It

is a souvenir of my childhood. It’s late, but don’t they say better late than never?’
Carole Banner smiled, and the smile changed her pretty face into one that was beautiful. ‘I think that’s very sweet,’ she said. ‘If you’d like to browse for ten or fifteen minutes, I’ll have the card made up for you when you come back to the desk.’
Ben grinned a little. ‘I guess there’ll be a fee,’ he said. ‘Out-of-towner and all.’
‘Bid you have a card when you were a boy?’
‘I sure did.’ Ben smiled. ‘Except for my friends, I guess that library card was the most important — ‘
‘Ben, would you come up here?’ a voice called suddenly, cutting across the library hush like a scalpel.
He turned around, jumping guiltily the way people do when someone shouts in a library. He saw no one he knew . . . and realized a moment later that no one had looked up or shown any sign of surprise or annoyance. The old men still read their copies of the Berry News, the Boston Globe, National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report. At the tables in the Reference Room, tw o high –school girls still had their heads together over a stack of papers and a pile of file-cards. Several browsers went on looking through the books on the shelves marked CURRENT FICTION — SEVEN –DAY-LOAN . An old man in a ridiculous driving –cap, a cold pipe clenched between his teeth, went on leafing through a folio of Luis de Vargas’ sketches.
He turned back to the young woman, who was looking at him, puzzled.
‘Is anything wrong?’
‘No,’ Ben said, smiling. ‘I thought I heard something. I guess I’m more jet-lagged than I thought. What were you saying?’
‘Well, actually you were saying. But I was about to add that if you had a card when you were a resident, your name will still be in the files,’ she said. ‘We keep everything on microfiche now. Some change from when you were a kid here, I guess.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A lot of things have changed in Derry . . . but a lot of things also seem to have remained the same.’
‘Anyway, I can just look you up and give you a renewal card. No charge.’
‘That’s great,’ Ben said, and before he could add thanks the voice cut through the library’s sacramental silence again, louder now, ominously jolly: ‘Come on tip, Ben! Come on up, youfat little fuck! This Is Your Life, Ben Hanscom!’
Ben cleared his throat. ‘I appreciate it,’ he said.
‘Don’t mention it.’ She cocked her head at him. ‘Has it gotten warm outside?’
‘A little,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘You’re — ‘
‘Ben Hanscom did it!’ the voice screamed. It was coming from above — coming from the stacks. ‘Ben Hanscom killed the children! Get him! Grab him!’
‘ — perspiring,’ she finished.
‘Am I?’ he said idiotically.
‘I’ll have this made up right away,’ she said.
‘Thank you.’
She headed for the old Royal typewriter at the corner of her desk.
Ben walked slowly away, his heart a thudding drum in his chest. Yes, he was sweating; he could feel it trickling down from his forehead, his armpits, matting the hair on his chest. He looked up and saw Pennywise the Clown standing at the top of the lefthand staircase, looking down at him. His face was white with greasepaint. His mouth bled lipstick in a killer’s grin. There were empty sockets where his eyes should have been. He held a bunch of balloons in one hand and a book in the other.
Not he, Ben thought. It. I am standing here in the middle of the Derry Public Library’s rotunda on a late-spring afternoon in 1985, I am a grown man, and I am face to face with my childhood’s greatest nightmare. I am face to face with It.
‘Come on up, Ben,’ Pennywise called down. ‘I won’t hurt you. I’ve got a book for you! A book . . . and a balloon! Come on up!’
Ben opened his mouth to call back, You’re insane if you think I’m going up there, and suddenly realized that if he did that, everyone he re would be looking at him, everyone here would be thinking, Who is that crazyman?
‘Oh, I know you can’t answer,’ Pennywise called down, and giggled. ‘Almost fooled you there for a minute, though, didn’t I? «Pardon me, sir, do you have