Quiet As A Mouse (Outsiders Fanfic)

Chapter 1- Mickey

  Note to Readers: Here's a new story, but I'm writing this differently than the other ones.  Feel free to comment if it takes me longer than two weeks to update, and as always, comment if you find any grammar or spelling mistakes and I'll fix them.

        I was walking down the street wearing a baggy gray sweatshirt that hung off my skinny frame, worn jeans that were cinched tight at my waist with a belt and white Converses, tied so tightly the fabric puckered.  I was skinny, and none of my clothes fit me right.  I wasn't anorexic, I just got sick easily.  My immune system was probably weaker than a newborn baby's.

        I have long dark brown hair, so dark it looks almost black, and it touches my waist.  It covers my right eye, framing my narrow pale face.  My eyes are cloudy gray and the color of an overcast sky.  I had a medium-sized nearly full duffel bag slung over my shoulder, and just by the buildings I could tell I was in the high-class part of town.  The preppies lived here, that's what we called rich people back in Chicago.  I had always been considered a hood, I grew up in the rough part of town.

        The houses were huge, immaculately constructed with large porches that could hold a whole patio set and balconies overlooking the  lush lawn.  The gardening was picture perfect, the shrubs trimmed so neatly it looked as if they had been cut out of a stencil.  The flowers were planted in grid lines, bobbing their colorful heads in unison to the slight breeze.  The cars parked in the driveways looked brand new, fresh off the assembly line.

        There were a few expensive looking country clubs in this part of town, and lots of stores with fancy foreign names that were impossible to pronounce and reeked of money and privilege.  My Aunt Kat definitely didn't live in this part of town.

        A car honked it's horn at me as it drove past, and one of the guys, definitely a preppy, stuck his head out the window and screamed, "Greaser!" at me.  I figured that was the term around here for hoods, and I will admit that I was one of those, but it didn't bug me any. 

        I continued walking and the high-class big buildings merged into the middle-class part of town.  More moderate one or two story houses that looked lived in, toys strewn over the lawns and driveways, little kids milling around playing, people cutting their grass and gardening and walking down the street.  There were also quite a few restaurants and stores and gas stations and I even saw the high school.  I kept walking until I got to the more rundown part of town, this was more my territory.

        I wandered around for a while, first trying to decipher my cousin's handwriting on the scrap of paper he had scribbled their address down on.  Two-Bit had sloppy handwriting.  You could tell a lot about a person by their handwriting.  Two-Bit wrote fast and sloppy, he was too lazy to take his time and it looked like chicken scratch.

        After I figured out what it said, I had to find the street, which was extremely difficult seeing as how half the signs were covered in graffiti or not there.  Just a dented metal post was left standing at attention at the street corner.  I had been wandering around for fifteen minutes when a car, a red T-bird that was probably stolen to be driven around this part of town by a hood, slowed near me.

        A teenage boy, probably 17 or 18, was driving the car.  He was wearing a leather jacket and a white T-shirt, and his angled, animal like facial features made him look mean and hard.  He had wild white-blond hair that curled around his ears and neck and hard light blue eyes that gave him a tough, menacing appearance.

        "Hey baby, need a ride?" he asked in a seductive voice.

        I was not seduced, but I was thinking of asking him for directions.  I gave up the notion when he continued trailing me, moving at a snail's pace down the side of the street to keep pace with me.  What a creeper, I didn't even find him all that attractive,and I ignored him and quickened my pace in an attempt to get away from him.

        "Hey, I was talking to you.  Want a ride?" he asks, getting irritated. 

        Knowing him, he probably had a gun or a blade stashed somewhere, and I had learned from experience that it was just safer to stay away from those type of people.  I quickly turned down a side alley where he couldn't follow me and I lost him as I came out on the other side and continued on my way to my Aunt's house.

        Five minutes later I found it, and I stopped in front of the house and double-checked the address.  It was an old two-story house, shingles falling off the roof, one of the side windows was boarded up, and the porch steps looked as if one more termite ate them, the whole thing would collapse.  the whole lawn was overgrown with weeds concealing car parts and a few toys.

        I cautiously walked up the porch steps, hoping the creaky boards wouldn't break under all ninety pounds of me.  I was just about to knock on the screen door that had holes torn in the mesh when it opened and a little girl a little taller than my waist came running out.

        She had short ringlet curls, blond, just like her mom.  She was wearing a worn out pair of denim overalls and a stained pink and white striped shirt along with some colorful beaded jewelry.  She had blue eyes, like her mom as well, and was grinning up at me.

        "Mickey!  You're here!" she shouts joyfully, bouncing up and down in front of me.

        Mickey was the nickname that my cousins, Keith, called Two-Bit by everyone, and Kayla, had given me because the first time we met, I had been wearing a pair of Mickey Mouse ears courtesy of my brot--never mind.  My real name is Micheal, I don't know why I was given a boy's name, but I liked it.

        I smiled back at her as she grabbed my hand and dragged me in the house, calling, "Mom!  Two-Bit!"

        "What is it, Kayla?" my Aunt Kat asked.  She was a good-natured lady, about as tall as me, and Two-Bit and Kayla acted a lot like her.

        "Michael's here!" Kayla exclaims happily.  I was her only female cousin, so she was always happy to see me.

        "Hey Mickey!" Two-Bit shout joyfully as he comes running in the room, arms outstretched as if to give me a hug, but I backed away from him.  I didn't like hugs, he knew that but he must have forgotten, as always.

        Two-Bit was absent-minded, six feet tall, with long greasy hair combed back except for a section that hung in the middle of his forehead.  He had long rust-colored sideburns and gray eyes like mine that were always sparking with cheerfulness. I had never seen him without a smile on his face, and you couldn't shut him up, he was always cracking jokes or making some smart remark.

        My cousin stopped short and then smiled as he remembered.  I had three rules with family, of what I had left.  No hugging, if you want to talk to me I'll write a note, and no calling me Mick.

        "Hi Michael.  I hope you didn't get too lost from Two-Bit's lack of directional skills," she said with a grin.  "I hope you don't mind sharing a room with Kayla," she said, "But our house is kind of small."

        I didn't answer, I couldn't.

        "I would ask you," she turned to Two-Bit, "to help your cousin with her things, but you might strain your back from all the work you do otherwise," she joked.  She had the same sense of humor as her son, they were always joking with each other.

        "Yep, I'm already exhausted," Two-Bit replied sarcastically.  I grinned at that, Two-Bit could make anyone laugh.