PARANORMAL | ❝Nothing is stranger than believing.❞
Cath knows a thing or two about Will Byers. Daphne, on the other hand, knows virtually nothing about Tonya McCarthy. Still, none of that changes the fact that both of them have up and vanished with...
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WEDNESDAY 9th NOVEMBER, 1983
OVERNIGHT, what had begun as a fragmented panic over their hatched plot to find Will (and, frankly, Mike's sanity) had manifested into something entirely different — a newfound excitement. She still didn't warm too much to the idea of them using this... reallyweird girl, and whatever strange abilities she appeared to possess. But Cath found herself with a spring in her step, a tingling of adrenaline keeping her on the edge all day as she anticipated their arrangements:
Meet Eleven at 3:15pm after school. And so the search party will begin.
Dustin had even flashed a glimpse of his obscene stash of candy to her ("For stamina," he justified) in Mr. Clarke's class, when she sat down to take a seat in second period. She had managed a bashful smile, and for once, she found herself experiencing this wonderful sensation like she's part of something... for the greater good.
Nevertheless, no persistent efforts of self-motivation can hide the shadow that falls on Will's empty seat when the sun re-emerges from behind the dull clouds. Her silhouette hunches over the wood like the protective wing of a mother bird, the seat still slightly warm from first period, but lacking in the warmth of the one person that matters the most in all of this. The desk is scattered with pencil shavings and remnants of an eraser; all Cath can think about is how Will would have cleaned that up straightaway, so the next kid sitting there wouldn't have to work in his mess.
What if they really did find him tonight? Cath silently revels in the thought. If Eleven really knows where he is, then maybe — just maybe — this could be it. That beaming boy from the Science Fair photo in Mike's room would be back, with his big, generous eyes and his contagious grin. She remembers that grin from the last Science Fair...
Sandy Brooks was unmovingly convinced that that year, Spring 1983, was the year she would finally take the trophy home. For painstakingly long months prior, she had been rattling on about this levitating pen experiment, tested it out numerous times in the Science classrooms after school, and finally the day had arrived. The school gym was bursting at the seams with competitive banter, and the vaguely nauseating odours of un-distinguishable chemicals that, under any other circumstances, should not be mixed together. So they had set up, with the coloured shapes and notes in bubble writing on some cork board Cath had borrowed from the Hawk Theatre, and the day had commenced.
Around half an hour into the fair, Pam had turned to Cath: "Cath, you stay here," she told her, "We're just... going to go and see some of the other stalls. You know what to do, right?" — to which she nodded certainly, hiding the self doubt that began creeping in. What if she messed up and undermined their entire project? She couldn't even stand confidently within a metre of next-door's rowdy volcano experiment gone wrong...
