When I woke up, the room was white. I was lying in a comfortable bed that wasn't mine. I could feel tubes running across my face and something at the end of my middle finger on my right hand. Someone was stroking my other hand softly, and I thought that I could hear another's muffled sobs. I weakly opened my eyes and looked around. It was a pretty small room with light blue wallpaper lining the edges of the faded cream walls. There was machines to the right of me that had different numbers and funny squiggly lines that changed every so often(of which the tubes were connected to these square shaped bags), and white drapes covering the windows. There was two doors; one in front of me that read RESTROOM and another to the very far left corner; each the color white(they reminded me of my bedroom door). A couple of chairs were lined up neatly to the left of the door that didn't have RESTROOM spelled out clearly on it. Darry and Soda had pulled up two of those chairs close to the edge of the bed, and were sitting hunched over in them.
Soda was the one crying, Darry was the one stroking my hand. He seemed as though he was gonna cry too(but I could tell that he had been crying long before I woke); I could see the tears welling in his eyes. They both looked like they had lost a whole week's worth of sleep; there were bags underneath their red, puffy eyes. It also looked as if they hadn't smiled in decades since worry lines marked their tear-streaked faces.
"Daddy..." I cried softly. I was scared and aching; I noticed there was a bandage wrapped around my head, and a cast on my right arm(I'm known to be very observant). Both Darry and Soda looked at me, more tears streaming down their faces. I couldn't help but to start crying again; Darry got up and sat on the edge of the bed, getting comfortable right next to me. Then he started caressing my face, making lulling noises through his mouth.
"Shhh... Baby, it's alright now. You're safe... Don't cry, please? Just go back to bed now..." Darry said in a low gentle voice. I stopped sobbing, but my breath was coming in small, short gasps. Darry started stroking my hair, continuing to calm me down with lulling noises. Soda held my hand and kissed the inside of it, trying to smile for my sake. I pulled my other hand up and started sucking on my thumb, trying to stay calm and stop crying for both Darry and Soda.
It was lunchtime, and I was allowed to leave in a half an hour. I was sitting up and scribbling pictures of hearts, stars, and other shapes that I found interest in, with Johnny and Soda.
"Wow Ponyboy! That looks awesome!" Johnny said. Soda stared at him, probably because the most that we have ever heard Johnny say was 'my name's Johnny'.
"goot!" I said, pointing to one of my oddly shaped pictures(which was suppose to be a square, but it turned out to be more like a messed up version of a broken window). I grabbed the red crayon off of the counter beside me and started coloring it in, trying my best to color inside the lines, when Darry walked in.
"Hey Darry!" Soda said gleefully, getting up to give him a hug. After that, Darry came in and sat down in a chair, closing his eyes and letting out a long sigh. He looked beat. "Hard day at work?" Darry nodded his head, then opened his eyes again and looked at me. He smiled.
"Hey babe, how you feelin' ?" Darry asked getting up and sitting on the edge of the bed again. I said my usual answer for yes and held up the drawings that I did.
"WOW!" Darry said in an amazed voice. He took the picture and studied it more. "It's a star?" I squealed with delight and clapped my hands. Darry was pretty good at guessing things. He then smiled, put the picture down, and pulled me across his lap(the tubes were all taken out about an hour after I woke up). I looked up at him and put my thumb in my mouth again as he and Soda started talking about his hard day at work. Apparently, this snobby older woman hated what Darry and his co-workers did to her roof, so she started telling them off. Darry said he was about ready to smack her in the face, but he had kept his temper at a safe height after remembering me and Soda.
"Good for you! I know I wouldn't have been able to do that sort of stuff in a situation like that." Soda commented, trying to feed me bits of his bagel that he bought in the store across the street. I ate the first strangely shaped pieces that Soda gave me, but then I lost my appetite and started throwing the other pieces to the floor.
"No! Ponyboy, we don't do that! Don't do that okay?" Soda said in a serious voice. I nodded my head sheepishly, feeling a little guilty. Soda then smiled at me, and messed up my hair(I hadn't used any hair grease since I awoke).
It was getting pretty dark outside, and Two-Bit had changed the channel to the 6 o' clock news. There was something about toddlers getting kidnapped in our area, but no one except me was listening attentively.
"... No one knows who it is, and where he's hiding them, but the police are investigating it and will get back to us as soon as possible. Jim..." The news people started talking about a different story(and I could never catch up with the many elaborated stories that they gave) and so I started to crawl over to Johnny who was lost in a thick book with light salmon colored edges and a blue cover that reminded me of the hospital room that I was in about 3 hours ago.
"uh!" I said questioningly pointing to the book. It took Johnny a few seconds for him to react, but finally he looked at me and quickly exchanged glances between me and what I was pointing at.
"Oh! It's a book I'm reading called Gone With The Wind.It's very...umm....how do I say it... Well it's very scary, yet... adventurous." I stared at Johnny with a puzzle look on my face. I had no idea what that meant so I just went on and tried to read what was in the book. I couldn't make out a single word so I tried reading it upside down. Johnny was quietly giggling in the backround as I made wierd faces and furrowed my brows the more and more I tried to read on. All of a sudden, a knock came at the door.
"I'll get it!" Soda called from a distance, then he came bolting out of the hallway, making heavy footsteps on the ground. He opened the door. I leaned more to my left and squinted to see who was there. It was a tall, blonde guy. He looked about Darry's age and had about the same build as well. He smiled(his smile reminded me of the smile the Socs back in the alley gave us) and said, "Hello, Sodapop." Soda started backing away, eyes wider than ever, and I finally realized that there was 8 other Socs behind him(4 Socs, sorry!! I really need to learn how to count correctly!!) that had the same mischievious smile. Soda came and grabbed me and headed at a dead run for our room, as well as Johnny(I forgot one important sliver of info: We were the ONLY ones there at the house). He practically threw me on the bed and slammed the door shut, quickly locking it before turning around. He looked terrified. There was sweat highlighting his forehead, his whole body seemed to shake.
"OPEN UP, GREASER!!" a voice boomed. It was soon followed by hard pounding on the wooden door. It sounded like a huge clap of thunder against a silent sunshine-filled day. I whimpered and slid underneath the bed. Then the door was kicked down and I could hear Johnny and Soda cry out in pain. I could hear grunts, groans, and cussing as feet were mixed up all over the floor, moving fast. I was dead silent, and even held my breath, as soon as I saw Soda hit the ground, his eyes closed, unconcious. He had bruises on his cheeks and blood was running down the side of his head, staining his wheat-gold hair at the tips. Johnny was next and he had caught my eye before a closed fist came out of nowhere and punched his lights out; he looked even worse with blood dripping out of his mouth and a swelling bruise at the right hand corner of his forehead. The hand picked up Johnny by the front of the shirt(probably to make sure that he wasn't conscious) then dropped him hard on the floor as soon as it realized how limp his body was.
"Where's the boy?" A different voice asked menacingly. I slid across the carpet as silently as I could towards the back wall. Then an unfamiliar face peeked through the edge of the blanket that hung neatly over the cliffside of the bed. He gave me a plastic smile.
"Aww, come here baby..." He said in a deep voice, reaching out his hand towards me. I shook my head no and tried to back away even further, but I had reached the limit. The hand grabbed my wrist and yanked me right out from under there. I let out a blood curdling scream to alert the neighbors(since I was the loudest person on the planet) but then my voice was muffled when a hankerchief came out of nowhere and covered my mouth completely. I tried biting down, but I was slowly getting drowsier and drowsier within the seconds that seemed to pass by more and more slowly. I had no choice but to lay limp in the Soc's arms, and fell into a deep and peaceful slumber.