The Outsiders: A Girl in the Gang

Chapter 6

        By the end of the week, I had apparently gained myself three new friends, though I'm not gonna say it wasn't weird at first.  On Wednesday, all three of them met up with me when I was walking down to the DX, and then Sodapop and Steve started talking to me just like I was Johnny, Ponyboy, or Two-Bit.  On Thursday, Two-Bit talked to me in the halls and Johnny asked me to tell Ponyboy something.

        I didn't mind finally having friends, but I just wondered what Dally would think of all his guy friends becoming buddy-buddy with his little sister.  Though I will admit, I'd rather have Greaser guys as my friends rather than Socy, or even other greasy girls.  They were all too girly, not tomboyish and tough like me.  I couldn't stand them.

        By Friday I was officially considered one of their gang, because all three of them talked to me in the halls, Ponyboy had a full conversation with me at the end of English, though quite a few of the kids gave us funny looks.  And when I was late getting out of fifth hour, I found all of them waiting for me before heading over to the DX.

        "What took you so long, slacker?  Stopped by the lunch lady?" Two-Bit said as I came outside.

        "No, stampeded by a mob of Socs racing to be the first to play Pin-The-Bologna-Blame-On-The-Greasers," I joked.  They all laughed, and then Pony said,

        "I thought you didn't have a sense of humor," because I hadn't cracked any jokes, at least in their hearing, so far yet.

        "I must be sick," I said and as we neared the station, Johnny asked,

        "Who's buyin'?  I ain't got no money on me." 

        "Well, I guess we'll have to skin you, Johnnycake," Steve said.  "We take Greaser skins as currency, right Soda?" he asked.

        Soda was ignoring him, trying to snatch a windshield wiper back from Two-Bit.  I had taken a seat on the closed hood of a car, and I reached up and snatched it out of Two-Bit's hand, throwing it boomerang style in Soda's general direction.  He tripped over Pony's foot and missed it, catching himself on a gas pump before he face planted the asphalt.  I could tell it was an accident, but we all burst out laughing, even Soda.

        After school Pony asked where I lived, since Dally's not the kind of guy to buy a house.  I didn't really want to ruin my brother's rep, though with me in town now it was probably already down the drain.  Dal would kill me if I told though, so I replied, 

        "In a dumb.  But I'm not gonna tell you where that is, I like to keep my afternoon walks stalker free."

        I headed in the opposite direction, raising a warning fist at Two-Bit who was pantomiming sneaking along the sidewalk.  He took the hint, or got bored right away, and turned around.

        Next time I checked, they were but dark shapes in the distance, the late afternoon sun silhouetting their dark clothes and shining on their greasy hair.

        When I got home, Dally wasn't there, which was surprising.  Since I was still grounded from getting 'help' from the boys who were now my friends, Dal had always been home when I got home from school, but apparently he was working late at the mill on the outskirts of town.  Hopefully.

        But I was so sick of sitting in the house all afternoon and night that I decided to go out.  Where, I don't know, but I dropped my books on the coffee table overflowing with beer cans, candy wrappers, dirty dishes, and a pack of cigarettes or two, completely or nearly empty.  They were all Dally's, well, at least the beer and cigarettes.  I didn't smoke or drink, the stuff tasted horrible, but I was a chocolate addict, that's where most of the candy bar wrappers had come from.  I headed back out the door, thinking of going to Jay's to get something to eat, cause I know we didn't have any food in the house.

        I was about a block away from our house when I heard the rattle and sputtering of an old engine backfiring as a truck slowed near me.   It couldn't be a Soc, they wouldn't be caught dead in a banged up rust-bucket like that, but no one I knew except the Curtis boys, Darry, Pony, and Soda, had a truck.

        I glanced up to see a whit truck, the paint chipped and the metal rusted out near the fenders, idling at the side of the road.  And my very pissed looking brother driving it, though I'd never known him to drive a truck when he could borrow Buck's T-bird.  It was then that I realized, in fading paint on the side, it said "Tulsa Mill and Lumberyard".  It was a truck from work, and the back was filled with new wooden beams and fresh shingles, smelling of tar from the hot sun.

        "Get in," Dally hissed through the rolled down window, and I knew I would never leave the house again.

        I was so dead.