Mad World 🎈 Eddie Kaspbrak

School's Out For Summer

It had been during the summer between third and fourth grade that Annabel Jackson and her family first moved to Derry, Maine from the small town of Grand Isle in southern Louisiana. It had seemed as if the family had simply shown up out of nowhere one day, settling down on one of the farms on Whitcham Road and unloading their belongings from the back of the truck.

Upon first glance, the family of four seemed almost perfect, too perfect. Blonde-haired and blue-eyed, every single one of them, Paul Jackson was tall and broad-shouldered with arms corded with muscle, Shirley Jackson was lovely and statuesque with hair the color of corn silk that waterfalled down her back, and between the two of them they had two beautiful daughters, Annie and Amy, both of whom looked remarkably similar to their mother.

In that first summer, Annie had been on the precipice of turning nine while Amy was only three years old but small for her age and frequently ill. Rumour quickly spread throughout town that the sudden exodus of the family from Louisiana to Maine was because the youngest daughter had been diagnosed with cancer. This had not seemed so unusual, Derry Home Hospital had improved by leaps and bounds in recent years and offered excellent cancer treatments.

It was not until many years later, when Annie really started to think about it, that she would realize just how strange it all was that of all the towns in all the country her parents would choose little Derry, Maine. But at nine years old, all Annie knew was that she had been pulled away from the town where she had spent all of her very short life.

There was no beach in Derry, no sound of crashing waves to lull her to sleep. The closest thing they had to the ocean in Derry was the Penobscot River which, her father told her, eventually emptied out into the ocean, the actual ocean, not the Gulf of Mexico.

That was all very well and good, but eventually was not here, and the most interesting place in Derry was the impossibly lush, forested place that most everyone in town called the Barrens.

It was down into the Barrens that Annie retreated each day during that summer, fleeing from the sterile environment of her own home in favor of the shock of green forest and muggy warmth.

Annie had to grow up quickly following Amy's diagnosis, had learned that she needed to help when she could and stay out of the way when she couldn't.

Annie spent a whole lot of time back then staying out of the way.

That was how she first came across the others one day when she had ventured down to the quarry to explore. With a pink cowgirl hat on and a shiny sheriff badge pinned to the front of her pretty blue dress, Annie was all set to play the part of a cowgirl in the wild, wild west.

She had heard them before she ever saw them, their voices carrying through the thick undergrowth, and when she finally emerged from the brush she was pleasantly surprised to find four boys around her age trying to skip rocks.

She had hesitated there, just beyond the greenery, unsure what to say, until one of the boys, the one wearing glasses, had looked up to see her there.

"Holy shit!" He cried, catching the attention of the others and making Annie jump.

Now it seemed she was even more unsure what to say, not quite knowing how to respond to somebody her age using a word that she definitely was not allowed to use.

"Hello," she said finally, wringing the hem of the skirt of her dress nervously between her hands. Part of her was tempted to retreat back into the trees. She hadn't been mentally prepared to meet anybody new down here after all. But the other part of her was so grateful to have found other kids her age and that was the part that had her offering these boys a small smile. "I'm Annie. My family just moved to Derry."