Quiet As A Mouse (Outsiders Fanfic)

Chapter 12- Speechless

        "What do you mean you can't talk?  Do you have strep or some other contagious disease?" Steve asked, covering his mouth and nose with his hand and backing away warily.

        A strangled raspy breath escaped Dally's mouth, and I'm guessing it was a sigh, but it sounded more like he was dying.  No wonder he couldn't talk, he could hardly make any noise.  Looking extremely frustrated, he scribbled something down and Darry squinted at it before grabbing the notebook from Dally.

        He slowly read aloud, "I woke up this morning and couldn't talk.  It was probably from the rain," and then he turned to Dally and said, "You really need to work on your handwriting," and I had to agree with him, I couldn't read Dally's chicken scratch over his shoulder either.

        "Sucks to be you," Two-Bit said with a smirk, and Dally snatched the notebook, my notebook, back from Darry and wrote, 'I can still punch you even if I can't talk.'

        Two-Bit held up his hands in mock-surrender and then sprawled across the couch to watch Mickey Mouse, of course.  Everyone else could tell Dally's threat was real, so they quit bugging him about it, but I didn't want to mess with Dally in the first place. He still seemed like a dangerous person to tangle with, and I sat on the entire other side of the room from him.

        A commercial came on, something about a criminal escaping from jail in their signature black and white striped jumpsuit.  It was an advertisement for something, I don't even remember what, but then Steve mentioned, "They don't give you black and white striped clothing to wear in jail.  If they did, Johnny and Pony would look a lot better in striped shirts than they do."

        What was that supposed to mean?  I don't think Pony and Johnny had ever been in jail, much less more than once, but that's what Steve was implying.  No one else seemed to have trouble understanding his sarcastic comment though, and I was confused.

        I grabbed my notebook off the table from where Dally had thrown it and wrote down, 'What do you mean about Pony and Johnny?' and then tossed it at Steve, where it hit him in the face before he caught it.

        "Hey!" he shouted, but then read what I had written and asked, "What do you mean what did I mean?  Don't you know about Pony and Johnny's supposed murder rap?"

        I noticed Pony's ears flush bright red and Johnny looked sick at the word 'murder', and I wondered what exactly had happened.

        I shook my head no, not being able to write it down cause Steve hadn't thrown my notebook back, but obviously they got the gist.

        "About two months ago Johnny and Pony got in a bunch of trouble for killing a Soc.  It was self-defense and all, but Johnny's still on probation because of it," Soda, who still looked so much like Him that I had a hard time believing I wasn't dreaming--or having a nightmare--every time I saw him, said.

        My eyes went wide at the thought.  Johnny was so quiet I couldn't imagine him being violent at all, and Ponyboy seemed like too much of a dreamer to take a human life.  In self-defense it might be a different story, but I didn't know either of them well enough to be a judge of that, so I guess I had to take their word for it.

        Two-Bit must have noticed my eyes go wide, and he said, "Trust me, we couldn't believe it when we heard it either."

        I glanced at Johnny for confirmation, but he wouldn't meet my gaze and stared at the floor, and Pony hastily said, "It was an accident and talking about it won't change anything," and the subject was dropped because it obviously made Pony and Johnny very uncomfortable.

        I was thinking about it all day though. Why had they killed a Soc, in self-defense?  And I doubt they would have just turned themselves in after so what was the story with that?  Questions were swirling around in my mind like a whirlpool, and surprisingly I didn't think about what Aunt Kat had said that morning about me seeing another psychologist until we got home around eight at night.

        Kayla had convinced her mom to let her stay up and watch T.V. with Two-Bit and I, and even though I was tried and had been sneezing and shivering all day from my cold, I wasn't too eager to go to sleep either. 

        Kayla was yawning and rubbing her eyes, falling asleep in my lap around nine, so Aunt Kat took my younger cousin up to bed.  Though Two-Bit was in that zombie-like daze he gets when he's been staring at the T.V. too long, I poked him in the shoulder to get his attention anyways, because curiosity had gotten the best of me and I wanted to know what everyone had meant about Johnny and Pony getting caught up in a murder rap.

        After I jabbed Two-Bit in the arm a few more times and he finally snapped out of his daze, I showed him what I had written.

        "Yeah, they really did kill someone, " Two-Bit says after reading what I had written. 

        'How?  Why?' I asked two questions, wanting answers and not feeling like waiting any longer.

        "Well it all started one night when we went to the movies.  It was on the weekend, so they had the double features that run until midnight like we went to last night.  Pony and Johnny went to the lot after the movie was over, they like to watch the stars or some other nature thing like that.  I don't get it.  But anyways, when Pony got home late after falling asleep in the lot, Darry got mad and hit him.  He'd never hit either one of his brother's before, and Pony got mad so he and Johnny decided they were running away.  A couple of Socs decided to hunt them down because we had talked to their girlfriends' earlier at the movies, and they jumped Pony and Johnny.  They were drowning Ponyboy and they were going to beat up Johnnycake again like one of them had done a while before, that's how Johnny got that big scar on his cheek, from the first time they jumped him.  But naturally, those two were scared, so Johnny stabbed one of them. They ran away to Windrixville and hid out for a week.  Worst week of my life, because we were all thinking they were dead in Texas somewhere and Dally wouldn't tell us what he knew about what had happened to them.  Eventually though Pony and Johnny saved a bunch of little kids lives and didn't get in as much trouble as they would have for murdering someone, though Johnny had to do some time and is still on probation and we had a big rumble that ended up with Pony out with a concussion for two days.  They don't like being reminded that they killed someone, so we don't talk about it much," Two-Bit finishes explaining everything that had happened.

        I was in shock, because it's not every day you hear that someone you know has gone through something as traumatic as that.  I was figuratively speechless, seeing as how I was always literally speechless, but I coudln't think of a single thing to write after that.

        Two-Bit chuckled and said, " Why don't you sleep on it.  It's getting kind of late anyways," before heading up to his room.

        But I wouldn't be able to do much sleeping on it, as always, because my subconscious couldn't leave me alone for even one night.