The day of the hearing, it wasn't anything like any of us had expected. The only ones here were Darry, Soda, Pony, me, Randy and his folks, Cherry Valance and her folks and a couple of the guys that jumped Johnny, Ponyboy, and I that night. The doctor had a long talk with the judge before the hearing.
Randy was the first to be questioned. I could see that he looked a little nervous. Too bad that he couldn't have a cigarette.
Pony and I were equally shaky as well. Darry told us not to speak whatever Randy said, we'd get our turn. The Socs held the same story and they stuck to the truth, except they said that Johnny was the one who killed Bob. Pony and I could fix that when we got our turn to speak.
Cherry was up there next. She told them about what happened before and after the fight. She even had a few tears roll down her face. Her voice was steady despite her crying.
Darry got his chance to speak to the judge, both he and Soda got questioned about Dally, I'm guessing it was to check our background with him. Darry kept a straight face while answering the judges questions. Pony and I were proud of our older brothers.
Dally was a part of our gang and we wouldn't desert him. By the time they got around to me, I was scared out of my mind. They asked Pony and I the same questions, and they didn't have anything to do with Bob's murder.
They asked both of us if we like living with Darry, if we liked school, and what grades we were making, nothing more. Pony was more scared than me because I saw him chewing on his fingernails, which is a habit he has. The judge smiled down at Pony and I, remembering what the doctor had said to him.
After all of that, the judge declared us not guilty, meaning that Pony and I were still in Darry's custody. I couldn't have been more relieved to hear that.
It wasn't easy to say that everything had gone back to normal. Nothing had changed. Ever since then, I've been waking up with the constant nightmares, I've been dizzier than usual, and I was distant from the rest of the family.
As for Pony, he was running into things such as the door, he kept tripping over things, and he started to lose everything. Needless to say, I've been careless with my stuff as well. Pony had even walked home in his stocking feet and didn't notice it until Steve said something about it.
We also didn't eat as much as we used to. Since Ponyboy are twins, we each used to have the appetite of a horse. Pony had stopped eating all together because to him, everything tasted like bologna.
Our school work wasn't coming along nicely. Every night, Darry would look over our finished homework and he had caught our mistakes. He'd make us restart it if we did mess up.
I was doing very lousy in my English class. Pony was too. We didn't share the same English class therefore we had different teachers.
I used to get a B+ in that class but it had dropped significantly to a D-. My english teacher had noticed it and it bothered her a lot. Like Pony's teacher, my teacher's husband, she was interested in you as a person.
Before I exited the building of our school, my english teacher had stopped me. "Bexley, I'd like to talk to you for a minute." she said. I turned around to face her, wishing I could leave. It wasn't my fault that I was failing her class.
"About what, Mrs. Syme's?" I asked. "About your grades." she replied. "Yeah, I know I'm doing terrible." I sighed, scratching my forehead. "You are failing my class, Bexley. But I'll take it into consideration under the circumstances. If you come up with a good semester theme, I'll pass you with a B grade." she said with a smile.
"I heard that Ponyboy was doing that." I said. "I know but I want you to do the same." Mrs. Syme said. I sighed and looked down, knowing just how much I was messing up because of everything that had happened.
When Pony and I went back to school, the first week was terrible. People we both knew wouldn't speak to us, and those we didn't know would only come up to ask what happened. Even the teachers did the same.
My math teacher and Pony's history teacher acted scared of both of us. We were good students and didn't cause any trouble. Yeah, that made both of us feel real tuff.
"Yes ma'am. I can try. What should I write about?" I asked. "Anything that is important in your eyes. I want this to be in your own words and your own experience." she tells me, a hand on my shoulder.
That shouldn't be too hard, my first trip to the county fair. That should be fun. "Yes ma'am." I nodded and went outside and went to find Pony.
