Richie is eight years old when he first understands that Mrs. Kaspbrak isn’t a nice woman - that she isn’t really a good mom at all.

Eddie is home sick again, and school just isn’t ever the same without him. Richie is even more distracted than usual that day, and by the time he gets home to talk to his mom, he’s practically vibrating out of his skin. He misses Eddie.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Maggie asks, setting her newspaper down to take Richie’s hand instead.

Richie scratches his head with his free hand, shrugging his shoulders.

“Eddie’s sick. School sucks when he’s not there. Do you think I can bring him something? He really likes the soup you made for dinner last night. Do we have any left?”

Maggie smiles, taming Richie’s hair gently with her fingers before standing up.

“Yes, I’ll heat some up and you can take it over. How’s that?”

Richie nods excitedly. He runs up to his room to grab some comics and some candy, too; which he shoves into his pockets so Eddie’s mom won’t see.

With a kiss goodbye, Maggie gives Richie the covered bowl of soup and watches him make his way down the street.

He holds it carefully in one hand and knocks on the door of Eddie’s house with the other. His feet tap against the wooden slats of the porch impatiently while he waits, and he pulls on a bright smile when Mrs K answers, even if she isn’t the one he wants to see.

“Hey, Mrs K! I brought Eddie some soup, can I come in?” Richie holds up the bowl proudly. “My mom made it. Eddie loves it,” he assures, his big eyes looking past her, searching for Eddie.

“Oh, I don’t think so. Eddie really isn’t able to take visitors right now. Goodbye,” she says dismissively, already closing the door in Richie’s face.

“W- well wait! Wait!”

Sonia peers down at him, her chest puffed out in a way that Richie would find extremely comical, if he wasn’t so sad about not seeing Eddie.

“Yes?” Sonia hisses through her teeth.

“Well- well can I just leave this then? He really really likes it. I just want him to have it, please?” Richie is on the verge of pouting until Sonia takes the bowl from him with a scoff, slamming the door before Richie can even say thanks.

And Richie can’t help being curious. He can’t help wanting to just see Eddie.

So he wanders around the house, peeking into the windows. He doesn’t see Eddie. What he does see instead, is Sonia dumping the soup into the garbage. Richie is so confused by the sight that he only stares for a moment before his feet carry him to the back of the house, where he carefully climbs up the tree outside of Eddie’s window. It’s hard with the straps of his backpack catching on the branches every so often, but he’s well versed in climbing by now.

Eddie’s window is open just enough to hear voices, and apparently Sonia is faster than Richie thought, because she’s already in Eddie’s room.

“Ma, who was that? Was that Richie? It sounded like Richie.”

Richie can’t be certain, but Eddie surely doesn’t sound sick from what he can hear.

“No, sweetie. Why would he be here? It was just some door to door salesman.”

“Oh... well, did Richie call? He was- he usually brings me my homework.” Richie’s heart aches in a very strange way at the sound of Eddie’s voice. It kind of aches in the same way it does when his mom is upset with him for breaking his glasses again. He wants to make it better, but he doesn’t know how to.

“Oh, Eddie bear. You know your teachers understand. You’ll get an extension just like you always do. Now get some rest, sweetie. You can’t get better without rest. I’ll bring you something to eat in a while.”

She could have brought him something to eat now, if she hadn’t thrown the soup out.

Richie considers going home right away and telling his mom what Mrs K did, but he can’t get the sound of Eddie’s voice out of his ears.

He waits - impatiently - until there are no more voices and he’s sure that Sonia is out of the room before making his way down the big branch to Eddie’s window, pushing it open the rest of the way and climbing inside, grumbling when he trips over his own feet.

“Richie? Rich!” Eddie is grinning when Richie looks up, and Richie mirrors the expression.

“Hey, Eds! Want some candy? I brought comics too. The newest issue, I know you’ve been talking about it.” Richie plops down beside Eddie, who looks just as healthy as he does every time Sonia says that he’s sick. But Richie doesn’t really understand what Eddie’s sickness is, so he doesn’t say anything about it. He knows sometimes people have sicknesses that you can’t see, but his tummy always feels icky about the way Sonia treats Eddie. Like he’s going to break. Richie’s seen Eddie down at the barrens. He doesn’t seem very breakable.

“Yeah! I’m so hungry. Ma always gives me the worst food when I’m sick. I’ve been dumping it out the window for the birds,” Eddie giggles, and Richie covers his face to stifle his laughter. He pulls the candy from his pockets and sets in into Eddie’s lap, letting him eat it all as he holds the comic book open for the both of them.

And Richie really wants to tell Eddie that he tried to bring him the food he likes. Richie wants to tell him how much he misses him when he’s not at school and that he doesn’t understand why Mrs K hates him so much and won’t let him visit Eddie.

But Eddie is laughing softly as he reads with Richie, and he’s resting his head on Richie’s shoulder, and Richie can hear the way Eddie crunches the candies between his teeth - each one a secret between just the two of them, because he knows Eddie will brush his teeth so his mom will never know - and he decides not to say any of that at all.

Because Eddie is happy right now, and Richie knows finding out about what his mom did won’t make him happy. Eddie would be sad about his mom, and he’d be sad about the soup, and Richie thinks Eddie is already sad too much.

So instead, he hushes his own voice as much as possible as he reads the comic out loud to Eddie in all his different Voices, and maybe Mrs K isn’t such a good mom after all. But Richie is determined to be a good friend, and next time, he’ll just have to climb the tree with the soup in his backpack.

“Eleven, are you listening?”

They erased me. My history.