Chapter Text
Richie Tozier knew he’d pushed his parents too far this time.
The skipping? Sure. The school’s attendance office probably had a whole file just for him labeled “???” The disappearing mid-math class to hit up the arcade? Fine, maybe once. Twice. Four times tops.
But the grades. Oh, the grades.
That was the kicker. Even after all of it—after weeks of perfecting the fine art of showing up just late enough to miss roll call but early enough to grab cafeteria snacks—he was still pulling in straight As. Not just passing. Acing. Across the board. Like some smug nerd with a planner and a highlighter collection.
Except Richie didn’t look like a straight-A student. He looked like what happened when sarcasm got struck by lightning and came to life in the form of a teenage boy with too many opinions and even more hair.
The Losers didn’t care. If anything, they were in awe. Every day after school, he’d drag his heap of textbooks down to their clubhouse in the Barrens, flop dramatically onto the rug, and start speed-reading Shakespeare like it owed him money. He muttered chemical formulas while eating gummy worms, solved geometry proofs upside down, and complained about the boring narrative structure of The Great Gatsby like he was personally offended by Fitzgerald.
To Richie, it wasn’t about skipping learning—it was about skipping school. School was rigid and boring and full of teachers who looked at him like he was just one loud joke away from a suspension. The clubhouse, though? That was his place. It smelled like damp earth and old candy, the lights were bad, the roof leaked—but it was the only place where studying didn’t feel like punishment.
And the Losers? They got it.
Eddie would hand him flashcards while cleaning his inhaler mouthpiece. Stan would wordlessly push his notes toward Richie with a small nod. Even Bill, ever the optimist, stopped asking why Richie wasn’t coming to class. They knew he wasn’t lazy. He just… couldn’t do it there.
But the school didn’t know. And his parents definitely didn’t know.
Which led to this exact moment, standing in his living room, gripping the strap of his backpack like it might somehow deflect the incoming “serious conversation.”
Maggie and Wentworth Tozier were seated on the couch like statues—emotionless, stiff, vaguely threatening in that suburban parent way that always came with phrases like “we’re not mad, just disappointed,” which was somehow worse than yelling.
“Richard,” his father said, and it was already bad because Richard meant trouble. Richard was what they said when he was one second away from losing TV privileges or, worse, being forced to mow the lawn.
He blinked. “Uh… yeah?”
Wentworth Tozier set down his copy of the Bangor Daily like he was about to deliver some kind of corporate eulogy. “As you know, your mother and I are unimpressed by your lack of commitment to schoolwork.”
Richie stared at him, then glanced at his mom, who stood beside the sofa with her arms crossed so tightly it looked like she was physically restraining herself from throwing a slipper.
“I’m pulling straight As,” Richie said.
“We’ve tried to reason with you,” Wentworth went on, undeterred. “But your attendance continues to remain poor.”
“That’s—okay, yeah, that’s technically true,” Richie muttered.
“And now,” his father said, shifting forward like he was delivering the real punchline, “your teachers have also made it apparent that you’ve been cheating on all of your exams.”
Richie froze.
There it was. The crown jewel of their nonsense.
He almost laughed. Cheating? That was rich—no pun intended.
If anything, his teachers just couldn’t wrap their heads around how a kid who was never there managed to do better than the ones who were. They couldn’t imagine someone like him—sarcastic, loud-mouthed, eternally disheveled—to be capable of solving complex math problems without sitting through their monotone lectures. So instead of believing it, they cried foul.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Richie said, voice flat. “Cheating? Do you think I’ve got some secret answer key? A psychic link with the nerds in AP Calculus?”
Maggie spoke up then, her voice clipped and efficient. “Your behavior has consequences, Richard. We’ve spoken to your aunt Karen, and she’s agreed to take you in for the summer.”
He blinked.
“…I’m sorry, what?”
“You’ll be spending the next two months in Hawkins, Indiana.”
The silence that followed was long, slow, and full of disbelief.
Richie blinked again. “Hawkins? Indiana? That’s not even a real place. That sounds like somewhere cartoon characters live.”
“It’s quiet,” Wentworth said. “Simple. Maybe it’ll help you refocus.”
“Oh, sure,” Richie snapped. “Send the loudest, most talkative person you know to the land of beige houses and cornfields. That’ll definitely fix my attendance issues.”
“You’ll have the opportunity to get away from distractions,” Maggie added.
“Do you mean my friends? My life? What distractions?!”
“Richard,” she said again, and that was the final nail in the coffin.
He spun toward the stairs, muttering a stream of words that were probably half-English, half-guttural groaning, and stomped up to his room like gravity personally offended him.
Slammed door. Check.
Flopped dramatically onto bed. Check.
Muffled scream into pillow. Double check.
He flipped onto his back and stared at the ceiling. His glow-in-the-dark stars blinked back at him like they were silently judging him too.
This wasn’t happening. This was a fever dream. A punishment too cruel for someone who had literally studied by choice. Who wanted to learn. Who just hated the part where learning came with strict rules and teachers who acted like being bored in class was some kind of moral failing.
“Indiana,” he mumbled to no one.
How was he supposed to survive the summer without the Losers? Without Eddie?
God, Eddie.
Richie grabbed the nearest notebook off his desk and hurled it at the wall. It hit with a soft thunk and flopped to the floor like even gravity was embarrassed to participate.
He didn’t even notice the sound of footsteps on the stairs until a piece of paper slid under his door.
Flight Itinerary. June 3rd. Bangor to Chicago. Connecting to Hawkins Regional Airport.
One-way ticket.
He stared at it.
Then he groaned again and let himself sink further into his mattress like he could phase through it and escape into the floorboards.