I could hear the laughing coming from inside already. There was only one good thing about working until eleven on Friday. I had Saturday off. Soda worked Saturday mornings and that left Pony and me for bonding time. I never would have guessed a couple of hours once a week and we'd have a semi better understanding of each other.

I got slipped inside the thick clouded area just in time, to hear the words "Blow job" come out of Steve's mouth. I rolled my eyes. I hated when they did this. Unfortunately, I couldn't say that I didn't do this with my friends. I clapped my hands over my little brother's ears. "Hey! Virgin ears." I was really going to have to get around to having that talk with Pony.

"Take it easy Darry, ain't like the kid hasn't heard it before." Two-Bit flipped through another page in the play boy. "I found her! Soda look at her rack."

I rolled my eyes and moved from Pony's ears to Soda's eyes. "Keith, I'd appreciate it if you would keep that smut out of my house, and away from my brothers."

"I'd appreciate it if you would call me by name. Besides, Darry you shouldn't be mean to me. I'm just trying to help you boys out here. I know for a fact you haven't had a date in eight months. Soda here hasn't gotten action in a couple, and Pony, hell he's still a baby."

"I'm not a baby, Two-Bit."

"Worse, kid your innocent." Steve flipped a pretzel at him. Pony retaliated and threw it back. "Don't think I didn't see you with the new girl today. Kid, you don't even know how to talk to a girl."

I swallowed hard. I wasn't ready for Pony to start chasing girls like Soda. It meant more trouble for me. Pony's ears went redder than I'd ever seen. "She's in my art class that's all Steve."

"Are you talking about that weird hippie chick?" Two-Bit asked.

"Weird? I thought she was kind of cute." Steve said, he attempted to pull a King out of his shoe.

"You like them young? Don't'cha Stevie boy."

"One, Stevie boy makes me sound like I'm on of them." He gestured to me and my brothers. "Two, I do like them young, you can even ask your sister."

We all bust out laughing. Two-Bit scowled at Steve. "Watch it, wise ass."

I sat down to play the game of poker with them. "I always thought his Mom was the looker." I grinned.

Two-Bit threw down his cards. "You leave my Mama out of this."

"Don't tell me my kid brothers need to go take a roll in the hay."

"It's not your brothers that need a roll in the hay, it's you."

I felt my stomach close in. There was no one that light that would ever pounce on me; it had to be Pony. I cracked open my eyes. "Turn the cartoons on already?"

Pony sat up, from body slamming me. "Nope, isn't there anything else on?"

I frowned; Pony seemed to be in the root of every ones jokes last night. The fact that he was the youngest, less experience and half the time was probably confused on what the guys were talking about made him an easy target. He still had his childhood and innocence, and I wanted to keep it that way. "You okay, kiddo?"

He nodded. "I'm just sick of watching cartoons."

"The game isn't on until one." I raised my eyebrow imitating Two-Bit. It was the only way I knew how to question him, with out using words and not have him think I was angry at him.

"Did they say anything else about Molly?" He asked biting his nails.

"Molly? The girl they were teasing you about? The one in your art class or whatever?"

Pony nodded. "I didn't like what Steve said about her. She's a nice girl. Her parents both died. She lives with her uncle."

"I see, so she's more of a buddy, than a girlfriend?"

Pony nodded. I let the breath out that I had been holding, since he brought up a girl. Truth be told, I wasn't ready for him to join in on mine and Soda's conversations yet. I didn't want girls distracting him from school. "What am I going to do with a girlfriend?"

I grinned and grabbed him by the waist. I bent down and picked up my wallet. "That I will explain to you, before you go away to college. But since you don't want to watch cartoons, and eat cake like every Saturday morning. We are going to go visit Soda, and get a real breakfast." I tossed Pony over my shoulder and carried him out to the car.

The halls were flooded worse than a zoo with the animals out of the cage. It was the beginning of Spring and everyone was going nuts from cabin fever. I wanted to get my homework done so Darry would let me go see a movie tonight. It was unlikely since it was a school night. I pushed my way threw crowd to my locker. I needed to drop off my books and get ready for art.

"Just leave me alone!" The voice was familiar. I slammed my locker shut. I had to admit, I had a lot more confidence after we won the rumble.

"Leave her a lone scum bucket!" I hollered without thinking.

Curly turned around scowling at me. "Nice seeing you too, Ponyboy. Is this how you welcome a guy who just got out of the cooler?"

His hair was cut short. He was wearing Tim's old jacket. Curly had grown since the last time I saw him. He looked even more like Tim. He must have practiced Tim's signature scowl because he had it down to a tee.

"Sorry man, I thought you were a soc."

"Well I ain't, so you can just mind your own business."

"Let her be Curly, she's new."

"Did you grow some balls, while I was gone Blondie?" Curly asked.

I could feel myself growing red. Darry would holler until he was blue in the face if I got into a fight with Curly. "I ain't looking for trouble, and if you are going to bash my hair, you ought take a look in the mirror." I pushed passed Curly and picked her books up.

She pushed her dark hair out of her eyes. "Thank you." Molly held her hands out for her books.

"I got them. We're going to be late."

We walked to art class in silence. "Can I ask you a question?"

I drug my charcoal across the paper. "Sure?" I answered.

"Who is that?" Molly pointed a tan finger at my charcoal piece of Johnny.

"My friend Johnny."

"He looks sad." She said. "Like he's been tormented."

"He was sad. I guess even tormented."

"Was?"

"He was burned in a fire, and died. I'm sure you've heard all about me. Johnny and Dallas."

"I have, but I really don't listen to rumors or people. People aren't trustworthy."

Molly was dark in both her appearance, and words. She had that whole hippie vibe going for her. Not too many of the kids at school really dug the hippie thing. All the clothes she wore were loose. They sort of hung off her. The greaser girls made fun of her and the soc girl called her trash. The guys were attracted to her. She always wore her hair down unless it was art class.

I listened to the bell ring. "Well if you ever want to hear the whole story about Johnny you can read the story I wrote about it. It's kind of long." I handed her charcoal back. "Thanks for it."

"You can keep it." I packed up my stuff and headed over to track.

If I didn't hate my friends teasing me enough, I hated the track team teasing me more. They all looked at me like I was a little kid. Especially when the coach made them run suicides and not me. I realized early in the year that they had a problem with me beating them.

"Pony, I saw you talking to the new girl today." Pete said. "You got plans to ask her out."

"Yeah, right." Ben chimed in. "The kid ain't ever been with a girl. You'd think with a brother like Soda you'd pick up a few pointers. Or does he take all the girls Pony?"

The entire locker room burst out laughing. I threw my sweat filled shirt in my gym bag. "Shut up. I've been with a girl." I felt my ears go red as I lied.

"Yeah, right baby Curtis, the only girl you've been near is your mother."

The room went dead silent. I quickly put my other shirt on. I grabbed my gym back and left the locker room. Soda and Darry were both out of school and I was still seen as just their little brother. Or even worse their baby brother.

I wasn't watching where I was going I was so heated. I ran straight into someone. I looked up, and my eyes caught glimpse with Molly's. "Sorry." I mumbled.

"You look a little mad."

"One of the guys said something about my Mom." I answered.

"People are assholes."

"Molly Sue!" A man in his early thirties came bounding up the sidewalk to us.

Molly's eyes went blank. She got this weird look on her face. I knew I wasn't supposed to see it. "Molly Sue?" I raised my eyebrows in a questioning way.

"You act like it's worse than Ponyboy." She grinned. The man put one of his huge hands on her shoulder.

"Sweetie, I've been looking for you for a while. You need to call me when you aren't going to show up at home after school. Whose your friend?"

"I'm Ponyboy."

He smirked a little at my name. "I'm Molly's Uncle Matthew. Nice meeting you Ponyboy."

Molly smiled a little bit. "Pony and I were working on a project until after his track practice. We had plans to finish it."

"Yeah." I said slowly. Looking at her trying to figure out why she was randomly dragging me into her lie.

"Track runner, that's pretty exciting." He was looking me up and down. I couldn't figure out if he trusted me. Or if he was going to kill me for talking to his niece.

"Yeah, sorry sir, it was my idea."

He started laughing. "Sir, boy do I look like I'm forty? Just call me Matthew. And it's too late for you two to be working on a project. Get in the car; I'll give you a ride home."

I climbed in the car. He hard a truck like Darry's with all types of tools and video equipment. Darry didn't have the video stuff. Mathew kind of reminded me of Two-Bit. He cracked a ton of jokes and shuts up. By the time he pulled up to my driveway. He had knows about my parents, brothers and our names. Darry was getting out of his truck.

"Hey stranger!" Mathew rolled down his window.

Darry frowned. He walked over to the car and pulled me by my shoulders back protecitvly. "Hi?" he said in a mono town voice. I couldn't blame him the last time a strange man dropped one of us off was when Soda decided to hitch hike home from the stables. He grounded Soda and lectured him on how stupid it was. Even if a lot of people did it. He probably thought I was hitch hiking.

Mathew stuck out his hand. "I'm Molly's uncle Mathew, seem like our two kids have hit it off."

Darry shook his hands. He looked down at me awkwardly. "I guess."

"He's a polite kid. He's welcome over anytime."

"Same with Molly." I wasn't sure if Darry meant it or not.

"I'll see you around." Mathew sped off down the street.

Darry looked at me with a weird smirk. "Polite? What's ever has gotten into my baby brother."

I rolled my eyes at him. I had had it that word and any other words that were affiliated with it. I elbowed Darry in the ribs and took of running into the house.