Question about “It”(semi spoilers)

I’m watching It Chapter 2. So the whole thing about Pennywise, at least my understanding, is that he uses fear as like a marinade because the more scared someone is the better they taste.

So why then does he sometimes not even use fear at all? In the first movie, the very first boy he killed, he builds a rapport with him and gets him comfortable and then eats him on the spot. Does the same thing with the little girl at the baseball game in this movie (just got to this part so please no spoilers after this)

Maybe it was explained and I missed it, but seems sometimes he scares kids first and other times he just eats them on site. Doesn’t really make sense to me