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FIVE YEARS LATER; 1966
From what her eldest brother Darry told her, everyone was over the moon the day Virginia Marjorie Curtis took her first step. A brightness had woken inside the young girl like the first ray of sunlight to stir the mosaic dawn. The fervor of her spirit and the passion in her heart had never slowed since then.
The rasp of Virginia's pencil on the page of her journal gifted by her father was loud in the still of the warm Tulsa morning.
The vivid dream danced across her mind as Virginia tried to capture the right emotions to describe the unconscious story her mind played in while the moon bathed her small bedroom in silver light. She leaned close to the bright window beside her, pouring her heart out onto the pages, wanting to immortalize the images quickly before they flickered out and faded away.
From a young age, Virginia Marjorie Curtis wanted a lot in life. Well, first, to stop being nicknamed Bluebell. It was one flower she picked and it so happened to be the one she had her eyes on when she took her first step.
Excitement welled up within Virginia, and the ideas percolated until they were bubbling so quickly, they were like water ready to boil. She could picture the mass of colors now, blue and indigo, periwinkle and violet morphing together to create the lush petals of the flowers that gave her the nickname everyone endeared with respect for her late father and the devotion of her eldest brother. As the sketch spilled over the page, she finally felt like she was moving one step closer to her dream of becoming an artist.
"Blue, get ready! Oh, you better be awake, I've been callin' you since eight and if you're late, your brother's leavin' without you!"
Virginia could hardly hear anything outside the small box she flourished in. So often would she get caught up in her imagination (or her temper) and the world would fly by in front of her.
"Hey, come on now, let's go!" She made out a new voice, touched with jest and insincerity, from behind the door and groaned quietly. She shivered when her bare feet hit the old wood of her floors and rubbed her arms to warm herself up. Trudging over to the door, she reached for the doorknob just as Two-Bit's fist hit her straight in the forehead.
"Ow, man!" she groaned pressing a hand against the throbbing pain.
"Oh, golly, does it hurt?" Two-Bit gasped, holding onto the sides of her head. He couldn't fight the laugh that spilled from his ever-joking mouth.
"Yeah, it hurts, bub," she laughed, rubbing her head with the back of her hand. "Bet Darry'll kill you dead or somethin' when he finds out."
"Yeah, yeah, how 'bout you go on and get ready?" Two-Bit asked, gently pushing her back into her room. "Soda's still in the bathroom, Pony's out."
"Alright," she mumbled, grabbing a pair of overalls and a striped T-shirt she had yet to iron the wrinkles out of from her small dresser.
Making sure the door was locked 'cause God knows some of those boys never heard of knocking, she slowly peeled off her old T-shirt, dreading how skinny her arms were. While her brothers got the wonderful genetics for physiques, she got the short end of the stick, literally, and perhaps the weight of a sack of flour. Maybe that was why the gang sometimes mistake her for the youngest Curtis. She shook her head, not willing to criticize her body any further, and threw on her clothes faster than Ponyboy could run.
