princess [rt]

iv. "it's summer"

"What are we here for?" I ask Bill.

"Anything that c-c-can help me f-f-find my b-brother." Oh yeah, Bill has a cute stutter. Forgot to mention that. I grab my flashlight from my bag and begin to look around. From behind us, Richie and Eddie started to bicker back and forth.

I look up at the boys to see Richie looking right at me. He flashes me a smile and I quickly turn around and continue to look around the Barrens.

"Aren't you guys coming in?" Richie asks. I turn around to see Eddie and Stan at the entrance of the sewer.

"Nuh-uh," Eddie responds. "That's greywater."

"What's greywater?"

"It's basically, piss and shit so I'm just telling you, you guys are splashing around in millions of gallons of Derry pee so..."

I shake my head and return to looking around. Searching around the Barrens, I find an old, 'greywater' soaked shirt. Richie taps my shoulder, causing me to face the boy.

He was holding a stick. I gave him a confused look, but all he did was smile again. Using the stick, he picks up the shirt I found and whispers, "Watch this."

From the entrance, Eddie looks at us, shocked. Eddie was muttering something when he gets cut off by Richie launching the gross shirt towards the boy, making him jump backward. He gags loudly as Richie and I burst into laughter.

I couldn't help it.

Richie continued to splash water back at Eddie as I looked towards my brother, who was smirking at me. I flash him an 'oh shut up' look and look at the walls of the sewer.

Moss and vines grew around the entrance and I could see the mold around the water. Cups, old papers, and plastic water bottles floated all around us.

🎈

"Guys!" Bill shouts, catching all of our attention. He shines his flashlight on something.

It was a shoe?

"Shit," Stan's voice cracks. "don't tell me that's..."

"No," Bill answers, "Georgie w-wore galoshes."

Eddie asks, "Who's sneaker is it?"

Richie and I walk towards Bill and inspect the shoe. Along the side of the shoe read a name that made my heart drop.

"It's Betty Ripsom's," Richie tells the group as I look towards Stan. He looks back at me, looking as worried as he did back at the Synagogue.

"Shit. oh god, fuck! I don't like this!" Eddie cries.

"How do you think Betty feels," Richie asks, "Runnin' around these tunnels with only one freaking shoe?"

I punch the boy with glasses in his arm, causing him to cry out. "Ow!" He grabs his arm.

"Too soon shitfuck," I mutter under my breath.

"Got it."

"What if she's still done here?" Stan asks. All of us look beyond the tunnels. We all knew the Barrens was a really long stretch of tunnels and sewers.

Bill, Richie, and I step forward into the tunnels, but no one followed us.

"Eddie, come on!" Richie tried.

"My mom will have an aneurysm, okay, if she finds out that we're playing down here. I'm serious." Eddie's panicked voice echoed through.

"I wouldn't exactly call it playing," I mumble, but only Richie heard me. He turned to me and let out a soft chuckle. I nod in response.

"Bill?" We all look towards the boy, who found the shoe, who brought us here, whose brother we were looking for.

"If I were Betty Ripsom, I would want us to find me, G-G-G-Georgie too." The group falls silent until Eddie's voice rips something within me.

"What if I don't want to find her?" Eddie tries, "I mean, no offense Bill, but I don't want to end up like Geor-' he stops himself before digging his grave any deeper than it already was. "I don't want to go missing either."

"None of us want to go missing, Eddie. And Betty is my best friend, so if you think that I'm not going to look for her, you're insane." I snap.

"He has a point Mal." Stan says quietly, shocking me.

"Are you kidding me?"

"It's summer! We're supposed to be having fun! This isn't fun."

"Your excuse for bringing me here was 'it's summer'. Is that your excuse for everything now? I never wanted to be here in the first place. Now that I actually don't dread coming here, you wanna tell me to stop?"

At this point, I was so angry about losing Betty and having no one I was just taking it out on Stan.

"Mallory, this is scary and disgustin-" The sound of water crashes cuts him off. It causes all of us to jump. Richie, who was beside me, grabs my hand and rushes towards the entrance.

"Holy shit, what happened to you?"

I search for where the noise was coming from until I see someone on their hands and knees in the water. I quickly recognized this person.

"Ben?" I run up to the boy, dragging Richie behind me, still holding onto his hand.

I hop into the water and Richie and I help Ben up. Blood was dripping from his stomach and his shirt.

"You know him?" Stan asks.

"Yes! And he needs help so we need to leave now!" I cry as I help Ben towards our bikes. Bill and I help Ben into Bill's bike.

I then get onto my bike and Richie and I lead the way to the nearest places for supplies.

Greta's Family Drugstore.