Chapter 9: Arcade Battle
"So, when your cousin's coming to town?" Stan asks.
The Losers Club, minus Georgie, are walking their bikes along the streets of Hawkins, towards the arcade at Richie's much annoying insistence. Thankfully, Mrs. Denbrough took Bill's younger brother to the town pool, likely one of the last chances to do so before the cold weather set in. The video game nerd of the group had to see what kind of cool games were there and if they were worth the change in his pocket that rattles continuously as he rides in loops around his friends.
"She's more like my a-adopted cousin," Bill clarifies. "Her mom and my mom are not really sisters."
"Is your cousin hot?" Richie asks, riding around in front of the group again.
"How the hell should I know?" Bill says. "I only met her like once. And that was b-before Georgie was born."
"Okay, but if she does turn out to be a total babe, I call dibs," the trash-mouth says.
"How sexist can you be?" Beverly asks, rolling her eyes.
"Yeah Dweebus, you can't call dibs on a person," Eddie adds.
"Hey, you guys are just jealous that I had the decency to call dibs on her," the nerd says.
"There's nothing decent about claiming a girl like she's the last seat on the bus," Beverly insists.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, save the equal rights talk for your political campaign," Richie mutters, wishing his friends would just ride their bikes instead of walking through town, which took ten times longer.
"Why would she go for you anyway if you act like a douchebag all the time?" Eddie asks.
"Chicks dig the bad boys," he says gleefully.
Everyone rolls their eyes.
"Why are we going to the arcade anyway?" Ben asks, wanting to change the subject. "There's an awesome library in Hawkins that I want to check out."
"Because some people actually like goof off and kill brain cells on the weekend Pointdexter," Richie says.
"What about Starcourt Mall?" Bev asks. "A lot of kids in school were talking about it. It seems like the place to hang out."
None of the kids from Derry had been to a mall before since their town was so small and local that modern "luxuries" from the 1980s had not been constructed. However, they had seen what malls were for on TV and in movies.
"Yeah, come on Richie, let's do something other than play Street Fighter," Eddie whines.
"P-Plus it will more likely be air-conditioned too," Stan adds, wiping sweat from his brow. Despite it being September, the weather in Indiana was still fairly warm. There had yet to be a hint of cool autumn air in the tiny town.
"Look, we'll go thereafter, but I'd much rather spend my money on stuff that's fun, rather than buy something, wear it once, and then forget about it in the back of my closet."
The friends sigh and follow their trash-mouth friend down the streets.
Eventually, they come to the parking lot with the neon signs above the lot flickering while advertising the Palace Arcade. The building has windows with flickering lights and odd sounds coming from within it but doesn't look like anything particularly special, it's like their arcade in Derry, just bigger. However, before any of the other Losers could say anything, Richie dumps his bike down and hurries inside.
Just as the others are approaching, a blue Camero comes careening around the corner, blasting loud heavy rock music, and disregarding any other people or vehicles on the road. The car practically floors it into the parking lot and nearly mows down the group as it pulls up in front of the arcade.
"Holy shit," Eddie gasps, doing his best not to panic and be forced to take out his inhaler.
"Hey, asshole! Kids are walking here!" Beverly shouts angrily, raising her fist.
Unfortunately, her protests are not heard as the music continues to echo through the lot as an angry red-headed girl gets out and slams the car door as hard as she can. The group can't hear what's being said as the driver says something to the girl, which seems to make her extremely angry, so much that she begins to shout at the guy. She then kicks the car and flips the guy off as he races away, leaving her with just her skateboard.
She looks extremely flustered but also embarrassed. Her eyes meet the gaze of the group before she turns and heads inside.
"Looks like you're not the only one who thinks he's an asshole," Ben says.
"Isn't sh-she the girl from science?" Bill asks, recognizing the long-red hair.
"Yeah, Maxine, I think her name was," Ben says.
"But didn't the teacher call her Max?" Eddie adds.
"Well, whatever her name is, looks like she's a gamer like Richie."
"And a skateboarder," Stan adds.
"Speaking of him, we'd better go and find him before they end up throwing him out."
The Losers Club nods and hurries over, parking their bikes by the rack and then heading inside, right behind Max/Maxine.
They find Richie at the counter, shouting at a tall lanky person with long hippie hair and a logo t-shirt. If Richie grew a couple of inches and lost the glasses, the two could be clones of one another. The guy is staring tiredly at the trash-mouth dweeb in front of him, chowing down on some junk food.
"How the fuck can you not have Street Fighter?!" Richie protests. "It's the game that started the existence of arcades in the first place!"
"Sure buddy," the guy says in a monotone voice, smirking at the kid's anger. "Just find some other game, it's not like there aren't others in a video game arcade."
"My money is reserved for only the best. I've spent exactly 62 hours, 47 minutes and 23 seconds training to beat all those characters in Japan alone, I had the highest score in Derry and I'm the only one who figured out how to do the Tatsumaki Senpukyaku special attack. And you're telling me that I can't even use those skills to become the master of all the countries?"
"Well I've got bad news for you Spectasaurus, you're not in Derry and we don't have your stupid game, so suck it up," the guys insist, continuing to munch on his snack.
Richie looks ready to climb over the desk and put this guy in a headlock, despite the employee's overwhelming height advantage, when his friends come up to quell the fight.
"Rich, what's going on?" Eddie asks, trying to calm his best friend down.
"This walking pimple factory tells me they don't have Street Fighter, how the hell am I supposed to become the master if I can't practice?!"
"It's acne and it's a legitimate medical condition," the tall guy says more harshly. "Just you wait, you'll get it all over your face, you string-bean wastoid."
"And when was the last time some girl sucked your face?" Richie snaps.
"Let's just go to the mall," Beverly sighs. She scans around the arcade and sees the girl, Max, playing some game called Dig Dug. The girl still looks angry, but that rage was probably more focused on the game now than the asshole driver who had dropped her off.
For a second, Max looks up and meets Beverly's gaze. The Derry girl gives her a friendly smile, hoping to see some recognition, but Max merely frowns intensely and rolls her eyes before going back to the game.
Bev begins to wonder what she'd done to offend Max. It's not like they'd ever spoken to each other in class or otherwise, but it seemed that the Hawkins skateboarder had instantly disliked this outsider.
It stung just a little bit, after all, she was one of the kids who had come to help the Losers Club when they were being bullied, but now it seemed that Maxine wanted nothing to do with her or their group. Deep down, Beverly secretly wanted a new friend of the same gender; while the boys were her good friends and they had been through hell together; they still liked guy things like comic books, fantasy books, horror movies, Lego, and video games. All the girls in Derry had called Bev all kinds of nicknames, they spread rumours about her promiscuity and overall tried to make her life a living hell. Here, her reputation was not known by anyone, despite none of the rumours being true, and yet this red-headed girl was treating her the same way the girls in Derry did. Did Max somehow hear about her reputation from other Derry locals and decide to steer clear of her? Or maybe Max just didn't like a lot of people.
It was a mystery to her, but as the boys attempt to tear Richie from the counter, she decides to just go to the mall and hopefully meet some nicer people...
Hopefully.
A/N: Sorry, it took so long, but thank you for the continued support. Just so you know, I'm aware that Street Fighter didn't come out until 1987, but I'm bending the timeline to give us a good Richie scene.