A/N: Hey, hope you liked my intro! This chapter is introducing a new character for your info. It is also the beginning of a new friendship…

Enjoy!

Songs for this chapter- 'Everywhere' by Michelle Branch

'Miss Independent' by Kelly Clarkson

'Party Up' by Hilary Duff

Hey, my name's Caitlyn Ross, but my friends call me Cross. My friends are my sister, Rook Ross, and my other friend, Alice Windmen. My sister's nickname is Book because she loves to read, and my other friend's nickname is Windy. We also have 'insult' names the each other behind each others backs. My sisters is Boss because she bosses us around all the time, and my friend's is A&W, as in the fast food restaurant. I'm not too sure about what mine is, but I think I heard them calling me 'Criss-Cross Emotions' once because I have lots of mood swings all the time. I'm kind of like that.

My sister and I are from Canada, but after our parents died, nobody would take us in, so the Social Workers said that we could live by ourselves even though my sister's sixteen and I'm fourteen, but only if we lived in a tight-knit neighbourhood 'cause then we can all look out for each other. We live in a small, worn out house. It's only about 800 square feet. We live in such a small house because that's all the American Social Workers and Government would give us. We live on the East Side of town, supposedly the 'greaser' side. There's a whole bunch of gang fights 'round here, between the 'Socs' and the 'greasers'. I've gotten used to it in the past three years. Just recently, the greasers fought the Socs in a big 'rumble' where they beat up each other and the greasers won, so the Soc's have been getting revenge by ganging up and beating up us greasers. Sometimes, I hate this place.

'Bout a month after we got here, my sister met our now sixteen year old friend Alice, over at The Dingo. She's the crazy type and the happy-go-lucky type. She's always jumping around. She had dirty blonde hair, glasses, and greenish eyes.

My sister is WAY quieter than her and she basically is either reading, working, or hollerin' in my face all the time. Sometimes, I hate her, I really do, so I can't help hollerin' back at her. We fight a lot. She has light brown hair and hazel eyes.

I'm kind of the monkey in the middle when it comes to personality. I can be hyper at times, but I'm also really quiet… a lot. I love to read and sometimes I hate it. Who am I? Besides my light brown, greased back hair and my blue eyes, I don't really know. The only thing about me that's not like my other friends is that I like to grease my hair. I grease my bangs to my right and just use a little bit on the rest of my hair. I'm also unique because of my jeans. All of them eventually rip at the right knee. Don't ask me why! My style in clothes is mainly sneakers with t-shirts, jeans and a sweatshirt.

I go to school, and my sister was really good at it, but she had to drop out to get a couple jobs and keep me in school. I wish I was the oldest so I could drop out for the other one. I usually hate school. To make matters worse, I'm in all the 'smart' classes with the Socs. Great. I think that lots of them just get their moms and dads to bribe the school into letting them be in all the smart classes; lots of them are really stupid, I mean it. There's only Socs in most of my classes, except for a few of them. There's a greaser named Ponyboy in a few of my classes. I'm not jokin' about the name, either. I'm serious. Wonder why his Dad named him that…?

So you probably know enough about me now so the story can begin.

I was at The Dingo gettin' a Coke by myself, which was dangerous considering how much the Socs had been jumping us greasers lately, and in such big groups, too. I don't even have my own knife, but Rook was at work, and Alice would get bored in… five minutes, tops.

While I was there, I saw Ponyboy and four other guys. One looked pretty scary and muscular, another had blonde hair who looked very familiar, another with curly hair, and another with rusty-coloured sideburns. They were loungin' around and eating. I had heard about them 'cause one of them had murdered a Soc, then died, and another of their friends died the same night as the other. Some of them were considered heroes, others hoods.

As I was walking out, I saw a red Mustang speeding behind me, so I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up, hoping that they would think I was a Soc not seeing the greased-up hair. I was wrong.

The mustang pulled up beside me and a group of eight guys game out, smelling heavily of whiskey. I gulped.

"What ya doin', greaser?" one of them asked. I could smell his breath, which smelled even stronger of whiskey than he did. I nearly gagged.

"Oh, nothin' really, just gettin' a Coke," I answered, trying to sound casual, but obviously failing.

"Okay, grease," he said more sternly. "listen and listen good, ya got it?" I nodded. "Good. Now, we're gonna have a little fun here and cut you right up and you ain't gonna fight back, ya dig? That way you can get to the hospital faster and we can beat up more greasers," he explained. Then, all the Socs took out a knife and closed in on me. I emptied out what was left of my Coke and held it towards them.

"Help!" I called out. "Anybody, help me!" I continued, shaking like a leaf. Then, I could see Ponyboy and his friends busting out of the door of The Dingo and came running toward me. Meanwhile, one of the Soc's was trying to cover my mouth, but I bit him.

"Ow! Blasted greaser!" he yelped. That's when Ponyboy and his friends got to me and they all had a pop bottle and some of them even had a knife. They started cutting those Socs up good and the Socs fought back. I decided to help a little and busted my bottle on the back of a Soc's neck. He turned to attempt to punch me, but one of Ponyboy's friends got him before he could.

After a few minutes of fighting, those Soc's drove off.

"Gosh, you were in quite a pickle there, huh?" A voice said. I was too busy looking at that Mustang drive off to see who it was. I looked beside me and saw Ponyboy.

"Yeah. Thanks for helping me," I told him.

"What were you even doin' out all alone like that?" he asked me.

"Oh, well…" I hesitated.

"Look, if you don't want to answer, it's okay. I'm just a curious guy…" he told me nervously.

"I wanted to get a Coke, but my sister is at work and my friend, Alice, would get bored in five minutes… tops," I told him as I chuckled, thinking about her sighing and asking me when we were gonna be done already.

"Hey! She's like me!" I heard one of his friends call sounding like he was making a joke. It was the one with rusty-coloured sideburns.

"Who was that?" I asked Ponyboy.

"That was Two-Bit," he told me. "He's always crackin' a joke. Even to the fuzz!"

"Really?"

"Yeah. And that one over there is Darry," he started explaining as he pointed to the big, muscular one. "he's one of my older brothers. That's Sodapop," he said as he pointed to the blonde one. "he's my other older brother. Darry's the oldest in my family. That's Soda's best friend, Steve," he said, pointing to the one with curly hair. "Soda and Steve work at the DX," he explained. Then an idea suddenly came to me. I snapped my fingers.

"So THAT'S where I've seen him! He works at the DX!" I suddenly blurted out.

"Yeah, all the girls love him," Ponyboy said.

"But I don't!" Soda said, hearing what Ponyboy had just told me. Ponyboy and I just shifted around for a minute in awkward silence as the others went on talking.

"Hey, don't you go to my school? You're in some of my classes. Caitlyn, right?" Ponyboy asked, breaking the awkward silence.

"Yeah, that's my name. And yeah, we go to the same school. I've seen you before," I answered.

"You're pretty smart," he complimented me. I blushed.

"Yeah, but you're smarter than I am," I told him. His ears turned red. "I've seen you playing football sometimes on the weekends," I told him.

"Yeah, we're kind of into that," he answered me.

"Well, don't ask me to join in, because I suck at anything athletic!"

"So then I guess you aren't the fighting type, huh?" he asked me.

"No, I guess not,"

"Uh… hey, wanna go to the movies with Two-Bit and I?" he asked me, his ears turning red.

"Uh, sure," I answered him. I thought it might be fun. "What time?"

"'Bout… five thirty. That okay with you?"

"Yeah, sure. Whatever works for me," I told him.

"Hey, Pony, do you realise our food's gettin' cold?" Darry told him.

"Oh, I never thought of that…" he stared.

"I never thought! Well, let me tell you…" Darry started, raising his voice every second until Soda started talking.

"Yo, guys! Remember what you promised me? We don't want me to run away two weeks after Pony did, do you?" he told them.

"Oh, right. Sorry, Soda, I forgot about that," Darry said.

"Besides, Darry, he was probably thinking too much about flirtin' with the pretty lady over here to remember!" Two-Bit said as he pointed at me. I blushed and I noticed Pony's ears flushed red with embarrassment.

"Oh, come on Two-Bit, be logical for once! The kid wouldn't be able to pick up a girl if his life depended on it!" Steve added.

"Oh, shut up guys!" Ponyboy said as he gave them both playful punches on the shoulder. I think Steve's little comment there bothered him. "Remember Cherry?" he added.

"Guys, this is all just gonna make our food colder, so let's go in and bring the little lady along!" Soda said.

"Do you wanna come with us?" Ponyboy asked.

"Yeah, sure," I told him as I shrugged. "I'm gettin' a little hungry," I added. So, we went in and I ordered one cheeseburger and we ate. Two-Bit always cracked a joke every now and then, Darry just talked about work, Sodapop talked about his and Steve's new project, and Steve talked about that, too and how he wished he was Sodapop to attract more girls in his direction, and Ponyboy seemed to just nod and laugh and say 'uh-huh' every once in a while. It was nice… but you should see how crazy Alice is!

We left at about 1:25 p.m. so Soda and Steve could get back to work. I told the guys I could go home by myself after Soda and Steve were back at work.

"Oh, no way missie, you're gonna stick with us!" Darry said. "You know what happened back there! That's how we met, remember?"

"Yeah, we gotta stick together, like glue to… glue to paper!" Two-Bit added, thinking of a joke to crack.

"We otta protect you, okay?" Pony told me as he put his hand on my shoulder but quickly took it off.

"Yeah, okay. Hey, I don't even have a pocket knife or a switch blade!" I told them.

"Man oh man, Pony, you've got a bad taste in girls!" Two-Bit said. "If she lives on the East Side, she's gotta have a blade!"

"Well, my sister isn't all into that, so I can't exactly get away with murder or anything," I explained to them.

"She's picky like that, huh?" Pony asked me.

"Yeah, she is. That's why my friend, Alice and I always call her 'Boss' behind her back,"

"Sounds like that friend of yours has gotta good sense of humour!" Two-Bit said to me.

"Yeah, she does," I said. "But don't go flirtin' with her; she's only sixteen going on seventeen!" I advised him.

"So what if she's younger than me! I like a girl with a good sense of humour!" Two-Bit replied.

"But aren't you still diggin' that Marcia Soc?" Pony asked him. We were having so much fun goofing around with each other that I hadn't realised we had just walked past my house 'till I saw my neighbours house.

"Wait a sec! We just passed my house!" I told the guys. They looked back and saw that old thing that I had to live in every day.

"That's your house?" Ponyboy asked me. I nodded in shame thinking about the size and the look of it. It looked like it was a thousand years old!

"Blast it, that's small!" Darry said.

"Yeah, it's 'cause of my parent's death. We begged the government to let us live together, so this is the only way we can stay together without a guardian. My sister seems to be a pretty good guardian, though. She's really responsible, and although she gets mad at me… a lot, she's a good guardian," I told them.

"Shoot!" Two-Bit said. "That must tank!"

"Yeah, it really does," I said. I'd gotten used to it.

"Hey, whenever you're feelin' stressed out at home, our doors always open. Seriously! We never lock it!" Ponyboy told me.

"Wow, really?" I asked him.

"Really! We do it in case any old greaser needs to cool down or somethin'. And anyways, with my muscles, we ain't afraid of robbers!" Darry said, showing off his muscles.

"Gee, thanks a lot, guys!" I thanked them.

"No prob, now you should probably get into that house of yours!" Pony told me.

"Actually…" I thought out loud. "Can I go to your house? I'll call my sister and let her know I'll be home by dinner!"

"You can eat at our place, though, right Darry?" Ponyboy said as he looked at Darry.

"Sure, whatever. I can cook some more. Hey, do you eat like a pig?" Darry asked.

"No, I don't eat much," I told him. "Besides, that means less cooking for you!" I added.

"Alrightie then! Come with us!" Two-Bit said. I was so excited for some reason. At least I wouldn't be bored all day.

A/N: Hope you liked it! I LOVED writing this chapter, but hey, I just love writing all in all! Please R&R, but please remember not to put any flames, but writing tips are always welcome!