An Odd Time in One's Life
A/N: Well this is my first attempt at fan fiction and this is a simple one shot. Please Rate and Review.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Outsiders, all credit to S. E. Hinton.
I sat among the rest, clad in black. Around me people cried, yet not a tear slid from my own eye. I wasn't even that sad. I feel like I was watching the whole scene from afar, the crying, the speaking, everything.
I listened to the speeches, trying to find out what he was like. People said he was noble. Yeah, hiding two kids in a church. And giving them a gun too. Real noble.
A few people came by my mother and I, often saying sorry and patting her on the shoulder, giving me a sympathetic glance. Mom had seen him when he was little, and a bit after that, so she obviously felt more, a few tears spilling here and there.
People must have thought he meant something to me. He didn't. I had hardly heard from him. We were two separate people that happened to share blood. He called me what, once every two years when he got into a jam?
He was a hood. A JD. He used to kill people in the streets of New York. I wondered if these people stepped into the wrong funeral, calling him compassionate and loving.
A kid went up, probably around sixteen. He stated his name as Ponyboy Curtis, his two brothers having gone before him. I wondered if their parents had been boozed up or on drugs or something when they were named. I mean Ponyboy and Sodapop? Original to say in the least.
He may have looked sixteen but his personality portrayed him to be a lot older. He must have experienced a lot of grief. Judging by the recent article in the newspaper I was correct.
Ponyboy spoke of how him and his recently deceased friend hid out in an abandoned church, presumably the one I referred them to, and how it had caught on fire. He continued for a while talking about kids and stuff, then how Johnny had gotten hurt.
Okay so he had a bit of nobility in him, but seemingly only for this Johnny kid.
After a bit it was time to pass by the coffin. Everyone slowly stood from their seats, truth be told there really wasn't that many people. So we all got in a line and slowly walked by, some turning their heads, others sobbing. A group of five guys, Ponyboy and his brothers with an additional two, stood at the end of the line in silence.
I assumed they would stand there a long time before it was time to bury him. Despite his reputation, he seemed to have a good set of friends. I stood by the coffin, looking in.
I couldn't tell you what expression I had on then. I was staring into the face of a dead teenager, only seventeen. Yet he was still my cousin and I felt bad to see him lying there…dead.
I walked past and got ready to go with Mom to the graveyard. He didn't look much like me, if at all. I thought about his life and frowned. He had had it rough, that kid dying not helping much. I felt something wet on my face and looked up. The sky was clear. I wondered why I had started crying, and never really got an answer.
Being cousin to Dallas Winston was something else. You feel like you know nothing, then it all comes at you at once.
A/N: Well, I hoped it did his cousin justice. I was reading the book again and thought about it, and this is what I came up with.