Author's note: I do not own Outsiders. It is an amazing book but I do not own anything but the character Astra and the sequence/plot of the story. Enjoy.
Chapter 1: introduction.
My name is Astra Curtis, I am a Greaser and proud of it. All though I am a little different from the other Greasers. I have extremely long black hair and eyes bluer than the sea. I look completely different from the rest of my family.
Both my parents died in an auto wreck, so I live with my two older brothers Sodapop and Darry. Darry is six-feet-two, and broad-shouldered and muscular. He has dark-brown hair that kicks out in front and a slight cowlick in the back(just like dad's) but Darry has his own eyes. They are like two pieces of pale green ice. they've got a determined set to them, just like the rest of him. He looks older then his age and he'd be real handsome if his eyes weren't so cold. Soda is a happy-go-lucky boy always wearing a huge Cheshire grin. He is immensely handsome but not like a Darry handsome, like a movie-star handsome, the kind that makes passers-by stop mid-stride to watch him walk by. He isn't as tall as Darry and he is slimmer, but he has a finely drawn sensitive face that somehow is reckless and thoughtful at the same time. He has dark-gold hair that turns wheat-gold in the sun. He has lively dark-brown eyes that can be gentle and sympathetic one moment an bursting with rage the next. He has our dad's eyes and can get drunk on happiness and plain living.
My brothers and i were in a gang. Not a wild one, really just a group of kids that have known each other since forever. In our gang their is:
Steve Randle who is seventeen, tall and lean with thick greasy hair which he kept combed in complex swirls. He is cocky, smart and has a specialty with cars.
Two-bit Matthews was the oldest of our gang and the wisecracker of the whole group. He is about six feet tall, stocky in build, grey eyes an a huge amount of pride for his rusty coloured sideburns. He also wore a wide grin, not exactly like Soda's but similar.
Dallas Winston(Dally) was the real character of he gang. He had an elfish face high cheekbones, pointed chin, small, sharp animal teeth and ears like a lynx. His hair was so blonde it was white and he hated haircuts an oil so it fell over his forehead in wisps, then kicked out at the back in tufts. He has eyes that are blue, blazing ice, cold with hatred for the world.
Johnny Case was the last of the gang, second youngest next to me. He was smaller then the rest of the sixteen year old boys with a slight build. He has jet black hair like me but his was heavily greased and combed to one side. He has a nervous, suspicious look in his eyes that he earned from the Soc's and his parents.
The term 'Greaser' is used to class all us teens on the East Side of the River. We are the lower class of human here at the River. We are poorer then the rest. Especially the Soc's. No Greaser walks alone these days., especially the girls. Soc's are always on the prowl ready to jump us Greasers. I've never walked alone since Johnny was jumped. He had it real bad. Us an the gang were used to seeing Johnny beat and bruised. His dad clobbered him a lot and it made us but especially me madder than heck. But we couldn't do anything about it. His beatings were nothing like when he was jumped. Hi face was cut up, bruised and swollen. There was a huge, deep gash running from his temple to his cheek. He would carry that scar until the day he died. He was drenched with his own blood. Soda had called out to him and after a while he replied quietly "there was a whole bunch of them, a blue mustang full... I got scared..." He tried to act tough but he suddenly burst out crying. I had seen Johnny take a whipping with a two-by-four from his old man but he never let out a whimper. It made it worse for all of us to see him break now. I bent down and wrapped my arms around him.
"It's okay johnnycake, there gone now. It's okay." I told him soothingly.
It wasn't just the fact that the Soc's had beaten Johnny half I death, it was the fact that they scared him. He was already high-strung from the beatings an arguments he got from his parents. If it was any other boy in our group it would have turned them bitter and rebellious but it was killing Johnny. He had never been a coward an he was a good fighter. He stuck up for us and kept his mouth shut around the cops but after the jumping he was skittish and I thought that he would never get over it. Johnny who is the most law-abiding out of all of us, now carries a six-inch switchblade. He'd use it too if anyone was foolish enough to jump him again. He'd kill them. But no one is ever going to beat him again. Not over my dead body.