The clearing echoes with Beverly’s laughter—sharp and bright like sunlight glancing off water—as she sprints across the grass with Richie chasing her, waving a stick like it’s Excalibur.

“GET BACK HERE, MARSH!” Richie cries, half laughing, half wheezing. “YOU CAN’T JUST HIT ME WITH A PINECONE AND WALK AWAY!”

“It was on the ground, Trashmouth!” Bev fires back, dodging behind Ben. “Nature did it, not me!”

Ben, red-faced and trying not to crumble under the pressure of attention, raises both hands. “Uh—I didn’t sign up to be a shield—”

A pinecone hits Richie square in the chest.

“OH, COME ON!”

Stan sits on the blanket, long legs stretched out as he sharpens a stick with unnecessary seriousness. “You realize,” he says dryly, “you’re just encouraging her, right?”

Mike snorts. “He started it.”

“No one ever believes me,” Richie mutters as he flops dramatically onto the grass beside Eddie.

Eddie doesn’t look up from rearranging the medical supplies in his fanny pack. “Because you always start it. Literally every time. There’s evidence, Richie.”

“Is your evidence the voices in your inhaler?” Richie shoots back, leaning close.

Eddie shoves him with one finger. “Back. Up. I don’t want your germs.”

“You already have my heart—”

“RICHIE.”

Bill returns from the stream, droplets clinging to his shirt. “C-Can you guys stop yelling for f-five minutes? You’re scaring away the fish.”

Stan looks up. “Bill, the only fish in that stream are rumors.”

“That’s what they said about Pennywise,” Ben mutters.

Everyone freezes for half a second.

Then Bev tosses another pinecone at him. “Fun day, remember?”

Ben blushes. “Right. Fun. Sorry.”

Beverly walks over and ruffles his hair, earning another shade of red.

Bill sighs the sigh of a man with six siblings he never asked for.

“You know,” he says, settling beside them, “we c-could play a game or something.”

Eddie brightens. “Cards?”

Richie grins like a goblin. “Truth or Dare.”