Disclaimer: I don't own the Outsiders


Today was my first day of elementary school. At nine years old and starting at grade three.

Why was I starting at grade three and not at grade one like the other normal kids did?

Simple, the orphanage matron didn't want to waste money. She barely fed us enough with two meals a day. She wasn't going to send us to school if she could help it. She loved her money. If she could earn a few cents, she would do anything, short of selling her soul to the devil.

So instead, she devised a plan, a plan as clever as she could make with her miniscule brain.

Every year, when school started, she would gather all the children with ages ranging from five to seven in the dining hall, which we called the glop hall. (The stuff we ate there looked a cross between a dead rat's fur and moldy jello. Thus the name glop.) And she'd start, first gathering up the remaining phlegm she had in her throat and spitting it onto her dress.

"Are all you brats here?" She'd ask, her nasally voice echoing in the completely silent orphanage.

Nobody answered.

"Good," she said, looking at her perfectly primed nails, "If any of you were missing, I'll send you to the dark room."

We paled.

The dark room was basically a jail cell with no lights, insufficient air, and an abundance of rats, mice and spiders. It was frightening trying to stay there for more than an hour. A rumor was that Sheldon, the slow kid who couldn't wear her clothes properly, much less read, had lost her mind down at that room because the matron forced her in there for too long. None of us wanted to be like that.

The matron continued, "So, as all of you know, you aren't going to elementary until you're grade three." She frowned angrily, "Even if I don't want to waste my money on you, I have to send you there because of the law. So you'd better thank me with your heart cause I'm paying my precious funds for my clothes to send you for your education."

Anderson coughed.

"What?" She screeched, looking directly at Anderson.

Anderson trembled. "Nothing ma'm."

She glared at Anderson. "It'd better not be or you'll spend a week outside the orphanage."

Anderson nodded frantically.

"I don't understand why I have to send you to school. You brats won't become successful like I am," she said haughtily, "but I suppose you brats can try." She brought out a bag from underneath a table. The bag was square shaped and seemed about to break from the weight.

"These are the books that the other children are learning. The orphanage inspector insisted I teach them to you brats if I didn't send you to school, but I'm not going to. You brats can learn or not. It doesn't matter to me."

She slammed the books on the table and walked away to her room. Everybody else left, glad that the meeting was over. Nobody bothered to glance at the books, they were busier planning out their afternoon, everybody but me.

I walked over to the table.

The books were both new and old. New because they looked as if they were never used, their bindings not cracked open with those hideous lines that old books have, but old in that their outer pages were yellowed by the sunlight. They were like a plague people avoided, something so repulsive that they didn't even bother to dust it, nevertheless crack it open.

But I knew that it was useful for something. I'd noticed the subtle difference between the Greaser, Middle Class, and the Socs. Greasers wore tan leather jackets that looked as if it had gone through a fight and Socs wore clothes that gleamed in the sunlight. Why? – because the Socs had more money – Why? – they were smarter than others.

I dragged the heavy books to my portion of the room, the space my bed occupied. Carefully, I hid it underneath the broken floorboard flap below my bed. I didn't trust anyone in the orphanage to not vandalize my things. We all lived in the same room and things tended to go missing from time to time, especially my things.

From then on, instead of dumbly staring at other kids playing, I toiled through the books. I didn't know what the words meant, I didn't know what the weird + and – symbols were, but I persevered. After all, I didn't have any friends to distract myself with.

After my sixth birthday, I was able to read and understand everything in the books that the matron left. My brother Brumley and the librarian helped me a lot with this, but it was mostly the librarian. Asking my brother questions was like practicing procrastination. As soon as my brother sat next me, we would start talking about other things that weren't related to the books. Then when we did start, we'd get into a fight. He usually called me stupid at least twenty times a session and I'd call him incompetent. Nothing was ever achieved

Unlike my brother, the librarian helped me with the books I took. She liked to teach me English the most, saying that she'd gotten an English degree when she was younger. Whatever that meant. But I loved it when she read me books like The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella, or The Chronicles of Narnia; I could almost imagine I wasn't an orphan.

As I grew older, I received the books he'd "borrowed" (stolen at the risk of a caning) from school and learned the material from them. So unfortunately for the matron, I was going to succeed in my life. I wasn't going to let anyone beat me, physically or mentally.

That was why I was attending my first day of school along with the crowd of Unwanted, Greasers, Middle class, and Socs surrounding me. And they were freaking me out. The kids were chattering like crazy and this very, very hyper boy named Ponyboy (Who the hell named that kid's name anyway) was sitting close to me like there was nothing wrong and chatting my ear off. I tried shifting away from him, but nooo he shifted even closer to me, adamant about talking to me when there were a million other kids around us.

He said, bouncing on the seat of his chair, as if he was a hyperactive dog waiting for a treat, "My name's Ponyboy. Do you live in Tulsa? Are you a greaser? I'm a greaser and so is my family and it's so cool to be here. What's your name? Do you know anyone? I know some people, but my brother Sodapop (Again, who the hell names their kid Sodapop?) said that I'll make a lot more friends than last year because more people come in during this time." He then looked at me expectantly, as if I was going to answer all those questions as well as remember them.

"My name's Alan." I said simply, not bothering to try and answer his questions.

Undeterred, he asked, "Why do you have half your hair covering your face?"

I froze.

"Can I remove it?"

I glared at him sharply. "No," I said venomously.

Ponyboy blinked. "Okay," he said, his smile dropping and his expression becoming neutral. I was slightly surprised, most kids started to cry when I told them off in that tone. Instead, he continued, a smile lighting up his face once more, "I guess you like long hair then. My brother Sodapop has long hair too. I wish I had as long hair as he did, but my mom keeps chopping it off. If I had long hair, do you think I'll look as tuff as he did? Darry has short hair though, I think he wants to try and look like a Soc." We both made faces at this.

"Ha!" Ponyboy said suddenly, "Your face can change!"

I stared at him blankly.

"Oh it went back." Ponyboy said disappointedly.

What the hell? I thought.

He opened his mouth to say more, but was interrupted by the teacher rapping her ruler against the table. To say I was relieved by the interruption would've been an understatement. Ponyboy – the boy with a screw loose in his head – had finally stopped talking, as did the rest of the class.

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Thank god.

The teacher started, "Hello class, my name is Ms. Richard and I want to welcome you to grade three. I see many new faces, including many people from a variety of social backgrounds, but I want you all to get along." She smiled, "Do you understand?"

Everybody chorused, "Yes Ms. Richard!" but me. It invoked a questioning look from Ponyboy. I ignored it. I crossed my arms and slunk down into my chair. I did not want to listen to Ms. Richard's annoying voice and her load of bullshit. There was no way a teacher, especially one who looked like a Soc, who would ever welcome the interaction of different social backgrounds. Instead, I stared at Alice, Bradley, Gordon, and Clara, fixing them with my lone blue-eyed stare.

They were my supposed family, including the fifty others in the orphanage. Although by definition in the dictionary, family meant: a group of people related by blood or marriage. And we were definitely not related to each other. No mother would go through that pain to bear fifty kids and raise them. I mean my mother threw me away, whether because I was a deviation or was too much trouble, I'd never know, but she did. So in my "family's" definition, family was slightly different and even more so for me. It was always different for me.

Alice was the first to notice that I was staring at her and nudged Clara, whispering something into her ear. Clara, who was listening attentively to the teacher until now, suddenly widened her eyes like a rabbit caught in headlights and glanced at me.

I sneered at her.

She flinched back.

What a coward, I thought and snorted softly.

The bell rang when the clock struck two. I was dying of boredom by the time it did. The teacher kept on saying that "You children should get along," in different sentences as if she didn't know what else to talk about. She probably didn't, she was a Soc, a rich Soc, by the looks of the expensive watch she had on her wrist. Ponyboy's questions were more interesting that the stuff she spewed out from her mouth, at least his had variety.

I stretched as an assembly of the kids in the room ran out. I rolled my eyes. The idiots I had for classmates had no patience at all. Didn't they know that patience was a virtue? Why run when you could walk out without any kids running into you?

Slowly, I walked to the entrance of the school doors, taking my time to look at the walls of the school. There were pictures of headmasters eerily staring down and happy paintings that looked like crap. Those ones that used a mush of bright, pastel colors that were stacked upon each other that they looked like a messed up burger. Happy paintings, creepy paintings, old walls, new doors, the whole school looked like a contrast of black and white, especially the entrance door and the peeling walls. The door was made of wood that was used for church door, all shiny and new looking. While the walls looked like somebody had puked on it.

Suddenly, I head footsteps behind me and I whirled around, my hands fixed in a fighting stance. People liked to sneak up on me and it never hurt to be prepared. But nobody was charging towards me, all I found was a reddish brown haired boy inspecting the door as I was. On closer inspection, I found that it was the hyperactive child, Ponyboy.

"Oh, its you." I said.

Ponyboy smiled and walked up beside me. But unlike in the classroom, he didn't say anything; he just stood there looking at me. I waited for him to do something but he didn't do anything at all. Slightly annoyed that he'd called my attention for no reason, I contemplated on punching his face. However, since he didn't actually do anything to me, I decided to play nice for once and ignore the boy. I continued on walking towards the school gates. His footsteps continued behind me.

Irritated, I walked faster.

His footsteps matched mine a second later.

I started running.

He started to run too, and boy, did the boy ever have wings for legs. He caught up to me by the time I reached the gates and I had to stop.

"Wh-a" – pant – "Do" – pant – "Y-you" – pant – "want?" I panted for breath, my lungs felt as if it was on fire.

"I'm gonna hang out with you." He said.

I stared at him blankly, still hunched over.

He smiled.

I huffed. "Fine, what" – pant – "ever." There was no point in saying no. The boy would catch up to me if I tried to out run him. And even if I beat him up to chase him away, his brothers might come after me and beat me up in retaliation, probably a lot more than the damage I did to the boy. I wasn't stupid.

With as much dignity as I could muster after looking like a pathetic weakling I straightened up. Walking in the pace of an experienced newspaper deliverer, I lead him through the winding pathways from the middle class area to the greaser area. He matched my pace perfectly, never going away, much to my annoyance.

The streets became littered with cans, paper, and garbage and the houses became more dilapidated as we neared the center of greaser territory. Probably because greasers cared more for the usefulness of the place they lived in than the pristine environment that the middle class and the Socs prized.

I paused and looked back. Ponyboy was still following me and not a word escaped from his mouth.

I stared at him.

He stared back.

I blinked.

He blinked too.

"Look," I said.

Ponyboy interrupted, "I don't know how to get back to my house."

I paused and worked my jaw. "You don't know how to get back to your house." I said through my clenched teeth.

"Nope." He said, looking slightly abashed, as he should.

I inhaled deeply and sighed. "Then why did you follow ME?" My voice raised a pitch higher on the last word.

"I was bored." He said innocently.

Pah! As if he was innocent. He'd probably done it to bother me. I wanted to punch his face so badly, but for some reason, my hand didn't obey my orders, like rebels don't obey dictators, instead my mouth, without my consent said, "I'll take you. Where do you live?"

He crossed his eyes and chewed his lips, for the first time looking flustered. "I live near the DX station, my house is about three blocks from there. We have a huge apple tree next to it." And added, "I think.

I turned and started to walk towards Ponyboy's house; I knew where he was talking about. I'd occasionally steal some apples from the apple tree when the matron had been less than benevolent. The place was only a few blocks from here, past the high school and the huge field.

Ponyboy followed me, but instead of trailing behind me as he did before, walked beside me.

"Where do you live?" he asked.

I ignored him.

"Do you live in the middle class-"

"No!" I shouted, "I'm an unwant-" I clamped my mouth with my hands.

Ponyboy looked confused. "So you're not middle class?"

"No."

"Are you a greaser then?"

I walked faster and hid my face as I stuttered, "y-yeah."

I sucked at lying, but I had to. We had an unwritten code that Greasers, Middle Class, and Socs could not learn about our existence. My brother Brumley had said that because the Unwanted were even lower than Greasers. If the Middle Class, Socs, or even Greasers knew about us, we'd be treated less than dirt, so it was of empirical value that we didn't speak of it. Besides, the unwanted were similar to Greasers. We just had no money, no home, and crappy guardians.

Ponyboy didn't seem to sense anything wrong. "Then I guess you live close to me," he said, "C'mon, tell me where you live."

I glared at him, "No."

If I'd told him where I lived, not only would he know that I had no parents, but the fact that I had no money. Then, he'd be like the others, pitying or despising me. And for some reason, I didn't want to chase him away like I did at the start of class.

"Ponyboy, why were you sitting next to –" I was interrupted by a blonde haired, blue eyed boy barreling toward us.

He screamed, "Poooooooonnnnnnyboy!"


Thank you for reading XD

Please tell me what you think!