•THE WEIRDOS ON MAPLE STREET•

THE TWO GIRLS WERE TAKEN TO ONE OF THE BOYS' HOME, both of the girls were sitting in his basement with jackets. Eleven was given one from the kid with the bowl haircut and Twelve was given a jacket from the curly haired one.

Both were gripping each other's hands and were breathing heavily as the boys talked among themselves. The girls looked around in wonder as they had never been in any place like it.

"Is there a number we can call, for your parents?" The boy with the bowl haircut asked, trying to be nice.

"What happened to your hair? Do you have cancer?" The curly hair boy asked Eleven. The boys continued to ask questions, but receiving no answer just blank stares. The girls looked at them and the dark skinned boy looked at them and came closer.

"Is that blood?" The dark skinned one said. When the boy tried to touch the girls, the other slapped his hand away.

"Stop it! Your freaking them out!" He said to him, bickering about his actions.

"There freaking me out!" He argues back, and pointed to them.

"I bet their deaf." Suggested the curly haired one and clapped his hands causing both girls to jump. "Not deaf."

"Alright, that's enough okay? They are just scared and cold." The boy said and went over to his pile of laundry and grabbed a pair of clothes.

"Dustin do you still have a pair of clothes here?" He asked the curly haired one.

"Uh yeah." The boy named, Dustin said, going over to his bag that was in a corner and grabbed it.

"Give it to the other girl with the blonde hair I got a pair for the other one." He told Dustin.

Twelve looked at Dustin and kept staring at him almost trying to figure him out. He rummaged through his bag and had a long red sweater and black sweatpants.

"Here you go." The boy said coming over to Eleven. Dustin comes back over and gives the clothes to Twelve and she gave him a nod.

Eleven was about to undress in front of the boys until they yelled and Twelve stopped her. Eleven looked confused, but Twelve pointed to the boy and shook her head almost telling her she had to change somewhere else.

"Oh my god." The boys kept saying until the boys pointed to the bathroom

"See over there? That's the bathroom, privacy, get it?" Twelve took Eleven's hand and the two girls went inside. He boy with the bowl haircut came over and went to close it, but Eleven stopped and he looked confused.

"You don't want it closed?"  He asked them.

"No." She responds.

"Well how about this." He suggested and closed it a little so door would be closed enough so that the boys couldn't see them changing.

"Is that better?" He asked them.

"Yes." Twelve said and nodded. As he left the girls began changing into their comfy outfits and placing their damp clothes into the tub of the bathroom. The girls came out of the bathroom and where the boys were, they were told that Eleven and Twelve were to stay at here tonight.

Dustin was helping Twelve with her bed, she kept staring at his teeth seeing there was nothing. He saw her staring and looked at her.

"Its cleidocranial dysplasia." He said out loud starting Twelve. "That's why I don't have teeth right there if that's what your wondering." He told her and she looked at his teeth as he smiled to show her his missing teeth.

Twelve looked at his teeth again and gave a small smile.

"Pr-pretty." She said to him, and he blushed for a moment never heard anyone say his condition was "pretty"

"Well um what's your name?" He asked Twelve. Twelve pulled her sleeve up on her right arm and showed Dustin.

"Twelve? What's does that mean?" He asked confused, until Twelve pointed at her tattoo and then herself. Dustin understood and nodded.

"Well my name is Dustin, over there is Mike short for Michael. Then the boy that went upstairs was Lucas."
Dustin said and grabbed another blanket and placed it on the couch.

"We can call you El, short for Eleven." Mike said, and Twelve turned to her sister, hearing her knew nickname. Eleven smiled for second liking the nickname.

"El.." Twelve said liking it.

"We can call you Ve short for Twelve too." Dustin said and Twelve thought about it in her mind.

"Dustin! Let's go!" Lucas shouted and Dustin grabbed his bag and followed Lucas up the stairs, leaving the two girls with Mike.

"Um well, night El, night Ve." Mike said turning off the lights.

"Night." The two girls say.

Mike goes up the stairs and all you can hear is the sound of the rain and thunder. Twelve got up from the couch and went over to El, not wanting to be away from her sister. She laid beside her and stayed next to each other, sleeping.

••••••••••

It was the next morning and El was playing with the walkie talkie. The only thing you could hear was the crackling noise coming from it. Ve was practicing with plants making them come from the palm of her hand.

El smiled at her and Ve completed the flower and gave it to El and placed it behind her ear. They were interrupted by Mike who came down the stairs.

"Hey you found my supercomm, pretty cool right? I talk to my friends with it. Mostly Lucas because he lives so close, signal is pretty weak." He explained and got something out of his pocket a waffle and a pudding cup with a plastic spoon. "You guys take what you want it's all I could scavenge at short notice."

El took the waffle while Ve took the pudding cup and stared at it confused.

"Here you open it like this." Mike said and took the cup from her hands and opened it up. Giving it back to her and letting her taste it.

She put her spoon in the gooey substance and licked it, her eyes lit up loving the chocolatey taste and began to devour it.

"So listen this is gonna sound a little weird, but I just need you two to go out there. Then go to the front door and ring the doorbell, my mom will answer and you'll tell her that you're lost and that you need help. But whatever you do you can't tell her about last night or that you know me. Understand?" Mike asked but El and Ve look at each other and say nothing but continue to eat.

"It's really simple, we'll just pretend to meet each other again. And my mom she'll know who to call." Mike said to them, trying to help them.

"No" El says to him.

"No?" Mike says confused.

"No" Ve repeats.

"No? No you don't want my mom to get help?" Mike asked and they shook their head. "You're in trouble, aren't you?"

The girls looked worried and nodded.

"Who... who are you in trouble with?" Mike asked.

"Bad.." El says quietly.

"Bad? Bad people?" Mike asked, Ve nodded and looked away from Mike. Gripping her sister's hand.
"They want to hurt you?"

El held up her hand to represent a gun and pointed it at Mike and themselves.

"Understand?" She asked. He nodded but soon heard his mom yelling.

"Michael, where are you? We're going to be late." Causing Mike to suddenly be frantic and got up.

"All right, I'll be back. Just stay here, okay? Stay here." Mike said and went up the steps leaving the girls alone.

•••••••••

It was a while later until Mike came back for the two, he came down and told them that they could go upstairs and he led them up the steps.

"You want anything to drink? We have OJ, skim milk.... what else?" He said as he opened the fridge and began to rummage through the fridge.

El and Ve went into the living room and saw the Tv, looking at it in amazement. Ve touched the Tv until Mike spoke, making the girls look at him.

"Oh this is the living room. It's mostly for watching Tv, nice right? It's a 22 inch that's like ten times bigger than Dustin's."

El and Ve stared at the pictures on the shelf of mike and his family.

El and Ve saw the girl in the picture and El said softly.

"Pretty."

"Yeah I guess, that's my sister Nancy. That's baby Holly, and those are my parents. What are your parents like? Are they close?"

The girls didn't respond only looking at the chair,

"That's our La-Z-Boy. It's where my dad sleeps, you can try it if you want."

El sat in the chair while Ve stared at the plants hanging from pot with some sickly looking plants.

"Yeah Mom keeps forgetting to water them now and again, but do you wanna try the chair?"

Ve shook her head no and continued to look downstairs.

Mike showed him his room, showing them all his collections of action figures and toys that he has gotten in the past.

He placed a little green toy and did an impression of Yoda

"Ready are you? What knows you of ready? His name's Yoda, he can use the force to move things with his mind like this." Mike demonstrated by launching all of his toys, but the girls didn't seem to care and stared at the trophy in his room.

The girls walked over there and stared at the shiny object,

"Oh these are all my science fair trophies, we got first every year. Except for last year when we got third, Mr.Clarke said it was totally political."

The girls stopped and saw a picture of the boys but one of them had light brown hair and had a bowl haircut. El pointed at the picture and Ve looked confused as Mike.

"You know Will? Did you see him? Last night? On the road?"

The three turned around suddenly hearing something, mike runs to the window seeing his mom has come home. Mike grabs El's hand and then El grabs Ve's hand and try to run down the stairs until they see his mom. They run back up to his room until he hears

"Ted is that you?"

"No mom it's just me!" Mike shouts.

"Michael what are you doing home?"She asks

"Just a sec!"

He closes his door and opens his closet

"Hide in here, I'll be right back okay? Please you have to get in or my she'll find you two. Do you understand? I won't tell her about you two I promise."

"Promise?" El and Ve ask at the same time.

"It means something that you can't break, ever."

"Michael?" Mike's mom yells.

He looks back at the girls.

"Please?" He pleads.

The girls go in and sit down hiding behind the clothes he has. As he closed the door El started to breathe heavily and Ve knew why, their papa locked them away many of times causing El to cry constantly. But Twelve would confort her and hug her.

Ve brought her out of her trance and hugged her as she sobbed.

Mike comes back in and opens the door to the closet seeing if everything was okay. But saw Ve holding onto El since she was crying.

"Mike..."

"Is everything okay?" He asks

"Yeah." Ve says as El sniffles.

"Are you sure?" Mike still unsure.

"Promise." El says

•••••••••

Soon the rest of guys come over as El and Ve sit on the bed.

"Are you out of your mind?" Lucas asks.

"Just listen to me." Mike says.

"You are out of your mind." Lucas says.

"El knows about Will."

"What do you mean she knows about Will?" Dustin asks.

"She pointed at him, at this picture she knew he was missing. I could tell."

"You could tell?" Lucas asks still not believing his story.

"Just think about it." Mike began.

"Do you really think it was a coincidence that we found her on Mirkwood, the same place where Will disappeared?"

"That is weird." Dustin said.

"And she said bad people are after her, I think these bad people are the same ones that took Will. I think she knows what happened to him."

"Then why doesn't she tell us?" Lucas wondered.

Lucas walks over to the two and asks El angrily,

"Do you know where he is?" When Lucas gets no response he grabs her shoulders.Causing the two girls to be in fear.

"Do you know where Will is!?"

"Stop your scaring them!" Mike yells.

"They should be scared, if you know where he is, tell us!" When he gets silence from both girls he turns around angrily at the two.

"This is nuts we have to take her to your mom."

"No! Eleven and Twelve said telling any adult would put us in danger."

"What kind of danger?" Dustin asks.

"Her name is Eleven and the other one Twelve?"

"Ve And El for short."

"Mike what kind of danger?" Dustin ask once more.

"Danger danger."

Mike makes his fingers into guns and points it at Dustin and when he aim at Lucas he hit his arm down.

"No! No! No! We're going back to plan A we're telling your mom."

Lucas try to open the door but Eleven gets up and stops him from doing so. When he tried to again, she locked the door and they all looked at the two.

"No..." Eleven says as blood trickles down from her nose.

••••••••

It was later in the evening, El and Ve were under their fort together. Soon footsteps  were heard and heir girl's looked to find Mike, Lucas, and Dustin.

"No adults just us and some meatloaf."

El looked at the boys who were farther away, Ve smiled at Dustin and he responded back with a toothless smile.

"It's okay they won't tell anyone about you two, they promise right?"

"We never would've upset you if we knew you had superpowers."

Mike hit Dustin and he responded with yelp.

"What he means to say is that they were just scared earlier, that's all."

"We just wanted to find our friend."

"Friend?" Twelve asked.

"Yeah, friend will?"Lucas said

"What is friend?" El asked.

"Are they serious?" Lucas asked.

Dustin shrugged at the question.

"Um, a friend- "

"Is someone that you'd do anything for." Mike finishes for Lucas.

"You lend then your cool stuff, like comic books and trading cards."

"And they never break a promise."

"Especially when there is spit."

"Spit?" Ve asked.

"A spit sweat means you never break your word, it's a bond." Lucas says doing a demonstration with Dustin.

"Thats super important because friends, never lie."

The girls nodded and the boys then look at Twelve,

"Do you have any superpowers?" Dustin asks, the other boys also wondering. She nodded.

"Can we see?" Mike asks.

Ve gets up from the fort and puts her hand making the boys flinch until they saw flowers. The flowers grew all around them and looked around in amazement, vines began to grow around until she made all the plants come back to her and turn into three simple flowers, she gave Mike a daisy, Lucas a dragon snapper, and Dustin a tiger Lily.

"Woah....." Lucas says.

Ve's nose started to bleed and Dustin grabbed a towel and handed it to her.

"There you go." Making her smile at the gesture and him doing the same.

••••••••••

El takes Ve's hand and takes her over to the table where the table top game was. The boys were talking among themselves until Mike saw El going over there, soon they were all staring.

"What are the weirdos doing?" Lucas asked.

El closed her eyes, while Ve sat and watched her use her powers.

"El? Ve what is she doing?" Mike asks.

"Finding." Ve says and continues to watch El.

El opens her eyes and grabs one of the pieces of the game,

"Will...."

"Superpowers." Dustin says in awe.

"Did you see him? On Mirkwood? Do you know where he is?"

El removes all the pieces off of the board game and flips it over. Then placed the piece on the board.

"I don't understand."

"Hiding...." El says.

"From the bad men?" Mike asks only getting a head shake from El saying no and confusing the boys and Ve.

"The from who?" Mike asks.

El says nothing but picks up the monster piece and placed it next to Will.