- Chapter Two -

Cipher

Author's Note:

I don't own anything, all rights to the Outsiders goes to S.E. Hinton. Oh, and to all my reviewers and subscribers, I can't thank you enough. You have no idea how weird it is for me to write a story like this.

"Holly...Holly!"

"Huh? What?" Holly exclaimed, startled half to death.

"What's up, Holly?" Anne asked her friend.

"What do you mean?" she asked, totally clueless.

"You haven't been doin' nothin' since you got here in lunch. Nothing but read that book and look 'round the lunch room every once and a while"

"So?"

"Dear, it's called lunch block. I reckon yer 'sposed to be eatin' right now, ya know?"

"Well..." Holly staggered trying to get her thoughts together. "What if I'm not hungry? There ain't no law around sayin' I have to. 'Sides, last year, we usually left the school and hung out somewhere and didn't even eat half the time."

"Really? Why leave?" Anne asked, perplexed.

"'Cause in our block, there were a lot of boys playin' around, throwin' spoons and bottles at each other and it was just plain irritating."

Just as soon as she responded to her friend, Holly stuck that book right back in front of her face.

Anne walked closer and scrutinized her good friend. "The Outsiders? What's that 'bout, Holly?"

Holly quickly put the book down and back into her purse in a flighty bout. "It's nothing," Holly insisted. Holly blushed as she knew that Anne was right about her. She kept looking at the other side of the lunch table in search of Ponyboy, noticing the greasers that he was sitting with and all the stupid stunts they'd be pulling around.

But Ponyboy was different than his friends, from what Holly could see. A few of his friends would rather spend their time joking around, laughing obnoxiously loud and roaming around the lunch room, often to flirt or bother some girls who were totally out of their league. Others were a bit more stoic, wandering glares and looks of suspicion seemed to be forever pasted on their faces.

Ponyboy, on the other hand, spent his time reading a book right after he finished eating his lunch.

"Hey, Anne...about this Ponyboy kid. Is it true what they say about him?" Holly drew her words out slowly, unsure of how her friend would take it.

Anne took a second or two to figure out her answer. "Huh? Oh, of course not, Holly. I'd thought you'd know better than that."

"Really? That what is really up with him?"

Anne held a long face. "Well, it's kinda hard to say. With everything that happened to him last year, it's getting real confusing about what happened back then. But a few weeks ago, I met up with Marcia and she helped explain the whole thing with me, but she sure didn't like to talk about it.

Holly, everybody says that he's just another greasy kid out there, but that isn't true. He ain't violent and he sure ain't dumb. In fact, he's real smart and sweet if you get to know him." Anne's voice and eyes seemed to trail off.

"Really?" Holly asked her softly. "How did you know Ponyboy?"

"Oh..." Anne held her words as see searched for an answer. "Oh yeah, he was in my Biology class last year. I sat right next to for most of the year and went by without really noticing him once. 'Least until we 'sposed to dissect a frog and our plastic knife wasn't working so he pulled out a switchblade."

"He did? What did you do?"

Anne blushed thinking about it. "Uh, I kinda screamed and called him out to be a hood. I hope he didn't take it so bad. But right before the school year ended, one of my best friends, David, since he kept hearing about everything goin' around, he wanted to go over there and visit him."

"Oh, how'd it go?"

"Ponyboy really didn't seem to what to talk about anything, right then. He seemed a little, uh, off...Like his mind was somewhere else." Anne began to smile lightly. "But I was so glad to know that he was okay."

"Anne," Holly pleaded. "You never answered my question."

"Huh? Oh, sorry," Anne chirped, blushing with a crazy grin. One that very quickly deteriorated into a somber expression. "A couple of boys cornered Ponyboy and his friend..." Anne looked back Holly, but sorry engulfed her eyes.

"They were going to kill them, Holly."

"What! Why would anyone kill them?"

"Y'know Marcia's boyfriend?"

"Randy?"

"Yeah, well he told me that there were these things happening around the greaser and Soc boys. None of them really liked each other to begin with, and it didn't help that a few Socs loved to get drunk. Pretty much, they were having it out, constantly, like every few days. Almost every time they did have it out, one of them would have a black eye at least..."

"And at worst?" Holly questioned, gulping.

"One kid, a greaser usually, would have gotten beaten to near death?"

"How come I never heard about it?"

"Because no one but the Soc boys and the greaser boys never knew about it. Not even their girls, they knew that their boys would get into fights, get drunk or smoke, but nothing specifically."

"Well anyway," Anne said, getting her thoughts back into place. "After the kids were about to drown Ponyboy in the park fountain, his friend brought out his knife and killed one of the boys. After that, they ran away from town to this faraway place where they hid for a few days or something. They didn't get caught until they found the church burning and ran in to save the kids inside."

"Wait, I thought they set the church on fire," Holly asked.

"No, that's just a lie, Holly. Didn't you see the newspaper?"

"Who would lie about something like that? And no! I don't know any kid who reads the newspaper."

"Well there really wasn't that much on the article anyways."

"Anne, you were saying, after the fire," Holly stated impatiently.

"Oh, right, I'm sorry. Well actually, that's about it. At least all that Randy and Marcia told me. I know Ponyboy was having a real tough time after coming back home, I heard that some kid almost had a fight with him right before the end of the school year.

"Holly?"

Holly sat down, deeply engrossed in her thoughts. She was right about the book after all, it was pretty much Ponyboy's journal of everything that happened. And if both the journal and Anne were telling the truth, then it meant that Ponyboy was a totally different kid than everyone said he was. She knew this even if she hadn't read all of the book yet.

In this journal called "The Outsiders", were his deepest thoughts. How he felt about the whole Soc and greaser thing, the time he met Cherry and Marcia. Holly couldn't deny that Ponyboy could certainly turn a prose, the book's prevalence is the reality that it depicts.

There isn't a book out there that you could find that was anything like this.

Holly took out the book and held it in silence. Then she stared back at the table at the other side of the cafeteria. Ponyboy was looking frantically for something that he assumed he put in his backpack.

"I ought to give it back to him," Holly thought to herself.

She then preceded to stand up, book in her hand and walked over to him.

"Holly! Where you going'?" Anne asked with a worried expression.

"Oh, I'm going to talk to Ponyboy." Anne looked as though she wanted to say something, but kept quiet and silently agreed to her friend's decision.

...

"Hey, Ponyboy..."

Author's Note:

Sorry, but that's all for this chapter. As I asked before, please excuse any spelling or grammar errors that I may have overlooked and I really hope you like this one. Oh, as a heads up, the next chapter will be very short