A/N - So I'm extremely excited to finally get this rewrite on the road. The idea of it has been rolling around in my head these past few months and I finally made a decision to make my Outsiders story even better. If you read the first version, you'll immediately take notice to a few things that have been changed. But it's all for the better of the story.

Please, read this (even go back and tell me about the first one, I'm not taking it down for a while) and leave a review.

Sorry about any kind of errors you might find, It hasn't exactly been ten minutes since I finished this chapter.

Disclaimer - Anything you see here that is familiar in any way, I do not own. The only things I do own are my characters.

I sat down on the blood red hydrant near the edge of the road and let my skateboard fall back and forth between my hands. My turquoise colored backpack's weight leaned against my leg and I kicked it away from me. It tilted and fell to the ground on its side. I sighed deeply and looked at the Mickey Mouse watch clasped to my right wrist.

They were five minutes and twenty-seven seconds late.

I threw my head back and took a particular interest in the robin feeding it's babies in the tree shading the area I was sitting in. I moved uncomfortably as the hydrant got harder and harder to sit still on.

"Hey, Jet!"

My eyes immediately jumped to the tall boy running across the street towards me. A stack of library books were in the crook of his elbow and his red plaid button up shirt was thrown over his shoulder, leaving only his white undershirt on.

"Sup, Orange. I thought you were supposed to be here oh," I looked down at my watch. "Seven minutes ago. And where are the rest of the hooligans at?"

Orange shifted his books and shoved them into my hands so he could pull his shirt over his shoulders. I looked through the book titles quickly, barely even taking in the words '-Mockingbird' '-Potter and the-' and some World War II history information title, before they were taken back by their current owner.

"I'm late cause Mrs. Harder was having trouble with the computer to check my books out. She had to do it by hand. I don't know where the others are. I thought they were going to be here with you."

I blinked and checked the surrounding area over dramatically. "Does it look like they are?"

Orange rolled his eyes and sat down on the curb a few feet away. He grabbed for my backpack before I could say anything and shoved his books into it and zipped it back up. I shook my head and clucked my tongue at him.

"You're carrying that thing now that your stuff is in it."

"Of course."

We sat in silence for a few moments.

"Does Rex have your scooter?"

Orange scratched his head in thought. "It was in his locker during school so, yes, I assume he has it."

I nodded. "He'll probably bring it with him when he rides up on his bike."

Twenty seconds later we heard the tell tale sound of a playing card running against the spokes of bike tires.

"Speak of the devil and he shall appear."

Rex skid to a stop in front of us and threw a dark gray, folded up scooter onto the grass next to Orange. The muscles in his back rippled as he leaned over the handles bars of his black and yellow Mongoose bike and his dark hair stayed in its messy state due to the gel he put in it.

"Your brother's going to get in trouble."

I immediately jumped to my feet. "Why, what'd he do?"

He did nothing but nod to something over my shoulder.

I quickly turned to see my baby brother and my friend trying their best to reach us before the group in Letterman jackets chasing after, did to them. Orange jumped to his feet and hurriedly unfolded his scooter and picked up my backpack and threw it over his shoulders. I let my skateboard fall to the ground and I jumped on it and got ready to follow the two racing towards us.

"Get home Jet!"

"Hurry before they catch and blame you too!"

The two blurs went past us and we scurried to catch up to them. I glanced behind after a block to see the seniors raising their hands in defeat before turning back towards the school parking lot. I took notice to one of the figures having purple hair. I blinked in surprise, still staring at the one with funky colored hair, and didn't notice the uneven cracks in the sidewalk.

Next thing I knew I was on my back in the grass trying to figure out how I got there. My brothers worried face appeared over mine, his honey gaze staring down at me.

"Are you ok?"

I groaned.

Three more faces appeared next to my brothers.

"Did you have a nice fall? Cause I'll definitely be excited for the next upcoming trip."

I tried to focus on the person who said that. "Shut up Battery."

A hand reached down to help me up and I grasped it tightly. Orange let go as soon as he knew I was not going to fall over again. I rubbed my back and roughly shoved Battery's shoulder when he started laughing.

"S'not funny Bat!"

He was almost doubled over. "You should have seen the look on your face when you went down. Did you see it Cameron?"

Cameron scowled at Battery and shook his head.

"I did," Rex stated. A smile started to form on his lips. "And it sure as shit was funny."

Battery gave Rex a high five. Orange rolled his eyes at the two and let his eyes drift downwards.

"Jet?"

I squinted up at him. "Yeah?"

He gestured towards my pants. I looked down and found my eyes drawn to the large rip in my left knee.

"Damn! April's gonna kill me. These were my last pair of good pants."

Cameron cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Not if she gets to me first."

I looked at him suspiciously. "Yeah, you mind telling me what the hell you guys were doing? Why were some of the varsity football team members chasing after you?"

Battery's green eyes brightened at my words. He peered over to Cameron. "Mind if I tell it?"

My brother shrugged and stated bluntly, "We put hair dye in Casey Kroft's shampoo."

Battery glowered at him. "There goes all my fun."

Orange started laughing and Rex looked at them in disbelief. I slapped my hand to my forehead.

The oldest out of our group gaped at them. "You mean to tell me, that you, Cameron Black and Battery Robert Rogers, turned Casey Krofts hair purple."

Battery mouthed the words, "Didn't you just sat that?" silently to Cameron.

"Do you both have a death wish?"

This surprised them both. Cameron exchanged a worried glance with the dark haired blond. "No...?"

I bent over to get my skateboard and to right Orange's scooter. "Well you've obviously got one. Casey's one of the Defensive Tacklers on the football team. You're probably going to be dead by three o'clock on Monday after school." I flipped my long mahogany hair back over my shoulder and added, "He's got a mean tackle."

"Killed a kid once," Rex continued on for me as he pulled his bike off its side.

Cameron froze and Battery started mumbling nonsense. "Need Nemo... avocado's poisonous to birds...more bacteria in your own mouth then there are in the world...about one in thirty people in the U.S. are in jail, on probation, or on parole........we're gonna die?!"

"Yeah, and then Casey will be a part of that statistic you just rambled off." Cameron wiped his face and rubbed at his eyes.

I smiled at my little brother. "C'mon kid, lets get home. I'll try and reason with Krofts Monday morning. He's in my English class."

Cameron flipped his skateboard over before stepping onto it and asking incredulously, "He failed junior English?"

I nodded and kicked off. The others slowly followed. Rex casually leaned back with only one hand on the handle bars. He waggled his eyebrows at me when I glanced over to him. I leaned towards him and smacked at his arm, completely missing and almost falling off my board.

He chuckled. "Don't need you falling off any more then need be, Jet. Ape's already gonna have a conniption fit because of the results of the recent one."

I groaned. "Don't mention it to me."

About ten minutes later we were piling past the egg shell white door and into my family's living room. The place was small, the kitchen consisting of both it and the dining room. It only had two bedrooms, leaving me to share my room with Cameron (not that I completely minded), and one tiny little bathroom that probably should've only been a half bath but was instead a full bathroom.

"Cameron? Jet? Is that you?"

"Yeah."

"Yes."

"Kay, come in here please." My sister waited a second before going on. "The rest of you can hang where you usually do. The house is yours."

My friends immediately flopped onto the couch, their feet ending up on the coffee table and the TV flicked on and changed from Fox News to Cartoon Network. I rolled my eyes at how predictable my friends were.

Cameron and I made our way into the kitchen, him sitting down at the table and me jumping up to sit on an empty counter top. April's shoulder length mahogany hair was pulled into a complicated twist and her black waitressing vest was thrown over the back of the chair Cameron took a seat on. She walked around the table to get to the pantry, running her hand over my brothers hair, and returned with a couple boxes of Macaroni and Cheese. She shook one of the boxes and looked from me to my brother and back.

"This and hot dogs ok? I don't really have time to make anything else."

Cameron shrugged and fiddled with a vase of dying flowers on the table. Before my sister could get aggravated at our uncooperativeness, I yelled out, "Mac 'n' Cheese and hot dogs! Does it sound good?"

"Yes!"

"I love you April!"

"Gimme some a that yummy monster!"

I looked at my sister pointedly. "Does that answer your question?"

April grunted something unintelligible and pulled two pans out from under the stove. She filled them with water and set them on a couple of the burners, turning the knobs on high. With that done, she turned and leaned back on the counter nearby, sagging heavily against it.

Cameron took off towards the living room after hearing one of the boys shout, "Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy!"

I waved my sister over once she finally opened her eyes. She came to stand in front of me and let her lower back rest against my knees. I kneaded into the tense muscles on her shoulders and felt her start to relax as the knots started disappearing.

"What was it this time?"

April's head fell forward, enjoying the magic of my fingers digging into her skin. "Mark-"

"The Jackass."

"Don't call him that."

"Well he is."

April's head turned to give me an exasperated look.

"Sorry. Mark Windle is not a jackass... please continue."

"Anyways, Mark dropped a tub full of dishes during lunch hour. Broken ceramics and glass were everywhere and the idiot had the nerve to blame me for the incident when Nicolette came to check it out."

"Did you explain this all to Big Mama Nikki?"

"I tried to. Mark wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise."

"Maybe you should quit."

Her shoulders tensed up and I smoothed my hands over them and rubbed her arms. "I can't quit. The money mom and dad left us is almost gone and I need this job to keep us living in this house."

"I keep telling you sis, I can help out y'know."

April stepped away and turned to face me fully. "Absolutely not. You're still a kid-"

"I'm seventeen."

"Yes, but you still act like you're seven sometimes," she sighed and ran a hand over her face. "You still need to live your childhood. I don't want you complicating your life by becoming worried about money problems."

"Ok... But if you ever change your mind, you should have those slobs out there," I pointed to the living room where the theme song of Spongebob Squarepants (they must have changed the channel to Nick) was playing through the speakers. "Start paying us rent. They do practically live here."

My sister giggled softly and looked down to see what I was doing when I started swinging my feet against the cupboard. She froze.

"What the hell happened to your jeans Jet?"

I sheepishly scratched at the back of my neck, suddenly wishing the boys would turn the volume back up on the TV. They had muted it to hear this conversation.

"I kinda...see it was...uhm.... uneven sidewalk?"

The peanut gallery certainly didn't help.

"She didn't mean to-"

"-was an accident-"

"-awesome fall-"

"-hilarious face-"

"-you shoulda seen it Ape-"

"-would have laughed your ass off!"

April silently fumed, picked up a plastic spoon with holes in it, for the macaroni, and deliberately pointed towards where the voices were coming from. "Jus-just go and get your homework done. And yes," she stopped me from interrupting. "I know you've got homework Jet Black, I talked to Mr. Craig on Tuesday. You haven't turned in your book questions for the novel you're reading in class right now. Go get it and get started on it."

I sulked past the devil with the spoon, her slapping my butt with it as I went, and made it into the living room. I glared at the occupants now spread across the floor. I jabbed my finger at them. "Thanks a lot guys. Which one of you mentioned my missing assignments to April. Cause whenever I find out who it was, I'm gonna skin them and feed their innards to Roscoe next door."

At the mention of the Doberman Pincher in the next house over, they made the right decision in staying silent. I gripped the straps of my backpack and tore it from where it sat next to Rex's feet. I pulled Orange's library books out carefully and set them down under the side table to be gathered at a later time. I reached in for the one item I was looking for and grinned as the small paperback book came free from my backpack.

The Outsiders was going to get the shit read out of it, even if I hadn't originally planned on doing the reading in the first place.