"I know I know. She flipped the car with her mind. I get it. It was totally cool." Will Byers had heard the stories about Eleven so many time he sometimes forgot that he had never met her, so vivid were the memories his friends shared with him.
"I know you weren't there Will but it was so cool." Mike said. He talked of Eleven more than the rest of the boys. Everyone knew that he liked her. Even Mike knew that he liked her, but until Mike admitted it out loud it was understood that no one was to speak of it. "Does it bother you that we talk about her too much?"
"No." Will lied. He didn't hate the talk of Eleven, but he had never met her either so he didn't share the others enthusiasm for talking about her. He admitted to himself that he was a little jealous of Eleven. He thought when he came back everything would be about him and it felt like she was stealing his thunder. He was the kid who was never special and just when he thought he could be special along came someone who was so remarkable that poor ordinary Will was just Will again.
"My favourite still has to be when she made Troy piss his pants in front of the whole school." Dustin said. His front teeth were just starting to come in but he still had a lisp. It was worse when he was smiling as he was now and it made him hard to understand if you weren't around him all the time and used to how it sounded.
"I would have liked to have seen that." Will admitted. None of the boys hated Troy more that Will and to have seen him humiliated like that would have been fantastic. "I would have thought your favourite was watching her brake Troy's arm so he wouldn't cut your face open"
"That was pretty cool too. You can bet Troy won't bother us much anymore." Dustin replied. "Yep. Eleven was pretty special."
Will could admit to himself that Eleven was pretty special, but he was special too, just Ina way that scared him. He still had not told the others that he could still see the upside down sometimes. Will had no idea when or why he was able to see the upside down, it would be so brief sometimes that he was not sure himself if he had seen it. Other times it was for a minute or two and there was no denying it's presence. Luckily he had always been alone when it happened so he never had to explain why he was so scared, it never got easier. Every time he saw the upside down all of the memories of his time trapped there came rushing back. It was the most horrible experience of his life, and he was being forced to relive it time and again. He wanted to tell his friends about it but did not know how to start. Deep down inside he was afraid that maybe he was crazy and if everyone found out they would send him away.
Will was lost in thought and did not hear Lucas sneaking up behind him. The other boys saw what Lucas was doing and tried their best not to let it show on their faces, it didn't matter because Will wasn't paying attention anyway.
"Aaahhhh!" Lucas yelled as he jumped up behind Will and grabbed his shoulders. Will instantly found himself in the upside down again. It was a rotting, stinking copy of Mike's basement. It was cold and lifeless like it always was but something felt different. "What the hell!?" Lucas yelled. Will realized that Lucas was still holding onto his shoulders and was there with him in the upside down.
As suddenly as it had appeared the upside down was gone and Will and Lucas were back in Mike's basement. "What the HELL was that!?" Lucas screamed.
"You disappeared!" Dustin yelled. "You disappeared! You disappeared!"
"How did you do that!?" Mike yelled.
"What the hell was that!?" Lucas yelled.
Everyone was yelling. Hands on heads and running around in chaos. The only person not freaking out was Will, sitting in his seat, shoulders hunched, and head down.
Finally Mike got control of himself and noticed Will different that all the rest. "Will do you know what just happened? Do you know what is going on? How did you go invisible? And how did you make it happen to Lucas too?"
Will kept staring at the ground. Quietly, as though if he said it too loud it would happen again, he explained. "That was the upside down."
"I didn't see anything!" Dustin was still way to excited to speak calmly "I just saw you sitting there one second, then Lucas scared you, and then both of you were gone, just gone.
"Oh I saw something all right!" Lucas yelled back. He was much more agitated than the others and was shaking so much his voice quivered. "I saw you basement Mike but it was dark and rotten and stinking and felt like death and the air was thick and oily and it all felt wrong."
"That is the upside down. It is like here... but not." Will said and then was quiet.
"So has this happened to you before?" Mike asked.
"A lot. Sometimes everyday some times it will be a week before it happens again. I can't control when it happens or for how long. It just happens."
Everyone say still. Stunned. Finally Will said "You saw it too Lucas? So that means it's not all in my head."
"I wish it was all in your head and that you would keep it there. I had no idea the upside down was like that. How did you stand being there for so long Will. It would have killed me for sure." Lucas said.
"I am just happy that I am not crazy." Will was relived that he could talk to his friends about the upside down.
"But wait." Dustin was starting to get control of himself better. "We were all here when it happened. Why didn't we all see it?"
Mike's head shot up like he just realized something important. "Lucas was touching Will. The rest of us were here but only Lucas was touching him."
"In that case I am never touching you again Will. No offence." Lucas said.
"I don't blame you Lucas. I hate seeing the upside down. It scares me."
"I don't think you just SAW the upside down. I think you were actually there. Or else why did you disappear? Will you must somehow have brought back the ability to travel between this world and the upside down when you came back." Mike said.
"Like a gateway. But a gateway that isn't a place but a person." Dustin said. He always seemed to get the grasp of things quickly. "You remember how the creature was able to open a gateway in a wall or ceiling. Well maybe Will can open one with his mind. Wow Will that is cool!"
"Cool?! How is that cool? I can travel randomly to another dimension that only has one inhabitant that has a whole head of jaws and it wants to eat you. And even if it doesn't find you the whole place is dying and the air is killing you. And you think that is cool?!"
"We can't choose our powers Will. We just choose how to use them." Dustin sounded philosophical.
"But that is the point Dustin. I don't know how to use my powers. I don't even think they are powers. More like a curse."
"But if you could learn how to control it. Then maybe at least you could keep it from happening when you aren't expecting it." Mike reasoned. "Maybe we could find a way to use them. You never know."
The next few weeks were torture on Will. For the first week each of the boys would take turns jumping out and trying to scare Will into the upside down. That usually worked but I also meant that someone had to go with him. Will started to find that he was less and less scared of the upside down if one of the other boys went with him, a feeling not shared by Mike and Lucas. Dustin however did not seem as bothered by the experience.
"You know it is not so bad. In the upside down." Dustin said one day after he and Will had spent about 5 min walking around the upside down version of the school AV club room.
"I think that place is starting to mess up your mind Dustin." Lucas said. He still had not fully recovered from his initial unexpected visit to the upside down.
"No I am serious. We haven't seen the creature in months. Sure it stinks and you don't want to touch anything but I am starting to see some real possibilities with this."
"Like what?" Will asked. He still didn't want to spend time in the upside down but having someone along made it better.
"Well what do we know about the upside down?" Dustin continued. "It is where the creature lives, or lived if he really is gone. It stinks. It's cold. And the longer you stay there the more you die."
"You are not selling me on the possibilities yet Dustin." Lucas said.
"I'm not done yet. Sure there are a lot of bad things about it but there is one good thing that I can think of. When we go there we disappear from this world and where ever we leave the upside down that is where we reappear in this world." Dustin smiled but the faces of the other boys told him that they didn't grasp the importance of what he was saying.
"Oh come on guys think about it. We can use the upside down to go anywhere we want. There is nothing that can keep us out. We just go into the upside down to get in and then come back out and we are golden."
"So what?" Lucas asked. "What are we going to do then? You want to rob a bank or something?"
"No. Better. Much better. We are going after the chocolate pudding."
The four boys met at lunch in the AV room. The plan was simple. Mike and Lucas would distract the lunch lady while Dustin and Will got past her using the upside down. It was easy to decide who was to do what. Will had to go to the upside down because he was the only one who could, Lucas was still scared of it so he was out, Mike was the talker, and it was Dustin's idea so he got chosen to go with Will. They had finally figured out that they didn't need to scare Will into the upside down. He figured it was the thought of fear that got him there so he could get into the upside down whenever he wanted, the problem was staying there. He still just snapped back into the regular world at random. So far it had not been a problem but on an operation like this it could prove disastrous.
"Just try and stay scared the whole time Will." Dustin suggested.
"I don't think that is the problem." Will smiled back weakly. "I am always scared when I am in there. It must be something else."
"Don't worry about that now. We have to focus. Now let's review the plan." Mike had build a model of the school on the desk in front of the HAM radio. There were little lego men for the lunch lady and teachers that they were likely to encounter. Each of the boys were represented by a plastic green army man. "Me and Lucas will go to the cafeteria at 12:10, give us five minutes to get into an argument about peas being cold to occupy the staff here." He pointed at a crude rectangle of cardboard that must have been the cafeteria. "Then Will and Dustin with enter the upside down at 12:15, leaving the AV room and making their way to the kitchen entrance of the cafeteria here." Again he pointed at the model, this time moving two plastic green army men to a cut out section of the cardboard cafeteria.
"Hey why do you always make me be the radio man?" Dustin asked. "He is the stupidest of all the little green army men. He has to weapon, he can't do anything, and he is standing in that funny bow legged position that makes him fall over all the time."
"Focus Dustin we don't have much time." Lucas said.
"Easy for you to say, you are always the sniper. Snipers are cool."
Mike took control of the meeting again. "Like I was saying, 12:15 you leave AV room and are at the kitchen door by 12:18, you enter and make your way to the hallway behind the fridge. Now this is where it is tricky. You will have to come back from the upside down in that hallway and pray that no one is there. If Lucas and I are making a big enough scene then you should be clear." Mike then moved the two army men representing Will and Dustin to a match box standing on its end. "You then move to the fridge and get as much pudding as you can get into your backpacks in thirty-seconds." Mike pointed a finger at Dustin for effect. "Stick to the 30 seconds, we can't risk getting caught with our hands in the cookie jar."
"Why are you pointing at me?" Dustin said.
"Because I can trust Will to stick to the plan. I am not sure you can stick to a time line when you are looking at that tin canned temptation." Mike replied.
"Ouch Mike. You make me sound like the fat kid."
"You are the fat kid." Lucas said. Will giggled and Dustin looked shocked. Then he nodded his head in agreement and Mike continued with the briefing.
"By 12:19 you should be back into the hallway behind the fridge. From there you are back into the upside down and as fast as you can back to the AV room. Lucas and I will meet you there." Mike moved all the green army men back to where they had been at the start of the briefing. "Any questions?" Everyone shook their heads no. "Then let's do this." All four boys put their right hands into the canter of the circle, one on top of each other. Eyes met eyes, palms were sweaty, and Will was shaking. No wonder his was the worst part of all. They were committed and it was time.
The plan went almost perfectly. Dustin took 45 seconds instead of 30. Mike and Lucas were a bit too loud with their protestations of the temperature of the lunch room peas, it caught the attention of one teacher too many and they had both been given detention. If that was all that had happened it would have still been an excellent mission. There was one more thing that fouled the plan. When Will and Dustin got back to the AV room, and Will brought them back from the upside down Dustin was elated, and Will was terrified.
"What is wrong Will, that went perfectly? Look at how much Chocolate pudding we got. This can feed us for weeks." Dustin almost yelled.
"I saw someone else in the upside down. Someone was watching us."
"Who? Was it the creature?" Dustin was concerned.
Mike and Lucas got back to the room then, closing the door behind them they tried to catch up with the conversation. "What did you say?" Lucas asked. "You saw someone in the upside down?"
"I think so. It was hard to tell. Everything in the upside down is all rotting and gross but it is still there. This was kind of wispy, like a ghost, but not a ghost." Will sounded confused.
"What do you mean? Was it a ghost?" Lucas asked. One more reason not to go back to the upside down for him.
"I don't think it was a ghost. It was a person and she was trying to talk to me but I couldn't hear anything. She was reaching at me and her lips were moving but I don't know who she was." Will explained.
"What did she look like?" Lucas asked.
"It was hard to tell. It was like she was there, but not there. Kind of a presence that was in between. She was our age, but not a student here or I would have recognized her. She had these intense eyes, and her hair was really short. Like in the military."
"Eleven!" Mike screamed.