I sat on the couch watching Darry pace back and forth around the room. I couldn't tell if he were more nervous or angry.
I knew Pony was okay. He was with Johnny, nothing was going to happen to them. Together they had more brains than the rest of us combined.
I looked his direction knowing better than to say anything. When he was like this there was no right thing to say.
"If he's not back in twenty minutes, I'm calling to police." He finally spoke up.
"You know that won't help any." I disagreed.
"Then what do you recommend?" He growled at me. When I didn't respond he sat down in his chair for a few minutes, but then stood right back up. He had more energy than a kid at Halloween.
Next thing I saw was Marry walking down the hallway.
"We wake you up?" I smiled patting the seat beside me.
"No, I was studying."
"Sure you were," I laughed ruffling her hair. Sure, she was older than me, but she was tiny and her personality fit her appearances.
"I was trying."
"We were being too noisy so you decided to sleep instead? You sound just like me!" I laughed out loud. Darry almost smiled a little too.
Twenty minutes passed and Darry was close to pulling all of his hair out.
"You guys split up. He's around here somewhere. You know where he'd be more than the cops. Go find him." She suggested.
Darry thought about it for a minute before grabbing his keys.
I followed a few seconds after.
I woke up with a jerk. I was dreaming about something and my body jolted waking me with a start. I let out a sigh looking at the time.
"Oh damn," I yelled tapping Johnny as I stood up.
His yellow green eyes sparkled in the dark like a cat's eyes.
"I fell asleep!" I shouted.
"I'll say, you woke me up shouting three times!" Johnny stood up chasing after me.
"Why did you let me sleep? We were just suppose to play cards until your parents got home!" I was still frantic.
"I assumed they would have come home by now drunk and yelling," he shrugged.
"Darry's going to skin me Johnnycakes!" I shrieked.
He followed me silently. It took less than a minute to get to my house from his. It was right across the street. That's why we often heard Johnny's parents yelling.
I remember my mom use to always turn the TV up louder and make noise to shield us from what was being shelter.
Looking back on it now it wasn't so much her trying to prevent us from hearing and realizing what was going on, but more so her trying to keep us as far away from the danger as she could. I remember she would always send my dad over with cookies or with the paper to break up the fight for a little while. He would often bring Johnny home with him when he returned.
I think when my parents died it effected Johnny just as much. He no longer has a safety net. Yeah, I know anyone of us would go knocking down walls to protect him, but my dad had a way of being more subtle.
It almost seemed like Johnny's parents got even more mean since mom and dad died. I never would have thought that was possible.
"I can come it with you Pone, tell him it was my fault." Johnny offered. Good ol` Johnny always looking out for me.
"No, I'm okay. You come back when your parents get home thought okay?" I asked him stopping at the steps. He looked at me doubtfully.
"Don't look at me like that, Darry will be done letting me have it by then. I hope so anyway," I mumbled the last part. There was no reason to worry Johnny. He had enough on his plate as it was.
With that Johnny disappeared into the dark. I walked up our porch steps and saw someone with a cigarette.
"Mar?" I questioned. She didn't speak. It wasn't like her to get mad at me, but it wasn't like her to take my side either.
"I feel asleep playing cards at Johnny's house, it was a complete accident." I told her like I had rehearsed.
She still didn't speak.
"Are they here?" I asked looking in the window. When I didn't see anyone I moved on to my next question. "Are they out looking for me? Do we need to go find them and tell them I'm okay?" I was beginning to panic and she was just looking out into no where's land.
I waited on her to speak. I thought maybe she was just trying to stay calm. Maybe I upset her more than I thought.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" I yelled getting angry.
There was a final pause before she opened her mouth, "Here, you can have my cigarette."
I let out a sigh and sat on the swinging bench beside her.
"I really messed up Myra," I whispered. Myra was my dad's nick name for her. It was her name scrambled, but it meant quiet song in latin. He had read it off some advertisement and he called her that for years.
No one had said it since he died. I wondered if it was because they had forgotten or if they were still trying to forget.
"Pone, we've all done much worse." she told me and I leaned into her. It might have sounded wrong, but Mary was the closest thing I had to a mother.
She had some characteristics that mom did, but she was more a mix of both and then some extra.
We sat in silence for a little while before it ended far too quickly.
"Well there you are Pone!" Soda smiled coming over and squeezing in the middle of us both.
"I'm glad everything's okay." he draped his arm around me. If I didn't have Soda, I wouldn't have a reason to live.
"PONY!" Darry put his hand to his forehead letting out a hard breath.
"Where were you!" He finished.
"After the movie and the library we went back to play cards at Johnny's." I started wondering if I should keep going or if her would get the point.
"Well," Darry motioned me to keep going.
"I fell asleep Dar, I figured that I would hear his parents come in around dinner time and we would both leave, but his parents never showed."
"You know I don't like you at Johnny's house. You also know you were suppose to come straight home, and you also know that you are to call if you are going somewhere you aren't suppose to be , or if you end up someplace you shouldn't be." Darry was mad, but he wasn't full out yelling. I could tell he was tired. I guess he really had been looking all over.
Although, if I were him, one of the first places I would have looked for me would have been at Johnny's
"You gotta let me know where you are! What if the state would have come by and I wouldn't have been able to tell them where you were! It would have made me look so bad!" He scolded me. His last sentence ate at me like a dog and his bone.
"I didn't mean to make you look bad," I responded partly because I was being a smart aleck and the other part was because he was being rude.
"That's not what I meant and you know it!" Darry pointed his finger at me.
"Dar, we're all really tired and we're not gonna get anywhere tonight, lets talk about it at breakfast okay?" Soda suggested.
"Don't make any plans for tomorrow Ponyboy," Darry added slyly before leaving the porch.
"He has to be the bad cop Pone, its part of his job." Marry tried to comfort me.
"It was an accident," I told them both sadly. I wasn't too upset about being stuck at home, I was more upset that Darry made it a big deal.
A/N I hope that I fixed the problem with the changes in characters.
I googled to find common punishments in the 60's and 70's to get some idea's on what would be understandable, but I had a hard time finding one.
Obviously he is not going to spank Pony, but I also didn't know is "Grounding" was the right term for being on house arrest.
Suggestions, comments, concerns?