It

him (and surely they were not variations of his own voice, for these voices did not stutter — they were quiet, but they were sure), advising him to do certain things but not others? Was it those things which made Derry seem somehow different now? Somehow threatening, with unexplored streets that did not invite but seemed instead to yawn in a kind of ominous silence? That made some faces look secret and frightened?
He didn’t know, but he believed — as he believed all the murders were the work of a single agency — that Derry really had changed, and that his brother’s death had signalled the beginning of that change. The black suppositions in his head came from the lurking idea that anything could happen in Derry now. Anything.
But when he came around the last bend, all looked cool. Ben Hanscom was still there, sitting besid e Eddie. Eddie himself was sitting up now, his hands dangling in his lap, head bent, still wheezing. The sun had sunk low enough to project long green shadows across the stream.
‘Boy, that was quick,’ Ben said, standing up. ‘I didn’t expect you for another half an hour.’
‘I got a f-f-fast b-bike,’ Bill said with some pride. For a moment the two of them looked at each other cautiously, warily. Then Ben smiled tentatively, and Bill smiled back. The kid was fat, but he seemed okay. And he had stayed put. That must have taken some guts, with Henry and his j.d. friends maybe still wandering around out there someplace.
Bill winked at Eddie, who was looking at him with dumb gratitude. ‘H-Here you g-go, E– E-E-Eddie.’ He tossed him the aspirator. Eddie plunged it into his open mouth, triggered it, and gasped convulsively. Then he leaned back, eyes shut. Ben watched this with concern.
‘Jeez! He’s really got it bad, doesn’t he?’
Bill nodded.
‘I was scared there for awhile,’ Ben said in a low voic e. ‘I was wonderin what to do if he had a convulsion, or something. I kept tryin to remember the stuff they told us in that Red Cross assembly we had in April. All I could come up with was put a stick in his mouth so he wouldn’t bite his tongue off.’
‘I think that’s for eh-eh-hepileptics.’
‘Oh. Yeah, I guess you’re right.’
‘He w– won’t have a c– c– convulsion, anyway,’ Bill said. ‘That m– m– medicine will f– f i x h i m right up. Luh-Luh-Look.’
Eddie’s labored breathing had eased. He opened his eyes and looked up at them.
‘Thanks, Bill,’ he said. ‘That one was a real pisswah.’
‘I guess it started when they creamed your nose, huh?’ Ben asked.
Eddie laughed ruefully, stood up, and stuck the aspirator in his back pocket. ‘Wasn’t even thinking about my nose. Was thinking about my mom.’
‘Yeah? Really?’ Ben sounded surprised, but his hand went to the rags of his sweatshirt and began fiddling there nervously.
‘She’s gonna take one look at the blood on my shirt and have me down to the Mergency Room at Derry Home in about five seconds.’
‘Why?’ Ben asked. ‘It stopped, didn’t it? Gee, I remember this kid I was in kindergarten with, Scooter Morgan, and he got a bloody nose when he fell off the monkey bars. They took him to the Mergency Room, but only because it kept bleeding.’
‘Yeah?’ Bill asked, interested. ‘Did he d-d-die?’
‘No, but he was out of school a week.’
‘It doesn’t matter if it stopped or not,’ Eddie said gloomily. ‘She’ll take me anyway. She’ll think it’s broken and I go t pieces of bone sticking in my brain, or something.’
‘C-C-Can you get bones in your buh-buh-brain ?’ Bill asked. This was turning into the most interesting conversation he’d had in weeks.
‘I don’t know. If you listen to my mother, you can get anything.’ Eddie turned to Ben again. ‘She takes me down to the Mergency Room about once or twice a month. I hate that place. There was this orderly once? He told her they oughtta make her pay rent. She was really PO’d.’
‘Wow,’ Ben said. He thought Eddie’s mother must be really weird. He was unconscious of the fact that now both of his hands were fiddling in the remains of his sweatshirt. ‘Why don’t you just say no? Say something like «Hey Ma, I feel all right, I just want to stay home and watch Sea Hunt.» Like that.’
‘Awww,’ Eddie said uncomfortably, and said no more.
‘You’re Ben H-H-H-Hanscom, r-right?’ Bill asked.
‘Yeah. You’re Bill Denbrough.’
‘Yuh-Yes. And this is Eh-Eh –Eh –heh-Eh –Eh — ‘
‘Eddie Kaspbrak,’ Eddie said. ‘I hate it when yo u stutter my name, Bill. You sound like Elmer Fudd.’
‘Suh-horry.’
‘Well, I’m pleased to meet you both,’ Ben said. It came out sounding prissy and a little lame. A silence fell amid the three of them. It was not an entirely uncomfortable silence. In it they became friends.
‘Why were those