Quiet As A Mouse (Outsiders Fanfic)

Chapter 4- Thanksgiving

        I was in the doorway to the kitchen/dining room waiting for Two-Bit and his friends to show up.  Kayla and Aunt Kat were in the kitchen finishing making Thanksgiving lunch.  I had already set the table and Aunt Kat had told me to go change into something nice.

        I had just come back downstairs and was wearing a blue skirt with a white T-shirt, not the dressiest thing I owned but decent enough.  Kayla had on a knee-length dress, red, with buttons all up the front.  She looked adorable, as always, and Aunt Kat was dressed up nicely too, but her apron was covering her dress.

        I was about to go back into the kitchen when the door opened and Two-Bit and six other boys, laughing and talking loudly, came into the house.  I stayed in the living room, hiding behind the door frame. I wasn't scared of them, until  I recognized one of their voices.

        It sounded exactly like His, and my eyes darted about the crowd of boys to find Him. I swear I saw him. He had dark blond, almost gold hair, combed back silky straight and dark brown eyes, recklessly laughing and appearing to be dancing in his happy face.  The only thing was, the boy that looked like Him wasn't the one talking.  The one that looked like Him was a different guy who looked about sixteen, and that was how old He was before He left.

        The one with the voice just like His was tall and muscular, his muscles defined even under his white button up shirt.  He had dark brown hair, a little shorter than all the other boys', and pale bluey-green eyes.  He appeared about twenty, and He would have been about that age now, if He hadn't deserted me.

        It was scary, seeing and hearing Him again, even though I knew He would never come back to me.  He couldn't.

        "It's been a while since I've last seen you all," Aunt Kat said.

        "Nice to see you too, Mrs. Matthews," the one who looked just like Him answered politely.  The voice didn't match his looks, and I was relieved and disappointed at the same time.

        "Kayla, go get Mickey," Aunt Kat told her daughter.  No one could see me on the periphery of the room because I was hidden in the shadows of the doorway.

        I stayed hidden as Kayla ran right past me up the stairs and listened to the conversation in the kitchen.  Since I couldn't talk, and I didn't do much to try and draw attention to myself either, I was usually left unnoticed in a room.  And if they thought I wasn't there, sometimes they'd talk about me.  I'd gotten extremely good at eavesdropping on conversations and covering my tracks if I got caught, but getting caught was rare.

        "Just to let you know, Mickey can't talk.  She's mute," Aunt Kat informed the group of teenage boys taking their seats.

        "Why not?" one of them asked, but I couldn't tell who.

        "No one really knows.  She's been like that for a couple of years now," Two-Bit answered.  "But don't worry, she just writes us notes if she has something to say," my cousin adds with a grin as he sits down.

        Kayla comes running back down the stairs, and I quickly draw back from the doorway.

        "There you are!  I couldn't find you," Kayla starts.

        I pointed down the hall to the bathroom to indicate that that's where I was, and wondered if it still counted as lying if I couldn't say anything.

        "All of my brother's friends are here!  Come on, they're all your age and I'm sure you'll like them," Kayla said happily, heading into the kitchen/dining room.

        I took a deep breath and then followed after her, stepping out of the shadows and into the real-life nightmare of Him being alive.

        Everyone stopped talking when I followed Kayla into the room, and it felt weird with six strange guys staring at me, but I noticed that a lot of people stared at me when I showed up at someplace new, and even if it wasn't new.  It was almost like they could tell I was a freak of some kind because I couldn't talk.

        I took my seat with Aunt Kat to my right and Kayla to my left, and everyone was still staring at me. 

        Then the guy with the voice that sounded just like His said, "I'm Darry, nice to meet you," and held out his hand for me to shake.

        I nodded and offered a small smile, shaking his hand and wondering how weird it would be if I were to grab a pad of paper to write on so I could 'talk'.

        "That's Dally, and my brother Sodapop," he started introducing the other boys, gesturing first to the blond haired one who I had had an encounter with yesterday.  I hadn't noticed him here until now, but despite what my younger cousin said about me liking Two-Bit's friends, I was pretty sure I didn't like this one.  He just looked mean.

        Apparently the one that looked just like Him was named Sodapop, which was a pretty weird name, but not that much weirder than Michael for a girl.  But even with the odd name, he still looked so much like Him that it scared me to be in the same room with him.

        "That's my other brother Ponyboy," the one that sounded like Him, Darry, said, gesturing to a boy who looked about my age, maybe a year younger.  He looked a lot like Sodapop, and I was seriously starting to freak out now.

        "And that's Johnny, and Steve," he finished, indicating a black-haired boy with a nervous, almost mysterious look about him and one with greasy hair combed in a bunch of meticulous swirls.

        I smiled and waved politely at all of them, thinking that I probably looked like a shy little kid, but I don't think I wanted to write down, 'Nice to meet you' and show it to every single one of them.

        I didn't pick up a pencil or open my mouth, except to eat of course, for the rest of the meal, but everyone else carried on chatting and laughing, pretty much ignoring me except for a few surreptitious glances.

        The minute I had finished my food I escaped to my and Kayla's room, breathing a silent sigh of relief after I had closed the door behind me and plopping down on my bed.  I reached under the mattress, where I had put a notebook last night, the first night I had spent living with my Aunt and cousins.