Hey guys! I'm sorry for not updating for a week, but I was away! I'm back now, and thank you for all of the continued support!

Jemi North wasn't beautiful, at least in Ponyboy's mind she wasn't.

She had thin, dark hair that went just past her shoulders, and a very thin body. Her face had no color to it, except for her lips which were the lightest shade of peach. Her eyebrows were thick, and her eyes were big.

Jemi's eyes were gray, though if looked at from another angle, they could be called light blue. The girl's eyes were complimented frequently: not because they were beautiful, but because they were…strange.

Her eyes fitted her personality, since Jemi North was strange too. Nobody knew why, but she was just considered a strange girl. Not that Jemi had a problem with that.

It wasn't her natural looks that made Ponyboy think of Jemi any less. He considered Jemi as okay-looking. But since Jemi wore thick eye makeup as well as bright red lipstick, Ponyboy thought that Jemi lost her natural beauty. A lot of other boys however, would say different.

Jemi certainly wasn't the cafeteria lunch lady; that woman had thick, curly golden hair, and her lips were much bigger. Her breasts also suited her figure, whereas if Jemi had breasts as big as the lunch lady's, she'd probably fall over constantly.

But Jemi didn't care; she was her own person.

Ponyboy sometimes saw her when he walked home from school after a talk with Mr North, her father.

She seemed gentle and softly gazed at Ponyboy whenever he had a split lip or black eye. She smiled at him, but Ponyboy never smiled back.

Jemi knew what her father was doing to the poor boy, however as much as she resented her father's choices, she'd still choose her dad over Ponyboy. She didn't think of Ponyboy much or at least she tried not to. It became harder when Norman North came home from work and told Ruth about what he had been doing to the boy, while Ruth cheered and celebrated.

Ruth hated Ponyboy just as much as her husband did; North had convinced his wife that it was all Ponyboy's fault that their baby had died, and if Ponyboy hadn't have been born, then they would have all been happy.

Sometimes, Ruth had dreams of her baby that was never born, and in each dream, she saw the baby growing up with Ponyboy as its best friend. The gender of the baby changed, though it was usually a little boy; that's what Ruth and Norman had wanted anyway.

The woman always said that she hated Ponyboy and she wished he was dead, however somewhere inside her, she knew it wasn't Ponyboy's fault.

Norman North had those thoughts too.

XXX

"Could Ponyboy Curtis please come to the principal's office?" Mrs Waiters, the school secretary, called.

Everybody turned around to look at Ponyboy when he slowly stood up. Mr Syme nodded at Ponyboy; giving him permission to leave the classroom.

Ponyboy ambled out of the classroom, but was stopped by Mrs Waiters with her large hand.

"Mr Ryans is very angry with you. You had better not say anything funny." She warned, and Pony nodded.

"Not like I was going to say anything anyway." Pony thought angrily in his head.

Mrs Waiters marched through the hallways, leaving Ponyboy to trail meekly behind her. Finally when they reached the outside of the office, the secretary turned around and glared at Ponyboy.

"Go right in; he's waiting." She ordered, and left the boy on his own.

Ponyboy swallowed, and after taking a deep breath, he pushed the red door open. Pony was sure that he hadn't done anything wrong, but he must have done something if Mr Ryans was very angry with him.

Mr Ryans was sitting at his desk with his arms folded. He had a scowl on his already stern looking face, and Pony immediately took this as a bad sign.

"Please, take a seat." Mr Ryans said calmly, motioning to the two seats that were positioned in front of his desk. Pony strolled over to the left seat and sat down while Mr Ryans eyed the boy up and down for a minute.

Then, without saying anything, he placed a large can of spray paint in front of Pony.

Ponyboy stared at the can, confused. Why was he being shown this?

"Can you please tell me what this is, Ponyboy?" Mr Ryans asked, the scowl not leaving his face.

"Spray paint?" Pony answered.

"Yes, it is. I'm assuming it's the same can you used to vandalize the school with? Because if not then it must have just magically appeared!" Mr Ryans laughed, though he certainly wasn't amused.

"Vandalized the school?" Pony squeaked, his forehead starting to get clammy.

"Oh don't play stupid with me, Curtis!" Mr Ryans yelled, and Ponyboy shrunk back, terrified, "I know it was you! Mr North saw everything, and I'm glad he came to me before I decided to punish innocent people. How dare you?! How dare you vandalize our school?!"

"Sir, I really don't know-"

"Curly Shepard and Mark Jennings I expect this behavior from, but not you! Johnathan Cade would be more likely to do this than you! I thought that you wanted to make something of yourself, but you're just like the rest of your kind!" Mr Ryans screamed, and Pony shut his eyes to try and stop himself from breaking down into tears in front of his principal.

After a few deep breaths, Mr Ryans looked up at Ponyboy who had calmed himself down enough that he wouldn't start crying.

"You're not suspended, but you will serve two days a week of school detention for the next three weeks. You will also clean the wall that you have vandalized. Your brother will be getting a call after school aswell." Mr Ryans declared.

"Sir, I really didn't do anything wrong." Ponyboy tried, but Mr Ryans waved him away.

"Detentions will be on Wednesdays and Fridays after school for an hour. You can clean the wall during your detentions." Mr Ryans said, "I sure am glad that Mr North spotted you."

"I bet you are." Pony hissed, low enough so that Mr Ryans didn't hear him.

Ponyboy walked back to his English class as slowly as he could; right now he felt lousy and miserable and suddenly wasn't in the mood for English anymore.

The boy quietly shut the door behind him and sat down in his seat. A few whispers were heard around the classroom, and the soc who was sitting next to Pony nudged him. Ponyboy nudged him right back a lot harder than usual, surprising the soc.

The youngest Curtis had track today, however he knew that he wouldn't get very far with his bruised hip. He had no other choice: he had to skip.

Pony hoped that nobody would find out, but what he was more worried about was his plan. How was he going to get out of school?

Darry would surely find out, and Pony knew that he'd be in a great deal of trouble anyway: the jeopardized math test, the spray paint incident, and now skipping class!

But as the bell for last period rang, Pony knew he had no other option. He had to skip.

And there was one person who Pony knew that had no trouble getting out of school. That person was Two-Bit Mathews.

"Hey, Two-Bit, I need some help," Pony called as everybody started shuffling to their next classes.

Two-Bit, who had an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips, looked up and smiled; he'd always promised that he'd help a buddy, and Pony was certainly was one of his buddies.

"What d'ya need?" the hood asked, putting the cigarette behind his ear.

"I need help in skipping school." Pony said plainly, and Two-Bit's head jerked up; this definitely wasn't like Pony.

"Any particular reason?" Two-Bit questioned suspiciously, eyeing Pony up and down.

"Nah, I just…f-feel like skipping," Pony replied quickly, not at all liking the way Two-Bit was looking at him. It suddenly felt as if Two-Bit had turned into Darry; questioning him about everything and giving him suspicious glances.

Two-Bit wasn't tall for his age, but considering Pony was small for his age and Two-Bit was almost eighteen, Pony felt intimidated.

"Well, your big brother sure wouldn't like that. Pony, I don't know what's goin' on, but you've been acting kinda funny these past few days. You know that you can talk to any of us-" Two-Bit started, but Pony cut him short.

"I'm not a kid!" Pony snapped indignantly, "I'm doin' perfectly fine by myself, thank you! I thought you were supposed to be my buddy, but it turns out you're exactly like everyone else! I'll just ask Curly to help me."

Pony started walking away, but Two-Bit grabbed his sore arm.

Pony hissed in pain and shoved Two-Bit off him, however the shove took Two-Bit by surprise and he ended up tripping and falling on the floor. Pony stomped his foot on the floor and then stormed off, while Two-Bit remained on the ground.

Some people who ended up passing by pointed and stared. Steve Randle was among the people who walked past, and when he saw one of his best friends on the floor, he was over there in a second.

"What happened, buddy? You trip?" Steve asked, turning Two-Bit over.

Two-Bit looked up at Steve, and Steve sensed something was wrong; Two-Bit wasn't smiling. He instead, said five words that shocked Steve a lot:

"…There's something wrong with Pony."

And here's the fourth chapter! I hope you enjoyed, and again I'm sorry for not updating for over a week! I'll be updating soon. Can anybody give me any ideas? I'm a little stuck on ideas! Stay Gold :)