🌷Kimmy🌷

THOSE days in the church were the longest Kimmy spent in her life. They killed time by reading Gone With the Wind and if the boys got bored, Little Women was the next best choice, even if it bored the boys to death. They also killed time by playing poker, which Kimmy would not want to be involved in.

Johnny really liked both books, although he didn't know anything about the Civil War and even less about plantations, and Ponyboy and Kimmy had to explain most of it to him. Johnny had failed a year in school and never made good grades—he couldn't grasp anything that was shoved at him too fast, and his teachers thought he was plain dumb, but he wasn't. He was just a little slow to get things, that's why. And once he got them, Johnny liked to explore things.

He was real impressed on the Southern gentlemen's manners and charm. "I bet they were cool ol' guys." Johnny said, eyes glowing. Ponyboy had read the part about them riding off into sure death because they were gallant. "They remind me of Dally." "Dally?" Pony said, startled. Kimmy rolled over on her stomach to listen to Johnny since she was laying down as her brother as reading. "Shoot Johnny, Dal ain't got any more manners than Pony does. And you saw how he treated Cherry, Henry, and Marcia the other night." Kimmy answered.

"Yeah...in the manners bit and the charm, too, I guess." Johnny said slowly. "But one night I saw Dally gettin' picked up by the fuzz, and he kept real cool and calm the whole time. They was gettin' him for breakin' out the windows in the school building, and it was Two-Bit who did that. And Dal knew that. But he just took the sentence without battin' an eye or even denying it. That's gallant."

Out of all the greasers Kimmy and Pony knew, Dally was the one they liked the least. He didn't have Soda's understanding or dash, or Two-Bit's humor, or Darry's superman qualities. But Kimmy realized that those three appealed to her and Ponyboy because they were like the heroes in the books they read. Dallas was so real he scared her.

☀️Time Skip☀️

They never went to the front of the church. You could see the front of the road and sometimes farm kids rode their horses by on their way to the store. So they stayed in the very back, usually sitting on the steps and looking across the valley. One evening, they were out watching the sunset. "Golly, that sure was pretty." Johnny commented. "Yeah." Pony sighed.

"The mist was what was pretty." Kimmy said. "All that gold and silver." "Mm-hm." Her brother nodded, trying to blow a smoke ring. "Too bad it couldn't stay like that all the time." Johnny remarked. "Nothing gold can stay." Ponyboy suddenly said. "Huh?" Both Kimmy and Johnny turned to look at him.

"Natures first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay."

"Where'd you learn that." Johnny was staring at Pony. "That was what I meant." "Robert Frost wrote it. He meant more to it than I'm gettin', though." "You know." Johnny said. "I never noticed colors and clouds and stuff until you guys kept reminding me about them. It seems like they were never there before." His hair looks cute. Kimmy thought. And his skin is glowing and he looks so- oh. And she had a revelation right then and there that she suddenly found her shoes interesting.

☀️Time Skip☀️

On the fifth day, they had read up to Beth getting sick in Little Women, Ponyboy had read up to Sherman's siege in Gone With the Wind, smoked two packs of cigarettes (Johnny had warned him that he would get sick from smoking so much.) and got sick. Kimmy was tired of smoking and wished that Dally would come here quicker or else she'll march right out of that old church and never come back.

Author Speaks:

Ngl this is one of the shortest chapters I have written in this book.

Anywho greaser pic of the day:

☀️Stay Gold!☀️