Running With The Wind
Ch:10: Dog Days of Summer
A/N: Sorry for not updating for a while. I've been really busy with marching band and school. But I thought I'd come post a chapter because of how long it's been. Enjoy.
"Hey, did you boys hear the news?" Two-bit asked walking in the doorway.
"What news?" I asked from behind my English book. I still wasn't getting very far in it. Soda was sitting on the floor with Steve, and Darry was sitting in his chair with the paper.
"Word on the street is one of the Shepard boys just got his draft letter in the mail," Two-bit announced.
"Which one?" I asked. I knew it couldn't have been Curly since he was in reformatory last I knew and definitely wasn't eighteen.
"It's wasn't Tim or Curly, but that one cousin of theirs that comes to town every so often," Two-bit replied, "Can't think of his name. Sure is stirring up talk though how the draft for Vietnam's becoming more widespread." It was something I'd never really thought about before. With the Vietnam War really taking off these last couple weeks, so was the draft. And it wasn't until now that I realized everyone who I considered family was perfectly capable of being sent overseas. No one talked about it much; it was just one of those things.
I tried not to think about it and shook it off so I said, "Shannon should be here within the next half an hour." It was August seventh, two weeks since Shannon had been here last, and she was now coming back to Tulsa for good. The entire day so far Soda had practically been dancing around the house since there was no way he was sitting still for more than ten minutes at a time.
"Cool," Two-bit said as he headed to the fridge and grab a beer, "Anyone got some champagne to shower her with?" he joked.
"Oh yes, because we keep a bottle of champagne in our fridge 24/7," Soda said sarcastically to him. I went back to reading, trying to block out the rest of them around me. I would've read in my room, but it was so humid and for some reason that was the hottest room in the house. I don't know how long I sat there staring at the words on the pages, but one minute I was reading the sentence, 'Glued to the eyes of the road where minutes before a shadow stood', and the next there was a rap at the door.
"Hey there!" Soda exclaimed as he motioned for her to come in.
"Hey everyone," she said smiling. There were echoes of "Welcome back!" and "Nice to see you!" from everyone in the room. "Sure is steamy in here," she said taking a glass of water from me.
"Sorry, I know my presence just arouses everyone," Soda told her jokingly.
"I bet it sure gets her," Steve mumbled.
"What'd you say to getting out of here? With six of us in the living it sure is gonna get hot fast," I suggested.
"Dip at the lake anyone?" Two-bit suggested.
"I'm in," Steve agreed, "I feel like I'm in a damn oven."
"I guess," I answered.
"What'd you say?" Soda asked Shannon.
"I don't have anything to wear..." she began to say.
"You can wear one of my shirts," he replied.
"Okay...I guess," she told him.
"Darry?" Two-bit asked.
"You five go ahead, I gotta go into work in an hour," he answered.
I headed into our room with Soda to dig out a bathing suit while he dug out a shirt for Shannon. Two-bit and Steve somehow managed to find their own swim suits at our house. I don't even know how they got there since we didn't swim that often. After everyone changed, we headed down to the lake at the park. Thanks to Soda and I goofing around, we ended up turning the whole way there into a race. I was still faster than the rest of them, with Two-bit coming up on my rear followed by Soda, and Steve and Shannon nearly tied. She wasn't doing half bad to try and keep up. When Two-bit and I made our dash to the finish, Soda turned around, ran back to Shannon, picked her up, and tossed her over his shoulder and kept running. She started laughing which made the rest of us laugh too. The sun was beating down still and scorching hot. Finally, when we reached part of the bank of the lake, I jumped in first to avoid being shoved in by Two-bit—who jumped in seconds afterwards—as the refreshing water rushed over me. Steve was next to do one of his flips into the water, letting out a yell in refreshment. Soda was last to jump in with Shannon still on his shoulder as she screamed.
"Woo-hoo this feels good!" Two-bit let out, "When's the last time we did this?"
"Beats me," I replied, "It's been a while that's for sure." Soda and Shannon resurfaced laughing and wiping water out of their eyes.
"Well it looks like Ponyboy won the race," she said, "Now I see why you're on the track team."
I laughed and replied, "I get that one a lot."
"I almost beat you," Two-bit said, "Someday you'll have that coming."
"In your dreams," I replied. He took his hand and swiped a wall of water at me while getting Steve wet in the process too.
"You wanna take me on?" Steve asked Two-bit.
"You know I do," Two-bit answered. Without saying anything more, they began doing laps out to one the buoys. The five of us spent the rest of the afternoon there. Sometimes doing things all together, sometimes Soda and Shannon would be off by themselves, or sometimes we'd be off doing individual challenges with someone else. It was around six o'clock before we dried off and headed back for the house. I could tell as we walked back that my face was sun burnt, and by looking at the others they were the same way. Everyone changed back into their clothes we'd had on before and laid everything out on the porch railing to dry off in the sun. And as if we hadn't just gotten cooled down, after eating some leftover pizza with everyone, we all headed down to the lot to just hang out and throw the football around. We were going to make it into a game but figured we might as well wait for Darry so there would be three on three teams.
"Hey Soda, c'mon and throw some passes with me!" Steve commanded. Steve had been playing a little bit with Two-bit, but he decided to cool off for a few minutes.
"Alright, alright, I'm coming," Soda said as he got up. Soda, Shannon, and I had been sitting together just hanging out from the heat.
"How's the English book coming?" Shannon asked me now.
"It's coming...but slowly," I replied, "I guess I'm just enjoying not having to do work so I forget about it."
"Well at least you started and that's something. This year we're not reading a book but doing some mini research paper."
"That's not much better."
"Guess not, but I gotta do it."
"Hey, I thought we were just throwing passes!" Steve exclaimed as we looked up to see Soda chasing him across the lot.
"We were," Soda replied back, "Until you threw the ball at my head!"
"Go `n get him!" Two-bit called. Shannon smiled and laughed as Soda continued to chase Steve. Finally, Soda managed to tackle him despite he wasn't the fastest runner. They tumbled to the ground and ended up rolling over a couple times. I couldn't help but laugh too, since Soda and Steve were the biggest competitors when it was just the two of them.
"What, is no one gonna help me up?" Soda asked casting a hopeful grin to Shannon. She smiled and got up heading over to Soda. When she held out her hands, he pulled her down with him and she screamed, which then turned into the two of them laughing. Too bad Darry wasn't here, because now these were how summer days were supposed to be spent.
Summer days slowly leaked away until we were left with the last week in August for school to start back up. I'd finally finished my book a few days ago and the post it notes for annotating were done too. I don't know how much Darry or Soda really cared that I finally finished after working on it all summer, but I know Shannon at least bought us Pepsi's to celebrate when she finished her paper. As much as I would've loved to be outside or something, so far today was overcast with peaks of sun and very humid (as always). All the windows in the house were open as far as they could go and everyone was sitting around with light clothing on. I was procrastinating from cleaning the truck—as Darry had assigned to me earlier—but I just didn't feel like moving, even if I was testing Darry. After the poker game with Two-bit and Steve, I headed into the laundry room and got out supplies to wash the truck. Darry had been sending me some glares during the game so it was only a matter of time before I had it coming. I hooked up the hose, filled two buckets with water, put soap in one of them, and then hosed down the truck. As I began to work on the hood and made my way to the tires, I was getting wet. Yes it was overcast, but it definitely wasn't the rain. Turning around, none other than Two-bit had the hose and was spraying me and him off.
"Hey, cut that out! I'm not done yet!" I exclaimed to him.
"Oh c'mon Pony, you know that waters feels good!" Two-bit called back, "Anyone else up for a cooling off?" Two-bit called to the house.
"Hit me!" Soda said as he ran out on the porch. Two-bit did as he was told while Soda let out a yell from the coldness. "Let me see that thing," Soda demanded as he went up to Two-bit.
"I had it first," Two-bit played at him.
"But I live here," Soda shot back. There was no come back for that one. Soda took the hose and called for Shannon to come outside. Unaware of what we were doing, she walked out to the front porch while Soda sprayed her pretty good.
"Soda!" she exclaimed wiping water from her face. He pulled the hose nozzle again and more screaming followed. We all started laughing, even Shannon. She hurried back inside to try and duck away from the water.
"Did anyone forget that I'm still in the process of using the hose?" I chimed in. Soda took a shot at Shannon through the screen, only to find Darry looking annoyed shortly afterwards.
"Here ya go Pony," Soda said as he went to hand me the hose. Of course he managed to squirt me again before giving it to me. I eventually finished and decided to wash the windows as well since they were splattered with bug prints. I rolled them down when I did the insides too and decided to keep them like that so the truck didn't heat up too much. I cleaned up everything and headed back inside to cool down.
"The truck is clean," I told Darry as I helped myself to a glass of water.
"Thanks," Darry said, "I've gotta do some paperwork, so if anyone needs anything I'll be in my room," Darry announced.
"Sure thing," Soda called back. He, Shannon, and Two-bit had all changed shirts from the hose. I would've, but honestly, it was a nice relief. It slowly got darker outside and we all knew it was bound to rain eventually.
"I really should be heading home," Shannon said looking at the clock, "I told my mom I'd run some errands with her. Besides, I might as well get back before it rains."
"Do you need your shirt?" I asked.
"No it's fine; my mom will be pretty cool when I tell her why it's drying." Soda kissed her on the cheek as we all bid her good-bye and she left for home.
Two-bit asked after the kiss, "Can I get me one of them too?" And then completely unexpectedly, Soda grinned this insane look and went up to Two-bit, and completely out of the blue pecked him where Two-bit had pointed on his cheek.
"Ah man!" We all practically yelled turning away cracking up.
"I can't believe you did that!" I exclaimed. Darry was sitting at the kitchen table covering his head with his hand. Two-bit wiped where Soda had pecked and shook his head.
"Shoot, I wasn't sure if you'd really do that!" he said laughing hysterically. I really did love what we did for entertainment around here.
Just as we'd begun to eat some chips and salsa to last until dinner, it started pouring rain with huge drops. I saw how our shirts and such were still outside, and I instantly, ran over and opened the door. (Darry's truck also had the window's open I could see too). The wind picked up and the siding of the house began to hum.
"Ponyboy what're you doing? Shut that door!" Soda exclaimed. That's when I ran outside and began gathering everything that was blowing away. I knew by now that everyone had gone to the door/window to see what I was doing.
"Ponyboy, get in the house!" I heard Darry yell from the door. The rain was pelting my face and I knew I probably shouldn't be out here, but if Darry wanted a rain damage free truck, the windows needed to be put up too. "Ponyboy!" Darry yelled again. I opened the driver's seat door and it slammed behind me as I hand rolled up that and the passenger's seat windows. Finally, I opened the truck door and bolted back to the house where Darry ushered me inside. I was soaking wet. And not just a little bit. It looked like I took a shower with my clothes on. "Are you out of your mind?" Darry exclaimed, "It isn't safe to just be running out in the middle of a storm like that!" I shook water from my hair and wiped it from my face as I took a look out the window. Trees were bent over from the wind and I almost couldn't believe that I'd went outside in all that.
"Soda, Shannon, and Two-bit had their clothes out there," I told him, "And the windows from your truck were rolled down. I had to put them up!" I told him as Soda took the shirts out of my arms.
"Stupid kid," I heard Steve mumble from across the room. I shot him a glance as I wished I could go over and punch him. I could see Darry was struggling to find something to say.
"Stupid move, but you did save the interior of the truck," Two-bit told me.
"Don't ever try anything like that again," Darry told me sternly.
"Fine," I replied simply.
"C'mon Pony, you should go put some dry clothes on...you look like a lake monster," Soda told me. I headed into my room and flipped on the light, only to have it dim seconds later.
"Flip that TV off," Darry was instructing Steve (who last had the remote), "With the rate our lights keep dimming it'll short out." I found a new change of clothes and put my wet ones in the dryer (despite the fact it kept turning off whenever our power flickered). Just as I'd went back into the kitchen to start cooking dinner, this high pitch siren noise came above the wind, rain, and Steve/Soda/Two-bit's card game.
"You guys hear that?" I asked wondering if I was going crazy. Everyone paused and stared off into space trying to hear the noise.
"Tornado siren..." Darry said as he went over to the window to look out it, "Steve, flip on the news and get a weather report," Darry told him.
"You just told me to turn it off!" Steve objected.
"Well I changed my mind now didn't I?"
"Aw look what you did Ponyboy, you made a tornado form," Two-bit said.
"Oh yeah, it's my entire fault," I replied looking out the window.
"Why didn't you tell me you had the power to change the weather?" Soda asked jokingly, "I've been living with you about sixteen years and sharing a room for near two, and I'm just finding out?"
"C'mon Soda, you know the rules, can't reveal your super powers to anyone or his secret identity will be revealed!" Two-bit chimed in.
Darry was paying attention to the monotone weather announcer so I asked, "Should we be taking cover or something?"
"No...Looks like the worst of it as passed. The tornado warning's for the eastern part of the county," he replied. Darry flipped the TV off again while I went to resume making dinner. As soon as things cleared up, Two-bit decided to head home before it rained again and Steve was due to make dinner at his own house.
"Man...Crazy weather today," I mumbled more to myself as I boiled the potatoes.
"So Pony, you gonna let me in how you created that tornado?" Soda grinned recklessly and asked jokingly. I could only give him a glance and roll my eyes.