Chapter 5
Hey, Kate here, this is the chapter where Summer meets the gang. I decided
to have them move into the poor neighborhood, because of the reasons I
explained/ gave in this chapter. I still need suggestions about who from
the gang, should Summer date. And who Rain should like/go out with. I was
thinking maybe Darry with Summer, since they have a lot in common, and
they're alike. And I'm going for Pony for Summer, but I could change it
according to the amount of reviews I get, against it. Anyway, without
further ado, here's chapter 5.
The new Neighborhood
~ Summer P.O.V. ~
The next 4 hours of the ride was long and boring. I slept half of the time
and my stomach was better, I wanted to read, but Rain wouldn't let me. She
said we were making perfect time, and didn't have time to stop, so I could
puke again. So all I did was to stare out the window and watch the other
cars as they passed by. Jake was starting to get bored too. He had slept
too much and now he was crabby. Every 5 minutes he would ask,
"Are we there yet?" and every time, Rain's answer would be the same answer,
"No". At some point I couldn't take it anymore, so I told him to shut up.
He was quite for a while until he started to bawl. I felt bad.
"I'm sorry, Jakie" he wouldn't stop crying. "I promise I'll make it up to
you, how would you like some gummy worms when we get to Tulsa." I couldn't
give 'em to him now, because they were in my suitcase in the back.
He sniffled, "Ok". I smiled, but Rain gave me a cold look, she never like
me shutting him up or bribing him with candy.
I had a terrible headache. I had taken 2 aspirins when we had stopped but
it didn't help much. I wanted to take a third one but Rain yelled at me
and told me if I wanted to kill myself then I should go ahead. After she
said that, I reached into my backpack and was taking the aspirin bottle
out, but she knocked it out of my hand and told me that she was just being
sarcastic. Ha, ha. besides 3 aspirins couldn't kill me, if I took like 6
or 7 then maybe, but not 3. I took one anyway, ignoring Rain's command not
to, when we stopped again for gas. Rain was paying for the gas, and I just
swallowed one real quickly. Jake was too busy playing with his toy truck
so he hadn't seen either. It helped but not much.
An hour or so later, I was happy to see the sign that said "Welcome to
Tulsa" Rain was telling me something about the house, but I didn't listen,
I would see it for myself soon, anyway. We drove past some nice houses. I
saw a house that had a "for sale" sign then "sold" over it. I looked over
the house carefully. It was a pretty nice house. It was blue with a pink
door. I was kinda disappointed when we drove past it. I really thought
that was it. We drove until we were far east from the nice neighborhoods.
The houses here were, sorta old and small. We drove into a street, the big
red sign on a fairly big, not too old house, caught my eye. It had a "for
sale" sign, just like the one on the other house and "sold" over it. That
must be it, I thought. Not too bad, giving the circumstances that Rain
will be in school and probably won't have a good job. The house must be
all paid for though, with the money we got from our other house, when we
sold it. This house wasn't worth as much as our old one, but it was pretty
big, just kinda old.
As we got closer to the house, I noticed the house right next to it. It
was smaller than ours and maybe older. There were 4 boys in front of the
house, 3 of them were crowded around the one in the middle and one of them
was yelling, "Happy Birthday Pony!" Pony? I thought that must be the boy
in the middle's name. What an interesting choice for a boy's name. The
guy that was singing happy birthday to Pony looked around 18 or 19. He had
long rusty colored side burns. The boy standing next to him looked around
17 or maybe 18. He was handsome, and had a killer smile. The boy next to
him looked around the same age as the handsome boy. He was sorta taller
than the other ones and had a frown on his face. Maybe he wasn't happy
with all the attention the birthday boy was getting. They watched us as we
drove up to the house next to theirs. Rain parked the car, and turned to
me.
"So, this is our new house!" She yelled.
Jake looked around, I don't think he liked the neighborhood or the people
around much. He was probably acting out. The doctor had said that he was
in shock and denial about our parents' death, and when he came to, it would
be hell for us. Ok, so he didn't actually say that but I knew it would. I
mean, losing his parents and moving to a whole new place, all in less than
2 weeks? It was going to take a long time to get used to.
"It's.." I couldn't find the right words to describe our new house. ".old"
I said slowly.
"I know, but it will have to do; besides it's not that old." Rain said
looking over the house and doubting her own words for a second. I sighed,
"Let's look around then." I said.
We both got out of the car. But Jake would even move an inch from where he
was sitting. Rain opened the door to the back seat, she held out her hand
to Jake, to help him out. He didn't take it, didn't move. Rain turned the
smile on her face to a frown. I just stood there, peeking at the boys next
door.
"What's wrong, sweetie?" Rain asked, concerned. Jake didn't answer.
"Come, on, lets look around our new house." She said, grabbing his hand,
when he didn't take it.
"No, lettme go!" he screamed. I blushed as the boys looked over to see
what the yelling was about. I walked over to Jake's side.
"Don't you want to go see your new room?" I asked, sweetly.
"No!" he yelled. "I wanna stay here!" Rain glanced at me narrow eyed.
What? This wasn't my fault. I apologized after I told him to shut up and
offered candy and he has cheerfully accepted it.
"Ok, then stay here." Rain snapped. She let go of his hand and walked
towards the house. I frowned.
"Come, on Jake, let's go see our house and I'll try to find that gummy
worms I promised you." I said as sweetly as I could. He was about to cave
in when Rain yelled at me to let him do whatever he wants and get my ass
over where she was. I ignored her and went on to helping Jake out of the
car, when I looked over to see Rain with an extremely mad look on her face.
I immediately, basically pulled Jake out of the car and half dragged him
over to the house. I was really blushing, they guys were staring at us,
trying to figure out, who we are and what we were doing. We walked in to
the house leaving the boys staring at us.
The first thing I noticed was the fireplace. It was made out of stone and
had sorta like a reddish, grayish color to it. It was real pretty. We
walked around for a while. There was the living room, connected to the
kitchen. The kitchen had a little bar, just like our old house used to.
Jake's face lit up when he saw the bar. He loved to sit up there. Too bad
we had given away our old stools. We just had to get new ones. There were
3 rooms and 2 bathrooms. There was a big room, with its own little
bathroom. That would probably be Rain's room. The second biggest room
would be mine, the one by the bathroom, and the smallest bedroom would be
Jake's. It was across from mine. I walked into the room, which would be
Jake's fallowed by Rain. There was a window that out looked to the
backyard. The yard was pretty big. Not enough to make a pool in the
middle of, but big enough for us. There were two parallel trees that were
just perfect to put up a hammock. There was also a big branch that I could
tie a tire swing on for Jake. That would make him really happy. Jake
walked into the room.
"How do you like your new room?" I asked.
He frowned. "Hmft!" he said and went back into the living room. Rain
walked back after him, I gave her a pleading look not to be too hard on
him. It was hard for him to lose his parents. She gave me back a look
that said 'it's hard for me too and I really can't take this from him.'
Luckily she didn't yell at him or anything. She just didn't say anything.
We walked out to the car, leaving Jake in the house. Rain popped the trunk
open. I picked up a box, and almost dropped it while trying to pick it up.
"Be careful" Rain said coldly, like it's more important that I don't break
the stuff in the box then not to break my back. "I don't want you to hurt
yourself." I was kinda shocked, she actually cared if I hurt myself or not.
"We have a lot to carry, and I can't carry all this by myself." Of course,
I knew she didn't really care about me, just about herself.
"I know" I said coldly.
After we had carried some of the boxes inside, the boys that lived next
door, started towards me and Rain. We were trying to carry the couch
inside and I had dropped it just as we had lifted it up, out of the truck,
so Rain was yelling me for almost making her drop her side too.
"Come, on! Lift if back up!"
"I'm trying!" I said in a whiney voice. I really was trying! But I just
wasn't strong enough to lift it up. I looked up, 3 guys were walking up
our drive way. 2 of them I had seen when we first came. Pony or whatever
and the real handsome one. The 3rd one I hadn't seen before. He was tall
and had over sized muscles. He was wearing a tight black shirt that showed
every one of his 'em. All three boys' hairs were heavily greased either to
the side or back, and a cowlick in the back. I couldn't stop staring at
them.
"What are you waiting for? I'm about to drop the freakin' thing!" Rain
snapped.
"Huh?" I asked confused.
"Lift it up!!" she said impatiently. When I still wouldn't do anything, she
let go of her side. "Oh, forget it!"
She put her hands on her hips and stared at the couch for a while. "Piece
of shit!" and she kicked the couch, hard. The boys stopped when they
reached us. I stopped trying to lift up the couch, and fell to the ground.
Rain looked up from the couch and saw the boys. She immediately blushed.
She never blushed around boys! She was the most out-going person I have
ever known. She probably blushed because she had sworn in front of boys
she had never met before.
"Hi, we're your neighbors. Can we help you carry something?" The tall boy
with the muscles asked.
"Um, no, we're doing pretty well by ourselves." Rain said, looking at the
couch.
"Are you sure, you seemed to have some trouble with that." the boy that
looked like a goddess said.
"Yea...but than." Rain started to say but I cut her off.
"What are you talking about? We can't lift this up by ourselves! Unless
you want me to break my back or something!" I snapped.
Rain stared at me wide eyed. "I guess we could use some help." She said
finally. "Would you mind?" she asked the boys.
"No, no problem!" the youngest boy, that looked around my age, maybe a
little older, said.
They helped us carry the stuff inside, including the bed, the couch, the tv
and some of the boxes. Every once in a while, I would stop and talk to the
youngest boy, whom I found out his name was Ponyboy. "What an interesting
name" I said when he told me his name.
"Thanks, if you think that's interesting, you should hear my brother's
name." he said.
"What is it?"
"Sodapop"
"Which one, the muscular or the handsome one?" I asked, and then I could
have hit myself. I blushed immediately. "Sorry" I said slowly.
"Oh, it's alright. Everybody thinks Soda's handsome. And we call Darry,
my oldest brother Superman, because of his muscles." He laughed, blushing a
little bit himself, I laughed too.
The boys carried everything in from the truck as me and Rain started
unpacking.
"Thank you" Rain said when they were done. "We wouldn't have been able to
get done today without you. So you said you live next door?"
"Yes." Darry answered. "Where are you guys from?"
"New York" I said. Pony smiled, but I didn't know what was so funny about
it. I just shrugged.
"Really?" Darry asked, "One of our friends lived in New York for a while."
"Hmmm, I'd like to meet him, see which part of New York he lived in." Rain
said. Suddenly the boys' faces went cold. Rain stopped for a second.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing.just.Dallas is dead. He died last year." Pony said. I guess
their friend's name musta been Dallas.
"Oh, I'm so sorry." Rain said.
"It's nothing." Sodapop said. He grinned, it was such a crazy grin that me
and Rain had to grin too.
Darry asked us if we had anything to eat. We didn't. We had to throw
away everything we had in our old fridge, and we hadn't bought anything
extra to eat, we hadn't really thought about it much either. We ended up
going over to the Curtis' to eat. (Curtis is their last name.) We cleaned
up a little bit around the living room. When we were ready to go, I went
to get Jake from his room.