Math Tutor 🥀 Reddie

Part 1

The walls of the empty classroom seemed to be closing in on Eddie Kaspbrak as he waited, tapping his nails on the wooden desk.  A math tutor.  He was waiting for his new math tutor, whoever that may be.

    His mother had forced him to sign up for the peer tutoring program when she noticed that his grade in math had dropped to a C.  He was surprised that she'd even let him.   Why, Eddie could have an asthma attack!  Or perhaps accidentally staple his own hand, get tetanus, and die!

    Whiteboard, desks, pencils, the stupid posters all around the room.  All of it made him feel so annoyed he could scream.  This was quite possibly his least favorite place in the world.  It wasn't the room that irritated him, per se, but the subject that was taught in that room had never been something he could quite grasp.   

    But it was barely ever a place itself that bothered people, was it?  It was what went on there.  Eddie felt the same way about Derry.  All his life, he'd lived in the same small town.

    Predictably, Eddie hadn't made many friends.  The huge first aid kit he carried with him to every class could've been what scared people away.  Or maybe the array of pills he took with every lunch was what did it.

    Or maybe it was his mother.  His crazy mother who sheltered him and treated him like a little kid at fourteen years old.

    Eddie felt a sort of resentment toward Sonia, although he would never admit it.  On one hand, he believed her when she said she was only trying to keep him safe.  On the other hand, he thought of her as a liar, a lunatic who had manipulated him all his life. 

    Eddie had a sneaking suspicion that maybe, just maybe he wasn't as fragile and sickly as his mom led him to believe.

    He wasn't completely alone though.  He had The Losers Club.  That's what he and his best friends had decided to call their group.  The Losers always had his back; they were the people who made everything feel alright even when it felt like his world had been turned upside-down.

    He looked across the room at the teacher's desk.  The wooden platform was covered in little figurines.  A ballerina, three deer, a woman with long blonde hair who wore a flowing dress, and a little turtle with swirling, eye-bleeding colors all resided there.

    Suddenly, he heard the door open.  His heart jumped up into his throat.  Now he would have to talk to a real-life person, and that was not something anybody wanted.  He turned toward the door, and was immediately shocked with what he saw.

    A skinny kid with glasses who wore a tacky Hawaiian shirt spun around and threw up finger guns at him.  Richie Tozier.  Immediately, Eddie felt simultaneously relieved and confused.  

   Richie was a part of The Losers Club.  Eddie had known him for years and he never once thought that Richie was the type to be a math tutor.  How could that even work?  Richie never took anything seriously and couldn't shut up to save his life.

    As soon as Richie saw Eddie, he wore the same baffled expression.

    "Eddie?" he blurted out.

    "Richie?"

    A smile crept onto the taller boy's face. 

   "Eddie Spaghetti can't do math?" he laughed.

   "Shut up, Richie."