(Extra) Chapter One

The morning of the hearing was quiet at our house. Steve and Two-Bit made their way over early for breakfast. Sodapop and Ponyboy were in the bathroom getting ready. I'd got up before anybody else to cook up breakfast and get ready myself. I hadn't got much sleep to be honest, and whenever I'd gotten up to check on Soda and Pony, something I'd started doing a lot since Pony came home, one of them had always been up, too nervous to sleep.

I stood in front of the mirror in my room, the same as I'd been the night of the rumble. I was wearing one of Dad's old jackets over my best shirt, and I'd spent the last half hour desperately trying to run a comb through the cowlick. The hospital people had strongly advised me to make sure my brothers looked presentable, but I knew we all had to look presentable if I stood any chance of getting the judge to let me keep custody of the two of them.

Nobody was talking out in the kitchen over breakfast. I threw the comb aside and went out to eat with the gang. Ponyboy hadn't touched his plate. Sodapop was trying to coax him into eating a couple bites. I raised an eyebrow as I sliced myself a piece of cake and sat down on Pony's other side. "Let him alone, Soda, if he doesn't want to eat. Ponyboy, go get ready if you're not hungry."

Pony quietly got up, dropped his piece of cake on Two-Bit's plate, put his plate and clean fork in the sink, and left the kitchen. The door to his room shut.

Two-Bit glanced in shock at his plate, then around the table at all of us. "Since when does that kid share food?" he asked, poking at Pony's cake.

"Shares with you, you mean?" I muttered.

"Since when does he not even eat his cake?" Soda asked, looking worried as he stared down the hall after our baby brother. "He hasn't been eating anything, not since-"

"Yeah. I know, Pepsi-Cola. We just..." I dragged my hand through my hair, immediately wishing I hadn't, after all that time in front of the mirror trying to comb it down into place. "...We gotta let him alone, let him come around… he'll get over it… and he can't keep starvin' himself forever. He's gonna have to eat at some point, or we're gonna have to force-feed him, Soda, like a little kid. Force-feed him if that's what it takes, got that?" Soda cracked a grin, just like I knew he would, and I felt a little better. "Steve, Two-Bit, leave a couple pieces in case he's hungry later on."

The boys finished up their cake and left to get ready. I started hurrying with the dishes. We had an hour and a half until the court hearing started, but we had a half hour drive out, and the hospital people had told me it was better to get there early anyway. Always better to get there early.

Sodapop came scrambling out of his and Ponyboy's room, his hair greased back, wearing dark jeans and a button-up shirt he'd got out of my closet. It looked like the one Mom had found for my freshman year portrait.

His hair was greased back...

"Soda!"

"Yeah?"

"What'd you do to your hair?"

"Oh." He ran a hand carefully along the side of his head, his fingers lightly touching his hair. "Golly, does it look bad…?"

"Why the hell did you grease your hair back?"

"Does it look bad?"

"We're going to court!" I snapped.

"Well… I always put grease in my hair."

"Pony!" I hollered, pushing past Soda and going down the hall.

He was in the bathroom, the door half-opened, and when he looked into the hall, I saw his hair was greased back.

"Damnit you two! We're going to court, we're supposed to look decent!" I shouted, pushing the door all the way open and knocking the bottle of hair grease out of Pony's hand.

"Golly Darry, it's just hair," Two-Bit laughed from the living room, where he'd snuck another piece of chocolate cake and was flicking through cartoon channels on the television.

Ponyboy looked funny when he said that. He didn't say anything, just muttered, "Sorry, Darry," and pushed past me back into the bathroom. Soda followed him in and murmured something next to his ear.

I waited in the living room until the two of them came out, then breathed in deep. "When we're at that hearing, just remember, keep your mouths shut no matter what. No matter what the Socs say, no matter what the judge says to them, just keep your mouths shut, because you're gonna get a turn to talk, and you can tell them the truth if the Socs lie. You hear me?"

I remembered, the night of the rumble, which I tried hard never to think about anymore, when I'd been telling Pony and Soda as we walked to the vacant lot to blow at the first sign of trouble, warning them about the fuzz. I looked to Soda, half-waiting for him to make some stupid wisecrack, telling me I sure didn't need an amplifier, but he just sighed softly and nodded. "Yeah, we will. Right, Pony?" He elbowed Ponyboy gently.

I looked to Pony, and it wasn't until Soda elbowed him a second time that he managed to nod.

"Alright. It'll- it'll all be okay. We'll be okay, we've got a case. That Soc Cherry is testifying for us, and they can't split us up after what happened in- what happened in Windrixville, with those little kids. We'll be okay."

I looked over my shoulder to Steve and Two-Bit as I said those last words, because when I'd said that, I'd meant them too. Two-Bit was stuffing down his cake and waving his fork around as he laughed at his cartoons, but Steve, who'd gone to sit next to my brothers on the sofa, nodded a little to me, his dark eyes all of a sudden not so cocky.

I told my brothers to grab their coats, Two-Bit to turn off the television, and everybody to get to the truck.

The courthouse lot was just about empty, but the cars parked there were definitely owned by Socs. I pulled in and parked the truck as far from them as I could.

Our hearing was the only one slotted for that day. We walked straight into the courtroom and took five seats at the front of the rows of benches, on the opposite side of the aisle from the Socs. There were five of them too. Their parents were all sitting in the back of the courtroom: we'd had to walk past them to get to our seats. I'd seen the way most of them had watched us as we'd walked on by them, at least the ones who'd bothered looking our way when we'd come in. They looked at us the way most people look at greasers. Cherry smiled a little at us as we took our seats. Ponyboy didn't look over her way, or at me and Sodapop as we took spots on either side of him, trying to grin confidently. He stared at his lap, a tired look on his face. Soda pushed his hair back affectionately, and he grinned a little, but immediately stopped as a bailiff stepped into the room and looked right to us.

"Would all here please rise for our honorable judge."

"Get up," I hissed through my teeth to the gang. The judge came in and set a small brown briefcase on the bench where he sat in the front of the room. The bailiff waved for us to sit down again. Ponyboy was shaking next to me. I leaned my leg against his.

"I call Randy Adderson to the stand."

They questioned Randy for a little bit, just getting the details on that night in the park. His buddies went up one by one after that and told the judge the same thing. Then they got Cherry up there to testify against the Socs, and she started from the Nightly Double to the morning the fuzz showed up at her place to tell her Bob had been killed. She was crying as she talked, like she'd been at the vacant lot that night, but she was holding herself together real well in front of the judge. Soda smiled at her as she slowly turned to go back to her seat, and she wiped at her eyes and smiled back.

Then the judge called me and Sodapop to the stand. Ponyboy shut his eyes tight and pulled his leg away from mine. I got up and Soda followed close behind me to the stand, his eyes wide, but his chin tipped high. The judge looked closely at each of us. "The two of you were friends with Dallas Winston, am I right?"

He was looking at me when he said Dally's name. I nodded, tipping my chin up to look him dead in the eyes. "Yessir." I heard Soda echo me, his voice shaking a little, and he glanced quickly over his shoulder at Pony, his eyes still huge. The judge looked at Pony too before asking, "Was he a good friend of yours?"

He didn't even look at Sodapop: his eyes were straight on mine. "Yessir," I said again, feeling Soda move close to my side, his arm touching my ribs, his cheek pressed into the sleeve of my jacket.

That was it. We were released from the stand. Soda jumped down and ran back to Ponyboy. Steve muttered "Good job" in his ear. Two-Bit was grinning widely as I sat down, glancing over at my brothers.

And then they called Ponyboy.

Soda looked ready to bawl, but I think he was more nervous than upset. Ponyboy made his way to the stand, his hands shaking. He held them at his sides as the judge started his questioning. Soda moved into Pony's seat and was tensed up against my side.

"Do you like living with your brother Darrel, Ponyboy?"

The four of us leaned forward to hear Pony's soft voice as he answered. "Yeah- I mean yessir, I like living with Darry…"

"That's good, good. Do you like school, Ponyboy?"

"Yessir, I like school."

"And what types of grades do you make in school?"

"Good ones, sir."

He went on and asked him some more about school, if he had some real nice friends, how he did in track, and then released him from the stand with a dry grin, telling him to quit chewing on his fingernails.

Ponyboy came slowly back to us and sat down. I was dying to grab him and Soda up in my arms and hold them tight, walk them out of the courtroom without looking back, but I just sighed and leaned back next to Pony, waiting for the verdict.

"...Ponyboy Curtis is acquitted of all charges involved in this case. Custody of him and Sodapop Curtis remains legally with Darrel Curtis… this case is closed."