It

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?’
‘I saw them, all right,’ Ben gasped. ‘And I never want to see them again.’
This sent them off into another storm of hysterical laughter. Richie kept expecting Henry’s gang to come around the corner onto Court Street and take after them again, police station or not. Still, he could not stop laughing. Beverly was right. It had been great.
‘The Losers’ Club Gets Off A Good One!’ Richie yelled exuberantly. ‘Wacka-wacka-wacka!’ He cupped his hands around his mouth and put on his Ben Bernie Voice: ‘YOW-zaYOW-za YOWZA, childrens!’
A cop poked his head out of an open second-floor window and shouted: ‘You kids get out of here! Right now! Take a walk!’
Richie opened his mouth to say something brilliant — quite possibly in his brand– n e w I r i s h Cop Voice — and Ben kicked his foot. ‘Shut up, Richie,’ he said, an d promptly had trouble believing that he had said such a thing.
‘Right, Richie,’ Bev said, looking at him fondly. ‘Beep-beep.’
‘Okay,’ Richie said. ‘What do you guys want to do? Wanna go find Henry Bowers and ask him if he wants to work it out over a game of Monopoly?’
‘Bite your tongue,’ Bev said.
‘Huh? What does that mean?’
‘Never mind,’ Bev said. ‘Some guys are so ignorant.’
Hesitantly, blushing furiously, Ben asked: ‘Did that guy hurt your hair, Beverly?’
She smiled at him gently, and in that moment she became sure of something she had only guessed at before — that it had been Ben Hanscom who had sent her the postcard with the beautiful little haiku on it. ‘No, it wasn’t bad,’ she said.
‘Let’s go down in the Barrens,’ Richie proposed.
And so that was where they went . . . or where they escaped. Richie would think later that it set a pattern for the rest of the summer. The Barrens had become their place. Beverly, like Ben on the day of his first encounter with the big boys, had never been down there before. She walked between Richie and Ben as the three of them moved single-file down the path. Her skirt twitched prettily, and looking at her, Ben was aware of waves of feeling, as powerful as stomach cramps. She