🌷Kimmy🌷

WHEN Kimmy, Ponyboy, and Johnny met up with Dally under the streetlight, it was early, so they had time before the movie started to joke around and have fun. They bought Cokes (and some juice boxes for Kimmy, she doesn't like coke that much.) and blew straws at the waitresses at a restaurant and walked around eyeing things that were lying around in the open until the manager got wise and told them to leave.

He was too late, though, because Dally walked out with two packages of beer under his jacket. Then the boys and Kimmy went on their little way to the Dingo aka a greaser hangout, there's always a fight over there-that's what Kimmy heard of, she was never allowed to watch a fight when the switchblades came out. Unless if there was a rumble. That's a different story.

They went around talking to all the greasers and hoods they knew, leaning in car windows or hopping into the backseats and learning about who was running away, who was in jail, who was going with who, who could beat up who, and who stole what and where and why. Soon, there was a fight between a Mexican hitchhiker and a twenty three year old greaser. They left when the switchblades came out, because no one wants to be there when the fuzz show up.

After chasing some kids out of Dally's territory, it was dark enough to sneak in over the back fence of the drive in. The Nightly Double was the biggest drive in Tulsa. It showed two movies on weekdays and four on weekends. It only cost a quarter to get in if you're not in a car, but Dally Winston hated to do things the legal way. He liked to show that he didn't care whether there was a law or not. He always went around trying to break laws.

Kimmy and the boys went to the row of seats near the concession stand to sit down. No one else was there except two girls and a boy who were sitting down front. Kimmy recognized that the boy was Henry. Where's the rest of them? She thought. Dally eyed the girls coolly, before proceeding to walk down the aisle and sat right behind them. Kimmy had a bad feeling that Dally was up to his usual tricks, and she was right.

Before Ponyboy covered her ears, Dally started talking, loud enough for the girls to hear. It started bad and just got worser and worser. He could talk awful dirty if he wanted to and Kimmy guessed he wanted to then. The two siblings sat there, Ponyboy covering Kimmy's ears and Johnny had left hastily to get a Coke. (Johnny is me in this situation.)

The girls that Dally was bothering, weren't Kimmy's kind. They reminded her of Cassie, dressed sharp and really good looking. They looked about the same age as Cassie, probably sixteen or seventeen. One had short dark hair and the other had long red hair. The redhead was getting mad, or scared. She was sitting up straight and chewing gum. The other girl pretended not to hear Dally and poor Henry's ears were turning red.

Dally was getting impatient. He put his feet up on the back of the redhead's chair, winked at Kimmy and Pony, and beat his own record for saying something dirty, before loosing his balance and falling to the floor. Everyone started laughing and Dally immediately sat back down and put his feet back where it was. The redhead turned around and gave Dallas a cold, hard stare.

"Take your feet off my chair and shut your trap."

Kimmy had seen her before, she was the head cheerleader at Pony's school. She always thought she was stuck up and a snob. Dally looked at her and kept his feet where they were. "Who's gonna make me?" The other girl and Henry turned around and watched the scene. "That's the greaser that jockeys for the Slash J sometimes." She said that as if she pretended the greasers weren't hearing her.

Kimmy heard the same tone so many times. "Greaser...greaser...greaser." Wait, where is their car if they're at a drive in? Kimmy suddenly thought. "I know you two." Dally said, referring to the girls. "I've seen you around rodeos." "It's a shame you can't ride bull half as good as you can talk it." Henry sassed. That didn't bother Dal one bit. "You two barrel race, huh?"

"You'd better leave us alone." The redhead said in a biting voice. "Or I'll call the cops." "Oh, my, my"- Dal looked bored- "you've got me scared to death, man. You ought to see my record, baby. He grinned slyly. "Guess what I've been in for?" "Please leave us alone." The redhead said. "Be nice and leave us alone." Dally grinned roguishly. "I'm never nice. Want a Coke?"

She was mad by then. "I wouldn't drink it if I was starving in the desert. Get lost, hood!" Dallas shrugged and strolled off. Pony unplugged Kimmy's ears before the redhead looked at the two siblings. "Are you guys going to start in on us?" Kimmy shook her head. "No." Ponyboy said. She smiled, and Kimmy knew that she had sized her and her brother up right.

"You two don't look the type. What's your name?" "Kimberly Curtis." Kimmy said. "Most people call me Kimmy. This here's my big brother." "Ponyboy Curtis." Pony introduced himself. Kimmy remembered when Amy first met the gang. And she didn't mind that her new friend had two brothers named Ponyboy and Sodapop.

"That's an original name." The redhead smiled. "Yeah, my dad was an original person." Pony admitted. "We got a brother named Sodapop, it even says so on his birth certificate." "My name's Sherri, but most people call me Cherry because of my hair. Cherry Valance." "I know." Pony said. "You're the head cheerleader. We go to the same school."

"You don't look old enough to be going to high school." The dark haired girl said. "He's not." Kimmy said. "He got put up a year in grade school." Cherry was looking at the two siblings. "What are two nice kids like you guys running around with trash like that for?" "We're greasers, same as Dally. He's our buddy." "I'm sorry, Ponyboy." Cherry said softly.

"Your brother Sodapop, does he work at a gas station? A DX, I think?" Cherry asked them. "Mmhm." Kimmy nodded. "Man, your brother is one doll. I might have guessed you were related- you look alike." Kimmy felt a big smile grow on her face. She was used to see Cassie get flustered every time she met up with him.

One time, Soda waved at Cassie across the street on her walk to school (her bike was broken and it was in the shop for repair) and she hit the lamppost and got a black eye. It wasn't every day Kimmy heard other Socs say that her older brother was a doll. "Didn't Soda used to ride in rodeos, Kimmy?" Henry asked the Curtis girl. "Saddle bronc?"

"Yeah. Dad made him quit after he tore a ligament, though. We still hang around rodeos a lot. Pones and I seen you two barrel race, you're good." "Thanks." Cherry said. The other girl, who was named Marcia, said, "How come we don't see your brother at school anymore? He's not any older than sixteen or seventeen, is he?" Whenever the word dropout came to mind, Kimmy instantly thought of Dallas Winston, not her brother, it didn't fit him at all.

"He's a dropout." Ponyboy answered roughly.

Johnny came back and sat down next to Ponyboy. He looked around for Dally, managed a shy "Hi" to the girls and Henry and tried to watch the movie. He seemed nervous, though, Kimmy knew that Johnny was always nervous around strangers. Cherry looked at him, sizing him up as she did with Ponyboy and Kimmy. Cherry smiled softly, and Kimmy knew she had sized him up right.

Dally came back with an armful of Cokes. He handed one to Cherry, Marcia and Henry and sat down beside Cherry. "This might cool you off." Cherry gave Dally an incredulous look before throwing her Coke in his face. Henry's followed a second later. "That might cool you off, greaser. After you wash your mouth and learn to talk and act decent, I might cool off, too."

Dal wiped the Coke off his face with his sleeve and smiled a dangerous smile. "Fiery, huh? Well, that's the way I like 'em." He started to put his arm around Cherry, but Johnny reached over and stopped him. "Leave her alone, Dal." "Huh?" Dally was taken off guard. He stared at Johnny in disbelief. Johnny couldn't say boo to a goose.

He gulped and got a little pale, but he said, "You heard me. Leave her alone." Dally scowled for a second. If it had been Kimmy, or Ponyboy, or Two-Bit, or Soda, or Steve, or anyone but Johnny, Dal would have flattened that person without hesitation. You just didn't tell Dallas Winston what to do. Dally got up and stalked off, fists jammed into his pockets and a frown on his face. He didn't come back.

Cherry sighed in relief. "Thanks. He had me scared to death." Johnny managed an admiring grin. "You sure didn't show it. Nobody talks to Dal like that." Henry smiled. "From what I saw, you do." Johnny's ears got red. It had taken more than nerve for him to say what he said to Dally- Johnny worshipped the ground Dally walked on, and Kimmy never heard him talk back to anyone, much less his hero.

Marcia grinned at the greasers. "Ya'll sit up here with us. You can protect us." "Oh, wait until Sodapop hears about this!" Kimmy chirped, running over to sit next to Henry. Ponyboy sat between Cherry and Marcia, and Johnny sat next to Cherry. "Henry, I thought Cassie and the others would be here." Kimmy asked her friend, wondering where Amy was. "Oh, they got grounded." Henry whispered to her. "Oh..." Kimmy murmured.

Kimmy understood why Henry was the only Golding sibling who was at the drive in. He was the good kid in his parent's eyes. Sometimes, whenever Kimmy biked to Amy's house so they could bike to school together, she could hear Mrs. Golding screaming at her children "WHY CAN'T YOU BE MORE LIKE YOUR BROTHER!" and Amy would rush out of the door in tears.

"When I'm old enough, I'll buy myself and the others out of here." Amy confessed to Kimmy one day. "Where?" Kimmy replied. "New York." Amy sighed, with stars in her eyes. "Cassie would probably open a flower and coffee shop with a bookstore that Henry runs and sells some short stories that George wrote." "What would you do, Amy?"

"I don't know, Kimmy." Amy mumbled. "And I don't want to go to New York City Ballet or anything like that. I don't want to do ballet or anything like that. I know some people like ballet but it's for not for me. I want to do something my heart desires, I want to do something I love. I don't want anyone to force something they love on to me. I want to do something that I like." Kimmy was in awe that day.

Kimmy later found out why the girls and Henry were there at the drive in without a car. Cherry and Marcia had come with their boyfriends, but they walked out on them when Henry discovered that the boys had brought some booze along. The boys had gotten angry and left. "I don't care if they did." Cherry sounded annoyed. "It's not my idea of a good idea to sit in a drive in and watch people get drunk."

They decided to stay and watch the movie anyway, even though it was one of those beach party movies with no plot and no acting but lots of girls in bikinis and swinging songs. Kimmy wished it would be The Sound of Music they were watching, she loved that movie very much. The only problem was that she could never convince Two-Bit that it wasn't a horror movie because Maria said the hills were alive.

"Glory, Two-Bit, scare us to death!" Her brother's voice pulled Kimmy away from her thoughts. "Huh? Oh, hey Two-Bit." Kimmy said, waving at her friend. She didn't know if Two-Bit was drunk or not- he acts boozed up sometimes even when he's sober.

Two-Bit climbed over the chair and plopped down beside Marcia. "Who's this, your great aunts?" "Great grandmothers, twice removed." Cherry said smoothly.

"Shoot, you're ninety six if you're a day."

"I'm a night." Marcia said brightly. Two-Bit stared at her admiringly. "Brother, you're a sharp one. Where'd you three ever get to be picked up by a couple of greasy hoods like Pony, Kimmy, and Johnny?" "We really picked them up." Henry said. "We're really Arabian slave traders and we're thinking about shanghaiing them. They're worth ten camels apiece at least."

"Five." Two Bit disagreed. "They don't talk Arabian, I don't think. Say something in Arabian, Johnnycake." "Aw, cut it out!" Johnny broke in. "Dal was bothering them and when he left they wanted us to sit with them to protect them. Against wisecracking greasers like you, probably." Two-Bit grinned and Kimmy put her chin in her hand and sighed. Johnny didn't usually get sassy like that.

In fact, the gang thought they were doing good if they could get Johnny to talk. Incidentally, they didn't mind being called greaser by another greaser. It's kind of playful. "Hey, where is ol' Dallas anyways?" Two-Bit asked his fellow greasers. "Went hunting some action." Kimmy replied. "Booze or damsels or a fight. I sure hope he doesn't get in jail again. He just got out."

"He'll probably find a fight." Two-Bit cheerfully stated. "That's why I came over. Mr. Timothy Shepard and Co. are looking for whoever so kindly slashed their car's tires, and since Mr. Curly Shepard spotted Dallas doing it...well...Does Dally have a blade?" "Not that I know of." Ponyboy said. "I think he's got a piece of pipe, but he busted his blade this morning."

"Good. Tim'll fight fair if Dally don't pull a blade on him. Dal shouldn't have any trouble." Cherry, Marcia and Henry were staring. "You don't believe in playing rough or anything, do you?" Cherry said.

"A fair fight isn't rough. So are chains and heaters and pool sticks and rumbles. Skin fighting isn't rough. It blows off steam better than anything. There's nothing wrong with throwing a few punches. Socs are rough. They gang up on one or two, or they rumble each other with their social clubs. Us greasers usually stick together, but when we do fight among ourselves, it's a fair fight between two. And Dally deserves whatever he gets, cause slashed tires ain't no joke when you've got to work to pay for them. He got spotted, too, and that was his fault. Our one rule, besides stick together, is don't get caught. He might get beat up, he might not. Either way there's not going to be any blood feud between our outfit and Shepard's. If we needed them tomorrow they'd show. If Tim beats Dallas's head in, and then tomorrow asks us for help in a rumble, we'll show. Dally was getting kicks. He got caught. He pays up. No sweat."

"Yeah, boy." Cherry said sarcastically. "Real simple." "Sure." Henry said, unconcerned. "If he gets killed or something, you just bury him. No sweat." Two-Bit grinned and lit a cigarette. "Anyone want a weed." The girls and Henry rejected his offer of cigarettes, so Ponyboy and Johnny reached for one. Kimmy was still too young to smoke, so she took out a can of bubbles and started blowing them.

The reason why Kimmy started blowing bubbles while her friends were smoking, is so that the smell of smoke wouldn't be present whenever she was around her friends and they started smoking, plus, Kimmy liked the scent of bubbles with a bit of smoke mixed in. "Hey, Kimmy, you wanna go get some popcorn with Cherry, Pony and I?" Henry asked the girl greaser.

"Yeah, sure." Kimmy replied, standing up to follow her brother and the Socs.

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Worth the wait???