Jcuret98:Sunday dinner is next chapter, but I hope you like what I got here with Johnny and Wendy!
bookgirl18: Hope your safe and healthy too.
Guest: Glad you like it!
Riariabookworm: Thanks I loved portarying Darrel sr too!
lulusgardenfli: There will be more Dally vs Dare next chapter, till then, enjoy!
Phoenix Arisen Again: I'm glad you enjoyed the boys and Dare's accent! Yeah, Dally has his point, and so do you about the creepy stalker Soc...
Chapter XVIII
S*S
"Sooo..." Pony drew out, putting too much effort into trying to make it casual, as they hung out under the bleachers -to the point where the kid hadn't realize he was still on that same page of his paperback copy of Lord of the Rings for five minutes, as he pretended to read, while he and Johnny were at lunch. "Ya really bringin' a Soc girl over for dinner next Sunday?"
Johnny pursed his lips and hastily reach for another fry from the basket placed between 'em. Like any food school-made, it wasn't the best. But it better than nothing, which was what consisted of his midday meals -his parents would never waste lunch money on 'im, so when he couldn't find a way to wrangle up some cash, he just went without. Got use to it.
He rolled his shoulder, forcing his suddenly dry throat to swallow that fry. "Donno -looks that way. But glory...wasn't my idea..."
"Yeah, given that I ain't seen ya talk to a girl since the fifth grade, I kinda figured," Pony drawled drily, rolling his eyes that were too damn big for a kid in high school. "But Dad does stuff like that all the time -'member when Darry nervous bout takin' his first girl -Debbie More- out, so he made sure not to fill the gas tank so they'd get stranded at the football game?"
Johnny winced, and sucked in air at the memory -especially at how the gang had rolled on the pavement laughing. Suddenly in the hot-seat, it didn't seem so funny.
"And how 'bout when Soda started to like Sandy, but didn't know how t' break the ice, Dad told 'im to spill water on her an' then apologize?"
Johnny snorted and grasped the back of his hair, balling it up before releasing it. "Shit. Forgot that one, man."
"'Pared to them, ya gettin' off easy, Johnnycakes," Pony nodded wisely. "Dad always had a soft spot for ya. So he'll make sure this dinner goes normal."
Johnny didn't like the sound of that. "...Normal?"
"Yeah," Pony continued on. "-Won't let Soda mess with the food or nothin' -ya know he an' Steve got that weird bet thing still goin' on an'-"
"I don't even wanna know, man-" Johnny interrupted, shaking his head. He was gonna say more, but the sudden eruption of voices and the crush of gravel comin' there way shut their mouths good, as the bleachers steps pounded, and flashes of madras and eight brand new canvas sneakers peered between the slabs of metal.
Johnny felt his shoulders stiffen, and sensed Pony's doing likewise. The bleachers were Greaser turf during this part of the day -hell these Socs think they were? If Two-Bit or Steve or Soda were with 'em, making it more even, they might've come out to remind 'em...but they couldn't. He could never do anything.
And they could leave without being seen...so they stuck here like cats in a tree. Listening in. While two Soc laughed at their buddy and another steamed.
"I can't believe she did that-" one Soc was exclaiming in disbelief. The was sound of air rushing sharply over fabric, and bits of ketchup flew downward, landing on Johnny tattered old shoes like blood spots. He grimaced 'fore wiping 'em clean. Though he felt his brow furrow as he tried to piece together what the hell was going on.
"Realle, Jackie?" slurred another, a flask held in one hand that flashed with a set of rings that would put Pharaoh to shame, in that Charlton Heston movie. His hand wasn't steady, and this guy was serious blitzed, cause liquid amber poured onto Pony's head, worse onto his book, making the kid scoot sideways in repulsion. 'Cause th' rest'a us could'ee from a mile off -it's always th' nice ones that'll get ya."
"Nice being the key word here -" cut in a third party -something in this ones tone 'minding Johnny of Darry. "Jesus man...ya already screwin' her sister three ways to Sunday. The hell you want both 'em for? Just let the kid be and give it up. If her lunch tray ain't clue 'nough, let me spell it out for ya...She's-ain't-interested."
Ketchup Soc snorted and from the shadows playing out like a puppet show, he was pointing a finger at the guy. "There ain't no family that can breed a little backseat wildcat and a square in one house. You wouldn't believe the things Connie can do-"
He went on in the most dis-reputed language than Johnny ever heard, even in bull sessions with the gang...maybe because in the bull sessions, everyone but Pony knew that it was just that. Bull. Not real, didn't happen, had no chance in hell of ever happening. This guy...this Soc...he could hear it in his voice. Truth. Bare bone and skag ass ugly. Cause the things he was talking 'bout with this girl...sure, guys liked to get some. Always had, always would, loved the pride that came with having scored. Two-bit and Darry and Dally could testify to that.
But their kicks never sounded like a vampire draining the life from someone. Pony had turned an odd shade of chalk white. Johnny felt sure he wasn't no better.
Even the other Socs seemed to have been stunned into silence. Even the booze-hound.
The third guy who talked like Darry slumped down, like an old man who'd given up in exhausted.
"...Christ man," he said, in disgusted exasperation. "Ya think the kid would ever give ya the time of day, if she knew that's how you treated her sister? Treated any girl? So assumin' a piano falls on her head and she someday agrees to go out with ya...you honestly think a decent girl like her wouldn't run screaming?"
Ketchup's shadow held up his hands. "Hey, hey, okay. I get it. She's gonna need a slower pace 'fore the fun stuff. I get it. I can work with it."
The bell signaling the end of lunch, and thank Jehovah, an end to Johnny and Pony's time as a captive audience. Scrambling for Will Rogers quick as they could, trying to out run what they heard.
"I think I need a shower," Pony muttered, shuddering in correlation, still very white. Johnny hissed threw his teeth and threw an arm round the younger boy's neck, pressing what strength he could through the contact.
"I know," he murmured back, feeling a little unclean himself...and hoping it would go 'way for he'd met up with Wendy. He already felt dirty 'nuff round her. "Just...try not to think about it, kay?"
"Sure, Johnny, that'll work," Pony grumbled back, hitching his schoolbag a little higher.
S*S
"I can't believe you did that Wendy," Peggy boggled again, as she, Marcia, and Cherry hovered 'round her in the girls room -where they had quickly hustled her after the incident in the lunch room, to calm her down.
"Neither can I," Wendy confessed in a hiccup, swiping adrenaline sprung tears out of her eyes and breathing deeply, as Cherry slapped another damp paper towel to her neck. She wasn't hurt -just overwrought. "I've never done anything like that in my life."
Cherry sniffed imperiously, and her eyes flashed. "First time for everythin' Wen. And there ain't nobody that can say he didn't have it comin'. Sides, he looked good with ya lunch tray all over 'im."
Marcia hummed sagely in agreement. "A stupid spirit goes before the fall an' all that, am I right?"
Cherry and Wendy glanced at each other, mouths twitching. "It's pride goes 'fore the fall, Marc."
"Oh...well, not much difference then, is there?"
Wendy giggled. Maybe not as fully as she might've, but more than she would've imagined, moments before. And she felt a rush of warmth for the girls.
"No," she chirped, linking her arm through Marcia and grinning as they headed out the door. "No there's not."
S*S
The rest of the day went without incident, Jack apparently deciding he needed a break from her. Which was more than agreeable to Wendy. She might not have another tray of hot dog and french fries to splatter all over him, but she did at all times carry some immensely heavy books that would not be agreeable if they were -say- dropped on a certain someone's foot.
So all and all, she was in a reasonably good mood when she strolled in English, and took her seat next to Johnny, who flashed her a quirk of his lips as she fished out her supplies, setting them primly on her desk, 'fore smiling back.
Of course, nothing that good and easy could last, and Mr. Syme was the one to clip it as he handed out today assignment -a "study of theme in relation to the character you've chosen to follow through the novel".
"Brick," Steve muttered, surly, ignoing that they were more than halfway done, with how Mr. Syme was driving them.
"You have all class, and may turn to your partner for help," Mr. Syme continued, undaunted, hands behind his back, before pointing at each row of the classroom. "Ambition. Class. Crime. Sophistication. Redemption. Two paragraphs."
Ambition...Wendy twirled her pencil, refection on the word as she had read it often in the directory, given to her by Mama. Adjective: having ambition; eagerly desirous of achieving or obtaining success, power, wealth, a specific goal, etc...
She bite her lip. The character she'd chosen to "follow" was Miss. Havisham...which put her in a pickle, as Havisham wasn't so much ambitious as inspiring ambition in others...cruelly, meanly, and often to cause that character pain.
Johnny had it easy in this case...Pip's whole point was ambition, especially in contention to growth. Great Expectations was a bildungsroman:a story of the growth and development of its main character -Johnny had it laid out for him, and the steady pace that he moved his pencil showed it.
Dickens shows the ambition that Pip's got as a good and bad thing, with good and bad results. Pip's early ambitions focus on his getting out of his neighborhood, on making himself into someone who seems worthy of Estella -who still treats him like crap. But he turns himself into someone who feels like a fake, and turns his nose up to those who were good to him, such as Joe and Provis, and wastes his money.
Through these things, Pip eventually comes to understand self-improvement is something as much inside as out -if you stay what you are inside as where you started -it doesn't matter where you go...you'll bring all your problems with you. Pip's own ambitions are echoed by the self-improvement efforts of secondary characters like Joe and Ms. Havisham, who learn to write and to feel sorry for others, respectively, at Pip's teaching.
Show off, Wendy though fondly, with a happy bubbling of pride as Johnny finished it up, 'fore the black embers of his eyes glowed her way, mild and self-pleased. Inspired, she turned to her own page again.
Miss Havisham is the dark side of ambition. The side that reduces people to either goalposts or obstacles in way of your goal. Miss Havisham was the victim of such ambition, and then went on to victimized others. Including her own daughter, who can not love her. And Pip, who never harmed her. Her ambition is like a fire, it burns, and it burns others, but it's also burning herself. It will burn until there is nothing left.
Miss Havisham proves that ambition and self-improvement are not interchangeable. In refusing to recover from being left at the altar, Miss Havisham states her ambition. And she carries it on for the rest of her life, to its great decrement. But declaring herself a rotting corpse, she steals away the life from the people around her.
By the time she was dotting the last period, she was looking up at Johnny and bubbled when he saluted his pencil at her approvingly.
S*S
They headed home by way of the Green Mile again, though by this time, harsh winds like the ones blowing now what striped the trees nearly bare of all pretenses and glamor they could claim. It was so bitter outside that Wendy called it, and invited Johnny into the house -something that made those embers in his eyes go wide, like a deer in headlights.
"Wen? Ya...ya sure?" he asked, leaning back with his hands shoved firmly into his jacket pockets.
Though consider that she was standing there, holding the three season porch door open from him, ya had to wonder way. But she kept her tone gentle.
"Yeah, I'm sure," she told him. "Johnny we've been friends for two months now. More than two months. I think its okay for you to come in my house. C'mon. We got homework."
...Still looking like this was against all his better judgment, Johnny slowly crossed the last few steps, and passed the threshold. Soon as he did, and though he was ahead of her now, Wendy could sense the way his eyes swept over what she'd always assumed to be just an ordinary part of her house; with it white wicker chairs and table, glass blow vase and palm tree plant.
But the way Johnny let the coals in his eyes sweep, unreadable, over the room...which could very well be the size of his house...made her rethink it.
Wendy shuffled. Maybe this wasn't her best idea...
"To late for that chey," Mama's voice drily told her. "Vhen you go to the middle of the river, you must cross to the other side, Darlinh..."
That was how her hand found his own, larger and more callused, once he relaxed enough to bring it out of his pocket.
"Come on, let go in and get warm," she told him. But she stood still, and didn't move till Johnny breathed out, nodded, and moved on his own accord, coming into the house proper. The first thing that caught his eye was the chandelier that hung over the dinning table, and the china and delicate things encased behind glass.
"So...wanna get started?" Wendy asked, setting her school stuff on the table. Johnny looked hesitant to follow her example, but seemed reassure when the table didn't break once she put her bag upon it.
"Sure," he answered, sitting down besides her, in the spot that usually went to her father, spreading out the work packet.
What is the age of majority in England at this time? Twenty-one.
What does Pip believe still about his fortune? That Miss Havisham means for him to marry Estella.
Why is this unlikely? Nearly every character in the book thinks otherwise.
...and so on and so forth. It went very peaceably, even cozy like, with the howl of wind beating the outside of the house. Then a sound form within matched it. It made Wendy sit up like a spooked cat.
"What was that?" she exclaimed, and saw Johnny's ears turn red.
"Uh...that was me, Wen. My stomach, I mean," he explained hastily.
Wendy's brow furrowed. "You're hungry?"
Johnny rolled a shoulder.
"Stomach thinks it is," he said. "- 's all. Mind over matter."
Her brows narrowed. Translation: yes. She got up. And made her way into the kitchen. Johnny got halfway up with her.
"Wen, wait," he protested, following, hand on his neck. "What are ya doin'?"
"Putting dinner on: spaghetti sound okay?"
Johnny paused besides the table-counter, long fingers spread gently over its smooth marble veined stone, eyes lit and churning slowly.
"Wen...ya don't have to do that."
"Want to..." she answered softly, before clearing her throat and tucking hair behind her ear. "-sides, I'll have to make it later anyways when my brothers get home. Might as well start now."
"...Alright. But I'll help."
And he did, with an air of having work at a stove before, and with heavy, water filled pans for far longer than Wendy ever had. They were just getting the sauce ready when Johnny stiffened, neck craned as he stared out the window.
"Oh shit," he breathed. Startled, Wendy followed his gaze, and saw the twins tumbling out of car that had just pulled into the drive way. Followed by their father.
Her heart sunk a little. Oh. Oh dear.
Stumbling backwards, Johnny looked ready to mimic the cowardly lion, and jump out the window rather than meet the wizard. But he didn't, frozen in place; though he did looked to Wendy for some sort -any sort- of game plan. Doubly so, when her father's voice called out for her.
"In here Dad," she finally answered, ignoring how Johnny was looking at her like she'd grown two heads. A look that didn't really chance when Frank Allen meandered tiredly down the hall, stopping to stare at the strange young man standing in his kitchen.
Reviews make me happy, so I hope you tell me what you think -and feel free to check out my other Outsider story staring Sodapop, Of the Morning!
With all this Corona Shit, I thought we all could use a pick me up. Stay safe and healthy people! God bless.
When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down. Exodus 12:23