Joey Hopper//Will Byers

Holly Jolly: part 1

El sits on the couch, seemingly trying to distract herself with Mikes walky-talky, or well his intercom. That names always seemed weird to me. Intercom...it sounds more like an announcement that would go off at school than our way of communication. Sarah and mom always called them walkie-talkies. I remember when Sarah and I got our hands on one for the first time. It was a hot summer day and dad had taken us out to the park. I don't remember all the details, after all I was only four. But I do remember that baby blue spaceship. it wasn't a real one, of course. It was a big new jungle gym that Sarah and I would play pretend on. It was getting kinda late and I was urging Sarah for us to go to Dad, to tell him we were ready to go home. 

But she kept insisting that, "we can't leave now! We haven't even found anything yet"

I remember that confused me, "find something? What could we even find up here?"

"I don't know yet, maybe...maybe just think really hard. Try and think of where something could be."

"That's stupid." I said, puffing out my small chest.

"Just think! I'm older than you so I would know, wouldn't I?" She pleaded, "just close your eyes."

So I did. I remember thinking to myself, where could it be?

I recall most of all how much I wish there would be some kind of sign, a hint to where this unknown discovery could be hiding. And just then there was. A static started humming through the wind. I opened my eyes and we both ran to the far side of the spaceship, near the big slide we were too small, and too scared to slide down. Sitting there was a dusty old intercom.

"A walkie-talkie!" Sarah squealed.

"A what?"

"A walky-talky! It's like a phone that you can carry around with you wherever you go." She said excitedly as she picked it up. "I knew I couldn't find it on my own, you did it Joey! Your magic!"

That last statement seemed to have had an impact on me. It's weird in the way that I know it was a big deal to me all those eight years ago, but now the only thing that remains is the importance. I can't remember what kind of memory it had caused me to think of, or even the feeling tide to that memory. Just the importance of it all. 

I look back to Eleven. What if I was like her? Maybe that's how I had made the walkie turn on, how I broke my glass window, how I pushed back that monster. My brain wants to say no, that it's just a ridiculous thought, but my instincts are telling me I'm right. That I might not be completely whom I've believed I was for my whole life. But I'm a smart girl. My brain probably is right, this is all too crazy to be real.

I'm brought back into reality as Mike begins to talk. "We just tell our parents we have AV club after school, that'll give us at least a few hours for operation Mirkwood."

"You seriously think that the weirdo knows where Will is?" Lucas questions with a skeptical tone.

"Lucas I heard him!" I say raising my voice a bit more than I had intended.

"How? You were with us the whole time." He shoots back.

"No I wasn't dumbo!" I shout feeling offended by his last statement. "It was like home but it was dark, empty and cold and..."

I see the faces of the boys, all disbelieving. Like I'm telling some lie to them all. Suddenly I spit in my hand and quickly force it into Lucas's, "I swear."

I must have looked more serious than I had intended because suddenly the mood changes.

"I believe you," he says looking me in the eye.