Family Is Found (Sequel to Running Towards Home)

CHAPTER 3

SAM'S POV:

I'm late for class again. I had to talk to my teacher before I left, and of course he talked super slowly. I finally reach my locker, and the halls are already empty. I'm about to grab my books out when I hear a voice. "Hey, greaser." I turn around and roll my eyes.

"Hello Cherry. Can I help you?" I give her a fake smile. She smirks at me. "You know he doesn't love you, right?" she says. I know she's talking about Pony. She's had a crush on him for ages. Pony hates her, but she still won't lay off.

"It's time to move on, Cherry. I'm sure there's a nice idiot out there for you somewhere. You just have to find him." I go to grab my books when Cherry slams the locker door on my fingers. I give a yelp of pain. Cherry just smiles. "You'll see. You're not worth anything anyway. To him you're just another grease ball." She says and walks away.

I pull my books out, and my hand is smarting from being slammed by the locker. My fingers are red from the impact. I'm just glad they didn't break. That would be hard to explain to the gang later. I head to class, and walk in. Everyone turns to look at me. I ran to my seat in the back of the class and sat down. Eventually everyone lost interest in me and went back to fooling around in class. The rest of the period passes fairly quickly. Before I know it the bell has rung.

The day passes, one class to the next, blurring together. I don't pay attention in any of them. The work is boring. I already learned most of this at school back in Kansas. When school finally lets out, I meet Pony, Arlene, and Johnny at the front of the school to walk home.

"Hey guys." I say, and they all wave. I grab Pony's hand and we start to walk. We make it about halfway home when a mustang pulls up next to us. "Hey, girlies. Why don't you ditch these guys and come with us?" one of the socs says. I roll my eyes. "Buzz off, will ya?" I flip them off, and they drive away, calling us names. Annoying but not unusual.

When we finally get home, I grab a cup of chocolate milk and sit on the couch in the living room. I pull out my homework. It's better to get it done now so I can go out later. I get through my history work pretty easily. I like history. Then I start on my math.

"Pony, can you do this for me?" I whine, and he takes a look at it. "These aren't too bad. Just use the quadratic formula," he says. I just look at him blankly. He explains it to me, and helps me with the problems. I hate math, but Pony is pretty good at it. We work for another hour or so, and then Steve and Soda get home from the DX.

Steve of course goes right for the chocolate cake. Soda comes over and hugs me. "You smell, go take a shower," I joke, and Soda just whacks the top of my head. "No more hugs for you then!" he says and walks away. "Aw, Soda, I didn't mean it. I like your sweaty gross hugs!" I say. Soda laughs, and says "Fine, I get the message. I'll go take a shower."

About five minutes later, we hear the water start running and then a shriek. Pony runs into the bathroom. "Soda, what's wrong?" I hear him yell. "Who left the water on so hot? It almost burned my skin off!" Soda complains. I make a face. "That may have been me." I yell at him. "How do you take such hot showers and not burn to death?" Soda shouts. "Oh, don't be such a baby, Soda! Just take your shower!" I yell. I hear Soda mock me, but the yelling stops. Pony comes back out chuckling.

"It's not my fault he didn't check the water temperature." I say, shrugging. Pony laughs. Steve comes out and sits next to us in the living room, holding a plate with a rather large piece of chocolate cake on it. He looks over my shoulder at my homework. "I remember doing that. Soda was lucky, he dropped out before we had to bother with that." he says. "If we ever dropped out like Soda, Darry would kill us." I say. Pony nods. We all know it's true. Darry let Soda drop out, but if any of us dropped out, he would make sure we regretted it.