Chapter 20

Ponyboy laughed and said "that's a good one. What did you really want to tell me?"

"We're not joking. We are from the future" said Tori. Ponyboy continued to laugh but stopped when he saw that we weren't kidding.

"You're serious, aren't you?" asked Ponyboy.

"Yeah. Why would we joke about that?" asked Tori.

"I dunno. I thought you were joking. How did you get here?" asked Pony.

"I dunno. We just woke up here one morning" I said.

"So, what year are y'all really from?"

"2006" said Tori.

"2006! Wow! So, what happens in 2006?"

"A lot of things are different. Like for instance, I have 5 TV's in my house instead of just one for everyone to share. And we have computers and ipods and cell phones and a lot of other things" I said.

"Computer? Cell phones? Ipods? What are those?" asked Ponyboy.

"Computers are these things were you can play games and get information. It's kind of like a work station were you can do anything like listen to music and look up stuff" said Tori.

"And cell phones are portable phones. They don't have cords or anything" I said.

"What about those things? Ipods I think you called them" said Ponyboy.

"Oh, ipods are these things were you can listen to music anytime and anywhere you want. There kinda like portable radios except you can choose want songs you wanna hear" said Tori.

"Anything else you can tell me about the future?" asked Ponyboy.

"No. I think it's dangerous for someone to know too much about the future" I said. For minute there I started to sound like Doc from Back to the Future.

"But you gotta promise not to tell anyone."

"Why?" asked Ponyboy.

"Because we don't want anyone else to know yet. We only told you because we figured you wouldn't flip out on us like the rest of them would" said Tori.

Pony just nodded and asked "so, when are y'all goin' back?"

"Why? Do you want us to leave already?" I asked.

"No, I just wanted to know when you're goin' back" said Pony.

"I don't know" I replied, "but I hope it's not any time soon. I really like it here."

Ponyboy looked down at his feat with an expression that looked like he was going to cry.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I don't want y'all to go back. You see, your probably gonna go back and forget all about us" said a teary eyed Ponyboy.

"We could never forget y'all" said Tori.

"Yeah. It's almost impossible to forget any of you guys. Pony I think it's safe to say that you've become like a little brother to us over the past weeks. We'll come back and visit if we can" I said. I was just saying that to make Ponyboy feel better. Then I thought it was going to be impossible to ever visit them again. But then again, I thought it was impossible to meet the gang from the Outsiders and somehow we did.

"You think I would like it in the future?" asked Pony.

"Hard to say. I think you belong here. You would stick out like a sore thumb with all that grease in you hair and everything. All of y'all would stick out" said Tori.

"I think you would. It would just be a big shock to you is all because so much has happened between the 60's and 2006" I said.

"Like what?"

"Lots of stuff. Stuff that you don't really need to know about just yet" said Tori. Tori was right. There were a lot of things in the future that the gang didn't need to know about just yet. Like I said, knowing too much about the future could be dangerous.

"Let's go home, they're probably wondering where we are by now" said Tori. I looked down at my watch and realized that we had been gone for a little over two hours now. So Tori, Pony, and I walked home. When we got home, Darry asked "where were you?"

"We went for a walk and we hung out at the park for a little while" I said.

Darry just looked at us for a minute and then went back to reading the paper.

Just then, Soda came in through the front door. I didn't even know he had left.

"Where were you?" I asked.

"None of your business" snapped Soda. He never talked to anyone like that. Something must have been wrong.

"What's wrong with you?" asked Ponyboy. Apparently he had sensed something was wrong too.

"None of your business, ok? Just leave me alone!" snapped Soda and with that he marched out of the room and slammed his bedroom door. Well, actually, it was more like his and Pony's bedroom door but you get the picture. There was an awkward uneasiness in the room that had never been there before. I had never heard Sodapop yell like that. Sure, I had seen him mad and upset but he never, ever yelled. I left the room without saying a word. The uneasy feeling was getting to me and I had to leave. I was getting pretty tired so I started getting ready for bed. I laid in bed and thought about all the possible reasons why Soda was so upset that night. It couldn't of been something I had said, because I had really talked to him at all that day. Maybe it was something about Sandy. That was always a possibility. But then again, she was pregnant and living in Florida, and I imagined her parents made it so that she had no contact with any boy what so ever. That's what my parents would do if I ever got pregnant at 16. Actually, they would make it so that I wouldn't have any contact with the outside world period.

I was so focused on that, I didn't even hear Tori come in. She didn't even say so much as a good night. She just changed into her PJ's, climbed into bed, and fell asleep. Maybe she thought that Soda was mad at her, or both of us. The thought had never crossed my mind until she came in.

I was the first one up that morning so I had to make the breakfast. When I first came here, I had no idea how to make eggs but after watching Darry do it so many times I had picked up the skill pretty fast and I learned how everyone liked there eggs. Pony liked his hard, Darry liked his in a bacon-and-tomato sandwich (why anybody would want to eat tomatoes at all was beyond me. In case you didn't know, I HATE tomatoes with a passion) and, of course, Soda like his with grape jelly. How that boy could stand grape jelly, chocolate cake, and chocolate milk all in one morning I'll never know. I swear, Sodapop Curtis had the appetite of a four year old.

Tori and I didn't really like eggs so therefore we didn't like to have them any particular way.

Sodapop came stumbling out of his bedroom, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"Morning" I said. Soda didn't say anything in return, almost as if he didn't hear me. He just went and sat down at the table.

"Not talking to me?" I know it was an obvious question but I had to try to get him to talk. He just glared at me and then turned to look in the other direction.

"I take that as a no. Here's your breakfast. You can get your own chocolate milk" I said, handing him the cake and eggs. I poured myself a glass of orange juice and sat down in the seat across from Soda. The room was quite until Darry sat down at the table to eat his breakfast.

When he noticed that Soda wasn't saying anything he asked "what's with you this morning? You've got the personality of a wet mop."

"Nothing. I'm fine" replied Soda. Obviously he was lying because Soda was never that quite. Soda finished up his breakfast and left for work early. He didn't even wait for Steve to come. I waited for Tori to finish up her breakfast and then we left for work.

"Remember, straight there and straight back. You two are still on probation" warned Darry. I didn't want to find out what would happen to us if we made any stops on the way home from work so I just said "ok" and left. We had to walk the whole way through the cold since Soda hurried out the door that morning.

When we approached the DX, I could see Steve in the garage working on some soc car. We ran up to the garage as fast as we could so that we could get out of the cold.

"Hey Steve" I said, "where's Soda?"

"He's up front talkin' to some customers" replied Steve. Tori left to go help Soda upfront.

"Do you what's buggin' him this morning? He seemed real uptight. He wouldn't talk to anybody" I said.

"Your guess is a good as mine. He didn't say anything to me when he came in this morning" said Steve.

Meanwhile in the front of the store………..

Soda was behind to counter saying good-bye to a customer when Tori came in.

"Hey, Soda. I missed you this morning" said Tori.

Soda just glared at her the same way he did me that morning.

"What's the matter with you? Why do you keep giving everybody the cold shoulder, huh?" asked Tori.

At first he didn't reply, but then he took a deep breathe and said "I heard you guys talkin' last night."

"What do you mean?"

"I was at the park last night. I was looking for Pony and I figured that's where he'd be. I was comin' up from behind the tree when I heard Kelsey say that y'all was from the future."

"Is that why you won't talk to us?"

"Yeah. How come you didn't tell us?"

"We weren't ready. We weren't sure how you guys would react but that's no reason to be mad at us. We were going to tell you guys, just not right away" said Tori.

"Look, I'm sorry I reacted like that and your right, that's no reason for me to be mad at you two, but you still should have told us" said Soda.

"Your probably right, but like I said, we weren't ready."

Tori stayed upfront and talked to Soda, while I got stuck in the garage with Steve. It seemed like we had spent the whole day there by the time lunch came around.

"Where do y'all wanna go?" asked Soda.

"Let's go to the Tastee Freeze" suggested Tori.

No one objected to that so that's were we went. Steve drove and Soda, being the gentlemen that he was most of the time, let me sit in the front seat. I objected at first but then said yes. It really wasn't worth fighting over.

The Tastee Freeze was packed. It seemed like everybody in town was on there lunch break. It was starting to rain outside when we were eating. The rain was almost impossible to see through, that's how hard it was coming down. Steve, being the idiot that he always acted like, insisted on driving through it. Soda, once again offered the front seat to me. Since it was raining, I didn't bother arguing.

Every now and then the tires would slip on the wet road and we'd almost, keyword there being almost, go into a ditch.

"Steve, I'm begging you, pull over" pleaded Tori from the backseat.

"It's ok. I've driven through this type of weather before. We'll be okay" reassured Steve. I was about to protest but there was no time. Steve lost control of the wheel and the car slid right into on coming traffic. A car hit on Tori and my side. I was knocked out but when I came back around I could hear sirens screaming. The cold rain was coming down pretty hard on me. I saw two strange men standing over me, mumbling something to each other but I couldn't make it out. I tried to stay awake but a dark haze closed in and everything went dark, almost as if someone turned the lights out.