It

water can wash them away, you fill up the space between them with rocks and sand — ‘
‘Wuh-Wuh-We,’ Bill said.
‘Huh?’
‘Wuh-We do it.’
‘Oh,’ Ben said, feeling (and looking, he was sure) extremely stupid. But he didn’t care if he looked stupid, because he suddenly felt very happy. He couldn’t even remember the last time he felt this happy. ‘Yeah. We. Anyway, if you — we — fill up the space in between with rocks and stuff, it’ll stay. The upstream board will lean back against the rocks and dirt as the
water piles up. The second board would tilt back and wash away after awhile, I guess, but if we had a third board . . . well, look.’
He drew in the dirt with a stick. Bill and Eddie Kaspbrak leaned over and studied this little drawing with sober interest:
‘You ever built a dam before?’ Eddie asked. His tone was respectful, almost awed.
‘Nope.’
‘Then h-h-how do you know this’ll w-w-work?’
Ben looked at Bill, puzzled. ‘Sure it will,’ he said. ‘Why wouldn’t it?’
‘But h-how do you nuh-nuh-know ?’ Bill asked. Ben recognize d the tone of the question as one not of sarcastic disbelief but honest interest. ‘H-How can y-you tell?’
‘I just know,’ Ben said. He looked down at his drawing in the dirt again as if to confirm it to himself. He had never seen a cofferdam in his life , either in diagram or in fact, and had no idea that he had just drawn a pretty fair representation of one.
‘O-Okay,’ Bill said, and clapped Ben on the back. ‘S-See you tuh-huh –morrow.’
‘What time?’
‘M-Me and Eh-Eddie’ll g-get here by eh-eh-eig ht-th-thirty or so — ‘
‘If me and my mom aren’t still waiting at the Mergency Room,’ Eddie said, and sighed.
‘I’ll bring some boards,’ Ben said. ‘This old guy on the next block’s got a bunch of ’em. I’ll hawk a few.’
‘Bring some supplies, too,’ Eddie said. ‘Stuff to eat. You know, like san-widges, Ring –Dings, stuff like that.’
‘Okay.’
‘You g-g-got any guh-guh –guns?’
‘I got my Daisy air rifle,’ Ben said. ‘My mom gave it to me for Christmas, but she gets mad if I shoot it off in the house.’
‘B-Bring it d-d-down,’ Bill said. ‘We’ll play g-guns, maybe.’
‘Okay,’ Ben said happily. ‘Listen, I got to split for home, you guys.’
‘Uh-Us, too,’ Bill said.
The three of them left the Barrens together. Ben helped Bill push Silver up the embankment. Eddie trailed behind them, wheezing again and looking unhappily at his blood-spotted shirt.
Bill said goodbye and then pedaled off, shouting ‘Hi-yo Silver, AWAYYY!’ at the top of his lungs.
‘That’s a gigantic bike,’ Ben said.
‘Bet your fur,’ Eddie said. He had taken another gulp from his aspirator and was breathing normally again. ‘He rides me double sometimes on the back. Goes so fast it just about scares the crap outta me. He’s a good man, Bill is.’ He said this last in an offhand way, but his eyes said something more emphatic. They were worshipful. ‘You know about what happened to his brother, don’t you?’
‘No — what about him?’
‘Got killed last fail. Some guy killed him. Pulled one of his arms right off, just like pulli n g a wing off n a fly.’
‘Jeezum-crow !’
‘Bill, he used to only stutter a little. Now it’s really bad. Did you notice that he stutters?’
‘Well . . . a little.’
‘But his brains don’t stutter — get what I mean?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Anyway, I just told you because if you want Bill to be your friend, it’s better not to talk to him about his little brother. Don’t ask him questions or anythin. He’s all frigged up about it.’
‘Man, I would be, too,’ Ben said. He remembered now, vaguely, about the little kid who had been killed the previous fall. He wondered if his mother had been thinking about George Denbrough when she gave him the watch he now wore, or only about the more recent killings. ‘Did it happen right after the big flood?’
‘Yeah.’
Th ey had reached the corner of Kansas and Jackson, where they would have to split up. Kids ran here and there, playing tag and throwing baseballs. One dorky little kid in big blue shorts went trotting self-importantly past Ben and Eddie, wearing a Davy Crockett coonskin backward so that the tail hung down between his eyes. He was rolling a Hula Hoop and yelling ‘Hoop-tag, you guys! Hoop-tag, wanna?’
The two bigger boys looked after him, amused, and then Eddie said: ‘Well, I gotta go.’
‘Wait a sec,’ Ben said. ‘I got an idea, if you really don’t want to go to the Mergency Room.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Eddie looked at Ben, doubtful but wanting to hope.
‘You got a nickel?’
‘I got a dime. So what?’
Ben eyed the drying maroon splotches