Trial And Error
By: Amber King
Pony POV
I set up and shut the alarm off. I was tired cause I didn't get much sleep that night. I'd woken up with the chills from a nightmare. I can't remember what it was about. I wish mom and dad were still here. Mom would know what to do to make it go away. But they died a month ago in a car accident.
I got out of bed and got dressed. Then shook my brother, sodapop, to he could get ready for work. He works at a dx station. He moaned and just rolled over. I shook him one last time "Come on Sodapop! Get up! You're gonna be late for work!"
I sighed and walked out of the room. There was a note on the fridge from Darry saying he left early for a job interview. I felt bad for him, and almost guilty. He had to give up his chance at college to take care of Sodapop and me.
The state almost wouldn't let him take care of us even though he's our brother, but he promised to get a full time job, and keep us out of trouble. I'd get a part-time job if he'd let me but he already said that wouldn't happen, and that I was going to work hard to keep my grades up instead so the state wouldn't complain.
I couldn't understand why he let sodapop drop out of school all together. I just wanted to work after school hours but he wouldn't have it.
I started to scramble some eggs for breakfast. I heard the front door slam shut, and knew Steve was here, and probably Two bit too.
Sure enough Tweedle Dee and Tweedle dumb walked in and started to raid the fridge. Steve got ahold of the chocolate cake in the freezer.
Soon Sodapop came in wearing just a towel after taking a shower. He glanced around "Where's Darry?" I showed him the note "Job Interview."
Sodapop frowned then walked back to the bedroom soon coming out dressed and ready to go. "Hey Steve, what time is it?" Steve shrugged watching Mickey Mouse with Twobit. Soda sighed and found the clock then went back to the kitchen and sat down as I dumped the eggs onto a plate.
He put some chocolate syrup and jelly on them then continued to eat. I sat down and ate some myself then did up the dishes before getting my shoes on and stuff for school.
Sodapop POV
After I finished eating I found my shoes and put them on. We had to get going if I was going to walk Ponyboy to school before I was late to work.
I hurried Steve out the door, with Ponyboy following. Steve seemed a little annoyed with the extra stop "How come he can't just walk by himself?"
"Because...there are evil socs out there just waiting to hurt my poor little ponyboy!" I threw my arms around his neck protectively. Pony pushed me off annoyed "I'll be fine, you guys can just go to work."
See? I hate it when this happens...steve makes it a big deal every time I try to do something with pony or walk pony some where, then pony feels bad and tries to do things by himself. One of these days when he's walking home alone because he thinks he's a problem he's gonna get jumped and seriously hurt. "Steve you can head on to work, I'm gonna walk pony to school then I'll be there alright?"
Steve shrugged mumbling something then walked off in the direction of the DX. Sometimes I wonder if he really doesn't like ponyboy...
I walked pony to school and told him to call me if he needed me to walk him home after track practice or something. He just shrugged me off and walked over to Curly Shepard.
I headed back to the DX Station. When I got there we had some work to do. We had two cars sitting in the garage. One needed a simple tune up, the other smoked real bad when it was started, so we need to figure out what was wrong with it.
Darry POV
I walked into the office and shook the mans hand "Hello, I'm Darrel Curtis." he smiled "Hello, I'm David McClain, you can call me Davie." I nodded "Yes, Sir." He smiled "Have a seat Mr. Curtis."
I sat down as he walked around to his desk and sat down, shuffling through some papers. "So you're interested in roofing houses are you?" I nodded "Yes Sir." He smiled "Have you ever had a job?" "No, Sir." "Have you roofed houses before or done manual labor before?"
"Yes, Sir, With my father." I bit my tongue...just thinking about him made my heart slow down and get heavy. I missed him so much... "Alright Mr. Curtis, I'll put you with Mr. Harris for a week so you can get use to how things run around here. Can you start tomorrow morning?" I smiled "Yes Sir." I shook his hand and left the office.
He had me stopped by the front desk to grab some paper work to fill out and bring back the next day. I was glad I got the job. I got into the truck and drove home. I sighed and cleaned up the house one last time while I still had the day to do it.
Then I sat down and filled out some of the paper work. It was all the same name, age, address, phone number, and signature.
After a while I noticed it was time for school to be out and tried to remember if track practice started today or tomorrow for ponyboy. I figured that if he didn't call for me to pick him up pretty quick they did.
Pony POV
School was a drag. I got all my homework does easily. I skipped eating lunch, instead I slept. I'm still tired. I hope I wake up enough to run. The coach timed me at 28 second in the 200 meter. That's pretty good.
Afterwards I headed over to the high jump. I hate High jump, but coach insists I do it. He also wants me to try long jump but he said I can put that off till later.
I got my steps down and they put the bar at 4 feet for warm up. I ran up and jumped over it backwards like I was suppose to.
Afterwards I grabbed my stuff and started to walk home. Some socs followed me. I ignored them. They didn't leave until a familiar black car drove up blasting it's horn. Twobit pulled up beside me and told me to get in. He sped off then scolded me for walking by myself. Then started to make some wise cracks about some greaser he'd talked to today. He doesn't tend to keep his temper.
When I got home darry asked me the usually questions 'Do you have homework?' 'Were you at track?' 'You didn't skip anything today did you?' 'Are you planning on going out tonight' Yadda yadda yadda...
Soda walked in followed by Steve. He was all greasy from working on cars, I could tell, and he headed straight for the shower. I imagine he's got a date tonight since darry didn't have to tell him to wash up.
We sat down for dinner and sure enough afterwards Soda left with Steve to pick up Sandie and Evie. I read a book before going to bed around 9.
I was glad darry got the job. Now that's one less thing he'll have to worry about.