Disclaimer: This is an Outsiders/Priscilla and the Wimps crossover. I'm stealing the ideas because I'm bored. They belong to S.E. Hinton and Richard Peck respectively. Does anyone wanna argue?
This takes place when Ponyboy is in grade school. Told from his point of view.
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My older brother, Darry, says that I'll have to watch out for gangs when I go to high school in a couple of years. But what he doesn't know, or care to listen to for that matter, is that you get gangs in grade school too.
Here, at grade school, there was one gang that ruled the place like the Mafia. They called themselves Chaunson's Cobras, led by Freddy Chaunson himself. He was in the eighth grade at the time, although judging by his actual age he ought to have been applying for college.
The classrooms were always safe, what with the teachers always hanging around, but the hallways were a holy terror. You needed a pass to go anywhere, and I'm not talking about a hall pass.
The Cobras had their own pass system. You didn't eat, drink, sleep, or go to the bathroom without a Cobra Pass, which the gang members all sold five dollars apiece.
Yeah, those Cobras had a good system going. But that was all about to change, and because of a girl, too.
That girl was Christine O'Malley. She was a giant, looming over us all. She was silent and calm, and if she had wanted to she could have set up a gang that would've turned the Cobras into garden snakes.
As far as I knew, she was friends with one person, Johnny Cade, because their lockers were right next to each other.
They made an odd pair. There was Christine, tall and daunting, and there was Johnny, small, scared and insignificant.
One day, Johnny was just minding his own business, taking his books out of his locker, when a Cobra came up to him and, grabbing him, pinned him against the wall.
"Where's your pass, twerp?" The Cobra asked bitingly. Poor Johnny was scared as anything, and he could barely talk with the other boy's grip on his neck.
"P-pass? What for this time?" Johnny choked out finally. The Cobra grinned.
"Let's call it a pass for being short. A dwarf tax," he laughed. "Now hand over your money, shrimp."
Johnny was all set to do as he was told, when Christine turned around and, quickly and neatly as anything, brought her hand down hard to break the Cobra's grip on Johnny.
The hall was silent. Somebody, a girl at that, had dared to hit a Cobra in someone else's defense?
"Who's your leader, wimp?" Christine asked in a hard voice. The Cobra was so surprised that she didn't know that he actually answered her. "F-Freddy Chaunson," he stammered.
"Never heard of him," Christine said. "Bring him here."
Pretty soon, Freddy, the King Cobra himself, came slithering over. "Who's been asking for me?" he demanded.
"Me," Christine said. Freddy looked up at her. His expression suggested that he was arguing with himself. He would never hit a girl, then again, she might as well have been saying, "Please hit me."
So, instead, he turned to Johnny, who was cowering. "Kid," Freddy snarled. "You're gonna have to teach your girlfriend a lesson." Freddy drew his arm back to hit Johnny.
His fist never even took off, let alone hit the trembling target. Christine had dropped her books, grabbed Freddy in a headlock and had both his arms behind his back in a hammerlock.
My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe my eyes. Neither could anybody else, especially Johnny, whose black eyes were bugging out.
Christine marched Freddy into her own locker, stuffing him in. The last I saw of him was his sneakers clicking together before they disappeared into the locker.
Christine slammed the door shut, twirled the lock, picked up her books and strolled out of school into the blistery December weather, Johnny tagging along behind her.
After that, nature, a force much greater than even Christine herself, took its course. It snowed that night, a snowstorm that quickly turned into a blizzard. The town iced up. Everything froze. And school closed for a week.
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You like? I don't. Mostly because I stole the idea and just applied it to the Outsiders.
Kindly review.
