A/N Thank you so much all those of you who reviewed! Your encouragement and helpful comments mean a lot. I have sent out review responses, but you probably don't have them yet because the site's messaging system seems to be majorly goofed up. Enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 2
After school, Two-Bit caught up with me just outside the front entrance. "Hey, Ponyboy, need a ride?"
"You bet," I said gratefully. I hated riding the school bus because a lot of the kids liked to bug me for some reason, and it was a long, cold walk home in the middle of January.
As we sped down the street in Two-Bit's rusted out Ford Coupe, he demanded, "What's all this I hear about a gorgeous broad teaching English? The descriptions I was hearing almost made me decide to take up the subject myself."
I snorted. Two-Bit's grades were always awful, but his English scores were consistently worse than the rest. He was currently repeating the remedial composition course for the third time. "She's not a broad," I said defensively. "She's a real nice lady."
"A real nice lady who's a real doll, if half of what I hear is true," Two-Bit jibed back. "You gone sweet on her already, Ponyboy?"
I felt the tips of my ears turning red, and I suddenly realized the kind of ribbing I would be in for if the rest of the gang found out that I was going to be spending lots of time working on my book with a teacher who looked as if she should be modeling swimsuits in the movies. I thought fast.
"Yeah," I said, trying to sound brazen and boastful, the way Two-Bit himself does when he's talking about girls. "I gotta admit she's a real doll. First time I actually enjoyed looking at a teacher!" Two-Bit cackled, and I continued, "And the best part is, she wants to do a little private tutoring with me, to work on that theme I wrote for Mr. Syme last semester. She thinks I can sell it and get it published as a book!"
"Hey, no fooling? You mean that one you wrote about Johnny and Dally and the whole gang?"
"That's the one."
"All right!" Two-Bit punched the steering wheel joyfully. "I'm gonna be in a book! That's tuff, Ponyboy, that's tuff! Man…" He looked at me admiringly. "Writing a book and tutoring with a lovely lady. Greaser, you got it made."
I grinned. "Guess you didn't know you were riding home with the next big thing in our town."
"Well don't forget your old buddies when you're rich and famous. Just wait until the rest of the gang hears this!"
"Hey!" I said suddenly as if a thought had just occurred to me. "I got an idea. What if, instead of telling the guys what a doll Miss Meriwether is, what if we make out that she's real ugly? So ugly that I can hardly stand to look at her."
Two-Bit looked confused. "Why?"
"Think about it. They'd all feel sorry for me, having to be cooped up all the time with Boris Karloff's sister, when really…"
Two-Bit began to grin, "When really you've got your young peepers glued to a gorgeous woman."
I knew I had him. Two-Bit always liked anything that sounded like a joke. "That's it! And think about it if they ever do meet her."
"Their eyes would probably fall out of their heads and roll away down the street!" Two-Bit started laughing so hard he almost steered us right into a telephone pole. After that, he pulled into a Dairy Queen parking lot until he could get himself under control.
That night I could hardly wait for Darry and Soda to come home from work. Two-Bit had offered to drop me off at the DX where Soda worked, but I wanted to tell both my brothers at once. Darry and I had been working hard at getting along, and with something this important, I didn't want to seem to be favoring Soda again.
I managed to settle down and get my math and some of my history homework done before I heard the Ford rumble into the driveway and stop. "Pony?" Soda called as they came into the house, stamping snow off their boots.
I went out into the living room to meet them. "Hi," I said casually.
"Hiya, little buddy," Darry greeted me, messing up my hair as he walked past me to hang up his coat.
I stuck my tongue out at his back and carefully smoothed my hair back into place. It was just starting to get back to a decent length, and Soda had talked me into dying it brown when the roots began to show beneath the peroxide, so I finally looked halfway decent again.
"How was your first day back at school?" Soda asked, as usual throwing his own coat onto the floor by the couch.
"Soda, hang up your coat!" Darry hollered without even looking. Soda mimicked my sticking out the tongue gesture, but did as he was told.
"It was real good. We got a new English teacher."
"New? What happened to Mr. Syme?" Darry asked as he flopped down into a chair.
"He's in a hospital in Colorado. Broke his leg in a skiing accident."
"Too bad," Soda sympathized. "He was your favorite teacher, wasn't he, Ponyboy?"
"Yeah," I agreed, "but the new one's not so bad. She read that theme I wrote for Mr. Syme last semester."
"Oh yeah?" Darry looked at me with interest. "She say anything about it?"
I took a deep breath. "She says it's real good. She thinks that if I work on it and fix some things I can sell it as a book."
My brothers stared at me as if I'd grown a third eye. "You're joking," Soda finally said in an awed voice.
I shook my head. "She wants me to stay after school one day a week so that she can help with editing and stuff."
"Are you sure about this, Ponyboy?" Darry asked doubtfully.
I couldn't blame him for wondering. It had sounded pretty incredible to me when Miss Meriwether had suggested it. "Sure I'm sure! She even wrote you a letter about it." I ran into my bedroom and grabbed the letter and book off my desk. I handed the envelope to Darry and the book to Soda. "Look, she's even written her own book. She gave me that one."
"S.E. Meriwether," Soda read. "That's really your teacher?"
"Sure is," I said proudly.
Soda kept looking at the book, turning it over and over in his hands, and I watched Darry read the letter. His face was real still while he did it, but when he finally put it down, he was smiling. "Guess it's for real. This S.E. Meriwether seems to think you wrote something pretty good, Pony."
"So can I do it?" I asked eagerly. "Please, Darry?"
He nodded. "As long as…"
"I know, as long as it doesn't interfere with my schoolwork. It won't, I promise," I finished for him.
He looked surprised. "Schoolwork? I was going to say, as long as you promise to buy me a mansion in Hawaii after you're rich and famous."
I growled and tackled him, knocking his chair over. Soda jumped in, and for a few minutes we tussled joyfully. The wrestling match ended when Darry had us both pinned down, with me on the bottom. "Gerroff, you're killing me!" I managed with the last bit of air in my lungs, and my two-ton brothers obligingly rolled away.
"I'm hungry," Soda said when we had all caught our breath. "What's for supper?"
At that moment, the front door slammed open, and Two-Bit bounded in along with a blast of cold air.
"Shut the door!" Darry and I hollered in unison.
He did, with a bang. "You tell them, Pony?"
"Yep. Two-Bit drove me home from school," I explained to my brothers.
"Can you believe it?" he demanded, grabbing me and knuckling my head. "Our very own bestselling author!"
"You're jumping the gun a little," I warned him, squirming away and patting my hair gingerly.
"Oh no I ain't. You'll deserve to be famous after putting up with that broad for a whole semester. I just caught a glimpse of her going down the hall, and woooeeee! She is as homely as a monkey's uncle."
Soda laughed. "That true, Pony? You got a monkey's uncle teaching English?"
I shrugged. "I just try not to look at her too much when I'm up close. But she's real smart and she's nice, too. It ain't her fault if she doesn't look like Marilyn Monroe."
Two-Bit was shaking his head. "I tell you, you'd have to pay me to sit in a class with that teacher. You'd have to pay me a salary!"
His expression as he said it was so comical that Soda just about busted his gut laughing. I laughed too, and so did Darry, but then he got serious and said, "Pony, this lady's doing you a big favor. You be real polite."
"Oh, I will," I promised sincerely. "Like I said, she's nice. Just ugly."
"Like a monkey's uncle!" howled Soda, falling down on the couch.
Darry rolled his eyes. "I'll write you a note to take back in the morning, saying you have my permission to stay after school."
"Thanks, Darry," I said fervently.
"No problem." He grinned and pulled me into a sideways hug. "I reckon I couldn't be prouder if you'd just become president of the U.S.A."
Now that made me feel good. It made me feel prouder than the president of the U.S.A.
To Be Continued…
