bowers said from behind them.

Startled, the three of them turned around. Henry, Victor, and Belch were standing at the mo uth of the alley. There were two other guys behind them.

'Oh shit, I knew this was going to happen,' Ben moaned.

Richie turned quickly back toward the Aladdin, but the exit door had closed behind them and there was no way to open it from the outside.

'Say goodbye, fuckface,' Henry said, and suddenly ran at Ben.

The things that happened next seemed to Richie both then and later like something out of a movie — such things simply did not happen in real life. In real life the little kids took their beatings, picked up their teeth and went home.

It didn't happen that way this time.

Beverly stepped forward and to one side, almost as if she intended to meet Henry, perhaps shake his hand. Richie could hear the cleats on his boots rapping. Victor and Belch were coming after him; the other two boys stood at the mouth of the alley, guarding it.

'Leave him alone!' Beverly shouted. 'Pick on someone your own size!'

'He's as big as a fucking Mack truck, bitch,' Henry, no gentleman, snarled. N' ow get out of my — '

Richie stuck out his foot. He didn't think he meant to. His foot went out the same way wisecracks dangerous to his health sometimes emerged, all on their own, from his mouth. Henry ran into it and fell forward. The brick surface of the alley was slippery with spilled garbage from the overflowing cans on the luncheonette side. Henry went skidding like a shuffleboard weight.

He started to get up, his shirt blotched with coffee grounds, mud, and bits of lettuce. 'Ohyou guys are gonna DIE!' he screamed.

Until this moment Ben had been terrified. Now something in him snapped. He let out a roar and grabbed one of the garbage cans. For just a moment, holding it up, garbage spilling everywhere, he really did look like Haystack Calhoun. His face was pale and furious. He threw the garbage can. It struck Henry in the small of the back and knocked him flat again.

'Let's get out of here!' Richie screamed.

They ran toward the mouth of the alley. Victor Criss jumped in front of them. Bellowing, Ben lowered his head and rammed it into Victor's middle. 'Woof!' Victor grunted, and sat down.

Belch grabbed a handful of Beverly's pony-tail and whipped her smartly against the Aladdin's brick wall. Beverly bounced off and ran down the a ley, rubbing her arm. Richie ran after her, grabbing a garbage-can lid on the way. Belch Huggins swung a fist almost the size of a Daisy ham at him. Richie pistoned out the galvanized steel lid. Belch's fist met it. There was a loud bonnngg! — a sound that was almost mellow. Richie felt the shock travel all the way up his arm to the shoulder. Belch screamed and began to hop up and down, holding his swelling hand.

'Yondah lies da tent of my faddah,' Richie said confidentially, doing a very passable Tony Curtis Voice, and then ran after Ben and Beverly.

One of the boys at the mouth of the alley had caught Beverly. Ben was tussling with him. The other boy began to rabbit-punch Ben in the small of the back. Richie swung his foot. It connected with the rabbit-puncher's buttocks. The boy howled with pain. Richie grabbed Beverly's arm in one hand, Ben's in the other.

'Run!' he shouted.

The boy Ben had been tussling with let go of Beverly and looped a punch at Richie. His ear exploded with momentary pain, then went numb and became very warm. A high whistling sound began to whine in his head. It sounded like the noise you were supposed to listen for when the school nurse put the earphones on you to test your hearing.

They ran down Center Street. People turned to look at them. Ben's large stomach pogoed up and down. Beverly's pony-tail bounced. Richie let go of Ben and held his glasses against his forehead with his left thumb so he wouldn't lose them. His head was still ringing and he

believed his ear was going to swell, but he felt wonderful. He started laughing. Beverly joined him. Soon Ben was laughing, too.

They cut up Court Street and collapsed on a bench in front of the police station: at that moment it seemed the only place in Derry where they might possibly be safe. Beverly looped an arm around Ben's neck and Richie's. She gave them a furious hug.

'That was great!' Her eyes sparkled. 'Did you see those guys? Did you see them?'