A/N: For the first time in literal years I'm going to make a valiant effort to write something more often than once every six months. I have an outline of the full story and a spare chapter or two written, so I'm going to set myself a deadline: one chapter every Tuesday. Harassing me in the comment section will motivate me, for the record.
As for what this is? I'm not entirely sure. If the plot of IT were a Derry Girls episode, I guess? Enjoy. I'm only vaguely familiar with what actually happens in IT, but that's probably fine.
Warnings: I mean, it's Stephen King. The blood, gore, and death you'd expect, but it's mostly offpage. A lot of mentions of pedophilia/child molestation, but none happens.
Jenny Joyce isn't at Monday morning assembly.
Erin cranes her neck to check she's not skulking in the back somewhere, but she's really gone. Aisling and the A Capella group at the front bunch up in a circle and whisper nervously to Sister Michael.
"Think she's skipping school?" Clare hisses in her ear, and Erin shakes her head.
"Jenny Joyce, skiving off? Something's wrong."
Sister Michael clears her throat, and Erin dutifully faces forward again.
"Due to an unexpected absence, today's A Capella performance will be rescheduled for next week, news that I am sure will be a disappointment to no one." Sister Michael sighs long-sufferingly. "Or perhaps the anticipation of next week's assembly merely prolongs the agony. Now get to class."
Michelle and James catch up to them halfway out the door
"Something's up, yeah?" Michelle says, not bothering with hello.
"Obviously," Erin replies "If Sister Michael didn't know about it, she's not sick or anything."
"And Jenny Joyce doesn't skive off school," Michelle says.
"We could be misjudging her," James says. "Maybe she really is skipping school."
"Shut up, James," Michelle mutters.
"Yeah, that's ridiculous," Erin adds. "So something's happened to her, obviously."
"Hello!" Aisling says brightly, and they turn around to look at her. She smiles nervously and fiddles with her glasses. "Any of you seen Jenny? Only, last week she was all excited about the performance and then she didn't even tell me she'd be gone so I'm a little worried."
"See?" Erin says, gesturing dramatically. "Obviously she got kidnapped or something." Aisling gives a little squeak and dashes off but that's not Erin's problem anymore.
"Aye, or she fell for some Prod and ran off with him," Michelle adds.
"I think it was aliens," Orla says, and Erin looks at her with disgust.
"Aliens, Orla? Really?"
"It could be," Orla says. "You know they're always taking cows –"
"And Jenny Joyce is a fucking cow," Michelle says, cackling.
Erin sighs. This is serious! Jenny Joyce has been kidnapped or sex trafficked or sold into slavery somewhere, and if it happened to her it could happen to them. Derry is full of unsavory folks who'd kidnap and sell a schoolgirl.
"What if it's not anything?" Clare says. "What if she is sick, or her family's on holiday, or even truancy?" she whispers the last word, like even saying it will get her detention.
"If she's absent for some legitimate reason, then her parents will have called the school," Erin reasons. "So Sister Michael will have a record of it."
"We break into her office and look for the records. Brill," Michelle says, and Erin beams at her.
"Exactly. If Jenny's really mixed up in something, then we'll figure it out and be heroes." If not, she still skived off and then Erin will know it. That's a moral victory over stuck-up perfect Jenny Joyce, if not an actual victory.
…
"I don't think we should be doing this," Clare says for the fourth time. "I mean, it's breaking and entering, girls! We could get arrested! Or worse, detention!"
"For fuck's sake, Clare, stop whining," Michelle says. She's fishing around in the lock with a hairpin because she saw it in a movie once and that apparently makes her an expert. She's the only one who had the hairpin, so none of them could really contradict her.
"Clare, something terrible has happened to Jenny Joyce," Erin says. She has that look on her face like an angry cow, that means she won't listen to anyone telling her no. "And we need to find out what happened to protect ourselves."
"Ta-da!" Michelle crows as the door swings open. "Told ye I could do it."
"I didn't say you couldn't –" James starts, and she rolls her eyes and drags him through the door.
"Come on!" Erin hisses, and Clare shakes her head determinedly. For once, she's going to stand up for herself.
"I'm not going in there, Erin, you can't make me."
"Fine, then stay and keep watch." Erin slams the door behind her, and Clare is left alone in the corridor, hopping from foot to foot nervously and wishing that she'd stood up for herself just a little bit sooner.
Heay footsteps start in the next corridor over and Clare nearly jumps out of her skin. Her forehead starts sweating.
Please, let it not be Sister Michael, please, anyone else, anyone –
It's Sister Michael, because once Clare sneezed in church and now every prayer goes unanswered. The Lord may be forgiving, but He's not that forgiving.
"Sister Michael!" she yelps, and hopes it's loud enough that the girls hear her.
"Clare," Sister Michael says, frowning. "Is there a reason you're here?"
There's a ringing in Clare's ears. Right. The girls are still in there, so she has to stall and give them a little time.
"I – I – I wanted to talk to you!" the words come out in a rush.
"What? Did you get an H2 on an exam again?" Sister Michael says. She sounds tired, which is how she always sounds, but it seems worse than usual today.
"I –"
The sweat from Clare's forehead is dripping into her eyes and stinging. She rubs at them, which makes it worse, and she feels like she might be having a heart attack. She tries to remember the symptoms.
Sister Michael, in her black habit, is looming taller and taller, or maybe Clare's legs are just turning to a puddle of jelly. Is that a heart attack symptom?
"I was thinking about becoming a nun!" she blurts out desperately, and Sister Michael raises her eyebrows.
"Clare, you're very bright, and you haven't seemed very invested in the fine points of theology. I assumed you'd be going to university, why the change?"
"It – just seemed – interesting," Clare stutters. She's never been any good at lying. Sister Michael's face changes. She looks – constipated?
"Clare, these days lesbians have better options than that. You don't have to enter an order just to be around other women."
The twisted, uncomfortable look on Sister Michael's face might be sympathy.
"What? I'm not becoming a nun because I'm gay!" Clare yelps, and Sister Michael sighs.
"My apologies, I know it's a rather delicate subject. Why don't we discuss things in my office." She reaches for the door handle.
…
"Ugh, where the hell does she keep her records?" Michelle asks, half-heartedly picking up a stack of papers and then letting them drop.
"Keep looking!" Erin snaps, pulling a book off of a shelf. It raises a cloud of dust that makes her sneeze. The records probably aren't in Theoretical Hermeneutics: Novel Perspectives on Saint Augustine's Final Works anyway.
"Ooh, this is cracker," Orla comments, holding up a rather large knife she's unearthed from somewhere, and Erin scowls at her. None of the girls are taking this seriously enough.
"Hang on, I found something," James says, and Erin rushes toward him. "Right here on her desk."
He opens the manila folder. There's a wedge of paper in it, but at the top is a newspaper clipping. The headline is Local Girl Rescued from Sewer, with a black-and-white photo below it of half a dozen kids.
Erin picks up the newspaper clipping and puts it aside, but something about the photo catches her eye. The little girl at the center looks sort of familiar. She squints at it.
"Doesn't this look a bit like Orla?"
James leans over her shoulder, his breath on her cheek, and Erin shivers a little. From annoyance, obviously. Damn English have no idea of personal space.
"Sort of, but look at the date."
June 13th, 1969.
"Orla, come here." Orla does, eyes wide. "Doesn't that look like Aunt Sarah?"
Orla frowns intently at the face Erin's pointing to.
"Nay, that doesn't look like Mummy at all. That wain's about ten years old."
Erin groans.
"Orla, don't you think it looks a little like she looked back then?" she presses.
"I don't know what she looked like back then, I wasn't born yet," Orla says, with that irritating self-satisfaction she gets when she thinks she's right.
"Girls," James says, and Erin follows to where he's pointing in the article.
Sarah McCool (center), age nine,
"Why does Sister Michael have an old news clipping about Aunt Sarah?" Erin asks.
"Fuck are you lot doing?" Michelle complains. "Am I the only one still looking for the records?"
Erin ignores her and keeps reading the article.
Sarah McCool (center), age nine, was rescued from the Derry sewer system yesterday morning. McCool was found in a disused section of the sewer, which had fallen into disrepair and had several openings to a field. McCool does not remember how she ended up in the sewer, but it is believed that she was playing in the field, fell into one of the openings, and was too short to escape via the same opening.
A group of local teenagers were nearby and describe hearing calls for help from the sewer and entering to investigate. Thomas Darragh and George Michael
Erin stops again, and squints at the photo. The stocky girl next to Aunt Sarah, with mousy brown hair and a stern expression, squints back at her.
"Sister Michael's in here too," she says, pointing at the face.
"Sister Michael?" Michelle leans over her shoulder. "Ugh, she's so – young in that photo. Gives me the creeps."
"I suppose that's why she has the clipping," James says. "If she rescued someone she'd want a memento."
The door hinges creak, and Erin screams.
"Hide!"
She ducks behind Sister Michael's desk. Michelle and James both had the same idea, and they all shove at each other for space. Erin peeks over the top of the desk at Orla, who's standing in plain sight with both arms out. Imitating a coatrack, probably.
Sister Michael sighs.
"Really, girls?"
They emerge from behind the desk, shamefaced. Sister Michael looks them up and down and sighs again. Clare peeks out from behind her.
"Clare, did you fucking rat us out?" Michelle snaps.
"No," Clare whimpers, and shrinks further back into the hallway. Sister Michael gives her a look, and Clare reluctantly scuttles into the office to stand with the rest of them.
"Girls, breaking into my office is unacceptable."
"But Jenny Joyce is –" Erin tries.
"Even if you think you have a good reason." Usually, Sister Michael would be shouting, and it's nice not to deal with that but it's also just odd. "You girls are far too young to be worrying about Jenny Joyce. Detention for a week for all of you. Yes, even you, Clare. Now get out."
They get out.
"I told you you'd get caught," Clare says with a dignified sniff, and Erin can't blame her. She was barely involved and got detention same as the rest of them, which isn't at all fair.
"What did she mean that we're too young to be worrying about Jenny Joyce?" James asks. Orla taps the side of her nose.
"Means it were fairies. They steal your youth, don't they?"
"It's not fairies," Erin snaps. "Something very bad has happened to Jenny Joyce, and Sister Michael knows what it was."
There's a silence as they all digest that. Sister Michael, their very own headmistress, involved in a plot to kidnap children.
"That sounds dangerous," Clare starts, and Erin cuts her off.
"Which is why we have to find out what's happening. To keep us safe."
"And how do we do that, exactly?" James asks. "I mean, we didn't find anything from searching her office, and she's not going to just tell us."
"We did find something." Michelle waves the newspaper clipping in the air, and Clare gives a little wail.
"Michelle, you stole from her?"
"Now we have a lead." Erin's getting into her stride, feeling a plan take shape. "Whatever this whole sewer rescue was, it's connected to Jenny Joyce somehow. We'll take the clipping and show Aunt Sarah, ask her what she remembers. The rest of ye, start poking around and asking questions. Figure out if other people are going missing."
"Why're we going to all this trouble?" Michelle asks. "I mean, it's Jenny Joyce."
Erin wrinkles her nose at the memory of Jenny Joyce's simpering voice.
"Aye, but it's more than just her. We're all in danger."