The Flea and the Acrobat

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"Hey, kids," Dad says when we walk into the house. "What's going on?" "What's he doing here?" I ask bitterly. "Your dad's, uh, gonna stay here tonight. On the couch." "Yeah, I'm here as long as you need me, okay? How are you two holding up?" We both completely ignore him. I show Jonny something on the wall. "Look" He pulls it away and there is a hole in it. "What happened?" "Don't worry about that," Dad says but we ignore him. "Mom... that thing you saw before, did it come back?" "Jonathan, that's enough." "Can the three of us talk? Alone?" I ask my dad.

"You need to leave," I say to him. "Look, I know you two are upset. We all are. But you need to listen to me. Your mother is sick. Really sick." "Yeah. Well, you being here, you're just making things worse, like always." Jonathan adds. "Worse?" "Yeah!" I answer. "She took down that wall with an axe. She said that Will was inside and that he was talking to her." "Yeah. Maybe he was." "This isn't some kind of joke. Your mom was half frozen to death when I got here. Trembling, scared out of her mind. You come in here and you start feeding into her hallucinations or whatever the hell you want to call it,

you're gonna push her right over the edge. Do you hear me? Look, I'm on your side. I'm here to help. I'm gonna make things better around here for all of us." We both scoff. "Thank God you're here." "Do me a favour. At the funeral tomorrow, just behave. If not for me, for your mother." "Don't fucking tell us how to behave! Where were you? You didn't even pick up the phone when she called. Do me a favour. After the funeral, tomorrow, never step foot in this house or show me your face again." I walk out.

"Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. It's times like these that our faith is challenged. How, if He is truly benevolent... could God take from us someone so young, so innocent?

It would be easy to turn away from God... but we must remember that nothing, not even tragedy, can separate us from His love. We are here today to find comfort in the truth of scripture, and to surround Will and his family..." I stopped listening and my mind drifted off to a memory.

"Goodmorning Willie," I say and give him a hug. I notice him drawing and take a seat next to him. "I see Will the Wise is back. What's that shooting out of his cane?" "Fireballs. I couldn't find the red crayon, so that's why it's green." "Oh, well... if he's so wise, why does he need fireballs? Why can't he just, you know, outsmart the bad guys?" "Most of the time, yeah, totally. But... sometimes the bad guys are smart, too. You know?" "Yeah. So he needs the fireballs?" Well, yeah, to burn them to a crisp." I chuckle at his response. I see mom smiling, she loves moments like this. I love it too, I wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world. "All right. Well, I don't know who's been raising you, but I'm gonna get you some new crayons because it looks like he's shooting cabbages." I say looking at mom. The three of us laugh. "I'm gonna go to the store but I'll give a ride you to Mike after it?" I ruffle his hair and he laughs. "Sounds good Y/n/n." "Love you, bye" "Love you too, bye"

Nance gives me a hug. "I'm so sorry" "It's okay" I sniffle. She leads me to where Jonathan is sitting.

He pulls out a map. "This is where we know for sure it's been, right?" "So, that's.." "Steve's house."

"And that's the woods where they found Will's bike and... that's my house." "It's all so close," I say. "Yeah. Exactly." "I mean, it's all within a mile or something. Whatever this thing is, it's... it's not travelling far." "You want to go out there," I say. "We might not find anything." "I found something. And if we do see it... then what?" "We kill it."

Jonathan gets in the car. "What are you doing?" "Just give me a second." "Are you serious?" "What? Do you want to find this thing and take another photo? Yell at it?" "This is a terrible idea." "Yeah, well, it's the best we've got." "What? You can tell someone, but they're not gonna believe you. You know that." "Your mom would." "She's been through enough." "She deserves to know." "Yeah, and I'll tell her... when this thing is dead."

"You're supposed to hit the cans, right?" Nancy says while we're walking to Jonny, who is trying to shoot cans but fails to do so. "No, actually, you see the spaces in between the cans? I'm aiming for those." "Ah." "You ever shot a gun before?" "Have you met my parents?" She chuckles. "Yeah, I haven't shot one since I was ten. My dad took me hunting on my birthday. He made me kill a rabbit." "A rabbit?" "Yeah. I guess he thought it would make me into more of a man or something. I cried for a week." "Jesus." "What? I'm a fan of Thumper." He chuckles. "I meant your dad." "Yeah. I guess he and my mother loved each other at some point, but... we weren't around for that part." Je hands Nancy the gun. "Um, yeah. Just, uh, point and shoot." "I don't think my parents ever loved each other." "They must've married for some reason," I say. "My mom was young. My dad was older, but he had a cushy job, and money, and came from a good family. So they bought a nice house at the end of the cul-de-sac... and started their nuclear family." "Screw that." "Yeah. Screw that." She shoots and hits the can. She gives the gun to me. "Your turn" "Uh I can shoot, but I prefer this thing here," I say motioning to my bat. "Come on, just try it" She convinces me. "Fine" I aim and manage to shoot the can.

"You never said what I was saying." "What?" "Yesterday. You thought I was saying something and that's why you took my picture." "Oh, uh... I don't know. My guess... I saw this girl, you know, trying to be someone else. But for that moment... it was like you were alone, or you thought you were. And, you know, you could just be yourself." "That is such bullshit." "What?" "I am not trying to be someone else." "Just because I'm dating Steve and you don't like him-" "You know what? Forget it. I just thought it was a good picture." "He's actually a good guy." "Okay." "The other day, with the camera... He's not like that at all. He was just being protective." "Yeah, that's one word for it." "Oh, and I guess what you did was okay?" "No, I... I never said that." "He had every right to be pissed-" "Okay, all right. Does that mean I have to like him?" "No." "Listen, don't take it so personally, okay? I don't like most people. He's in the vast majority." "You know, I was actually starting to think that you were okay." "Yeah?" "Yeah, I was thinking, Jonathan Byers, maybe he's not the pretentious creep everyone says he is." "Well, I was just starting to think you were okay. I was thinking, Nancy Wheeler, she's not just another suburban girl who thinks she's rebelling by doing exactly what every other suburban girl does... until that phase passes and they marry some boring one-time jock who now works sales, and they live out a perfectly boring little life at the end of a cul-de-sac. Exactly like their parents, who they thought was so depressing, but now, hey, they get it." "Guys, can you please just drop this so we can look for this thing" "Fine," They both say. 

I heard something and nance does too, we both stop. "What, are you tired?" Jonathan says to Nancy. "Shut up," I say to him. "What? "I heard something." I heard it again. "Oh, God." We see a bloody deer on the ground in pain. "It's been hit by a car. We can't just leave it." Nancy looks at the gun. "I'll do it." "I thought you said-" I'm not nine anymore." We both look away when he's ready to shoot it, but the deer was suddenly pulled away by something. "What was that?" I question. "Where'd it go?"

"I don't know." "Do you see any more blood?" "No." We both see a tree, with liquid dripping from it and go to inspect it. "Jonathan?" I yell. I go into the hole and Nancy does too. "How is it so-" I was interrupted by something snarling. Nancy and I both gasp when we see it. We walk backwards but she steps on a twig so the thing roars and we scream. 



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