Chapter 17: HAWKINS HIGH
The administration office at Hawkins High smelled like paper and disappointment.
Max fidgeted in the chair beside me, her knee bouncing with nervous energy she was trying to hide. I sat still, letting the small-town bureaucracy wash over me while the secretary reviewed our paperwork.
"California," she said, squinting at my transcripts. "Long way from home."
"Fresh start."
"Mmm." She flipped a page. "Your grades are... inconsistent. As are your attendance, and your disciplinary record."
"I'm working on being more consistent."
The secretary—Mrs. Holland, according to the nameplate, no relation to Barbara as far as I knew—gave me a look that suggested she'd heard that particular lie before. "You'll find Hawkins more structured than whatever you were used to. We have expectations here."
"Looking forward to meeting them."
She handed over a stack of papers. Class schedule, locker assignment, a map of the building, the usual orientation package. "Basketball tryouts are next week. I noticed your records indicate athletic participation."
"Point guard. Three years."
"Coach likes new blood. Especially blood that can actually play." She glanced at Max. "Your sister's enrollment is through the middle school office. Separate building."
"Stepsister," Max corrected automatically.
"Of course." Mrs. Holland's expression didn't change. "Welcome to Hawkins."
We escaped into the hallway. The school was quiet—summer session meant only a skeleton crew of administrators and the occasional overachiever working on extra credit. In a week, this place would be packed with students.
Including the ones I needed to find.
"This is boring," Max announced. "I'm going to go wander. Meet you back here?"
"Thirty minutes. Don't get lost."
"It's a school, not a maze." She was already walking away. "You're not my dad."
"Thank god for that."
The comment made her smile before she disappeared around a corner. Progress.
I took my time exploring. The layout was standard—classrooms in the main building, gym and pool in the attached athletics wing, cafeteria in the basement. Trophy cases lined the main hallway, celebrating decades of mediocre achievements in sports nobody cared about.
Basketball was different. The display cases dedicated to it were larger, shinier, filled with actual championship trophies. Hawkins High took their basketball seriously. That was useful.
I stopped in front of a team photo from last season. Front and center, holding the trophy, was Steve Harrington.
The face was familiar from the show—handsome in that all-American way, perfectly styled hair, the confident smirk of someone who'd never had to doubt his place in the world. King Steve, they'd called him. King of the school, king of the court, king of everything that mattered in small-town Indiana.
Not for much longer. By the time the show's events really got going, Nancy Wheeler would break his heart and he'd be reassessing everything he thought he knew about himself.
"That was last year."
The voice came from behind me. I turned.
Steve Harrington stood ten feet away, letterman jacket despite the summer heat, arms crossed, expression evaluating. Sizing me up the way athletes did when they encountered potential competition.
"Checking out the legacy," I said.
"Something like that." He nodded at the trophy case. "You play?"
"Point guard."
"We've got a point guard."
"You've got a spot. Whether I take it depends on tryouts."
His eyes narrowed slightly. Not hostility—more like interest. A wolf recognizing another wolf. "California plates on that Camaro in the lot?"
"You keeping track of parking?"
"I notice things." He stepped closer. Not aggressive. Just... establishing territory. "Steve Harrington."
"Billy Hargrove."
We didn't shake hands. The moment stretched—two predators meeting at a watering hole, deciding whether to fight or share space.
"Tryouts are next Tuesday," Steve said finally. "Coach likes punctuality."
"I'll keep that in mind."
He nodded once, turned, and walked away. His sneakers squeaked on the linoleum, the only sound in the empty hallway.
I watched him go. That had been... different. The original Billy and Steve had clashed immediately, violently, their rivalry escalating to a basketball court confrontation that had ended with Steve's face bloody and Billy's reputation cemented.
This didn't have to go that way. Steve wasn't my enemy. In the long run, he might be one of my most valuable allies. The trick was getting there without triggering the aggressive territorial bullshit that teenage boys were so prone to.
I filed the encounter away. Useful data.
Max was waiting at the front doors, looking bored. "The middle school is just as boring as this one. Possibly more boring. I didn't think that was possible."
"Small town. Limited entertainment options."
"You promised there was an arcade."
"The Palace. Downtown somewhere."
"Can we go? Right now?"
I checked my watch. Susan would have lunch ready eventually, but there was time. "Quick visit. I want to see you lose at Dig Dug."
"In your dreams, fire boy."
We drove downtown with the windows down and the radio up. Max had claimed control of the dial again—she'd started doing that automatically, asserting small dominances in the way siblings did. I let her. It was easier than fighting, and the music wasn't actually terrible.
The Palace Arcade was exactly what you'd expect from a small-town entertainment center: dark interior, blinking lights, the electronic chorus of a dozen games playing simultaneously. Max's eyes lit up the moment we walked in.
"Okay," she admitted. "This doesn't suck."
"High praise."
She made a beeline for the Dragon's Lair machine while I hung back, scanning the room. A few kids our age, summer boredom written on their faces. Nobody I recognized from the show, though the memory was imperfect at best.
Somewhere in Hawkins, the Party was probably doing their own thing—riding bikes, playing D&D, trying to contact Eleven through whatever system Mike had set up. Will Byers was dealing with episodes he didn't understand. Joyce was working herself to exhaustion trying to hold her family together.
And me? I was standing in an arcade, watching my stepsister burn through quarters on video games, pretending to be a normal teenager.
The wrongness pulsed beneath my feet. Faint here, but present. Always present.
Max lost her first game, then her second, then demanded more quarters with the intensity of an addict. I handed them over. Let her have this—the simple pleasure of being a kid in an arcade, no supernatural threats, no family drama.
She'd need that memory later.
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