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SUMMER BRUSHED her long coppery hair back behind her shoulder from where a strand had broken free and lay against her forearm as she crouched on the small mainstage of the auditorium, with a bucket of soapy water and a sponge.
It was the first day of summer vacation, after all, and Summer had never been one to sit around. Not in that goddamn house, anyway, where her mother's slamming door rattled the hallways and her screams followed Summer around the house. Red lipstick prints stained the unwashed glasses in the sink as the stupid clock on the wall ticked and ticked and ticked.
So she dilligently cleaned the cracked linoleum floor of the stage inside of the Derry Performing Arts Centre, a small, pitiful building across the street from the Paramount, the infamous movie theatre that played double feature 50s horror films on Saturdays and R-Rated movies (a few which she'd snuck into) Fridays after midnight.
Summer had begun volunteering there as soon as she was old enough, and she preferred it to anywhere else she could have worked. It was quiet, when there was no rehearsals or performances, it was spacious and cool in temperature, and she got to read the manuscripts of different plays, one of her favourite things to do.
She would have loved to see a show on Broadway, although she'd never have admitted it. Phantom of the Opera had opened last year, and before her family fell apart, she'd been saving up.
Not like she'd get the chance to go now.
There were only a few puffy white clouds in the sky, with most of it blue as a bird, and the sun was heating up the badly paved road quickly. Summer had felt the warmth churn through her too small Converse as she'd rode to work earlier. She'd thought ahead and decided to not wear her Vans to prance around in the Barrens. It was a recipe for disaster.
Everyone knew the Barrens, a wooded piece of land at the tip of the Kenduskeag, where the river ran through rocks and wood and drainage pipes.
Summer wasn't exactly looking forward to it.
She put her yellow, soaking sponge back in the janitor's bucket of water, before wiping her brow and standing up. She was almost done with the stage and her back was starting to hurt from leaning over.
She stood up, dusting off her bruised knees, and walked to the edge of the stage, hopping past the heavy red velvet curtains, out past the lobby, where the elderly lady behind the till didn't raise her head, and out through the front doors for a minute's break.
Stepping outside for a clean breath of fresh air and sunshine, she stretched her arms skyward, not caring what any adult walking past might think. They probably wouldn't even notice her.
She didn't have high hopes for Eddie, Richie, Bill, and Stan coming to get her either. The four boys had probably been friends forever. Why would they let a random, friendless girl into their ranks without a second thought? No one else had before.
