S E Hinton owns The Outsiders.

The morning sun was still low in the sky and I squinted into it as I drove through the North side of town, on the look out for something open at 7.10am.

Outside the DX an open sign turned in the breeze and I pulled in.

My sister had called me earlier. She was crying, in the background my nephew was crying. I cringed the way I always did when I was reminded of her baby, of her life.

"We're all out of formula," she said. I didn't understand how a person could realize at six in the morning they were out of formula when she knew she had a baby to feed, but if my sister was half as smart as everyone thought she never would have gotten knocked up to some army boy.

Now her husband was gone, deployed to Vietnam, and she was stuck out here with her baby.

I pulled into the almost empty forecourt of the DX. A truck was filling up, a blond boy leaned against it dressed in a work shirt with his hand on the pump.

He looked over as I got out of the car.

"I'll be with you in minute, miss," he called out.

"No gas, thank you," I said. I flicked a hand toward the shop. "I'm just picking up milk."

I recognized him from my year in school. Sodapop Curtis. I hadn't seen him around in a while, but I still heard girls in class talk about him. They said he'd dropped out, he had to support his family. They said it like it was something romantic.

No one said it like it was a surprise anyway. For the greasers it was nothing unusual for them to stop turning up to school one day. It was someone like my sister everyone whispered about.

I hated those days, of hearing the voices falling silent as I walked past girls in the hallways. At least my sister didn't have to face them, she was called into the principals office and told to leave as soon as she started showing.

I put the milk down on the counter and waited for Sodapop Curtis to come back in and ring it up.

"Sorry about the wait," Sodapop said, coming in and slipping behind the counter.

I could see why half the girls in my school day dreamed about him, he sure was good looking, but I didn't ever want to fall in love. I'd seen where it ended up. I'd seen my sister crying on her kitchen floor, watched her unravel in pain while the ambulance came too slowly and the man she'd married at eighteen was away crawling through a jungle.

"It's alright. Just the milk."

He grinned at me, took the note I held out.

"Ain't you Belinda Richards's sister? Eva?"

I felt that wince again at the mention of my sister. She was the smart girl, the girl everyone thought would be known for getting into a fancy college, not for getting pregnant.

But I smiled back at him, straightened my shoulders. "That's right, though it's Belinda Hudson now."

He looked at me again. "I think we had math class together, last year?"

Math was never my strongest subject. Hadn't appeared to be his either. I remembered him and one of his friends sat down the back of the class and joked around most of the time.

"I think I remember the one or two days you were there," I said, and then regretted it.

He dropped out because his parents died after all.

But he just laughed. "Bet old Miss Johnson sure didn't mind the day's I didn't come."

He looked over at the door as someone else walked in. Johnny Cade. I knew him from school too, though he'd never said two words to me, or anyone else outside of his gang of friends.

He was sullen and dark haired, the opposing half to Soda as he came and leaned against the counter, eyeing me with a distrustful expression.

He often turned up at school sporting fresh bruises. He looked as if he spent all his weekends fist fighting, and there was a good chance he did.

"Hey, Johnny, how you doing?" Soda asked.

Johnny hopped up on the counter and stuck a cigarette in his mouth.

"Not bad," he said, giving me another unfriendly glare. I got the message, I was in his turf.

The greaser boys and girls were awful possessive about things like that. It was the reason no one else ever went to The Dingo, it was them all stalking around spitting and swearing, and the girls acting like they'd claw your face off if you so much as looked at one of their leather clad, brawling boyfriends.

"See you later," I said to Sodapop. I was going to have to rush to make it to school on time after stopping by at my sisters.

XXX

At lunch time I was heading for a student newspaper meeting when a fight broke out somewhere between the science lab and the stairwell on the ground floor.

I couldn't see it, just saw the scattered students walking ahead of me merge and push forward. Fight! The word rose up around me. Coming out of dozens of mouths all at once.

I pressed myself up against the wall to avoid being shoved forward and then ran up the stairs.

From a height I could see down into the tight press of bodies in the hallway.

Dallas Winston, the blond haired boy who I saw so rarely at school, despite sharing a home room with, had one of the football players pinned up against a wall.

Winston wasn't the brawniest kid around, not like the football players, but he was mean in a way none of them were.

A couple of Dallas's friends jostled around near him, jeans and flannel shirts, slicked down hair.

"What's going on, Eva?" someone asked at my shoulder.

Pauline who I had English class with was standing beside me.

"Who knows, they're always at each other," I said, turning away from the railing.

"Ohhh," went a gasp, and Pauline fell into step beside me.

"Did you see that? I think Winston just broke Bob's nose! Looks awful."

"Bad luck Cherry," I said, and she giggled.

"I know, he's so good looking too. Well I don't know how Dallas Winston and his friends haven't been kicked out for good already!"

"Guess he will be now," I said. "See you in class."

Donny, James and Nancy were already sitting at a table in the otherwise empty class room when I walked in.

"Sorry I'm late," I said. "I was held up by a fight in the hallway."

"Oh, who was it?" asked Nancy, who wrote the gossip column as well as the advice columns. I didn't see why she bothered as fast as rumor circulated and changed, by the time it took her to type it out it was already old news.

"Dallas Winston and Bob the football player," I said.

"No surprise," Donny snorted. "He's a mean son of a bitch."

"Maybe that's his problem," James joked.

"Well actually, Nancy said, "You know that boy he knocks around with, Johnny Cade?"

We all nodded.

"Well," Nancy said, leaning forward on the table. "I heard a bunch of soc's beat Johnny up real bad last weekend. Maybe that's what they were fighting over."

"I'll bet that Johnny Cade gave just as good as he got," Donny said.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I was sure Donny had never been any closer to a fight than I had.

"Four on one I hear," Nancy said.

"I wouldn't believe anything Winston or Cade say," Donny said, and I was inclined to agree with him on that.

I didn't have much time for the football playing boys and the way they acted like they were kings of the school, but the greasers sure weren't any better, smoking and spitting in corridors.

"What's their problem with each other anyway?" James asked. "Apart from the money thing I mean."

"I think that is the whole problem isn't it?" I commented.

Donny tapped his pen against his pad.

"Why don't you go and find out, Richards?" he said to me.

"Why? What does it matter to the rest of us? Besides having to watch them fight in the hallway."

"An article, Eva. An article about the rivalry between the soc's and the greasers."

I leaned forward in my chair. "Well, I was thinking about an article on school funding. Do you know the sports department gets allocated twice as much as the science department?"

Donny stared at me.

"Bo-ring," Nancy groaned. "No one cares about that."

"Well no one cares about the soc's and greasers either, besides themselves."

"You want to be a real journalist don't you?" Donny said. "How about a report on a link between poverty and juvenile crime. Your father's on the force isn't he? Ask him to access their records for you."

"He won't do that," I said.

He tapped his pen and kept looking at me.

"Sounds good," he said. "Make it about 3,000 words, get some photo's to go with it. Some interviews from each side. Good stuff, Eva."

"Sure, Donny, ok," I said, but he was already onto the next thing.

"Nancy, what have you got planned?"

"How about a spread on swim wear?" Nancy said.

"Damn, I approve that," James said with enthusiasm. Donny snickered.

"Not on models, silly," Nancy said, giggling at them.

I turned over to a fresh leaf in my pad. Stared at the blank page with my pen paused above it.

I thought of Johnny glaring at me in the DX, Dallas and Robert throwing punches in the hallway. All the mindless hate. How on earth was I going to write about that?