Chapter 30: Better Times Upon Us
When school started again on Monday, Bill took his precious time getting there. He and Georgie rode their bikes and Mia attempted to walk with them but did fall behind a few times. It did impress Bill how well she was able to keep pace with them.
"Life on the farm," she had said when he asked it—that and running pretty much your whole life.
Things had been mended between the brothers, for the most part, Bill said he was sorry to his brother, but not his parents. Things were still a bit tense, and none of the older people spoke to each other, even with Georgie's attempts to talk to everyone. He was the light of the house and kept everyone's spirits up.
When they reach the schoolyard, Mia waves to them and leaves for the high school. The boys lock their bikes up before the younger Denbrough brother goes to find kids his own age, leaving the older one standing around, completely alone and directionless, stalling as long as possible of going into the high school.
He knows that sooner or later, his friends would be showing up to lock their bikes, some who wanted to see him and those who didn't. This left him undecided about where he should go. Eventually, Bill goes to sit on the steps of the school and pulls out his sketchbook. He ignores the number of times people's backpacks bump his shoulder or even his head and just sketches to kill time before class.
While not really drawing anything, his eyes wander to the bike rack every so often to see someone he recognized.
Someone did show up and it was someone he knew... well sort of.
Will Byers, the kid who'd hung out with him in front of his house puts his bike on the rack. When he sees Bill, he gives a smile and a quick wave of acknowledgement. Big Bill does the same and his smile grows bigger when Beverly appears.
Bev had had a pretty mediocre weekend. After what happened with Richie, she was still pretty upset about it, even after she met and established a new friendship with Jane, the chief's daughter. She, like Bill, had been dreading the return to school, but her foster parents didn't fall for the sickness routine.
As she's locking her bike, she looks up to see the kid from science class and the one who helped break up Eddie and Richie... the Byers kid... Will! He's ogling her a little bit. When she catches his eye, he looks away and his cheeks go red in embarrassment.
"Hey," she says, deciding to humour the guy, who seemed nice enough if a bit shy.
"Hey," he says, swallowing heavily. "Have a good weekend?"
"Not really. To be honest it was pretty crappy."
"Sorry to hear that," the Byers kid says. "Most weekends I end up reading comics and trying to find good movies to watch."
"Sounds like a pretty decent way to unwind," Beverly says, smiling. She can hear the anxiety in his voice while attempting to be casual. All boys were the same it seemed; can't talk to a girl, but still trying to do that exact thing. Trying to be smooth and sounding cool, unlike Richie who just shot off his mouth at any opportunity.
"I try," Will says.
Just then, Eddie shows up. He gives a nervous, but still angry glance at Beverly and doesn't acknowledge her presence after that. He fumbles with his bike lock, knowing that his former friend is still staring at him. He has to stop in the middle of the process to take a puff of the inhaler. Once it's done, he turns and heads into the school.
Both Bev and Will notice that the kid only wrapped his lock around his tire and not the rack.
Will could tell that there was some kind of tension between them. While he didn't know what it was or what happened, he knew those two guys had been friends before, but now... nothing. It wasn't his business, so he decided to remove himself from the awkwardness.
"Hope you feel better, see you in science,"
"See ya," the redhead nods. She then spots Bill, who's waving at her and she finally manages to smile.
Walking towards him, she doesn't notice someone coming towards her until the inevitable.
"WATCH OUT!" Beverly barely manages to jump out of the way of an oncoming skateboarder.
Sadly, the person still has trouble stopping and ends up tripping into the bike rack and falling to the pavement.
Bev rushes over to help, Bill not too far behind, and when they notice the fiery red hair, plus the skateboard, they know that this is Maxine...
"I'm so sorry, are you okay?" she asks.
Max, who's swearing under her breath and examining her now scraped hands. She accepts the help from whoever is offering it, that is until she sees the girl's face. Then her demeanour changes, eyes narrowing and fire burning in her stomach.
"You should be sorry. Can you not watch where you're going?"
"I guess not, I'm really sorry Maxine."
"MAX!" the "zoomer" insists angrily.
"Sorry Max, do you need help?"
"I don't need help from you," the other redhead snaps, picking up her board in frustration.
"W-What's your problem? She said she was s-sorry," Bill asks, coming to Bev's defence.
"Both of you are my problem. All of your weirdos from Derry," Max says. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go to the nurse and get my hands fixed."
She then storms off, leaving Bev and Bill stunned.
"W-What is that girl's problem?" he asks.
"I have no idea. She just seems to hate us for some reason, me in particular."
"Battle of the redhead?" Bill smirks and Beverly gives him a playful smack.
The warning bell rings and the duo head inside, hoping to see Ben at some point in the day.
...
When lunch rolls around, the two members of the Loser's Club find a spot to sit in privacy. After a while, Ben does come out and join them, having taken some time at lunch to pick up another book from the library.
At first, their resident bookworm tries to engage his two friends in conversation about the books, but they soon drift off into silence.
They do see Stan at some point, but he doesn't acknowledge them at all and finds a tree far away to sit under and read.
It's at that moment that the trio of kids feels the full impact of what's happened. Maybe the shock from the fight at the arcade has finally subsided and reality has crushed them like a ton of bricks. Their club was officially disbanded, and it was absolutely, completely, and utterly horrible. Everything that they'd gone through together now meant nothing. The laughs that were shared, the fun times in the clubhouse, the trust... all were dissolved and broken.
Neither Ben, Bev, nor Bill said anything about how awful they feel, remaining quiet and not discussing it... but in a way, that was okay because they all understood one another, even with no words having been expressed.
...
The end of the day comes, and Bill waits for his little brother on the stairs with his friends. Ben's nose is deep in a book and Bev is fiddling with her woven bracelet, trying to occupy herself. Georgie had recently joined the Kid's Book Club at the school, something his mother insisted would help him make new friends. Of course, the big brother was still required to be the escort home, which was fine because there was no real plan between the three of them on what to do or if they should do anything at all. It was empty and devoid of anything at all.
Bill sketches in his book again, trying to draw the design of the book cover Ben is reading as that was the most remotely interesting thing, besides Beverly, but he didn't want to be creepy.
"What's the b-book about?" Bill says, trying to break the ice.
"The librarian recommended it to me. It's about curious creatures of myth since we're learning about myths in history class."
"Sounds cool," Bev smiles. "I love myths, especially Pandora's Box or the Minotaur."
"Right now, I'm on Perseus and Medusa," Ben mentions.
"Isn't she the one with snakes for hair and could turn people to stone?" Beverly asks.
"That's the one, she's known as a Gorgon and could actually fly in some versions."
"Yeesh," the redhead shudders. "Isn't having snakes for hair bad enough? Why does she have to fly too?"
"B-Beats me," Bill stammers. "M-Maybe to m-make her cooler looking." He's busy drawing his version of Medusa but struggles to put extra detail on the snakes. When he adds the wings, he shows the drawing to them.
"Nice," Bev says.
"Good job," Ben says. "Medusa is featured on many pottery and shields because that's where her head ended up, on Athena's shield."
"I wonder who came up with these ideas in myths," Bev mutters. "I mean a man with a bullhead, a woman with snakes for hair, a flying horse..."
"They're metaphors for something, but I haven't gotten that far ahead in the book."
"We know that those kinds of th-things c-can exist..." Bill says.
The trio shudders and becomes silent for a time.
"Hey, it's Bill the Brave!" someone shouts.
The three Losers look up to see four kids... the ones they'd met before at various points in and outside school walking towards them. Mike, Lucas, Will and Dustin all approach the stairs and stop. Max had been with them, but then jumped ship pretty quickly and rode off without a goodbye.
Bill turns red and wonders who said his fantasy name... the one he came up with while hanging with Will Byers. Had the kid said something to his friends?
"Bill the who?" Ben asks.
"Bill the Brave," the curly-haired kid, Dustin says with a huge grin on his face.
"How...how..."
"You left this in the science room Picasso," Dustin says, holding up the fantasy drawing of Bill as a warrior. "Mr. Rolland found it and asked us to give it to you."
Completely mortified, Bill takes the sheet back and buries it in his sketchbook. Bev does her best not to smile.
"What are you guys doing here?" Will asks.
"W-Waiting on my brother, he's in that Kid's Book Club," Bill answers. "W-what are you doing here?"
"AV Club," Lucas answers. "We just finished."
"What do you guys do in the club anyway?" Bev asks.
"We explore audio and visual ideas, and we get to play with some wicked equipment," Dustin explains.
"Doesn't really help much," Bev mused.
"It's actually pretty cool," Dustin continues. "We have a HAM radio that can reach all the way to Australia."
Mike rolls his eyes, knowing that his friend is trying to recruit more members but as the described "nerds" of the school, it's hard to get anyone else to join. It was hard enough to get Max to join and he doubted the girl Beverly or any of the other guys would want to.
"Really?" Ben asks, his interest piqued, and he puts his book to the side.
"Oh, it's awesome,"
"Have you actually s-spoken to any Australians?" Bill asks.
"Only one guy... I think his name was Bruce."
Lucas and Mike shift impatiently. They have no idea why Dustin and surprisingly Will wants to talk with these Derry kids. Sure, they seemed nice enough, but why would they try to be friends with each other? They didn't have much in common. The two of them wish that they'd bailed with Max.
"If you're interested, just talk to Mr. Clarke," Dustin says.
Meanwhile, Will looks at Bill's drawings.
"That is an awesome Medusa," he comments.
"Thanks," Bill says.
"Oh, hell yeah," Dustin says, jumping from Ben to Bill with his excited demeanour. "That is a badass monster dude. I bet you could draw an awesome Yuan-Ti or Slaad."
"Sorry what?" Beverly asks.
"Dungeons and Dragons characters."
Mike and Lucas shut their eyes while cringing. Dustin is just setting them up to be even bigger nerds in these kids' minds.
"Will, you can draw a pretty sick Lich," he continues, chatting a mile a minute.
The shy boy shrugs and nods.
"Oh man, we should have like a drawing contest, see who can draw the best Kobold!"
"Maybe another time Dust," Lucas says, trying to hint to his friends that he wants to leave.
"I-I also need to know what that is," Bill adds.
"Oh man, well it's kind of a like a lizard with wings..."
Without hesitation, Dustin sits down and takes the pencil and sketchbook from Bill. He then begins describing the creatures while drawing rough sketches, with Will pointing out what's missing.
Mike and Lucas moan and just stand there... cursing their bad luck.
Ben is partially interested but does go back to his book eventually. He asks at one point whether D characters were based on myths.
Bev looks over at the two and smiles.
She stands to go talk to them.
"So, what do you guys do besides play Dungeons and Dragons and work in the A/V club?"
"Not much," Mike says, trying to keep the conversation short so they can go.
"Seen any good movies lately?" she asks.
"I saw Fright Night back in August. It's pretty campy," Lucas replies, deciding a simple chat is not going to hurt. "Wish it could have scared my sister a little. She forced me to go see it, though our mom thought we were watching Return to Oz. She didn't want to watch some dumb kids movie."
"What's that one about?"
"It's the sequel to The Wizard of Oz," he says.
"No, not that one, the Fright Night."
"Oh that, a kid thinks that his neighbours are demons and..."
"Actually, it was vampires," Mike corrects him.
"No way Dude, they were demons, vampires only have fangs, not shark teeth like they did."
"Can't they have both?" Beverly asks.
The groups continue to talk to one another, unaware that a kid on a bike is watching them, angry and extremely sad.
A/N: Another chapter to read. I'm not quite satisfied with the chapter title. If you have a better one, please let me know