Dreamcatcher(46)

I hate that f**kin show, they never change their clothes, Pete had said, and Henry opened his mouth to reply, only before he could . . .

'The kiddo screamed,' Henry said. He slipped in the snow, tottered for a moment, then ran on again, remembering that October day under that white sky. He ran on remembering Duddits. How Duddits had screamed and changed all their lives. For the better, they had always assumed, but now Henry wondered.

Right now he wondered very much.

3

When they get to the driveway  -  not much of a driveway, weeds are growing even in the gravelly wheelruts now  -  Beaver is in the lead. Beaver is, indeed, almost foaming at the jaws. Henry guesses that Pete is nearly as wrought-up, but Pete is holding it in better, even though he's a year younger. Beaver is . . . what's the word? Agog. Henry almost laughs at the aptness of it, and then the Beav stops so suddenly Pete almost runs into him.

'Hey!' Beaver says. 'Fuck me Freddy! Some kid's shirt!'

It is indeed. Red and white, and not old and dirty, as if it had been there a thousand years. In fact, it looks almost new. 

'Shirt, schmirt, who gives a shit?' Jonesy wants to know.

'Let's just - '

'Hold your horses,' the Beav says. 'This is a good shirt.' Except when he picks it up, they see that it isn't. New, yes ?a brand-new Derry Tigers shirt, with 19 on the back. Pete doesn't give a shit for football, but the rest of them recognize it as Richie Grenadeau's number. Good, no  -  not anymore. It's ripped deeply at the back collar, as if the person wearing it had tried to run away, then been grabbed and hauled back.

'Guess I was wrong,' the Beav says sadly, and drops it again. 'Come on.'

But before they get very far, they come across something else  -  this time it's yellow instead of red, that bright yellow plastic only a kid could love. Henry trots ahead of the others and picks it up. It's a lunchbox with Scooby-Doo and his friends on it, all of them running from what appears to be a haunted house. Like the shirt it looks new, not anything that's been lying out here for any length of time, and all at once Henry is starting to have a bad feeling about this, starting to wish they hadn't detoured into this deserted driveway by this deserted building at all . . . or at least had saved it for another day. Which, even at fourteen, he realizes is stupid. When it comes to pu**y, he thinks, you either go or you don 9 t, there's no such thing as saving it for another day.

'I hate that f**kin show, Pete says, looking over Henry's shoulder at the lunchbox. 'They never change their clothes, did you ever notice that? Wear the same f**kin thing, show in and show out.'

Jonesy takes the Scooby-Doo lunchbox from Henry and turns it to look at something he's seen pasted on the end. The wild look has gone out of Jonesy's eyes, he's frowning slightly, and Henry has an idea Jonesy is also wishing they'd just gone on and played some two-on-two.

The sticker on the side reads: I BELONG TO DOUGLAS CAVELL, 19 MAPLE LANE, DERRY, MAINE. IF THE BOY I BELONG TO IS LOST, CALL 949-1864. THANKS!

Henry opens his mouth to say the lunchbox and the shirt must belong to a kid who goes to The Retard Academy  -  he's sure of it just looking at the sticker, which is almost like the tag their f**king dog wears  -  but before he can, there is a scream from the far side of the building, over where the big kids play baseball in the summer. It's full of hurt, that scream, but what starts Henry running before he can even think about it is the surprise in it, the awful surprise of someone who has been hurt or scared (or both) for the very first time.

The others follow him. They run up the weedy right rut of the driveway, the one closest to the building, in single file: Henry, Jonesy, the Beav, and Pete.

There is hearty male laughter. 'Go on and eat it,' someone says. 'Eat it and you can go. Duncan might even give you your pants back.'

'Yeah, if you - ' Another boy, probably Duncan, begins and then he stops, staring at Henry and his friends.

'Hey you guys, quit it!' Beaver shouts. 'Just f**king quit it!' Duncan's friends  -  there are two of them, both wearing Derry High School jackets  -  realize they are no longer unobserved at their afternoon's entertainment, and turn. Kneeling on the gravel amid them, dressed only in underpants and one sneaker, his face smeared with blood and dirt and snot and tears, is a child of an age Henry cannot determine. He's not a little kid, not with that powdering of hair on his chest, but he has the look of a little kid just the same. His eyes have a Chinese tilt and are bright green, swimming with tears.

On the red brick wall behind this little group, printed in large white letters which are fading but still legible, is this message: NO BOUNCE, NO PLAY. Which probably means keep the games and the balls away from the building and out in the vacant lot where the deep ruts of the basepaths and the ragged hill of the pitcher's mound can still be seen, but who can say for sure? NO BOUNCE, NO PLAY. In the years to come they will say this often; it will become one of the private catch-phrases of their youth and has no exact meaning. Who knows? perhaps comes closest. Or What can you do? It is always best spoken with a shrug, a smile, and hands tipped up to the sky.

'Who the f**k're you?' one of the big boys asks the Beav. On his left hand he's wearing what looks like a batting glove or maybe a golf glove . . . something athletic, anyway. In it is the dried dog-turd he has been trying to make the mostly naked boy eat.