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Bill, Eddie, and Richie are all sitting at the Tozier dining room table, waiting for the fourth member of their party to arrive. Their geometry homework is spread out across the wooden table, most of it unsolved, along with an array of snacks, most of which have already been devoured. Bill looks at the old clock on the wall as Richie and Eddie bicker over who gets the last of the barbeque-flavored potato chips. Stanley should have been done with baseball practice 30 minutes ago, and it doesn’t usually take him this long to bike to Richie’s house. Bill briefly considers riding up to the baseball field to check on him when a knock comes from the front door.
“About time,” Richie mutters, quickly swiping the final few chips from Eddie’s hand as he gets up to answer the door.
“Richie, you turd!” Eddie screams at him.
“Y’snooze, you lose, skeddi-boy,” Richie calls back to the dining room with a mouthful of chips. He rubs his hands on the edge of his shirt as he reaches for the door handle. He doesn’t remember locking it, and Stan knows he can let himself in, but Richie figures his friend is just being his usual polite self.
“Stan the man,” he announces loudly, swinging the door open. “Where’ve you been? You know we suck at math…”
Richie trails off as he takes in the sight of Stanley on his front porch. The other boy’s head is hung, defeated, and his baseball cap covers his face completely. Still, Richie can see the faint outlines of tear tracks running from Stan’s chin. His knuckles are paper white as they clutch his gym bag, and aside from the usual dirt stains on his uniform, he doesn’t look too roughed up in any apparent way.
“Stanley?” Richie asks, tilting his head to peek up under the baseball cap. Stan’s face is red from either crying or from exercise, or possibly a combination of the two. “What’s wrong?”
Stan sniffs, his dark brown eyes refusing to meet Richie’s. “May I come in please,” he asks, his voice a bit raw.
Richie pulls him inside, taking his gym bag from him. “Go sit down on the couch, I’ll grab you a glass of water.” As Stanley quietly kicks his cleats off near the front door, Richie races to the kitchen, tosses the bag down haphazardly, and grabs a clean glass from the cupboard. Any other day he would’ve just grabbed one of the dirty ones from the sink, which would’ve earned him an earful from both Stan and Eddie about how gross that was – “I drank from it earlier, so why should it matter?” – but right now was not the time to instigate. As he fills the glass from the kitchen sink, Eddie and Bill poke their heads in.
“What’s going on, Rich?” Eddie asks. “You drop something?”
Richie hurries back to the living room, trying not to spill the glass that he accidentally filled up with too much water. “Something happened to Stan,” he calls over his shoulder. “Come on, he’s in here.”
“What h-happened?!” Bill asks worriedly, he and Eddie hot on Richie’s heels as the three of them come to gather around Stan, now sitting stiffly on the edge of the couch. Richie offers him the glass, which spills a little onto the couch cushion, but Stanley accepts it and takes a drink. Eddie perches next to him, his hand on Stan’s shoulder, and subconsciously starts checking his friend for any signs of outward injury.
“You alright, Stanley?” Eddie asks. Stan swallows the water eagerly and gasps, handing the now half-full glass back to Richie. He nods but continues to look down, his face still obscured by his baseball cap.
“What happened?” Bill asks again.
“Bowers and his gang…” Stanley answers quietly. He suddenly shrinks into himself, unwilling to reveal any further information. “I can’t, it’s embarrassing.”
Bill kneels, putting a gentle hand on Stan’s knee. “It’s okay, you can tell us. W-why don’t you take off your h-hat so we can hear you better.”
“I can’t.”
“Huh?” Bill blinks, confused.
“I can’t take it off,” Stan repeats.
Richie smirks. “Don’t worry about your hat hair, Stanley, we’ve all been ther—”
“No.” Stan sniffles and looks up finally, his brown eyes swimming with tears. “I can’t take off my hat, Richie, because Henry Bowers and his asshole friends put krazy glue in it,” he enunciates sharply. “My hat. Is glued. To my head.”
The three of them stare stunned at their friend, whose head falls back down sadly. Bill can feel his own face growing hot with anger. Fucking Bowers… It was one of the cruelest pranks you could do to someone: paint the inner brim of their hat with krazy glue and just wait for them to put it on.
Eddie is the first to break the silence. “Oh Stanley,” he whispers, his own eyes threatening to mist. “It’s okay, you’re okay.” He rubs Stanley’s shoulder and looks to the other two. “What should we do, guys?”
Bill strides towards the door. “I’m guh-gonna got kick the sh-sh-shit out of Bowers,” he says matter-of-factly. Stan is on his feet in an instant.
“Please no, Bill! Don’t, he’ll do something worse to you,” Stanley yells, grabbing Bill’s shirt. Bill tries to shake him off as he opens the front door. “Please, it’s okay—”
“It’s not okay, Stan! He hurt you!”
Stan hardens. “Fine, I know, it’s not okay. It fucking sucks. But I don’t want you to get hurt fighting my battles for me! Bowers is going to get what’s coming to him eventually, but I don’t want you or anyone else getting hurt today.” He loosens his grip and sighs, rubbing his face. “Just… leave it alone, okay? For now, at least. Please?”
Bill huffs but eventually closes the door again.
“Fine,” he says, resting a hand on the offending baseball cap on Stan’s head. “But we still need to figure out what we’re g-going to do about th-this.”
“You’re gonna have to cut it off, I guess,” Richie offers.
Stan frowns. “No, I can’t. It’ll look so stupid.” He tries gently tugging the cap, but it doesn’t budge. “There’s got to be another way.”
Eddie approaches and carefully inspects where the hat and Stan’s hair are connected. “He really did a number,” he admits. “It’s stuck to your scalp in some places.”
Stanley groans. “Great,” he sighs.
“It’s just hair, it’ll grow back,” Richie insists. “My dad has some clippers in his bathroom, we can take care of it right now.”
Stanley shakes his head. “I especially don’t want to shave my whole head, Richie!”
“Why not? It’s just hair.”
“It’s my hair!” Stan argues. “Excuse me if I don’t want to look like Sinead O’Connor the rest of the school year!”
“It’ll grow back, Stanley!”
“I don’t care!”
“Oh my god, you are so sensitive,” Richie grumbles as he marches off and slams his parents’ bedroom door. Bill is about to suggest something when they hear the telltale buzz of an electric razor. The three of them are frozen in place.
“He wouldn’t,” Eddie says, looking wide-eyed at the other two.
They stumble past one another as they race to the bedroom and Bill pounds on the bathroom door. “Richie, what are you doing?!” he yells over the loud buzz of the razor. He tries the doorknob but it’s locked.
“Hey dumbass, you proved your point,” Eddie shouts at the door. “Cut it out, you’re freaking us out!”
Finally, after a few more bangs on the wood and jiggling the doorknob, does the buzzer click off and the door swing open. Richie stands there proudly, glasses off, clippers in hand, and with a freshly (and poorly) buzzed head.
“See? I told you it’s not a big deal, you wuss,” he says, gesturing to himself. The other three just stare at him in utter shock until Stan finally sputters.
“Richie, you… you–” Stanley says, then dips his head down into his hands, his shoulders beginning to shake. Richie frowns, worried for a minute that he’s crying again, but then Stanley tosses his head back and he’s laughing so uproariously. “You idiot! What the hell is wrong with you,” he asks through gasps.
The tension broken, Bill and Eddie also begin to laugh while Richie just smiles stupidly.
“You missed like so many spots, dude,” Eddie snickers. “Geez Richie, were you even trying?”
“Hey, I had to take my glasses off,” Richie protests. He tosses the razor to Bill and points to the back of his head, where tufts of black hair remained in messy patches. “Mind cleaning me up, Bill?”
Bill smirks and gets to work shaving off the rest of Richie’s hair. He actually didn’t do too bad of a job, just missed a few places here and there. At least he put a guard on it so he wasn’t just freehanding it.
“There you go,” Bill says once he’s finished. He hands Richie back his glasses and dusts the loose hair off his shirt. Richie examines himself in the mirror, his hands running over the short buzzcut.
“Looks a hell of a lot better than Sinead, if I do say so myself,” Richie remarks, satisfied with his handiwork. He throws a look to the other boys and grabs a pair of mustache scissors, snipping them threateningly. “Your turn, Stanley.”
Stan shakes his head quickly. “Not from you, four-eyes.” He takes the scissors and hands them to Bill. “Please be gentle.”
Bill nods and carefully starts cutting away the worst of the glue/hat/hair combination until the hat is freed, along with a substantial amount of hair. Eddie throws it unceremoniously into the trashcan. Stanley shuts his eyes, not wanting to see how ridiculous he looks with half his hair missing. Then Bill methodically shaves away the rest of his golden curls and it’s over before he knows it.
“Okay, you can look, if y-you want to.”
Stanley peeks one eye open and looks in the mirror. His face looks back at him, now sporting the same crewcut as Richie. It’s… not as bad as he thought it would be.
“It’s different,” he admits, touching the short prickly hairs gingerly. His heart aches for just a moment. It sucks but Richie was right: it’s just hair, and it’ll grow back. He glances at Richie. “I think I pull it off better than you, at least.”
Richie feigns a wounded look, clutching his chest dramatically. “Hey, whoa, watch yourself there, Staniel! Don’t forget, you copied me. I started this trend.”
They all laugh at this, then Bill looks at himself in the mirror, shrugs, and buzzes a line right down the middle of his head. They watch with amazement as he gives himself a haircut to match, smiling the whole time. Afterwards he clicks the buzzer off and turns to his friends, offering another shrug.
“I wanted to f-fit in with the cool k-kids. This look is v-very in right now.”
Stanley beams and throws his arms around Bill and Richie. “You guys are so dumb, but thank you,” he says. The three of them hug, then Richie looks mischievously at Eddie, who suddenly pales.
“Eds,” he states. “Snip, snip.”
Eddie glances between the three of them who now appear to be ganging up on him. He sighs and digs into his fanny pack. “My mom’s gonna think I joined a cult,” he mutters to himself. He pulls out his inhaler, takes a big puff, and looks to Bill. “Do it.”
Soon brunette hair joins the piles of auburn, blonde and black on the floor of Maggie and Wentworth’s bathroom. The boys take turns dusting each other off and inspecting one another for any missed spots, but Bill was careful and thorough and they all look good, if not a little bit off for the current fashion. Stanley felt grateful for his friends, idiots though they may be, for always making sure he was never alone in his suffering. They return to their long-forgotten snacks and homework, enjoying the pleasant company of one another – until the cry of “RICHARD TOZIER, WHAT IN GODS NAME HAVE YOU DONE TO YOURSELF” from Richie’s mom interrupted their time together.