Chapter 5: Curiosity Voyage
"All right everyone, welcome to 9th Grade Biology," The new science teacher announces to the classroom of angsty adolescents. Most were chatting about their summers until the biology teacher clears his throat. The new kids from Derry wait next to the door with their administration slips in hand. "I'm Mr. Rolland. I know most of you are from Hawkins Middle School so I won't bother with ice breakers, but, before we set sail once again, I would still like to introduce you to a few new passengers who've come all the way from Derry, Maine to join us on our journey. I have Bill Denbrough,"
Mike, Dustin, Will, Lucas and Max all roll their eyes. Clearly, this teacher is trying to emulate Mr. Clarke from middle school and the way this teacher is presenting himself, they miss him immensely.
The skinny and stuttering teen walks to the front of the room, his knees buckling slightly at being introduced in front of a bunch of strangers. He swallows hard, clinging to his books rather tightly.
"H-Hi," is all the kid can manage.
A couple of kids in the back snicker slightly at Bill's stuttering, but Mr. Rolland frowns at them sternly.
"Welcome aboard Mr. Denbrough, I hope you are ready for our scientific journey. Now, sir, you can take a seat beside Max over there."
Bill nods and quickly finds his way to his seat. He's glad he's not at the front, but that doesn't stop Max from looking at him skeptically. Big Bill does his best to ignore the stares.
"Edward Kaspbrak,"
The shortest of the Losers club steps forward, a few more kids snicker at the fanny pack around his waist.
"You can call me Eddie, also is your room hypo allogenic vents because I have asthma and the dust and mould that accumulates in such places are extremely hazardous to my throat, causing unwanted infection and I shouldn't sit near a window because my mom doesn't want me exposed to the sun and..."
Mr. Rolland cuts the boy off. "It's all okay Eddie, to avoid the dust and sun, why don't you sit behind Dustin Henderson right there in the middle of the classroom?"
The curly-haired kid smirks as the puny kid sits behind him, Eddie still shaking slightly. He then takes out his inhaler and squirts a dose of medicine into his mouth. The girl sitting behind him pops her gum loudly as if to taunt the germaphobe.
"Then we have Benjamin Hanscom, welcome."
"Thank you, Mr. Rolland," Ben says cheerfully. "I hope to learn a lot in this class."
"An enthusiastic passenger, well Ben I hope you learn a lot too."
"Could you also tell me about some of the science extracurriculars available?"
"I certainly will, but after class, if that's okay Mr. Hanscom. Now can you please take a seat over in front of Troy over there?"
Ben nods and then goes to sit in his seat. Mike and Lucas both observe the grin that stretches across Troy's face... he now had someone new to torment.
"This isn't going to end well," Mike hisses to his friend.
Ben opens his books and prepares for the lesson, completely oblivious to the bully who would likely give him a hard time the second Mr. Rolland turned his back.
"And finally, we have Miss Beverly Marsh, welcome to our voyage, Miss Marsh."
"Thank you," Beverly says warmly with a slightly reluctant smile.
"Now Beverly, I'd like you to take a seat in front of Max there, just behind Will,"
"Okay, thank you."
The fiery redhead sits down, bringing her shoulder bag down next to her. She sits in front of another equally fierce redhead. Will can't help but turn back to look at the pretty freckled face that has just sat behind him. Beverly gives him a warm smile and he nervously returns it.
"All right, now that introductions are out of the way, let's weigh our anchor and I will charter our course onwards into the wonderful world of Biology and Earth Science. Now this year we will be mainly focusing on the Earth; whether we go from the green grass outside to the hot molten core at the centre of the Earth, we are going to explore it all..."
As Mr. Rolland carries on, the kids from Hawkins still stare at the kids from Derry. Some with annoyance, others with curiosity and others, with malice in their thoughts.
The girl behind Eddie begins to pop her gum a little bit louder than before and chew it harder as if to scare the little nerd in front of her. Eddie does his best to ignore the sounds, and pay attention to the teacher, but he keeps thinking about the gooey globs of spit that were likely being projected his way with each pop. Ben is eagerly taking notes already, trying to learn everything he can about the science they would be learning about. The overweight of the Losers Club doesn't notice that Troy has begun using the sharp end of his math compass to carve Run Piggy Run into the back of his chair. Max is staring daggers at Beverly, seemingly because she's attracted the attention of all the other boys, including Lucas. She was a pretty-looking redheaded girl and from what they could tell, she was sweet. Sickeningly sweet and she was new to the school... could this girl take away the attention and notoriety she'd gained? Deciding to focus on something else, Max's eyes wander to the other Derry kid sitting next to her. She can see how nervous and twitchy this guy is. She doesn't doubt that he has a stutter, even with one word she could tell the kid was all kinds of nervous. Her eyes go to what Bill seems to be drawing in his notebook.
She can see a picture slowly take form as his hand flies over the page in careful, but precise strokes. She notices a face, then a body and eventually more clear details. The kid was drawing Mr. Rolland, and it was a damned good drawing of him as well. Max can't help but become curious if this kid is some kind of artist, he could probably draw portraits and make a good living that way.
As the class carries on, Will looks at his friends and then at Beverly several times. He thinks she's pretty, but clearly, all the other boys do. At one point, she looks at Dustin and he gives her his signature purr and winks at her too.
"Quiet please..." Mr. Rolland orders.
She gives a sort of awkward smile to him, most likely trying to be polite. Bev did find it a little funny, but mostly weird.
Ben frowns, suddenly distracted from the lesson by the curly-haired kid in the baseball cap suddenly trying to hit on Beverly with some weird purring noise he makes with the front of his teeth. He still had a desperate crush on her, ever since he'd written her that poem about January embers. He wasn't sure if she'd figured it out that it was him and he kind of felt upset that she hadn't said anything. He wants to have the courage to talk to her more, but he always loses his nerve whenever she smiles at him. He ends up turning red and looking like a tomato. Ben was close to giving up considering Bev seemed to like Bill more than him.
While Ben is annoyed with Dustin, Mike is annoyed with Troy, knowing what the douche bag would likely do to the poor kids. The ones that were weaker and weirder than the others. While he would feel bad for them, it meant that maybe Troy and James would stop picking on him and his friends. His mind also goes back to El, he can't stop thinking about her and he missed seeing her every day. He wished that time would go faster so he could see her after school. He also wished that she was in school with them and really become one of the party and maybe the A.V. club.
When the bell rings, Mr. Rolland calls the Derry students over.
"Welcome to our class, now here is a list of extracurriculars available Mr. Hanscom requested." He hands the photocopied sheets to each of them. "There are many opportunities for all of you to become involved, but I will be a little biased and highly recommend the A.V. club. We have all the new state-of-the-art equipment so if any of you are interested in audio and visual equipment, just come to my classroom after school and I'll introduce you to the entire crew."
Meanwhile, the party stands out in the hallway, watching the Derry kids.
"I think the red-headed chick dug me," Dustin smirks.
"I'm sure she was creeped out," Max scoffs. "The purring thing doesn't work."
"Come on, no one can resist these pearls," and he purrs again. "It worked on you, didn't they?"
Max rolls her eyes.
"It doesn't work," Lucas insists, supporting his girlfriend's point.
"But she smiled."
"She was probably just being polite," Mike insists.
"Just you guys wait, I'm going to have her in my arms before you know it," the curly-haired kid grins stupidly.
"They seem nice," Will adds. "Maybe they'll join the A.V. or Hellfire club."
"There's a shit ton of new clubs besides A.V.," Dustin says, looking at a list he'd picked up during orientation the week before.
"We could use a few more members," Lucas agrees.
"We already have enough for our party," Mike says sternly.
"Not everyone in the club has to be part of our party Mike," Will says. "They can just be fellow members."
"Besides, if we do get more members, Mr. Clarke will get more funding and that means better equipment. He wants us to still help with the club as senior supervisors."
"Especially after what Dart did last year and El the year before," Dustin agrees.
The group goes into silence as the kids from Derry come out of the biology classroom, looking at their maps, trying to find their next class.
"I hope I have the kid with asthma in gym," Dustin smiles. "I want to see how that will go. If he starts a fight with Mr. Williams, that would be the best and we can get out of dodgeball."
Mike elbows his friend. "Let's go."
As the Hawkins kids walk away, their eyes still join the many other kids watching the new students try to navigate the small town high school.
Max had basically summed up all the Derry kids in one go:
The germaphobe dweeb,
the suck-up nerd,
the basic pretty girl,
and the tortured stuttering artist.