I knew Dally didn't want us to go back and all, but I thought I had to. I couldn't keep Pony with me and have his brothers getting all worried and everything. So we're in the car that Dally's driving like a maniac and I see the smoke a ways off. I see it first, I think, because Dally is concentrating on what he's saying and barely looking at the road. He's saying, "Johnny, you don't know what a few months in jail can do to you," and all that stuff. But it won't be a few months. I killed someone. It'll be forever, if they don't stick me in the electric chair. And Pony didn't see the smoke first since he was in the backseat. And the second I saw it I knew it was our fault, it was our cigarettes done that.
Dally pulls up and slams to a stop and me and Pony jump out, because he's thinking what I'm thinking, and that is that it's our fault. And we hear kids screaming from inside and it's just getting worse and worse. I couldn't believe how many people were ending up hurt because of me. But not this time. I had this flash of the thought about the dead soc lying there in the moonlight. And I ran for that church with Pony. We'd save those kids. Dally was yelling at us that we were crazy and he'd beat both of us if we didn't get back there. But neither me or Pony listened.
We got the kids out, and then the roof started to cave in, and it was so hot in there and smoky and I couldn't breath I was coughing so bad. Pony was, too. Then the next thing I know Dal's there just as the roof starts to fall, and he grabs me and pulls me out of the church. My jacket's on fire and Dally whacks it to put it out, then pushes me to the ground and I pass out. But right before I do I see him going back in the church to get Ponyboy.
When I wake up it's dark and I'm in some kind of car, and I can hear a siren so I figure the cops got us. I don't feel as scared as I thought I would. But when I open my eyes I see that it's not a cop car, it's an ambulance, and that guy from the church, that fat teacher guy is sitting next to me. There's one of those oxygen things in my nose and I'm burned from where my jacket was on fire and it really hurts. I try to sit up but the teacher guy pushes me back down.
"Just lay down," he says, and I squint at him and look around for Pony and Dally. I don't see them.
"Ponyboy? Dallas?" I say, kind of hoping they are here even though I know they're not.
"They're fine, they're in the other ambulance. What are you boys, professional heroes or something?" he says, and I almost laugh at that.
"Naw. We're greasers," I say, but I don't mention that me and Pony are wanted for murder, or really just me. Pony didn't do nothing.
"What? Are you serious?" he says.
"Yeah," I say, and every time the ambulance hits some bump in the road it hurts, or maybe it's just the burns that are hurting. I reach up to get the oxygen tubing out of my nose and the teacher guy stops me.
"Leave it," he says, and so I just lay there, getting more and more nervous.
"How's Dally and Pony?" I say, wanting to sit up and get that stupid thing out of my nose, and I wanted to look out the window to make sure we were really going to the hospital and not the police station.
"Uh, which one is which?" he says.
"Dally's got the white blond hair, and he's taller," I said, not that sure how to describe Pony.
"I think he'll be okay. But the other one, I don't know…"
I tried not to get so worried and worked up about that but I was. If I thought Darry and Soda would want to kill me before that would be nothing compared to now. If Pony was really hurt I didn't know what I'd do.
