What are friends for?

Ch. 7 The revenge on O'Bannion and a couple of us go home (Lampwick's side)

Once we got to the emporium, I decided to let Pickford do some answering of Pinoke's questions.  When we got there, Pinoke looked nervously at us, "Hey...guys? Are you sure I'll be okay?" Pickford gave him a smile, "Oh yeah man, you'll be okay.  Anybody starts messing with ya, just play it cool."

When we got in, I took a look around.  I'd been to the emporium many times before, this was where the big boys hung out!  I could tell Pinoke was feeling a bit intimidated, so I let him keep a'hold of me as we went off looking for the others.  We ended up meeting up with other guys, some I introduced Pinoke to, some I didn't.  But the big stuff happened after he got together a revenge attack on O'Bannion with some of his friends.

I wasn't let in on it until Pinoke whispered the plan to me, Pickford, Pink, Slater, and Wooderson.  We liked the idea of a revenge attack on O'Bannion and even Slater pointed out, "Man, a revenge attack? It's well overdue."  So, basically what we had to do, since it was almost about time to get the two home, we had to provide the escape in case O'Bannion suspected that they were behind it.  We had just the thing in mind, all they had to do was play along.

The hard part was keeping a straight face when we came out and found Carl Burnette about to be paddled.  He was playing his part well, anyone who was unaware of the plan would think that O'Bannion had him completely under his power.  We did our best to look like we didn't suspect anything, but look mortified.  Even Pinoke and Mitch played their parts very well, looking completely sorry for their friend.  Mitch even played Pinoke on Pink (that's their talk for going soft and kiddish) and tugged on his shirt and acting like he felt like he was gonna cry.  Pink rubbed his hair and pulled him into a side hug as O'Bannion prepared to paddle Carl.  On the second aim to scare him, a little paint was dropped on his head, giving Carl enough time to get away.  Then, up on the same building were Tommy and Herschfelder, "Remember me you pig?"  He imitated O'Bannion's pig squeel and then, they dumped their paint on his head.  

Afterwards, O'Bannion was (no surprise) incredibly upset.  He cussed and yelled at the others for letting Carl get away.  He saw the half-smile on Mitch's and Pinoke 's faces and gave them a suspicious eye, "What are you two smiling at?"  I looked at the others and they judged it was about time to unleash the rescue plan, I glanced at my watch, "Guys, you think it's about time we got the kids home?" Slater nodded, "Yea, we don't want to get any trouble with their folks."  Pink nodded and looked over where the two were sitting on the sidewalk, "Come on you two, upsy daisy."  Wooderson helped them up and turned to Pickford, "Yea, what do you say buddy?" Pickford checked his own watch, "Yea, it's almost half past eight, think it's about time you two got some shut-eye." Pinoke and Mitch, again, played their parts well.  They acted so sorely disappointed that some of us wondered if it wasn't put on, "Oh, come on! Just a few more minutes?" Wooderson laughed a little, "We're not getting you two in trouble for being out too long.  Let's go."

We led them each over to the cars while O'Bannion swore to find out who was behind all this and paddle them so good, they wouldn't be able to sit down for an entire school year.  He ended up leaving to, which was nice.

On the drive home, Pinoke eyes were starting to get heavy and (Pink told me this) so were Mitch's.  Once we got to Pinoke's place, we looked in the back and found Pinoke was sleeping peacefully in the back.  Pickford smiled, "Gosh, and he said he wasn't sleepy." "Hey, why don't you go up and tell 'em I'm bringing Pinoke in."  "Sure man." We hopped out and I got Pinoke from the back.  He gasped a little when I got him out, so I held him a little tighter, "It's okay, settle down."  He relaxed a little after hearing my voice and I took him up to the front door.  At that moment, Pickford was assuring Jiminy and Mr. Geppetto that we didn't give him any cigars or beer (we would be in real trouble).  Mr. Geppetto took Pinoke and whispered his thanks as we left to go back out with the others.

Overall, it was a pretty eventful first day of summer.  Pickford insisted that we had to treat Pinoke more often, "You got yourself a real nice kid, big guy.  We need to have him around more."

That I couldn't agree more to!