Chapter 1

Derry's theatrical department was nothing but tumbleweeds and junkies 99% of the time, but once a year, right before summer break, the hustle and bustle arrived. The annual 4th of July parade was accompanied with an evening production done by the schoolkids.

Most kids ignored this as they did everything else, but a select few group of kids lived for it. Susie Fellows was one such kid. Failing grades gave way to a deep love of the stage this time every year, and although the music director's choice this year was a little odd, she had finally gotten a decent role, so she'd just have to suck it up.

For a pretty uptight small town, The Crucible was a risk to even suggest, but it was only a few weeks before Susie would take the stage as Abigail – the leading lady, as it were – and she couldn't bring herself to worry about what Derry would think of the witch-hunt play.

But right now, Susie was in physics, and she forced herself to reconnect to the barely-intelligible stream of dialogue that was Mr. Matheson's explanation of forces and work. Harold Matheson wasn't a particularly bad person, on the contrary, Susie wouldn't mind him at all as a person, except he was a horrific teacher. Normally a bright but unmotivated student, this was the one class that Susie didn't get worse at when she started working on the yearly production. No, her grades in physics couldn't get worse than what they actually already were by the time spring rolled around.

Craning her head around to glance at the clock, she locked eyes with a familiar face. Dan, who worked on the set pieces for the play this year. He was a lot younger than her, and the rest of the people in this class, but they were all idiots and he was kind of a genius. From what Susie knew of him, half the classes he took were ones recommended for people her age, because he was so studious. Susie blinked and realized he was staring at her. She gave him a smile, still half-turned around in her seat, and he awkwardly gestured towards her hair. Once she shoved a hand in it, she realized the choppy brown locks were sticking up all over the place. Scraping her fingers through her bob, pushing past all the clumps of knots, she acknowledged maybe she had fallen asleep in this class again. It did happen often, to be fair. Dan smiled at her dazed expression, and turned back to Mr. Matheson's drawling monotone. He raised a hand.

"Yes?" The teacher brightened up at the first sign of activity the class had given this whole hour.

"Oh, um, would the answer be 17 Pascal's?" Daniel looked nervous, scratched the back of his curly head, even though the rest of the class knew he'd be right.

"That's correct, Stan!" Oh, fuck. Susie had had entire conversations with him, and she was certain she must've called him Dan on multiple occasions. "Glad to see we have someone listening today!" With Mr. Matheson, he wasn't even being sarcastic. He looked overjoyed.

Unfortunately, his high streak ended as quickly as Stan created it, because the bell's shrill tone sounded, and a rush of students ran past him and out the door.

Before he could leave, although he wasn't nearly as in a rush as his classmates, Susie grabbed Stan's elbow and stopped him just outside the classroom. He seemed surprised, but waited for her to say something.

She sighed. "So, this is kind of an important day for me, because I, uh, I just realized-"

"My name isn't Dan?" He finished the sentence for her, with a shy grin on his face, and Susie let out a relieved chuckle.

"So sorry about that, Stan. But why didn't you correct me?"

He let out a sheepish grin. "My friend Richie made me a bet to see how long it'd take you to realize. Would you still be calling me Dan by the time the 4th of July festival is over, that sort of thing."

Susie nodded slowly. "Two twelve-year-old boys bet on how long it would take me, a sixteen-year old, to realize I was calling someone by the completely wrong name. That's just…wonderful."

He let out a laugh. "We're, uh, we're thirteen and fourteen, actually."

She looked at him warily. "That's not a bet, too, is it? Me continuously being wrong about you?" She sighed when he shook his head no. "Well, at any rate, my raging stupidity has meant I still know almost nothing about you. Let's have lunch together, Stan, and you can help me right some wrongs. And I want to meet this Richie of yours, betting on my misfortunes."

Stan seemed taken aback, but grinned at her. "I'll see you at lunch, then," he called out as he followed the crowds of shouting kids towards his next class."

Susie paused for a second, her mind still catching up with her. "Wait, Stan!"

He turned, questioning.

"Who won the bet? Who said I would find out before the play?" Without a word, Stan pulled out the fabric of the pockets in his shorts, revealing them to be empty, and shrugged. He turned back around and walked away as Susie stood there with her mouth open, shaking her head in disbelief.

Susie found herself late to Spanish, which actually sucked, because she happened to love the class and be scared shitless of the teacher. Señora Ramírez should've retired a long time ago; truth be told, she should've died of old age a long time ago, but the vultures just didn't want to swoop down. Her death glare as Susie walked in the room made her legs shake as she sat down, avoiding eye-contact at all costs. The girl sitting next to her, Jenny, nudged her foot and passed a folded-up piece of refill paper without looking at her.

Opened up, it said: 'sleepover' tonight – yours – 9pm xxx

Quickly and quietly, before anyone else caught sight of it, Susie stuffed the note in her pocket, trying to calm her racing heart.

Jenny had a grin on her face as she joined the class in reciting the Spanish months of the year.

Sitting with Stan's group of friends made Susie feel both shocked and embarrassed. Shocked, because it seemed none of the boys were remotely like each other yet the four seemed inseparable, and embarrassed, because sitting with four thirteen-year-old boys made her feel vaguely like a child predator.

"…but then it was like you honestly didn't even know, so here I am thinking, hey, let's make a quick buck off this, only it wasn't a quick buck because it's been like over a month, and I was getting real worried that you were actually retarded or something-"

"R-R-Richie!"

"And anyway, it's definitely not the easiest ten bucks I've made, I'll tell you that, and it was so tempting to walk up to you when I saw you in the hallways and just give it away so that I'd win, but I-"

Susie scoffed. "Wait a minute, you bet ten dollars that I would call you Dan until the 4th of July? Stan…" What started out as a firm telling-off faded uncertainly into nothing. The four boys looked at her with varying levels of confusion. "I, uh, was going to use your full name to complain, but…"

"You don't know it?" Stan questioned innocently, and Richie collapsed onto the cafeteria table shaking with laughter.

She turned to Eddie, the only one in the group thus far that had stayed silent. "You're the only reasonable one here, Eddie. The only one that doesn't make me feel like an idiot."

His face crumpled in thought, chewing quietly on his sandwich. Once he had finished, he took a long, hard look at Richie, still wiping tears away from under his glasses, and Stan and Bill, both thoroughly enjoying the discourse, and finally stared at her. "Two people at this table bet actual hard-earned cash on how long you'd call Stan by the wrong name, and waited like six weeks for it instead of actually correcting you. So yeah, don't worry, because you aren't the stupidest person at the table today."

Stan solemnly nodded. "That's fair."

When the bell went for the last class of the day, Susie had made a bunch of new friends. She had stolen one of Eddie's pens and scribbled her home phone number four times on a napkin and ripped it into pieces for the boys, and they passed around another and did the same for her. She shoved it in her pocket, feeling the scratch of the other piece of paper already in there, and stood up. "Last day, tomorrow, boys. Hang in there." As the group broke up and went their separate ways, Susie to social studies, Stan and Bill to maths, Eddie to geography and Richie to history, summer was on all of their minds.

Social Studies was a rare, unappreciated gem at Derry High School. In fact, so few actually took the subject that they ended up combining years together just to get enough students in seats for a full class. This led to Susie learning about politics, American society, and economics in the company of boys and girls from the ages of 14-16. One Ben Hanscom had joined the school only a few weeks previously, and was put into Susie's group for their research project on modern American towns and provinces. With the rest of the group being totally uninterested in actual work of any kind, Ben had spent many afternoons with Susie at one of their houses, or more commonly, the public library, doing research and building their model of buildings in a rural town. The square plank of wood on which a water tower with an American flag, a few small trees, and a few farm animals stood became Ben's pride and joy, as flimsy as it was.

They sat together, separate from the rest of the group, near the back of the class, idly chatting as their teacher, Miss. Warren, got a projector set up for the weekly quiz.

"They put it on every year and it's always loads of fun. You should come!"

"Thanks, but I'm not really a theatre person."
Susie gasped dramatically. "Ben Hanscom! How can you say that? Friendship cancelled, buddy. It's over. Moment of silence for the funeral of a friend. He's not dead, but he's dead to me. Rest in peace."

He smiled awkwardly. Ben always seemed a little slow to quick wit. He had such a heart of gold that it slowed him down sometimes, at least that was Susie's theory. He got so much crap from the school about being new, and being fat, that maybe he couldn't really tell the difference between humour and insult. Susie regretted joking around like that, and quickly fumbled to cheer him up again. "Well, anyhow, looks like we didn't need to worry about having the assignment done in time. Miss Warren is going to be trying to get that projector to work until the day she dies. Or until the day it dies, I suppose. That projectors got to be older than Derry itself."

"Maybe it can tell us what happened to the beaver hunting community. Mystery solved."

It was so rare for Ben to make a joke, and even when he did, it was in his own little nerdy way, but those few moments of wit were worth more than their weight in gold, and Susie found herself cracking up as Miss Warren began yelling at the projector and hitting its side.

"That's an interesting interrogation method, that's for sure." Susie smiled, leaning back in her chair to watch the drama unfold.

"Hey, Susie?"

"Yeah, Ben?"

He paused, then. His palms were leaving shadows of sweat on the laminated desk and his face was dead-serious. "Maybe, I was thinking, we could go to the festival together?"

Susie knew what he was asking, and luckily, she had an out, to say no without upsetting him. "I'd love to, but being in the play I'll be caught up in rehearsals all day. We could hang out another time, maybe? I'm sorry, Ben."

The disappointment and slight shame on Ben's face made her heart break, but she was saved from hearing his response by the teacher finally calling the class to attention for the quiz to start.

She felt his eyes on and off her the whole class.

It was twenty minutes before 9 that Jenny began throwing stones at Susie's window. It would've been more romantic had Susie not been living in a one-story house. Jenny, beautiful Jenny, was standing outside, red hair in a ponytail, and though it was so late, and windy, wearing a Coca Cola t-shirt and jean shorts.

Susie lifted her window, and leant out. "Shatter the glass, why don't you?"

Jenny gave her a soft kiss. "I think what you meant by that was, Oh Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"

"Get in, smart-ass." Jenny's responding laugh was magical, and by the time they fell asleep, which was much later than now, they were curled up together, curtains shut and bedroom door locked.

The next morning, Susie woke up alone, but the bed was still warm. Jenny had left her a note, as she always did, this time reading I'm gonna marry you someday, Suse, even if I'm 80 and breathing with a machine xxx

After slipping the note in a shoebox with the rest of them, Susie got dressed to go downstairs.

In the kitchen, her mother was gone, but some breakfast for her lay steaming on the counter, her father tucking into his at the head of the table. Henry Fellows was the CEO of Derry's only commercial plumbing and electrical service. Unknown to Susie, Bill Denbrough's father worked at the same company and often complained to his family about his tight-ass boss, Henry.
But Susie simply sat down at the table with her father, listening to the news station on his radio. The story was about a man who was thrown off a bridge by a group of guys and died. His boyfriend was fighting for justice, but Derry had a different view on the justice needed. Pretending to not be listening, Susie saw her father's fists clenching out of the corner of her eye. She had never considered her father to be an angry man, or a violent one. But he sure was a hateful one. Whether it was fags, black people, or retards, any talk of them and you could see Henry's knuckles go white and the vein in his neck stick out. A muscle in his cheek would wobble as he clenched his teeth.

Needless to say, he didn't know about Jenny.