Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters except for Nancy.
a/n: I want to get better at writting so constructive criticism is completly welcome. If you do not like something or think it doesn't work then please tell me and if you can please tell me how you think it could be fixed. I want to get better at writting and need your help to do it.
It was in the park that any of them saw her for the first time. It was an occasion that neither Johnny nor Ponyboy soon forgot.
She was lying in the grass making her nearly invisible. In fact they only saw her because Ponyboy almost tripped over her form.
"Sorry," he apologized, his ears turning red.
This girl didn't seem to have heard him though or if she did she was ignoring him. She was just staring up at the sky like it was the most interesting thing in the world. If he didn't know better Johnny would have sworn she was searching desperately for something in that endless stretch of blue, but he knew that was pointless. There is never anything to find up above us nothing tangible anyways.
When the boys were a few paces away from where the girl lay she said something, "He always loved to look up there. He would spend hours just staring."
The two stopped walking even though they were both sure that this girl wasn't talking to them. Something in her voice made them stop to listen; it would have made anybody stop even if they didn't want to.
"I never got what he found interesting about it," her voice held a strange mixture of wonder and grief, "He would spend all day just staring at the sky if I didn't make him stop."
She didn't speak, so Pony and Johnny started walking away again. Before the girl got out of sight Johnny turned back around to look at her. She was pointing at the sky like she was trying to show something to somebody, but she was all by herself. When she lifted her arm her sleeve fell away from it to reveal a long red mark covering the outside of her arm, and running back under the sleeve.
Johnny reached up to the scar on his face.
"You coming, Johnny?" Ponyboy turned around when he noticed his friend had stopped.
Johnny turned towards the younger boy letting his hand fall away from his cheek, "Sure man, let's split."
That was over a week ago, but the weird behavior and mark on the girls arm had kept popping up in Johnny's head. He couldn't stop it.
"Class this is Nancy Richardson," the math teacher said, "She just moved here all the way from Canada."
Johnny tiredly looked up at the new pupil and did a double take. She was the girl from the park. Nancy Richardson was the girl who had laid in the grass and stared at the sky. Johnny was sure he wouldn't have mistaken the girl's raven black hair.
"I know you will all make her feel welcome," the teacher continued.
The look on Nancy's face as she looked out at her new peers clearly said that she felt differently. A quick look around the room and what he knew of his classmates made Johnny agree with Nancy; these people weren't about to make her feel welcome. He felt slightly guilty when he included himself in the 'these people' but in the end Johnny really felt he couldn't blame them.
Even without having been there to witness her bizarre behavior in the park anyone could peg this girl as far from normal. Her clothes were enough to set her apart from the rest.
You could tell that there had been some attempt at fitting in with the rest of the crowd – the decent crowd anyways. She was wearing the recommended knee length or longer skirt with a blouse but it wasn't quite to the dress code. The skirt was well past the knees but the extra skirt length did not make-up for the fact that her blouse was not buttoned up to the appropriate spot. It was one or two buttons below what every other girl wore theirs at; this resulted in showing more skin then some would find acceptable. On top of all that, she was wearing an old, battered, black, leather, jacket. All in all, she was probably going to have trouble finding a group of friends.
After a few minutes of staring, she smiled and said, "Hello!"
The students looked at each other then a few mumbled a weak or sarcastic greeting back.
None of this seemed to faze her though. After that initial look of doubt at the teacher's assurance that she would be welcomed she kept a smile on her heart-shaped face.
"Well," the teacher said looking around the room and clapped her on the shoulder, "why don't you talk a seat back there by Mr. Cade. He's a nice lad, and once again a pleasure to have you in our class, Ms. Richardson."
"You must be Mr. Cade," she whispered as she sat in the seat assigned to her.
A nod of his head was all the recognition this comment got from Johnny. This wasn't a very unusual thing. Johnny Cade wasn't much of a talker, even when he was with his friends. He was more of the silent type, and his silence only got worse when he was with a member of the opposite sex. All in all, there wasn't much going for this girl to get him to talk to her.
She reached her hand across the two desks, "I'm Nancy."
Johnny looked down at the outstretched hand for a few minutes before gingerly shaking it.
"So, do you have a first name Mr. Cade?" she asked when Johnny didn't offer his in return for hers.
Johnny looked at her from the corner of his eye before answering quietly, "Johnny."
He didn't really want to encourage this girl to continue talking to him, but he was sensing that she was the type that would just keep pestering you until you answer her questions. So in the end, she won't shut her trap unless you say something to her.
"You aren't much of a talker," she whispered as the teacher started taking role call, "are you Mr. Cade?"
"Not really," Johnny said hoping that would stop her lip flappin', and for a long time she did keep quiet.
Only when Johnny finally thought she would stop talking did she bring up the one thing Johnny had been hoping was forgotten.
"I remember you from the park," she said taking her homework from the teacher, "You and your friend, the one with the red-ish brown hair."
She pauses only for a moment, and then kept talking when Johnny didn't fill the gap of silence with noise, "Well I assumed he's your friend. You two sure didn't look much like brothers," it was as she said this that she got a far away look in her eye. It reminded Johnny of the girl he had seen in the park, "I had a brother… once."
She trailed off, and didn't say anything after that.
It was such a weird statement Johnny was tempted to break the silence that he had been wishing for, for so long just to ask her what she had meant by it. Before he had decided to say anything to her though the bell rang, and she grabbed all of her things, and walked out of the room with an amazing amount of speed – for a girl that was.
As he watched her leave Johnny Cade had the weirdest felling in the pit of his stomach. He had never met anyone – girl or not – like Nancy. He knew for a fact that he wished he had never met her. He would be perfectly happy if when she left the room it was the last time he ever saw her. In fact he would be more than happy if that happened, but there was an extremely small part of him that was disagreeing with this. This Microscopic part was wondering as he watched Nancy Richardson leave the room just when he would see her again.
School was just a form of entertainment for Two-Bit Mathews; that is why he always left when it got boring. His second period teacher had sent him to the office for 'misbehavior'. Two-Bit thought it had been pretty funny. The English teacher just needed to get a sense of humor. So, instead of going to the office Two-Bit took that as an invitation to leave school.
Two-Bit decided to spend his, now, free period with a cancer-stick out by his old souped-up car. After only a few minutes of leaning on his vehicle, he flung the half-finished smoke down on the ground and squashed the burning embers with his foot. He then proceeded to walk around the parking lot because standing on his own was getting dull for a person as social as Two-Bit.
He started walking away from the parking lot, towards the back of the school. If there was anyone else skipping and still on school grounds they could be found back there. He was passing the first dumpster when he heard the sobbing.
He didn't know what the sound was at first, but then he spied the girl behind the second dumpster. She wasn't an unattractive broad, Two-Bit decided, for someone who wasn't blonde. He thought she looked pretty good. That is, what he could see of her looked good.
Her raven black hair was pulled up into a high, perky, ponytail that completely clashed with the tears running down her face. The ponytail was tied together with a pale blue piece of cloth that matched her long full skirt. She was clinging to a battered, black, leather jacket like it was the only thing she had left of the world. If she hadn't been clinging to the jacket Two-Bit would have been able to see that the white blouse she wore wasn't buttoned up all the way to the top.
Two-Bit, of course, didn't notice any of that though. What he did notice was the waterfall of tear running down her face and the incoherent sobbing. She was mumbling to herself; Two-bit couldn't understand much, but he thought he heard the name Chris, more than once. All this, made the usually easy going, Two-Bit start backing in the other direction. Bawling chicks were not something he wanted to get messed up in; not even attractive bawling chicks. That was something a guy did not mess with unless he was really scheming on the girl; which Two-Bit most defiantly was not.
After he got a safe distance away, he turned around and was bookin' to his car.
"That," he chuckled to himself as he got into his car, "was a close one."
Whether he liked it or not, Johnny didn't have to wait too long before he saw Nancy Richardson again. At the end of the day she found him at the front of the school with Two-Bit. All of the weird quietness that she had, had at the end of first period had gone, and she was back to being her strangely outgoing, naïve self.
"Hello Mr. Cade," she said nodding as she walked past him.
As he watched her form disappear from sight for the second time that day, he thought that was all she going to say to him, but then when she was only a few feet away, she stopped and turned back to look at him.
"You know what Johnny Cade?" she asked with a sphinx like smile, "I'll get you to talk to me. I don't mean those whispered one word answers you give me when you can't get out of talking to me. I mean really and truly talk to me. I'll get you to do that before I leave this place."
Of all the things Johnny could be thinking after a statement like that, for some reason, all he could wonder about was, why is she going to leave?