Dream to Reality

The Next Day

Pony's POV

I was the first one up the next morning. Soda must have pulled my shoes and shirt off of me;I was still wearing my jeans. He must have been too sleepy to undress himself,though;he lay stretched out besides me fully clothed. I wiggled out from under his arm and pulled the blanket up over him,then went to take a shower. Asleep,he looked a lot younger than going-on-seventeen,but I had noticed that Johnny looked younger when he was asleep,top,so I figured everyone did. Maybe people are younger when they are asleep. Darry was still asleep when I went into the kitchen to fix breakfast. The first one up had to fix breakfast and the other two do the dishes. That's the rule around our house,and usually it's Darry who fixes breakfast and me and Soda who were left with the dishes. I hunted through the icebox and found some eggs. We all like our eggs done differently. I like them hard,Darry likes them in a bacon-and-tomato sandwich,and Sodapop eats his with grape jelly. All three of us like chocolate cake for breakfast. Mom had never allowed it with ham and eggs,but Darry let Soda and me talk him into it. We really didn't have to twist his arm;Darry loves chocolate cake as much as we do. Sodapop always makes sure there's some in the icebox every night and if there isn't he cooks one up real quick. I like Darry's cakes better;Sodapop always puts too much sugar in the icing. Darry drinks black coffee,and Sodapop and I drink chocolate milk. We could have if coffee if we wanted it,but we like chocolate milk. All three of us are crazy about chocolate stuff. Soda says if they ever make a chocolate cigarette I'll have it made. "Anybody home?" a familiar voice called through the front screen,and Two-Bit and Steve came in. I think they just about woke Johnny up. I think I heard him say yeah very quietly. We always just stick out heads into each other's houses and holler "Hey" and walk in. Our front door is always unlocked in case one of the boys is hacked off at his parents and needs a place to stay. We never could tell who we'd find stretched out on the sofa in the morning. Two-Bit's mother warned us about burglars,but Darry,flexing us muscles so that they bulged like oversized baseballs,drawled that he wasn't afraid of any burglars,and that we really didn't really have anything worth taking. He'd risk a robbery,he said,if it meant keeping one of the boys from blowing up and robbing a gas station or something. So the door was never locked. "In here!" I yelled, forgetting that Darry and Sodapop we're still asleep. "Don't slam the door" I said. They slammed the door,or course,and Two-Bit came running into the kitchen. He caught me by the upper arms and swung me around,ignoring the fact that I had two uncooked eggs in my hand. "Hey,Ponyboy",Two-Bit cried gleefully,"long time no see". You would have thought it had been five years instead of five days since I'd seen him last,but I didn't mind. He spun me into Steve,who gave me a playful slap on my bruised back and shoved me across the room. One of the eggs went flying. It landed on the clock and I tightened my grip on the other one,so that it crushed and ran all over my hand. "Now look what you did. There went our breakfast. Can't you two wait till I set the eggs down before you go shoving me all over the country?" I really was a little mad, because I had just realized how long it had been since I'd eaten anything. The last thing I'd eaten was a hot-fudge sundae at the Diary Queen in Windrixville,and I was hungry. I heard the shower go on and I assumed Johnny was taking one. Two-Bit was walking in a slow circle around me,and I sighed because I knew what was coming. "Man,dig baldy here!" Two-Bit was staring at my head as he circled me. "I wouldn't have believed it. I thought all the wild Indians in Oklahoma had been tamed. What little squaws got that tuff-looking mop of yours, Ponyboy?" Two-Bit asked. "Aw,lay,off" I said. Two-Bit winked at Steve,and Steve said, "Why,he had to get a haircut to get his picture in the paper. They'd never believe a greasy-looking mug could be a hero. How do you like being a hero,big shot?" "How do I like what?" I asked. "What you taking about Steve" someone asked. I turned around to see Johnny. That made me jump when he said that. "Being a hero. You know"_he shoved the morning paper at me and Johnny impatiently_"like a big shot,even" said Steve. Me and Johnny stared at the newspaper. On the front page of the second section was the headline: JUVENILE DELINQUENTS TURN HEROS. "What I like is the turn bit",Two-Bit said,cleaning the egg up off the floor. "Y'all were heros from the beginning. You just didn't 'turn' all of a sudden" said Two-Bit. I hardly heard him. I was reading the paper. That whole page was covered with stories about us_the fight,the murder,the church burning,the Socs being drunk, everything. My picture was there,with Darry and Sodapop. The article told how Johnny, Jasmine,and I had risked our lives saving those little kids,and there was a comment from one of the parents,who said that they would all have burned to death if it hadn't been for us. It told the whole story of our fight with the Socs_only they didn't say "Socs" because most grownups don't know about the battles that go on between us. They had interviewed Cherry Valance,and she said Bob had been drunk and that the boys had been looking for a fight when the took her home. Bob had told her he'd fix us up for picking up his girl. His buddy Randy Anderson,who had helped jump us,also said it was their fault and that we'd only fought back in self-defense. But they were charging Johnny with manslaughter.

Hey guys! I hope you liked this chapter. Am sorry if this chapter ended up being too long. I didn't realize that it was going to be this long. I was so focused into writing about the paper that I lost track of how many words I have done. I well be making a part 2 so stay tuned for that. Anyways,have a good day. Stay Gold