21 | rumbles

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WARNING: descriptions of blood/injuries

"You're buying streamers? Tim's turning eighteen, Angela, not five." Curly's nose is wrinkled in disgust as he reads over the list Billie and Angela made for Tim's birthday.

Angela wrinkles her nose up at Curly. "I don't see you coming up with anything."

"You're the one who said my ideas sucked," Curly replies, folding his arms.

"Because they do suck," Angela says. "Balloons shaped like dicks aren't funny."

"They're funny to me," Curly replies, "and to the other guys."

"That's because your brains are the size of peas."

"That's rich, coming from the girl who flunked out of seventh grade."

"At least I didn't flunk out of elementary school," Angela snaps back.

Billie watches silently as Angela and Curly trade cutting insults about the other's appearance and intelligence. Billie thinks to herself that it's quite ironic considering all four Shepard siblings look the same with dark hair and blue eyes.

Eventually Angela and Curly grow bored of arguing, with Curly standing up. "Whatever, I don't care. Organising a party is a girl's job, anyway."

Both Angela and Billie wrinkle their noses up at Curly's words. "It's the 60s, Curly. Boys and girls can do the same thing," Angela says.

Curly laughs condescendingly. "Yeah right. You should be a comedian, Angela, with jokes like that."

"Fucking little shit," Angela mutters under her breath as the fly screen door slams shut as Curly leaves the house, most likely to run amuck with his friends near the tracks without a care in the world at how his words have hurt his sisters.

"Do you want to finish the list?" Billie asks her sister, pen in her hand.

Angela shakes her head and sighs. "Sorry, Bil, but I'm not in the mood now." She stands up, the legs of the wooden chair scraping against the floorboards. "Think I'm going to blow off some steam." By 'blowing off some steam', Angela means going to the rodeo or a drag race and hooking up with a Greaser boy, only to come home late into the night smelling of Kools cigarettes and cheap beer.

A minute later, Angela comes out of their bedroom holding a worn denim jacket that had been cut with a switchblade to rest on her waist. Angela looks at the clock on the wall, which reads ten past six. Then she says to Billie, "don't wait up. If I'm lucky, I'll be out all night." Angela has a wolfish grin on her face as she leaves, the door banging shut behind her.

It's yet another night that Billie's left alone in this house, with only herself and the abrasive silence for company.

"Thanks for this," Ponyboy says to Billie as they push past eager students ready to leave school to enjoy the weekend; two whole days of freedom before school resumed at the start of the week

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"Thanks for this," Ponyboy says to Billie as they push past eager students ready to leave school to enjoy the weekend; two whole days of freedom before school resumed at the start of the week. "Darry feels better knowin' I'm not my myself while he's out of town and Soda's out."

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