Strange as IT Seems

Chapter 60: What's Wrong with Hawkins?

"Hey Mia..." Bill says pulling up to the house on his bike.

His cousin looks up as she sits in an old rocking chair on the front porch to escape the still lingering humidity trapped in the house, reading a book and drinking some ice water. Even with her window still stuck open, Mia had found that finishing her English homework had caused her to work up a sweat, enough so that she'd fled for cooler areas within or surrounding the Denbrough house. The shade on the porch provided a nice safe space for her to read and plan her tutoring lessons.

"Hey," she says.

"A-Are my Mom and Dad home? What a-about Georgie?"

"Nope, Aunt Sharon took Georgie to the Wheeler's house for a play date and Uncle Zack got called into work."

"Okay good," Bill says, walking his bike to the side of the house.

"Why? You're not throwing a party, are you?" she jokes before going back to her book.

"Hey Bill wait up!"

Mia looks up to see the mass number of kids following behind her cousin. She's a little shocked and recognizes only two of the faces, smiling at both of them.

"Maybe you are..." She stands up and goes to the edge of the porch.

"Hey Beverly," she says.

"Hi Mia. You can just call me Bev by the way."

"Cool. Hi Jane. I didn't know you knew Bill."

Eleven smiles upon seeing her tutor and hurries up the porch steps. "Hi Mia. Yes, he's my new friend."

She notices The Tempest on top of the stack of books next to the rocking chair. She sees the sticky note peering out from between the pages and reaches forward.

"Uh uh uh," Mia smirks, quickly grabbing the book to keep it out of El's reach. "No peeking."

"Why?" she jokingly whines.

"Because the next scene is really funny. I don't want to ruin it for you by having you know the jokes before hand."

"Are you going to act it out?" Eleven asks eagerly.

"You insult me Jane," Mia smirks, pretending to be wounded by the comment. "Of course, I'm going to. It's the best way to learn."

El laughs as Mike walks up to join his girlfriend.

"So, you're El's tutor?" he asks.

"El?" Mia says in confusion. "Who's El? Why does he call you El, Jane?"

The colour drains from Mike's face as he realizes that she doesn't know about Eleven's nickname. His mind races to think of an excuse for why anyone would call her this if her legal first name started with J. Fortunately, Eleven/Jane/El was used to this and had the same excuse ready to go.

"My middle name is Ella," Jane explains. "And they decided to call me El for short."

"Okay..." Mia says, skeptical but some people do prefer being called by their middle names rather than their first.

Dustin walks up to the porch. "Also, when she plays Dungeons and Dragons with us, she liked the name Eleven for some reason, so its kind of stuck since then. El or Eleven, you can take your pick."

"Okay," Mia repeats. The overexplaining of Jane's nickname made her think that they weren't telling the truth at all. But why would anyone be called El or Eleven for that matter? It was too weird.

"I'm Dustin by the way and this is Mike, Lucas, Will and Max," the curly-haired teen introduces everyone.

"And you're all friends with Bill?" she asks, eyeing each of them with lingering suspicion.