"Katherine!" I heard a scream from my brothers' room and then I heard her start to cry. I rushed in to find out what was the matter.

"What'd you do?" I asked, Ponyboy. He just glared at me. "You're going to have to talk to me eventually." I said.

He sighed. "All I did was yell. See Darry, look what she did to my drawings!" He pointed to various pictures he had drawn. They were all sprawled out on the floor with thousands of scribbles on every single one of them.

I sighed. "I'm sorry Pon."

"She ruined them!" He said.

"You still know better than to yell." I told him, picking Katherine up. "You scared her. She doesn't know any different. She's only one."

"That doesn't mean that's she's incapable of driving me crazy!" Pony shrieked. "See that one right there?" He pointed to one of them. "It took me five hours to draw that!"

"I'm sorry, but it's not my fault that she did that."

"You're not sorry! You don't even care!"

"I do care." I said.

"You do not!"

I sighed. "This probably wouldn't have happened if you didn't leave things all over the floor."

"No, this wouldn't have happened if you didn't go impregnate your girlfriend when you were eighteen years old!"

"Pony-" I started.

"This is all your fault that's what." He said. "Everything that's been going on around here lately is your fault. You had to go and have a kid and then you had to be dumb enough to fall for it when 'Bella' or whatever her name is said she needed you to 'watch' her. And then what happens? I get stuck watching her instead while you're at work and when you're not at work you're busy taking care of her. You're not to busy to spend every possible waking minute of the day with her but you don't have any time for us. It's always about her now. You never pay any attention to me and Soda. You're to busy to give me a ride somewhere, to busy to make breakfast, to busy to talk, to busy to even acknowledge my existence. You were already busy enough when it was just work you had to worry about. Now there's work and a kid."

"Well tell me what it is that you wanted to talk about earlier."

"No. I don't wanna talk anymore. I doesn't matter! I don't care! You can go ahead and completely ignore me!"

I sighed and walked out of his room. I put Katherine down and she walked around the living room. Then I flopped down in a chair. I really haven't given them the time of day recently, have I? I thought to myself. Pony was right. I didn't have any time. I looked over at Katherine. She was busily trying to get up on the piano bench. I got up and lifted her off before she fell. "You're a handful, you know that?" I said.

"Dar? Everything all-right?" Soda asked, looking up from the TV.

I shook my head and sat back down on the couch next to him. "This is really hard, kiddo."

He scooted next to me. "It's hard for us too you know?"

I sighed. "I don't blame you for being mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you."

I looked over at him. "I'm sorry, little buddy. I'm making this work as best as I can."

"I know you are." Soda said. "Pony didn't mean anything when he said all that, Dar." So he did hear our little conversation. "He's just upset, that's all. It's not that he doesn't like Katherine or something like that. We do like her. She's cute as can be and she's hilarious sometimes but it's still difficult. You dig?"

I smiled at him. "Yeah, I dig. Will you talk to Pony for me?"

"YOU need to talk to him." Soda said. "He might not want to listen at first but you have to try."

I sighed. He was right. I got up and headed back to their room. "Pon? Can I come in?" I knocked.

"No." He said sullenly.

"C'mon, kiddo. I just wanna talk to you."

"Well earlier today when I wanted to talk to you, you wouldn't even give me a second of your time.

I sighed. "All-right, well I'm giving you my time now." He didn't say anything after that so I just opened the door and walked in. He was lying on his stomach, facing the wall. "Ponyboy." I said, softly.

"What?"

"You're right." He looked over at me surprised. "You're right. I haven't given you a second of my time in the last week." He looked back at the wall. I sighed. "You know you can't stay mad at me forever." I said.

"Can too."

"No you can't." I sat down next to him and he turned even further away from me. "You'll get bored with it after a while." He continued to pretend to ignore me. "What can I do to make it up to you?" I asked.

"Nothing." He mumbled.

"C'mon now. There's gotta be something."

"Nope." He said plainly.

I smiled as an idea dawned on me and I started tickling him like crazy. At first he got mad but then he couldn't help laughing. I swear I've never met anyone as ticklish as him. "C'mon Darry!" He laughed. "Stop it!" I tickled him until he was crying with laughter and then finally stopped. "Butt head." He said, pushing me gently. I laughed. I hadn't been called that for years.

"So, now that you're not being as hostile towards me why don't you tell me what you had on your mind?" I asked.

He sighed. "It doesn't matter anymore."

"How come?" I asked.

"Because it just doesn't." I reached down like I was gonna tickle him again and he gave in. "Ok, ok." He said. He reached into his bag and pulled out this sheet of paper. I needed you to sign this and give me ten dollars so I could compete in this tournament earlier today. You wouldn't let me tell you though so I missed it."

I swallowed hard as I looked at the paper. "Oh baby, I'm sorry." I said. Gosh I felt horrible.

He shrugged. "Like I said. It don't matter anymore. That happened at noon. There's always next year anyways." He said but that was a huge lie. I know how upset he was even though he was trying to hide it and not to cry.

"Ponyboy, I-"

"The coach could only pick six kids off the Tulsa track team to compete." Pony said softly. "I was one of the six that he picked. I wonder who took my place."

I don't think I've ever felt so disgusted with myself in my entire twenty one years of living. I put my hand on his shoulder. "Pony, I'm SO sorry." I said. "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry, baby." He nodded and stuffed the piece of paper back into his bag. I sighed, thinking hard of some way that I could make it up to him. "Hey, lets all go get some dinner and see a movie. Just you, me, and Sodapop." I said.

He looked up at me surprised. "But you have to-"

"Don't worry about Katherine. We'll find a sitter. Guys night out."

"Tonight?" Pony asked. I nodded. "You mean it?"

I smiled. "Yeah, I mean it."

"But it's almost eight and if we leave now we'll get back around one. Not to mention you hate movies."


I shrugged. "So we'll have a late night and I can bare to see one movie. Besides me and Soda don't have work tomorrow anyways so we can stay out as long as you want. We'll do whatever you and Soda want. You name it and we'll do it."

"Tuff!" he yelled and jumped on me, giving me a huge hug.

"Whoa there little buddy. Calm down." I laughed and hugged back.

He grinned widely at me and scrambled off his bed. "I'm gonna go tell Soda!" I smiled and got up, to get ready myself. Taking them out tonight wouldn't make up for what I caused Pony to miss out on but at least it was something. The last time we all went out and did something together was the rumble right before Johnny and Dally died and that certainly didn't count.

"Hey, Dar. I bet Amanda would watch the kid." Soda said, when I walked out into the living room. I had showered and changed out of my filthy working attire.

"That'd be tuff if she would." I said. "Would you call her."

"Sure thing." Soda said, picking up the phone. Ponyboy was practically bouncing off the walls by this time. Gosh, do I really neglect him that much that he gets this excited when I spend time with him? I thought to myself. Note to self: make sure to spend quality time with Ponyboy at least three times a week- if possible.