Prologue
The rain was pouring outside as most of the gang was gathered in the living room. Outside, the rain poured down in buckets and occasionally, large bolts of lightning flashed with the echoeing sound of thunder following.
Two-bit was sitting on the floor watching Mickey, a plate of chocolate cake and a can of beer sitting beside him. Steve and Soda were playing Poker at the table towards the corner of the room, Soda attempting to cheat like always. Darry sat in his chair reading the newspaper, glancing up at the door occasionally, waiting for Ponyboy to walk through the door.
Darry, Steve, and Soda had all gotten off early that day because of the thunderstorm that had started around the late afternoon, and Two-bit well, being Two-bit, decided to skip school for the day. The pouring rains still after at least 3 hours still showed no signs of giving up.
Lightning suddenly flashed outside and a large boom of thunder suddenly echoed through the house. The lights flickered repeatedly and finally went out, along with the TV. Soda and Steve both jumped, their cards dropping from their hands and scattering over the table. Darry whipped his head to the side and looked through the window, looking for something that would tell him what hairbrushappened. He couldn't see anything though through the buckets of rain falling outside. He assumed that lightning had struck their power source, causing the electricity to go out. Darry knew it would eventually be fixed di he decided not to worry about it.
"Well. I'm bored" Two-bit announced after finishing his can of beer. He threw the can onto his empty plate, where his cake had been before he had eaten it. He stood up and stretched, his muscles feeling stiff from sitting, not moving, for that amount of time.
"Why don't you read a book or somethin'" Soda replied, not looking up from his cards that he had gathered up just the moment before. An ace slipped out of his jacket sleeve, leading Steve to glare at his friend as he noticed. Soda just smiled like a little kid who just got busted for something that they had done.
Two-bit just shrugged and got to his feet to look around. Ponyboy always left books around the house, even though Darry had told him to clean then up, so Two-bit was bound to find one. He searched the living room finding a few books in a few random places, but none of them seemed to interest him. They all just seemed boring to him. Two-bit didn't understand how Pony could read books like that. He was about to give up and just sit in front of the Television and wait for us electricity to turn back on, when a few pieces of notebook paper caught his eye. It was sitting on the windowsill, and Two-bit reached out to grab it.
His eyes scanned the first couple lines and a slight smirk grew across his face. He couldn't believe what he had found.
"Hey guys!" Two-bit called. "Look what I found." He waved the paper in front of himself, holding the front facing everyone else. Soda, Steve, and Darry all looked up as Two-bit spoke to them.
Soda was the first to go up to Two-bit and grab the paper from him. He also quickly looked over the first couple lines of paper, a smile growing on his face as he realized what this was.
"Nice find Two-bit." congratulated Soda.
The first line of the paper said, "The Outsiders by Ponyboy Curtis". The whole gang knew of Ponyboy's theme that he had written about a year ago for his Language Arts class. The theme had been about what had happened when Johnny Cade killed Bob, a Soc, and what that led too. None of the gang had been able to read his theme yet, actually it was more like Ponyboy wouldn't let any of them read it, not even Soda or Darry. It was kind of surprising that Ponyboy would leave it just laying out like that, knowing the gang was nearly always there.
Suddenly, another large bolt of lightning struck, almost as loud and bright as the one that knocked out their power. At the same time as the lightning strike, the front door swung open, causing everyone to jump slightly at the loud noise of the following thunder and whip their heads in the direction of the door.
There standing in the doorway, was an agitated and soaking wet ....Ponyboy.
"Hey Ponyboy!" Soda exclaimed, a smirk hidden on his face with a smile. "Where you been?" When he had saw that it was Ponyboy that had opened the door, he had hidden the paper behind his back.
"Oh just walking home from school." Ponyboy paused, throwing his bookbag onto the floor beside him so that if leaned against the wall. "In the rain." He turned to face Steve, a slight glare on his face. "When someone was supposed to pick me up."
Steve tried to hold back a smirk unsuccessfully as he looked at Pony from the table. He covered his mouth with his hand, resting an elbow on the table. He dropped his hand so that his entire lower arm rested on the table.
"Oops." Steve lied, not even bothering to hide his smirk anymore. "I guess I forgot."
Water was practically dripping off of Ponyboy's clothes, causing his clothes to cling to his skin. Steve was supposed to pick Pony up today from school and drive him to his house, but when he didn't show up, Pony was forced to walk home in the pouring rain. He was not happy.
"I'm gonna kill you Randle" Pony said with a glare.
Steve didn't even get a chance to respond before Ponyboy had tackled him to the ground, taking him by surprise. Pony grabbed his arms and pulled them behind him, pinning both of them to his back. He sat on Steve's back, glaring at him.
"Say 'Uncle'" Ponyboy commanded, holding Steve's arms behind him.
"No." Steve refused. He yanked back on his arms, struggling to free them from Ponyboy's grip. "Damn. Since when were you strong Ponyboy."
This remark only made Ponyboy pull Steve's arms farther up his back, causing Steve to slightly grimace.
"This is hillarious!" Two-bit exclaimed. "If only I had a camera!"
"Yeah! Steve this is just pathetic." Soda agreed, forgetting about the paper he was holding behind his back and showing it as his arms rested along his side.
"Shut it both of you." Steve said agitatedly. "You shouldn't be attacking me!" Steve spoke, talking to Ponyboy. "Soda was going to read your theme essay!"
Ponyboy immediately turned his head to look at Soda, seeing the papers in his hand.
"Damn you Steve." Soda muttered just loud enough that everyone could hear.
Ponyboy immediately let go of Steve, allowing him to stand up and rub his aching arms. Pony attempted to tackle his elder brother, but Soda just stepped out of his way, causing the younger brother to crash behind him.
Soda held the papers above his head as Ponyboy got to his feet, trying to grab the papers from Soda's hands.
"Hmm, let's see here." Soda teased, beginning to read the paper by holding it above his head. "When I stepped ou-"
"Soda. That's enough." Everyone turned to face Darry as he spoke, for they forgot he was there. Darry had stayed quiet before then, watching them all with interest until he had decided to speak up. Everyone must have forgotten that he was sitting there watching.
Darry stood up and walked over to Soda and Ponyboy and snatched the paper from Soda's grip.
"Hey!" Soda yelled at his older brother, not bothering to move. "Give it back."
Darry just ignored his younger brother and went back to his chair and sat down, holding the paper out a reading distance in front of himself.
"Come on everyone!" Darry said as if he were talking to a bunch of children. He turned to face everyone else. "Storytime."
Steve's arms no longer hurt and his smirk returned to his face as he realized Darry was about to read Ponyboy's theme essay. Soda crossed his arms and frowned. He had wanted to tease his baby brother with it, but he didn't bother argueing with Darry, Soda knew he wouldn't win.
"Darry!" Ponyboy yelled out. "Don't read it!" It seemed that Pony really didn't want this read. He never was this violent and he rarely ever yelled at either of his older brothers any more, so he clearly did not want this read aloud. This just made it more fun for Darry, Soda, Steve and Two-bit.
"Too bad, Pony." Darry said, scanning over the first few lines real quick.
, not bothering to look over at Pony. "You shouldn't have left it out."
Ponyboy let out a agitated groan and darted to his and Soda's room before anyone could start reading it. As soon as he entered their room, he slammed the door behind him and took a flying leap onto the bed. Ponyboy grabbed a pillow and quickly covered his head with it, not wanting to hear it being read and the rest of the gang's reactions. He knew their reactions would not be good for parts of the essay.
Meanwhile back downstairs, everyone had gathered around Darry. Soda and Steve were sitting on the couch with Two-bit sitting on the floor in front of Darry's chair.
"I hate all of you." Ponyboy yelled at them from his room. Though he was extremely aggrivated, you could tell in his voice he didn't really mean it.
"We love you too." Soda called from the living room with everyone else. He had turned his head to face the hall-way that led to their bedroom.
It was silent after that, Ponyboy didn't know what to say back to that so he just hid his face back in the pillow. He sat on the bed. I shouldn't have left it out.
"Here we go." Darry said, ignoring his younger brothers' quick conversation. He returned his focus to the top of the page and began reading. "Chapter 1"
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