-1Disclaimer: The Outsiders and all the applies belongs to SE Hinton.

A/N: This will be updated periodically. Short, but it's the beginning. Happy reading!

-----

Dropping her books onto the desk so they made a loud noise, Ellen Matthews sat in her seat next to Anna Green in her first period class of her junior year. She pulled out a dull pencil that looked like it still had chew marks on it from last year and went over to the mechanical sharpener to make it suitable to write with. She took as long as she could at the sharpener, eyeing up each person as they walked in the room.

Ellen hated the first week of school just because her classes from last year of which she had grown comfortable in were gone. She had been with this new group pf students for the last four days, but still she liked her last year class better. At least Anna was in this class though, it might make it more survivable. She studied a few kids walking into the class like Angela Shepard, who still could not figure out that eyeshadow was not meant to make one look like a raccoon and Ponyboy Curtis, who was part of her brother's group of friends. Ellen had heard he was really smart though and why he was in intermediate history was beyond her thought process.

She pushed her light brown hair behind her ear when she sat back down at her desk and preoccupied her time with picking at the corner of her secondhand notebook before the teacher came in. Anna had turned around and was talking to Angela otherwise Ellen might have been talking to her. She might even had joined in if the conversation was not about Anna's new boyfriend, who, in Ellen's opinion, was too Socy for his own good.

The door slammed shut unexpectedly, making almost half of the room's occupants jump in their seats. Without looking up, Ellen could already perfectly vision Ms. Rondell with her dark brown hair and black eyes.

"Open up to page twenty in your books," she told the class before going back to her desk and searching through a large stack of worksheets before she found what she was looking for. Ellen lazily flipped through the book before settling on the right page and she did not even bother to glance down at it's contents before picking up her pencil to start doodling on a scrap piece of paper.

She scrawled messily a few random circles and her initials in a few places. Then she moved her pencil to make a curved line and a straight one about an inch below it, placing her initials EM in the middle. She remembered the last time she had drawn this symbol somewhere. It had been the day before school had started and Ellen had been wandering around town. She turned corners and went down alleys she had never seen before until she reached a place behind one abandoned thrift shop.

There had a lot of old and outdated clothes in boxes placed everywhere. There was one trash can there that looked as if it had never been used for putting anything messy in. Ellen had sat back there for awhile, imagining the place as being busy and workers bustling around everywhere, setting up clothes and marking cheap prices. Then, she dug into her pocket and brought out a small pocket knife. Though it was nothing like her brother's beautiful switchblade, it worked for doing what Ellen did.

She walked over to the metal trash can, and right on the lid, she put the sharp tip of the knife. Then, without thinking twice, Ellen carved the curved line that looked like a frown and then the line and in between she marked the E and M. It was not anything special, but it showed that she had been there. She had made a mark there and now, sometime in the future, when that old abandoned building was being refurnished, somebody will stumble along the trash can and they might wonder who EM is. They might connect the initials to a spouses name or they might just blow it off. At least Ellen knew she would be thought of later on in life.

"Ellen, take the papers," James whispered back to her, waking Ellen up out of her daydream. She looked up and saw a stack of papers being waved in her face. She groaned and took the pile. Laying one on her desk, she passed the rest backwards.

She looked down at the sheet, which read at the top: History Project; The Oregon Trail. Her class was learning about pioneering in the early ages of America. But when Ellen leaned over to look at Anna's paper she saw that hers was on the Louisiana Purchase. She leaned to her right and Ponyboy had The Oregon Trail too. Had Ms. Rondell given out the wrong papers? It seemed unlikely. Ellen had heard stories about Rondell's class and most of them had her being smug about never getting anything wrong. Becoming naturally curious, Ellen looked around and saw that many of her classmates had different topics written on their papers.

"So, we are goin' to have a project worth one hundred points comin' up!" Ms. Rondell exclaimed excitedly, bouncing on the balls of her feet as if she were stepping on hot coals. "Different topics have been passed out and ta make it easier on me, y'all are goin' to be paired up with whoever has the same topic as you. There should be three in a group. After I'm done talkin', ya'll will get into groups and plan out how ya are goin' to be doin' this.

"This project will be spanned out throughout the next few weeks and at least one part of the assignment will be due each week," Rondell said. "Your group will present each part once a week and you will be graded on your presentation, knowledge of the topic and the model ya choose to bring in. It could be a poster or diagram. Any questions?" Nobody raised their hand. "Alright, get into your groups."

There was a bustle around the room while everybody struggled to find their group mates and a few groans were let out when people found out who they had to work with, but Ellen leaned back in her seat and waited for the third person to make their way over to herself and Ponyboy. A small boy with dark hair that was greased back like Tim Shepard's came over and checked to make sure his paper matched up and then sat down. Ellen knew who the boy was, but could not remember his name.

"So, when do ya want to get together?" the boy asked.

"This is rank," Ellen sighed, tapping her pencil on the textbook in front of her. "But since I know Pony's house is always busier than a circus and I don't know where the hell ya live," Ellen motioned at the boy, "my house is free this weekend. Ma should be out workin' and Keith will be who knows where."

Pony glared at Ellen for a second, deciphering whether or not he should argue about whether his house was a circus or not. Obviously decided against it, he turned to the other boy and said, "Is that good with ya, Scott?"

A light when on in Ellen's head as she remembered who the boy was. He had been in her gym class last year. His full name was Scott Howard and he was nice enough.

Scott nodded and Ponyboy wrote something on his paper. Secretly, Ellen was glad she had Pony in her group because he was guaranteed to get her a good grade. And Scott was not that dumb either. At least now she could take home a passing grade to her mother. That might make her personal life a little better.

"We each need to bring some information," Pony said as he began to take charge. Ellen let him because she knew that if she did anything, they would for sure get a bad grade. "We'll worry about the poster later, just for now, look up whatever ya can."

The people in her group were quiet after Pony spoke and Ellen began to doodle on her paper again. She was not at all excited for this project because she was not one of those brainy people, but at least she was assured a good grade. After almost failing her sophomore year, she needed something to get her enough credits to graduate next year.