July of 1958

July of 1958 is the crucible month in which the seven children who call themselves the Losers' Club—Bill Denbrough, Beverly Marsh, Ben Hanscom, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, Stanley Uris, and Mike Hanlon—are forged into a single fighting unit. Over these thirty-one days, they move from isolated encounters with the shape-shifting entity known as It to a coordinated armed assault on its lair at 29 Neibolt Street, and they seal their pact with a blood oath that will call them back to Derry twenty-seven years later. The month contains the club's greatest triumphs, its most shattering losses, and the first real wound they inflict on the monster that has haunted their town for centuries.

The Convergence of the Seven

The month opens with the Losers' Club still incomplete. Bill, Eddie, and Ben have already met and built the dam in the Barrens; Richie and Stan have joined them. But the circle does not close until Mike Hanlon appears. On July 3rd, Henry Bowers and his gang chase Mike through the trainyards and into the Barrens, where the Losers are gathered in the gravel-pit with a package of firecrackers. When Mike bursts into the clearing, bleeding and desperate, the six children instinctively form a line and fight beside him. The apocalyptic rockfight that follows drives Bowers and his friends out of the Barrens for good. "We're all together now," Bill thinks, and the idea is so strong, so right, that he feels ice-chips scatter up his back. The next day, July 4th, Mike marches in the holiday parade and sees Pennywise the Clown handing out balloons—the same creature he had encountered as a giant bird at the Kitchener Ironworks two months earlier. He recognizes It, and the recognition completes the group's shared knowledge.

The Clubhouse and the Smoke-Hole

In the days following the rockfight, the seven children build an underground clubhouse in the Barrens under Ben Hanscom's direction. They cap it with a mahogany door scavenged from the dump and camouflage it with sod, creating a hidden space where they can meet and plan. On July 17th, inspired by Ben's reading about Native American vision quests, they perform a smoke-hole ceremony. They build a fire of green wood in the sealed clubhouse and breathe the smoke until all but Richie and Mike are driven out by coughing. The two who remain share a vision: they are transported to the Barrens as they existed thousands of years ago, before the ice age, when the Kenduskeag was a raging river and the land was tropical. They watch a burning object fall from the sky—not a spaceship, not a meteor, but something that came "from outside everything"—and they understand that this was the arrival of It on Earth. The vision leaves them with torn clothes, scraped knees, and the terrifying knowledge that the entity they face is older than humanity itself.

The First Assault on Neibolt Street

Armed with this knowledge, the Losers decide to act. On July 25th, they gather at 29 Neibolt Street, the abandoned house where Eddie had encountered the leper and where Bill and Richie had been chased by the werewolf. Beverly carries Bill's Bullseye slingshot and two silver slugs that Ben has cast from one of his father's silver dollars. The seven children enter the house, navigate its shifting, impossible geometry, and confront the creature in the upstairs bathroom. It erupts from the toilet drain as the Teenage Werewolf, the shape Richie had seen in a movie. Beverly fires the slingshot, and the silver slug strikes the werewolf in the snout, driving It back down into the drain with a scream of pain and rage. The children escape, believing they have hurt It badly—but they have not killed It. The confrontation leaves Ben with a deep claw-gash across his chest and belly, a scar that will remain for the rest of his life.

Violence and Loss

July of 1958 is also a month of terrible violence against the children themselves. On July 20th, five days before the Neibolt Street assault, Henry Bowers and his gang catch Eddie Kaspbrak alone outside the Costello Avenue Market. Henry breaks Eddie's arm, and Patrick Hockstetter spits in his face. Eddie spends the rest of the summer in a cast. The same day, Beverly Marsh flees her father, Al Marsh, who has been possessed by It and attacks her in their apartment, accusing her of sexual misconduct and trying to force her to undress. She escapes by running through the streets and hiding in the Barrens, where she finds Ben and the others. On July 22nd, Patrick Hockstetter is killed when he opens the abandoned refrigerator he has been using as a killing-bottle for animals; it is infested with flying leeches that drain his blood, and the creature drags his body into the sewers. Beverly witnesses the aftermath and sees the words "HAVE A NICE DAY!" written in blood on the refrigerator door. Earlier in the month, on June 19th, Eddie Corcoran is killed by the Canal after fleeing his abusive stepfather; his body is never found.

The Blood Oath and the Promise

Near the end of July, after the Neibolt Street confrontation, the seven children gather in the Barrens at sunset. Stanley Uris finds a broken Coke bottle and uses a shard of glass to cut each of their palms. They stand in a circle in the water, hands joined, bleeding together, and swear a promise: if It is not dead, if It ever starts killing again, they will come back to Derry and finish the job. Bill speaks the oath, and the others repeat it. Stan's voice falters, but he swears too. The circle closes, and for a moment they feel a power flowing among them—a power that will sustain them through the final battle in August and that will call them home twenty-seven years later. Then they drop their hands and walk away, each going home separately. Bill is the last to leave. He stands at the white fence overlooking the Barrens, watching the darkness fill the hollows, and realizes he never wants to play down there again. The feeling is not terrible but liberating. He turns away and walks home, and after a block or two he begins to whistle.