"Holy skit, that hurts!" Victor roared.

"Twelve feet!" Henry bellowed. "I swear to God, Vie, twelve fuckin feet! I swear it on my mother's name!"

"I don't care if it was twenty fuckin feet, you burned my ass off!" Victor howled, and there was more bellowing laughter; still trying to giggle silently from behind the sheltering car, Beverly thought of a movie she had seen on TV. Jon Hall had been in it. It was about this jungle tribe, they had a secret rite, and if you saw it, you got sacrificed to their god, which was this big stone idol. This did not stop her giggles, but infused them with a nearly frantic quality. They were becoming more and more like silent screams. Her belly hurt. Tears streamed down her face.

3

Henry, Victor, Belch, and Patrick Hockstetter ended up in the dump lighting each others" farts on that hot July afternoon because of Rena Davenport.

Henry knew what resulted from consuming large amounts of baked beans. This result was perhaps best expressed in a little ditty he had learned at his father's knee when he was still in short pants: Beans, beans, the musical fruit! The more you eat, the more you toot! The more you toot, the better you feel! Then you're ready for another meal!

Rena Davenport and his father had been courting for nearly eight years. She was fat, forty, and usually filthy. Henry supposed that Rena and his father sometimes fucked, although he could not imagine anyone squashing his body down on Rena Davenport's.

Rena's beans were her pride. She soaked them Saturday nights and baked them over a slow fire all day Sunday. Henry supposed they were okay-they were something to shovel into your mouth and chew up, anyway-but after eight years anything lost its charm.

Nor was Rena content to make just a few beans; she cooked them in job lots. When she turned up Sunday evenings in her old green De Soto (a naked rubber babydoll hung from the rearview mirror, looking like the world's youngest lynch-mob victim), she usually had the Bowerses" beans steaming on the seat beside her in a twelve-gallon galvanized-steel pail. The three of them would eat the beans that night (Rena raving about her own cooking all the while, crazy Butch Bowers grunting and mopping up bean juice with a piece of Sonny Boy bread or simply telling her to shut up if there was a ballgame on the radio, Henry just eating, staring out the window, thinking his own thoughts it was over a plate of Sunday-night beans that he had conceived the idea of poisoning Mike Hanlon's dog Mr Chips), and Butch would reheat a mess of them the next night. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays Henry would take a Tupperware box full of them to school. By Thursday or Friday, neither Henry or his father could eat any more. The house's two bedrooms would smell of stale farts in spite of the open windows. Butch would take the remains and mix them into the other slops and feed them to Bip and Bop, the Bowerses" two pigs. Rena would like as not show up the following Sunday with another steaming pail, and the cycle would start all over again.

That morning Henry had put up an enormous quantity of leftover beans, and the four of them had eaten the whole lot at noon, sitting out on the playground in the shade of a big old elm. They had eaten until they were nearly bursting.

It had been Patrick who suggested they go down to the dump, which would be fairly quiet in the middle of a working-day summer afternoon. By the time they arrived, the beans were doing their work quite nicely.

4

Little by little, Beverly got herself under control again. She knew she had to get out; beating a retreat was ultimately less dangerous than hanging around. They were absorbed in what they were doing, and even if worse came to worst, she could get a head-start (and in the back of her mind she had also decided that, if worst came to terrible, a few shots from the Bullseye might discourage them).

She was about to begin creeping away when Victor said, "I gotta go, Henry. My dad wants me to help him pick com this afternoon."

"Oh shit," Henry said. "He'll live."

"No, he's mad at me. Because of what happened the other day."

"Fuck him if he can't take a joke."

Beverly listened more closely now, suspecting it might be the scuffle which had ended with Eddie's broken arm that they were talking about.

"No, I gotta go."

"I think his ass hurts," Patrick said.

"Watch your mouth, fuckface," Victor said. "It might grow on you."

"I got to go too," Belch said.

"Your father want you to pick corn?" Henry asked angrily. This was what might have passed for a jest in Henry's mind; Belch's father was dead.

"No. But I got a job delivering the Weekly Shopper. I gotta do that tonight."

"What's this Weekly Shopper crap?" Henry asked, now sounding upset as well as angry.

"It's a job," Belch said with ponderous patience. "I make money."

Henry made a disgusted sound, and Beverly risked another peek around the car. Victor and Belch were standing, buckling their belts. Henry and Patrick were still squatting with their pants down. The lighter glinted in Henry's hand.

"You're not chickening out, are you?" Henry asked Patrick.

"Nope," Patrick said.

"You don't have to pick corn or go do some pussy job?"

"Nope," Patrick said again.

"Well," Belch said uncertainly, "see you around, Henry."

"Sure," Henry said, and spat near one of Belch's clodhopping workshoes.

Vie and Belch started off together toward the two rows of wrecked cars... toward the Studebaker behind which Beverly was crouching. At first she could only cringe, frozen with fear like a rabbit. Then she slid around the left side of the Studebaker and backed down the gap between it and the battered, doorless Ford next to it. For a moment she paused, looking from side to side, hearing them approach. She hesitated, her mouth cottony-dry, her back itchy with sweat; a part of her mind was numbly wondering how she'd look-in a cast like Eddie's, with the Losers" names signed on it. Then she dived into the Ford on the passenger side. She curled up on the filthy floormat, making herself as small as possible. It was boiling hot inside the junked-out Ford, and it smelled so thickly of dust, rotting upholstery, and elderly rat-crap that she had to struggle grimly to keep from sneezing or coughing. She heard Belch and Victor pass close by, talking in low voices. Then they were gone.

She sneezed three times, quickly and quietly, into her cupped hands.

She supposed she could go now, if she was careful. The best way to do it would be to shift over to the driver's side of the Ford, sneak back to the aisle, and then just do a fade. She believed she could manage it, but the shock of almost being discovered had robbed her of her courage, at least for the time being. She felt safer here in the Ford. And maybe, now that Victor and Belch had gone, the other two would also go soon. Then she could go back to the clubhouse. She had lost all interest in target-shooting.

Also, she had to pee.

Come on, she thought. Come on, hurry up and go, hurry up and go, puh-LEEZE!

A moment later she heard Patrick roar with mixed laughter and pain.

"Six feet!" Henry bellowed. "Just like a fuckin blowtorch! Swear to God!"

Silence then for awhile. Sweat trickling down her back. The sun beating through the Ford's cracked windshield on the nape of her neck. Heaviness in her bladder.

Henry bellowed so loud that Beverly, who had been close to dozing in spite of her discomfort, almost cried out herself. "damn it, Hockstetter! You burned my frigging ass! What are you doing with that lighter?"

"Ten feet," Patrick giggled (just the sound of it made Bev feel cold and revolted, as if she had seen a worm squirm its way out of her salad). "Ten feet if it was an inch, Henry. Bright blue. Ten feet if it was an inch. Swear to God!"

"Gimme that," Henry grunted.

Come on, come on, you stupidniks, go, get out!

When Patrick spoke again his voice was so low Bev could barely hear it. If there had been the slightest breath of wind on the air that baking afternoon, she would not have done.

"Let me show you something," Patrick said.

"What?" Henry asked.

"Just something." Patrick paused. "It feels good."

"What?" Henry asked again.

Then there was silence.

I don't want to look, I don't want to see what they're doing now, and besides,

they might see me, in fact they probably will because you've used up all your luck

today, girly-o. So just stay right here. No peeking...

But her curiosity had overcome her good sense. There was something strange in that silence, something a little bit scary. She raised her head inch by inch until she could look through the Ford's cracked cloudy windshield. She needn't have worried about being seen; both of the boys were concentrating on what Patrick was doing. She didn't understand what she was seeing, but she knew it was nasty... not that she would have expected anything else from Patrick, who was just so weird.

He had one hand between Henry's thighs and one hand between his own. One hand was flogging Henry's thing gently; with his other hand Patrick was rubbing his own. Except he wasn't exactly rubbing it-he was kind of... squeezing it, pulling it, letting it flop back down.

What is he doing? Beverly wondered, dismayed.

She didn't know, not for sure, but it scared her. She didn't think she had been this scared since the blood had vomited out of the bathroom drain and splattered all over everything. Some deep part of her cried out that if they discovered she had seen this, whatever it was, they might do more than hurt her; they might actually kill her. Still, she couldn't look away.

She saw that Patrick's thing had gotten a little longer, but not much; it still dangled between his legs like a snake with no backbone. Henry's, however, had grown amazingly. It stood up stiff and hard, almost poking his bellybutton. Patrick's hand went up and down, up and down, sometimes pausing to squeeze, sometimes tickling that odd, heavy sac under Henry's thing.

Those are his balls, Beverly thought. Do boys have to go around with those all the time? God, I'd go crazy! Another part of her mind then whispered: Bill has those. On its own, her mind visualized her holding them, cupping them in her hand, testing their texture... and that hot feeling raced through her again, sparking off a furious blush.

Henry stared at Patrick's hand as if hypnotized. His lighter lay on the rocky scree beside him, reflecting hot afternoon sun.

"Want me to put it in my mouth?" Patrick asked. His big, livery lips smiled complacently.

"Huh?" Henry asked, as if startled from some deep dream.

"I'll put it in my mouth if you want. I don't m-"

Henry's hand flashed out, half-curled, not quite a fist. Patrick was knocked sprawling. His head thudded on the gravel. Beverly dived down again, her heart crashing in her chest, her teeth locked against a little whimpering moan. After knocking Patrick down, Henry had turned and for a moment, just before she dropped back into her little huddled ball on the passenger side of the driveshaft hump, it seemed that her eyes and Henry's had locked.

Please God the sun was in his eyes, she prayed. Please God I'm sorry I peeked. Please God.

There was an agonizing pause then. Her white blouse was plastered to her body with sweat. Droplets like seed pearls gleamed on her tanned arms. Her bladder throbbed painfully. She felt that very soon she would wet her pants. She waited for Henry's furious crazy face to appear in the opening where the Ford's passenger door had been, sure it was going to happen-how could he have missed seeing her? He would drag her out and hurt her. He would -

A new and even more terrible thought now occurred to her, and once again she had to engage in a painful, crampy struggle to keep from wetting her pants. Suppose he did something to her with his thing) Suppose he wanted her to put it in her somewhere? She knew where it was supposed to go, all right; it seemed that knowledge had suddenly sprung into her mind full-blown. She thought that if Henry tried to put his thing in her she would go crazy.

Please no, please God don't let him have seen me, please, okay?

Then Henry spoke, and to her growing horror his voice was coming from someplace much closer. "I don't go for that queer stuff."

From farther off, Patrick's voice: "You liked it."

"I didn't like it!" Henry shouted. "And if you tell anyone I did, I'll kill you, you fucking little pansy!"

"You got a boner," Patrick said. He sounded like he was smiling. As much as she feared Henry Bowers, the smile would not have surprised Beverly. Patrick was crazy, crazier than Henry, maybe, and people that crazy weren't afraid of anything. "I saw it."

Footsteps crunched over the gravel-closer and closer. Beverly looked up, her eyes bulging. Through the Ford's old windshield she could now see the back of Henry's head. He was looking toward Patrick now, but if he turned around -

'If you tell anyone, I'll say you're a cocksucker," Henry said. "Then I'll kill you."

"You don't scare me, Henry," Patrick said, and giggled. "But I might not tell if you gave me a dollar."

Henry shifted restlessly. He turned slightly; Beverly could now see one-quarter of his profile instead of just the back of his head. Please God please God, she begged incoherently, and her bladder throbbed more strongly.

"If you tell," Henry said, his voice low and deliberate, "I'll tell what you've been doing with the cats. With the dogs, too. I'll tell them about your refrigerator. You know what'll happen, Hockstetter? They'll come and take you away and put you into the fucking-A loonybin."

Silence from Patrick.

Henry drummed his fingers on the hood of the Ford Beverly was hiding in. "do you hear me?"

"I hear you." Patrick sounded sullen now. Sullen and a little scared. He burst out: "You liked it! You got a boner! Biggest boner I ever saw!"

"Yeah, I bet you seen a lot of em, you fuckin little homo faggot. You just remember what I said about the refrigerator. Your refrigerator. And if I see you around again, I'll knock your block off."

More silence from Patrick.

Henry moved away. Beverly turned her head and saw him pass by the driver's side of the Ford. If he had looked to his left even a little bit, he would have seen her. But he didn't look. A moment later she heard him heading off the way Victor and Belch had gone.

Now there was just Patrick.

Beverly waited, but nothing happened. Five minutes dragged by. Her need to urinate was now desperate. She might be able to hold out for another two or three minutes, but no more. And it made her uneasy not to know for sure where Patrick was.

She peeked through the windshield again and saw him just sitting there. Henry had forgotten his lighter. Patrick had put his schoolbooks back into a small canvas carrier sack and had slung it around his neck like a newsboy's, but his pants and underpants were still down around his ankles. He was playing with the lighter. He would spin the wheel, produce a flame that was almost invisible in the bright day, snap the lighter closed, and then start all over again. He seemed hypnotized. A line of blood ran from the corner of his mouth to his chin, and his lips were swelling up on the right side. He seemed not to notice, and once again Beverly felt a squirmy sort of revulsion. Patrick was crazy, all right; she had never in her life wanted so badly to get away from someone.