Chapter Text
Nancy Wheeler – September 3, 1985
Mom had talked Dad into making the Country Squire my birthday present, I suspect partially as an apology for Billy. The catch was that I had to give Mike, Lucas, and El a ride to and from school. Honestly, I didn’t mind it that much; it would give us a chance to compare notes away from Mom and Dad if anything else weird happened. The only drawback was that we had to leave early to pick up El at Hopper’s place and still be at school on time.
Hopper and El were both ready and waiting by the time we got there, and Hopper seemed nervous.
“Now, remember Jane. We’ve arranged your schedule so that you have a friend in every class except Math. You’ve got Mike for English and Spanish, Maxine for PE and Science, your science teacher is Mr. Clarke, he’s moved up to the high school this year.”
Mr. Clarke had started tutoring El after finding out about her over the summer.
“And, then for band, uhh…”
“Robin’s the TA,” I volunteered.
“Right, and then for lunch…”
“…Jason will meet you in front of the band room,” Mike volunteered, “follow him through the lunch line and to his table, where you both are going to sit at the edge of the tennis team. If anyone asks about you he’ll explain that you’re in new in town so he offered to let you sit with him. Will, Dustin, and I will try to sit next to you guys. Jason is pretty sure the tennis team will be okay with that, but if there’s any problem, Nancy…”
“Will be sitting with my friends in a spot where we can keep an eye on things unobtrusively and intervene if there’s trouble.”
“Trouble?” We’d managed to confuse El.
“I’m sure there won’t be any trouble,” I tried to reassured her. “Everything’s going to be great.”
I spent the drive over to school trying to hype El and the boys up, but I had to admit that some of their nervousness was rubbing off on me. I spent most of the morning coming up with new scenarios for what could go wrong in my head, and my heart sank when I saw Tommy Hagan walking over to their table at lunch. I caught Mike’s eye, ready to intervene, but he nodded me off.
Feeling relieved, I didn’t worry about El for the rest of the day, and she seemed genuinely excited on the ride back to her house, gushing about all her classes and new friends. Mike and Lucas seemed a little less excited.
“Did everything go okay?” I asked once we had dropped El off.
“I guess so,” Mike responded sullenly.
“Ok, Mike. I know I don’t have powers, but I can tell when you’re lying.”
“It’s just…she doesn’t really grok the concept of sarcasm.”
“Oh…shit.”
“Yeah…shit.”
“So, the friends she was talking about making…” In the rearview mirror, I could see Lucas shaking his head.
“What about the tennis team?”
“They tolerate her, but they aren’t out to be friends with her. They think we’re all one of Jason’s projects.”
“Projects?”
“Jason kind of has a reputation as a goody two-shoes. That’s why I didn’t like him at first. They think he’s just friends with us so he can, like, write a college essay about being nice to the weird kids.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
Mike shrugged. “It’s the best way to cover for what’s really going on.”
I tried to be reassuring. “I’m sure it won’t be an issue in a couple of months. The whole ‘make yourself popular by beating up on the nerds’ thing doesn’t play as well in high school.”
“What about Hagan?”
“He was never as popular as he thought he was. People only really put up with him and Carole because they were friends with Steve, and now that Steve graduated and he didn’t, everyone is just going to think he’s pathetic. By the way, what was going on with him and you guys at lunch?”
“Like I said, El doesn’t get sarcasm.”
The car was quiet for a few minutes, until we’d almost reached the house. Then, Mike spoke up again. “So, uh…speaking of super seniors, did you know Eddie Munson runs a school D-and-D club?”
“You’re not seriously going to spend your freshman year of high school hanging out with Eddie Munson, are you?”
“Oh, now who’s beating up on the nerdy kids.”
“He’s not a kid! He’s pushing 20! And he’s into, like, Satanism. He sells Jonathan weed!”
Mike rolled his eyes “Well, I’ve been getting mine from Jonathan, so this will cut out the middleman. And if he summons a demon we can just get El to take care of it for us.”
“I’m not saying you’re going to summon a demon, Mike…”
“And I’m saying we’ve handled way worse than Eddie Munson. Look, it’s just Friday nights, and otherwise we’re not going to have anything to do on Fridays…”
“So this is about you not being popular?”
“Jeez, you’ve been hanging out with Jonathan too long.”
“Look, why don’t you talk about it with the counselor?”
“You want me to tell the ‘guidance counselor’ the CIA planted in our school that I’m a nerd and I play D and D. That’s something you think requires psychological counseling?”
“Can we talk about it later? I told Murray I’d be at the paper by four.”
I wanted to be on time to see the next day’s edition. It would carry my first ever solo byline, right on the front page:
New Starcourt Owners Propose East Hawkins Development.