Dallas Winston Has A Sister? (Outsiders Fanfic)

The Zombie Lives

        Pony woke to someone shaking him, either Tara or Soda.  He cracked open his eyes to see Soda leaning over him.

        "Wake up, Pony.  You've got school today," Soda shouted joyfully.

        Pony groaned but sat up anyways, rubbing his eyes.

        "Is Pony up?" Darry asked as he came into the room.

        "Yeah," Pony grumbled.

        Darry glanced over at Tara and then asked, "How's Tara doing?  I heard you talking to her last night," Darry commented, not sure if she had woken up anytime in the past two days or not.

        They were all pretty worried about her, she had gotten jumped by some Socs and one of them threw a brick at her head, which obviously hadn't turned out well.  Pony was so worried he could barely eat anything, and Darry was surprised he'd actually slept last night, he'd recently been staying up with Tara almost all night long, talking softly to her even though she wasn't awake in attempts to wake her up.

        "She woke up once, but I gave her some aspirin and made her go back to sleep. She was pretty out of it," Pony explained, recalling how she had freaked out until he got her to calm down, and the whole while she sounded like a dazed, confused kid.

        "Is she awake now?" Soda asked, looking around Pony cause she was passed out next to him.

        Was, because now she mumbled from under the pile of blankets, "Kind of hard not to be when Soda's shaking the whole damn bed."

        Pony grinned, he had missed Tara's smart mouth and witty remarks, he was glad she was back to her usual self.

        "The zombie lives!" Soda joked.

        "Well I sure feel like a zombie.  My head is killing me," Tara replied with a groan as she sat up, touching the bandage covering her head from her temple to halfway across her eyebrow.

        "You should probably stay home from school today," Darry says worriedly.

        "School?  How long have I been out?  I thought it was Sunday," she asks, clearly confused.

        "No, it's Monday.  And you," Sodapop says, poking his little brother in the ribs, "have to get ready for school."

        "But-" Pony objected.

        "Don't worry, I don't have to work till this afternoon, so I can watch her," Soda says with a grin.

        "Who says I need to be watched?" Tara asks grumpily, in a bit of a bad mood because her head hurts.

        "I do.  You don't look so good right now," Darry says sternly, with a hint of worry in his voice.

        "Since when are you my brother?" she asks accusingly. "Wait, where is Dally?" Tara adds, confused.

        "He got mad when he found out about you getting jumped.  Busted up a bar and nearly killed a guy, so he got thrown in the slammer for a week or two," Soda said nonchalantly.

        "Okayyy," Tara said, stretching the word out in skepticism.

        "Pony, get ready for school.  Soda, come help me make breakfast.  You hungry, Tara?" Darry asks her.

        "A little, but I'm too tired to eat anything. I'm going back to sleep," she says, laying down. "Oh, and thanks for the use of your bed," she tells Pony and Soda, sarcastically of course, before rolling over to go back to sleep.

        "Have a good nap," Pony calls as he heads down the hall to get ready for school.

        Darry and Soda disappear into the kitchen, and by the time Ponyboy left for school, Tara was out again.

         'Hopefully not for long this time' is what all three of them were thinking as they went about their day.