It

in the sun. Eddie looked at these drying stones with mild wonder . . . and that weird other feeling. They had done this. They. He saw a frog hopping along and thought maybe old Mr Froggy was wondering just where the water had gone. Eddie laughed out loud.
Ben was neatly stowing his empty wrappers in the lunchbag he had brought. Both Eddie and Bill had been amazed by the size of the repast Ben had laid out with businesslike efficiency: two PB&J sandwiches, one baloney sandwich, a hardcooked egg (complete with a pinch of salt twisted up in a small piece of waxed paper), two fig-bars, three large chocolate chip cookies, and a Ring-Ding.
‘What did your ma say when she saw how bad you got racked?’ Eddie asked him.
‘Hmmmm?’ Ben looked up from the spreading pool of water behind the dam and belched gently against the back of his hand. ‘Oh! Well, I knew she’d be grocery-shopping yesterday afternoon, so I was able to beat her home. I took a bath and washed my hair. Then I threw away the jeans and the sweatshirt I was wearing. I don’t know if she’ll notice they’re gone or
not. Probably not the sweatshirt, I got lots of sweatshirts, but I guess I ought to buy myself a new pair of jeans before she gets nosing through my drawers.’
The thought of wasting his money on such a nonessential item cast momentary gloom across Ben’s face.
‘W-W-What about the way yuh-you w-were b-bruised up?’
‘I told her I was so excited to be out of school that I ran out the door and fell down the steps,’ Ben said, and looked both amazed and a little hurt when Eddie and Bill began laughing. Bill, who had been chowing up a piece of his mother’s devil’s food cake, blew out a brown jet of crumbs and then had a coughing fit. Eddie, still howling, clapped him on the back.
‘Well, I almost did fall down the steps,’ Ben said. ‘Only it was because Victor Criss pushed me, not because I was running.’
‘I’d be as h-hot as a tuh-tuh –tamale in a swuh-heatshirt like that,’ Bill said, finishing the last bite of his cake.
Ben hesitated. For a moment it seemed he would say nothing. ‘It’s better when you’re fat,’ he said finally. ‘Sweatshirts, I mean.’
‘Because of your gut?’ Eddie asked.
Bill snorted. ‘Because of your tih-tih-tih — ‘
‘Yeah, my tits. So what?’
‘Yeah,’ Bill said mildly. ‘S-So what?’
There was a moment of awkward silence and then Eddie said, ‘Look how dark the water’s getting when it goes around that side of the dam.’
‘Oh, cripes!’ Ben shot to his feet. ‘Current’s pulling out the fill! Jeez, I wish we had cement!’
The damage was quickly repaired, but even Eddie could see what would happen without someone there to almost constantly shovel in fresh fill: erosion would eventually cause the upstream board to collapse against the downstream board, and then everything would fall over.
‘We can shore up the sides,’ Ben said. That won’t stop the erosion, but it’ll slow it down.’
‘If we use sand and mud, won’t it just go on washing away?’ Eddie asked.
‘We’ll use chunks of sod.’
Bill nodded, smiled, and made an O with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. ‘Let’s g-g-go. I’ll d-dig em and y-you sh-show me where to p-put em ih-in, Big Ben.’
From behind them a stridently cheery voice called: ‘My Gawd, someone put the Y– pool down in the Barrens, bellybutton lint and all!’
Eddie turned, noticing the way Ben tightened up at the sound of a strange voice, the way his lips thinned. Standing above them and aways upstream, on the path Ben had crossed the day before, were Richie Tozier and Stanley Uris.
Richie came bopping down to the stream, glanced at Ben with some interest, and then pinched Eddie’s check.
‘Don’t do that! I hate it when you do that, Richie.’
‘Ah, you love it, Eds,’ Richie said, and beamed at him. ‘So what do you say? You havin any good chucks, or what?’
5
The five of them knocked off around four o’clock. They sat much higher on the bank — the place where Bill, Ben, and Eddie had eaten lunch was now underwater — and stared down at their handiwork. Even Ben found it a little difficult to believe. He felt a sense of tired accomplishment which was mixed with uneasy fright. He found himself thinking of Fantasia,
and how Mickey Mouse had known enough to get the brooms started . . . but not enough to make them stop.
‘Fucking incredible,’ Richie Tozier said softly, and pushed his glasses up on his nose.
Eddie glanced over at him, but Richie was not doing one of his numbers now; his face was thoughtful, almost solemn.
On the far side of the stream, where the land first rose and then tilted shallowly downhill, they had created a new piece of bogland. Bracken and holly bushes stood in a foot of water.