It

dry toast. She was trying to lose weight again. This is blackmail, I just hope you know that.’
‘Yes, dear, I know that,’ his mother said. ‘There’s egg on your chin.’
Richie wiped the egg off his chin. ‘Three bucks if I have it all done when you get home tonight?’ he asked the newspaper.
His father’s eyes appeared again briefly.’Two-fifty.’
‘Oh, man,’ Richie said. ‘You and Jack Benny.’
‘My idol,’ Went said from behind the paper. ‘Make up your mind, Richie. I want to read these box scores.’
‘Deal,’ Richie said, and sighed. When your folks had you by the balls, they really knew how to squeeze. It was pretty chuckalicious, when you thought it over. As he mowed, he practiced his Voices.
7
He finished — front, back, and sides — by three o’clock Friday afternoon, and began Saturday with two dollars and fifty cents in his jeans. Pretty damn near a fortune. He called Bill up, but Bill told him glumly that he had to go up to Bangor and take some kind of speech-therapy test.
Richie sympathized and then added in his best Stuttering Bill Voice: ‘G-G-G i v e em h– h-hell, Buh-Buh-Big Bih-Bill.’
‘Your f-f-face and my buh –buh –butt, T-T-Tozier,’ Bill said, and hung up.
He called Eddie Kaspbrak next, but Eddie sounded even more depressed than Bill — his mother had gotten them each a full-day bus –pass, he said, and they were going to visit Eddie’s aunts in Haven and Bangor and Hampden. All three of them were fat, like Mrs Kaspbrak, and all three of them were single.
‘They’ll all pinch my cheek and tell me how much I’ve grown,’ Eddie said.
‘That’s cause they know how cute you are, Eds — just like me. I saw what a cutie you were the first time I met you.’
‘Sometimes you’re really a turd, Richie.’
‘It takes one to know one, Eds, and you know em all. You gonna be down in the Barrens next week?’
‘I guess so, if you guys are. Want to play guns?’
‘Maybe. But . . . I think me and Big Bill have got something to tell you.’
‘What?’
‘It’s really Bill’s story, I guess. I’ll see you. Enjoy your aunts.’
‘Very funny.’
His third call was to Stan the Man, but Stan was in dutch with his folks for breaking their picture window. He had been playing flying-saucer with a pie –plate and it took a bad bank. Kee-rash. He had to do chores all weekend, and probably next weekend, too. Richie commiserated and then asked Stan if he would be coming down to the Barrens next week. Stan said he guessed so, if his father didn’t decide to ground him, or something.
‘Jeez, Stan, it was just a window,’ Richie said.
‘Yeah, but a big one,’ Stan said, and hung up.
Richie started to leave the living room, then thought of Ben Hanscom. He thumbed through the telephone book and found a listing for an Arlene Hanscom. Since she was the only lady Hanscom among the four listed, Richie figured it had to be Ben’s number and called.
‘I’d like to go, but I already spent my allowance,’ Ben said. He sounded depressed and ashamed by the admission — he had, in fact, spent it all on candy, soda, chips, and beef– jerky strips.
Richie, who was rolling in dough (and who didn’t like to go to the movies alone), said: ‘I got plenty of money. You can gimme owesies.’ wooi:’
‘Yeah? Really? You’d do that?’
‘Sure,’ Richie said, puzzled. ‘Why not?’
‘Okay!’ Ben said happily. ‘Okay, that’d be great! Two horror movies! Did you say one was a werewolf picture?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Man, I love werewolf pictures!’
‘Jeez, Haystack, don’t wet your pants.’
Ben laughed. ‘I’ll see you out in front of the Aladdin, okay?’
‘Yeah, great.’
Richie hung up and looked at the phone thoughtfully. It suddenly occurred to him that Ben Hanscom was lonely. And that in turn made him feel rather heroic. He was whistling as he ran upstairs to get some comics to read before the show.
8
The day was sunny, breezy, and cool. Richie jived along Center Street toward the Aladdin, popping his fingers and singing ‘Rockin’ Robin’ under his breath. He was feeling good. Going to the movies always made him feel good — he loved that magic world, those magic dreams. He felt sorry for anyone who had dull duties to discharge on such a day — Bill with his speech therapy, Eddie with his aunts, poor old Stan the Man who would be spending the afternoon scraping down the front-porch steps or sweeping the garage because the pie –plate he’d been throwing around swept right when it was supposed to sweep left.
Richie had his yo-yo tucked in his back pocket and now he took it out and tried again to get it to sleep. This was an ability Richie lusted to acquire, but so far, no soap. The crazy l’il fucker just wouldn’t do it. Either it went down and popped right back up or it