The Outsiders: Book Two

Credit to Susan Eloise Hinton! Thank you, Ms. Hinton, for the best book of all time, it changed my life, and there is no way I could ever show how gratified I am!

Also, dedication to xCandy_101x -reading her Outsiders Fanfics entertained me for a long time, and my friends too, to the point where my friend demanded I read them out loud and used a special voice for every character. Thanks Candy :)

It started when I left school that afternoon. It had been a pretty lousy day, since a bunch of Socs had shot me dirty looks and one guy had even spit on me. It wasn't even something I had done, but I figured there was no complaining of it, a guy had to represent his gang at all times, I guess. There had been a fight not far down my street, and a few guys in the gang had gotten caught up in it. I'm not completely sure what happened, but apparently some Soc named Gary and a few of his cronies had jumped Steve and Two-Bit.

Let me just start off by saying something, jumping Two-Bit is never a good idea. In this neighborhood, you always have to have your guard up, and the Socs had never really forgiven us for beating them to bits in the Big Rumble, which is what everyone had taken to calling it. They've become almost ruthless, merciless, to the point where they might take it out on a middle-class kid who's even friends with a greaser.

Still, it doesn't matter how ruthless you are, jumping a guy who carries a ten-inch switchblade and a free fist is probably a big mistake, especially when he has a buddy who's gonna back him up all the way. A duo like that can dish out some major smarting for tomorrow. What shamed them most was probably the fact that there were at least five Socs to our two greasers, and Steve and Two-Bit had still completely pummeled them.

When one greaser does something to a Soc, glory knows they'll dish payback to all the other greasers too. Honestly, I'm pretty sure the Socs can't even tell us greasers apart anymore, one of us could just as well have been a broad and they wouldn't have known the difference, so spitting on one of us was just the same as spitting on another. So when that guy did, I didn't bother busting him. At school I'm a quiet kid and I didn't want to get in any trouble, because Lord knows that Darry would have my hide if I did. And busting someone to a teacher or something would make me look completely like a scaredy-cat. But still, I'd catch it from Darry. There's no pleasing him, honestly.

Really though, Darry and I have eased up a bunch on each other since Soda fessed up about how much the fighting bothered him, and honestly, it bugged me too. I love my brothers, even if Darry was a bit uptight and Soda a bit careless. Darry has his moments now and then, but he's calmed down a lot, so I can't complain that much. Besides, it's good to have someone looking out for you. As for Soda, he can lighten up almost anything and always sticks up for me, so I dig him pretty easy.

So anyway, I decided to cut across the school parking lot, but then I saw, you guess it, Gary. He was sliding into a really tuff car, a dark red Corvette that gleamed like cherry Coke in the sunlight.

Suddenly, I remembered that real sharp cheerleader, Cherry Valance. That car gleamed exactly like her dark-red hair, hence her name. I had really taken a liking to her, but after the Big Rumble, we didn't really see much of each other. She was a Soc. The separation that the East and West Sides had grown so much more distinct since the Big Rumble, even though some people thought otherwise. It had happened only about two months ago, but it seemed like ages.

Too bad...Cherry and I had really dug each other. And boy, she was pretty.

Stupidly, I realized I was standing in the middle of the lot, just asking for some bum Soc to come and plow me over, so I started to get a move on. A dark front of menacing clouds was moving in. I was thinking about trying to get the boys out for a game of football before the storm hit, but maybe they'd be cool with playing in the mud too, get some scrapes and look tough. I kept moving until I realized that Gary's eyes were locked on me, following me. A creepy smile formed at the corner of his lips, and I almost shivered. He was not someone I would want to get jumped by, that's for sure.