After that week, where I got to talk to most of the 'gang', I didn't end up wanting to go home. Two-Bit wound up eventually asking me to come skip with him, Johnny, and Dallas one day. He managed to drag Pony along, too, even though he kept on rambling about how he was going to get caught and get it from his brother. I wondered why he didn't say mother or father, maybe they didn't care like Johnny's and my parents. Or maybe, they just weren't around.. I didn't ask.

Dallas didn't show up, even though he was supposed to be skipping with us. We met at the corner of the courtyard near the gate, and jumped the fence right before the lunch bell rang. Johnny asked why Dallas wasn't around, and Two-Bit simply stated,

"He'll show up."

I felt like I was the only one comfortable; me being a girl and all, it seemed that Two-Bit was really the only person to fully accept that I was getting closer to all of them. Except Dallas. We walked up to the Pop Shop, which was apparently a huge hang-out for kids after school. And delinquents during school.

"I don't have any money." I said, once I sat in the booth, realizing that the prices were relatively cheap, but I had absolutely nothing. The boys snickered, but Two-Bit laughed the most.

"It's on me." He gave me a wink. Pony grinned and stared out the window. I wondered what was going on, why they were laughing, but I didn't think much of it.

The waitress came and everyone set their orders, I just asked for a coke. Two-Bit acted as if I talked Chinese when I said I didn't want anything else.

"Huh?! Come on, I said it's on me.. go on and order, it's all shabby." He must have thought I was being self-conscious or something. If I was hungry, I would eat.

"I'm just not hungry." Turning to the waiting waitress with a creepy smile on her face. "Don't worry about it, it's all I'm getting."

I turned to stare at the window, while the boys talked about a bunch of different random things. Mainly it was just Two-Bit rambling on about random things, but the boys always went along with it and replied with just as abstract things. Johnny was the most quiet, as always, aside from me. I was secretly wondering if I had looked nice today. I was wearing a tight shirt, and it was low-cut -- I had some cleavage, who knew? But it wasn't as generous as most of the other girls' shirts were, probably half as generous. I'm surprised I'm not in France on a nude beach half the time when I stroll around at night..

"What'cha thinkin' about?" Two-Bit's words stopped my stream of thoughts. I glanced back, and realized that Dallas was sitting on a chair that he had snagged from the other table. He looked bored, I don't know when he got there.

"Most of you seem uncomfortable with me here." Dallas looked up when I said it, and I looked directly at him, boldly.

"Huh? No one's uncomfortable.." Two-Bit looked around as if he were to double-check. Johnny and Pony were both looking at me, now, and Dallas was wadding up spitballs, and aiming.

"I don't mean that I'm a burden or anything, it's just that.. I'm a girl. I'm not a Greasy girl, but I'm not a Soc, either. And I'm not a girlfriend of any of yours.. I'm pretty sure you guys think it's weird, right?"

"Well, to tell ya' the truth, I kind'a consider you one of the guys.." Two-Bit grinned, and Dallas laughed out loud. Pony's eyes widened and Johnny suddenly looked at me as if I were going to kill Two-Bit. I didn't take it as an insult, because I knew Two-Bit didn't mean it as an insult. Or maybe he was testing me to see if I really was a girl, and had a real girly temper.

"Why? Because I don't wear my skirts short enough to let the whole neighborhood know exactly what and when and who I did the night before, or because I don't bother to put on eight pounds of make-up to just scrape it off before I move onto the next man-of-the-week?" My words kind of flowed. Two-Bit's eyebrows raised, and he had a wide grin. Johnny silently laughed, and Dallas acted uninterested. Pony seemed worried, he didn't grasp that neither of us were really being that serious.

"He didn't really mean it-.. ..." He paused very long, looking at me, then looking down at his hands. He was thinking intently on something. But he realized what he was doing and suddenly picked himself up, but it was too late. I knew something caught him up. "He was just saying that you aren't .. well.. you aren't like a lot of girls around here. Most girls just want to.. I don't know, get with guys or play with their heads. You're a friend of ours, kind of like a guy friend, but he didn't mean it like that." He could have went on even longer, but I already knew what he was going to say before he said it.

Dallas got through two straw-wrappers and was working on the third one, all were emptied out in the back of some old guy's head in the form of spitballs. He spit out another spitball at him and as the guy turned around and got up quickly, Dallas turned and looked directly at me with a straight face so as to seem unsuspicious.

"Who are you, anyway?"

So that's what they were all wondering. My name. I laughed out loud, because I never realized that out of the entire week and a half I had known them, none of them knew my name. I don't even think my own teachers knew, come to think of it.

"Tobe."

It seemed like it had just now hit Two-Bit that he didn't know my name. Then, he seemed confused.

"Tobe? Is that a nickname?"

"Nope, it's my full name, T - O - B - E." He could sense the sarcasm in my voice, so he leaned in and raised his eyebrows.

"Tabatha? Your name's Tabatha, isn't it?"

"Heck no! I would slap my mother in her grave if she ever named me Tabatha." I said that kind of fast, but Two-Bit laughed a little uneasily, while Ponyboy stiffened, and Dallas turned to look at me for a second.

"Tuba? Tammy? Tooth Fairy?" I laughed at his guesses.

"October."

"... Oh, well, that makes sense."

What else that made sense, was, that I got exactly what Two-Bit meant by "it was on him." When everyone was done eating, we ran out of there without paying the check, but Two-Bit couldn't help but leave a tip to the "cute" waitress.