Brave Like You (Steve Harrington)

Four.

We ended up at Dustin's house, and he did explain everything on the way. He found an unknown lizard species in his trash on Halloween night. It grew a lot in two days, and he referred to it as a pollywog but I knew that was a fancy way to say baby reptile. He named it D'Artagnan, but he called him Dart for short. He was able to lock him in his cellar by himself but now he wanted me to kill it with my bat with nails.

We unlocked his cellar and then I went down alone because Dustin was too scared. I didn't find Dart. Insert I found a heap of skin that Dart must have shed off. I pick it up using the end of my bat. Then I saw something that made me call Dustin to come down. Once he was down to my level, I showed him the big gaping hole Dart left in his cellar. He broke out and tunneled his way out.

The next day Dustin talked me into picking him up again and we went out to find this Dart creature. We got enough raw meat to fill a bucket each and headed for the woods. Dustin had been trying to reach Will Byers and Mike Wheeler all day on his walkie but neither of them answered, then he tried his friend Lucas Sinclair, who finally answered as we were about to head into the woods.

I packed up a backpack with some essentials of gasoline, a lighter, and my nail bat as Dustin told Lucas to meet us at the old junkyard and to bring his slingshot. We began walking along a path to the old junkyard throwing chunks of raw meat hoping it will attract Dart to us.

"Alright," I said, "Let me get this straight. You kept something that you knew was probably dangerous in order to impress a girl who...you just met?"

Dustin had a lot of sass in his tone as he responded. "Alight, that grossly oversimplifies things."

"Why would a girl like some slug anyway?" I asked, confused.

"An interdimensional slug," Dustin corrected, "Because it's awesome."

This kid needed a wake up call. I know he's only like 13 or something like that, but he should know that girls don't like creepy crawling slugs. "Well, even if she thought it was cool, which she didn't, I...I just...I don't I just feel like you're trying way too hard."

Okay, maybe I could have handled that a bit nicer. When Dustin's face fell into a pained look, I felt bad. His tone was full of sass again. "Well, not everyone can have your perfect hair, alright?"

Since I felt bad for being kind of mean to him, I decided to let him in on my secret. "It's not about the hair man, the key with girls is acting like you don't care."

"Even if you do?" He asks looking up at me now.

"Yeah, exactly," I tell him, nodding, "It drives them nuts."

"Then what?" He asks, curiously.

"You just wait until, uh..." I pause, thinking of the right words, "Until you feel it."

"Feel what?" He asks, that curiosity still all over his face in his tone.

I shrug and try to come up with my best analogy. "It;s like before it's going to storm, you know? You can't see it, but you can feel it, like this, uh..." I pause again, thinking of the right words, "Electricity."

"Oh, like in the electromagnetic field when the clouds are in the atmosphere,-"

"No no no no," I said quickly, "Like a sexual electricty."

"Oh," He said, nodding.

"You feel that," I said and I tossed some meat over my shoulder, "Then you make your move. Some girls, yeah, they want you to be aggressive, and hot and heavy like a Lion. But some girls you have to be slow, and stealthy like a ninja."

"What type was Nancy?" He asks, and it surprised me even though I know it shouldn't have. She was my girlfriend for almost an entire year.

"Nancy's different," I said, "She's different then other girls."