IT Chapter 1 - Continued Ending 🎈

Chapter 9 - A Sad Thing To Say

🎈 This one's quite long and quite sad 🎈

The bell rang for the end of the school day, and all of the students came running out of the classrooms. Eddie, Richie, Ben and Bill met Stan, who was waiting for them at the top of the steps. Bill had his head hung low, quiet. He hadn't been himself all day; he just kept remembering that he had to tell his friends that he was leaving.

"God, I hate school," Richie grumbled as they walked out of the gates.

"You obviously don't hate it that much, Rich. You get straight As most of the time," Eddie pointed out, trying not to sound jealous. He was actually really jealous of Richie's grades. He never studied much, but he always did well. Eddie always did extra studying, mainly because his mother forced him to, but he usually got Bs at best.

"Hey, are you admitting that I'm smart?" Richie teased.

"There's a difference between smart and knowledgeable."

"Yeah, a smart person would know that," Stan said.

Richie rolled his eyes and flipped Stan off. Mike ran up to them. During the summer, he had decided that he was going to meet them at the end of school every day. He didn't care that his grandfather hated the town.

"Hey guys!"

"Hey Mike!"

"Hi Mike!"

"Hey Mikey!"

"Don't call me that, Richie," he said calmly, having said it so many times before.

"Why does nobody like my nicknames?" Richie wailed, offended.

"Because they're annoying!"

"Shut up, Staniel."

Eddie smirked, and then turned to Bill. He had noticed that he was acting a little off – a little too quiet, but he didn't mention it.

"Hey, Bill, you okay? You're really quiet today," he finally spoke up.

"I'm fine," he mumbled. "Just...can we go to the barrens? Not to the sewers or anything, just to, like, the forest."

"Sure..." Ben said, slightly suspicious. All of them had noticed that something was up with Bill, and they got more and more worried by the minute as they approached the trees.

🎈 🎈 🎈

The boys rode their bikes through the forest until they got to the clearing where the entrance to the clubhouse was (Mike just ran after them. He was fast enough.)

"Are we actually going into the clubhouse?" Stan asked.

"No, can we just stay up here?" Bill looked down at the ground.

Eddie walked over to him and said with a soft voice, "Bill, what's wrong? What is it?"

Bill started crying, and fell to the floor. The others all immediately dropped their bikes onto the grass and ran over to him, pulling him into a huge group hug.

"Bev called yesterday; she kept my number, and told me to give hers to all of you. But, then I had to go because my mom and dad had to talk to me. I-"

Bill took a deep breath.

"I'm moving to California."

"What?!" Stan yelled in shock.

"Why?" Eddie tried not to cry.

"My parents said we need a fresh start; we have so many bad memories here."

"There are loads of good ones, too, though!" Ben protested.