It

Main and Center Streets, and came upon Ben Hanscom, Eddie Kaspbrak, and a boy named Bradley Donovan pitching pennies. ‘Hi, Bev!’ Eddie said. ‘You get any nightmares from those movies?’ ‘Nope,’ Beverly said, squatting down to watch the game. ‘How’d you know about that?’ ‘Haystack told me,’ Eddie said, jerking a thumb at Ben, who was blushing wildly for no good reason Beverly could see.
‘What movieth?’ Bradley asked, and now Beverly recognized him: he had come down to the Barrens a week ago with Bill Denbrough. They had a speech class together in Bangor.
Beverly more or less dismissed him from her mind. If asked, she might have said he seemed somehow less important than Ben and Eddie — less there.
‘Couple of creature features,’ she said to him, and duck-walked closer until she was between Ben and Eddie. ‘You pitchin?’
‘Yes,’ Ben said. He looked at her quickly, then looked away.
‘Who’s winning?’
‘Eddie,’ Ben said. ‘Eddie’s real good.’
She looked at Eddie, who polished his nails solemnly on the front of his shirt and then giggled.
‘Can I play?’
‘Okay with me,’ Eddie said. ‘You got pence?’
She felt in her pocket and brought out three.
‘Jeez, how do you dare to go out of the house with such a wad?’ Eddie asked. ‘I’d be scared.’
Ben and Bradley Donovan laughed.
‘Girls can be brave, too,’ Beverly said gravely, and a moment later they were all laughing.
Bradley pitched first, then Ben, then Beverly. Because he was winning, Eddie had lasties. They tossed the pennies toward the back wall of the Center Street Drug Store. Sometimes they landed short, sometimes they struck and bounced back. At the end of each round the shooter with the penny closest to the wall collected all four pennies. Five minutes later, Beverly had twenty-four cents. She had lost only a single round.
‘Girlth cheat!’ Bradley said, disgusted, and got up to go. His good humor was gone, and he looked at Beverly with both anger and humiliation. ‘Girlth thouldn’t be allowed to — ‘
Ben bounced to his feet. It was awesome to watch Ben Hanscom bounce. Take that back!’
Bradley looked at Ben, his mouth open.’What?’
Take it back! She didn’t cheat!’
Bradley looked from Ben to Eddie to Beverly, who was still on her knees. Then he looked back at Ben again. ‘You want a fat lip to math the reth of you, athhole?’
‘Sure,’ Ben said, and a grin suddenly crossed his face. Something in its quality caused Bradley to take a surprised, uneasy step backward. Perhaps what he saw in that grin was the simple fact that after tangling with Henry Bowers and coming out ahead not once but twice, Ben Hanscom was not about to be terrorized by skinny old Bradley Donovan (who had warts all over his hands as well as that cataclysmic lisp).
‘Yeah, and then you all gang up on me,’ Bradley said, taking another step backward. His voice had picked up an uncertain waver, and tears stood out in his eyes. ‘All a bunth of cheaterth!’
‘You just take back what you said about her,’ Ben said.
‘Never mind, Ben,’ Beverly said. She held out a handful of coppers to Bradley. Take what’s yours. I wasn’t playing for keepsies anyway.’
Tears of humiliation spilled over Bradley’s lower lashes. He struck the pennies from Beverly’s hand and ran for the Center Street end of Richard’s Alley. The others stood looking at him, open-mouthed. With safety within reach, Bradley turned around and shouted: ‘You’re jutht a little bith, that’th all! Cheater! Cheater! Your mother’th a whorel’
Beverly gasped. Ben ran up the alley toward Bradley and succeeded in doing no more than tripping over an empty crate and falling down. Bradley was gone, and Ben knew better than to believe he could ever catch him. He turned toward Beverly instead to see if she was all right. That word had shocked him as much as it had her.
She saw the concern in his face. She opened her mouth to say she was okay, not to worry, sticks-and –stones-will-break-my –bones-but –names-will-never –hurt-me . . . and that odd question her mother had asked
(does he ever touch you)
recurred. Odd question, yes — simple yet nonsensical, full of somehow ominous undertones, murky as old coffee. Instead of saying that names would never hurt her, she burst into tears.
Eddie looked at her uncomfortably, took his aspirator from his pants pocket, and sucked on it. Then he bent down and began picking up the scattered pennies. There was a fussy, careful expression on his face as he did this.
Ben moved toward her instinctively, wanting to hug and give comfort, and then stopped. She was too pretty. In the face of that prettiness he felt helpless.
‘Cheer up,’