So this is pretty much my newest interest. I'm basically tying wires in my brain to figure out what it would really be like if a girl from 2011 really did wake up to find herself in the world of the Outsiders. No cliches, just honesty :] Enjoy!

Sorry if this chapter is really, really short. They will be longer- MUCH longer later on.

And oh yes, in case if this isn't clear, I don't own the Outsiders. But I'm pretty sure that's common sense connecting there for ya, haha.

O N E

The August night was sticky hot, and my covers were spilling off my bed. A siren wailed somewhere in the stretch of New York outside my apartment building, chorused by laughter of a couple of night-crawling kids from in front of the lobby door.

I sighed at the book laying on my lap, its paperback cover fresh and glossy, the black-and-white photograph of a boy in a leather jacket, his face covered from the words "The Outsiders" scrawled in old-fashioned text.

"Okay, let's see…" I peeled the book open, it's binding still stiff, and flipped a crisp page. "Chapter one…"

Yawning loudly, I held the flashlight out in my right hand, its beams glinting on my legs stretched out before me on the bed. Technically, I wasn't supposed to be reading so late on a school night, but curiosity defeated my usual loyalty to my parents' rules. Everyone, well, just my close friends, were babbling about the Outsiders and what an amazing book it was. All I'd heard for the past three weeks was pretty much "Sophie, you need to read it, the guys are soooo hot" and "Oh my gosh, a soda-pop is hot" or something of the sort. I actually wasn't really all interested in the book after hearing those kinds of reviews, but when one of my more sensible friends told me the book took place in the late 1960's, and that the plot line was very interesting, I became genuinely interested. And, okay, okay, I'll confess I was a tiny bit curious about the so-called "hot" boys. I am a girl, after all, though most people find that hard to believe, since I'm so completely different from most girls around my age. I'm a little lost on my purpose in life, and I'm a bit all over the place when it comes to my likes and dislikes and what I want to be and stuff. But that doesn't make me a boy. At least, I don't think it does.

I began to read my book, but I had barely gotten past the first page when I suddenly heard a loud shatter of glass that sent me scrambling to flip the flashlight off and tuck it and the book under my pillow. My breathing heavy, I listened as the angry voices of my parents were thrown back and forth, sometimes layering over each other. I sighed deeply and threw my pillow over my head. I knew exactly what they were arguing about. It was always the same thing at least five times a week. Money.

I used to cry every time I heard my parents quarrel. But after a couple of years, you get used to it a lot. Now it just seemed like they were having a yelling competition, stuttering over their sloppy sentences that made no sense except to themselves. They always fought about money, and nothing else. Apparently, they had both made lots of financial mistakes as kids, and the mistakes became more frequent later on, and now they were seriously paying the price. Literally.

As the shouting subsided, I grabbed the flashlight and book and tucked the pillow back under my head. I really envied my older siblings. They were all in upstate New York, living free, jovial lives, without having to be burdened with the stress from their parents. Unlike me, who had to deal with it every week. You might not think it's terrible, but you don't know what its like. Sometimes I felt older than I really was, slipping into their worries to the point where I became stingy and over-conservative with my spending. My parents were running around in circles, making the same mistakes at all the wrong places. And I had to follow them.

I picked the book back up and turned to the first page, inhaling that papery scent new books always have. Geez, my friend probably only had this book for a week before she lent it to me, but she was already pouring her heart out about it. Is it really that good?

I yawned again, cracked my neck, and started back right from the beginning:

"When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home…"

I can't remember exactly, but I think I reached the end of the first chapter, when that boy, Sodapop, was telling Ponyboy about his love for some chick, Sandy. When I neared the end of the first chapter, I heard my parents' voices kick off again, this time, louder, angrier, more furious. I could hear them clearly now.

"—and if we had saved up all that f— money from—"

"Now don't bring up that blasted rental idea again like—"

"We wouldn't be in debt if you had just listened to me—"

"—Sophie had just been born; you expected me to rent off the first two floors to complete strangers?"

I groaned loudly. Sometimes I felt like every single financial bump in my parents' lives was somehow caused by me. Whether it was my birth or my first day of school or something, it was always me.

I rubbed my temple to soothe the head-ache that was forming there. I tried to focus on the next page in the Outsiders, but the words began to blur together. Pretty soon, a sweet silence wafted over my ears and cuddled my entire body, and I fell sound asleep.

And when I would wake up, I would find myself lost in an odyssey, one so completely real that it just had to be fake.

Right?