The Outsiders: Randy's Little Sister

Chapter 26: "Stupid High School Romance."

A week past and the phone call came when I was at school. Or that's what Soda said. He had been off work, luckily, due to a plumbing problem and he had informed me that I got the job.

Relief wasn't the feeling I felt. It was more like anxiety and well, whilst I had to boil up my feelings, I couldn't kept the rise in my heart rate when I opened the doors to Dingo on my shift.

I didn't get my uniform given to me by the manager, in fact it was another waitress that told me to get changed quickly in the toilets, which I did.

She was already at a table when in got back into the diner.

The uniform wasn't jeans but you had a choice between two dresses. One longer than the other, so I automatically picked that one. Darry would have killed me if I hadn't and I wasn't sure I wanted Darry to kill me, in a cruel, slow, painful way.

I stood behind the till for most of the my shift as the other waitresses said I couldn't do anything on my first day.

Money duty was the thing I was on because I was pretty sure I was the only one who could work out the right change.

Behind the till, there was a hidden shelf which contained a few things. A safe which probably had spare money in it, notepads, pens, but they were the only things 'on show'. If you dug a little deeper, which I did, you could find a gun, like the manager explained but it wasn't a pistol like I expected.

In fact, it was a Colt Single Action Army, which was a type of revolver, that had 6 rounds or bullets held neatly in place in the cylinder, ready to use. 

Besides that, if you pushed aside some paperwork, you could see the sight tip of a barrel, one that belong to a pistol, the name I couldn't quite place.

"What are you doing?"

I shot up from my crouching position, whipping round quickly before hesitating, stumbling over my words, trying to make up an excuse.

"Curious." I nodded curtly, shifting my weight from one leg to another, impatient.

"Curiosity killed the cat." The waitress said, holding an emotionless face. I could tell it was a facade, but ignored it, raising my eyebrows to the ceiling. It was probably the first time I had heard that phrase being used on this side of town.

She was older than me, by four years or so. You could tell by the tone in her voice and the wrinkled around her eyes and mouth when she spoke. 

"How old are you?" She grabbed my wrist, when I tried to step past her, but not tightly.

"17." My lie matched the innocent look on my face, but even though I was good at lying, I knew she didn't buy it.

She didn't let go of my wrist, and added, "I'm not gonna tell anyone, kid."

"15." I corrected, looking down at the floor, ashamed but not knowing the complete reason why.

Her eyes widened but she hid the shock in the face, like she had practice. "You're not the youngest person I've seen here, but c'mon, ya really shouldn't be here."

"You know," I paused, "I seem to hear that quite a lot these days."

She let go of my wrist and I started to walk away, until she spoke up again. "One piece of advice: don't touch the guns, you don't wanna be the person whose gonna pull the trigger."

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My next shift, I spend it, head in my palms, constantly watching the hands tick by on my watch. I was bored. But not the kind of bored when you have nothing to do, I was the kind of bored that meant I was so lazy I couldn't even be bothered to argue my case.