Chapter 6: A Little Learning

The next morning Louis woke up in a cold sweat. He had a dream about something horrible. Someone was walking towards him, and Louis couldn't move. The guy was smiling too. He had a bag in his hand. That's when Louis woke up. It was actually the worst dream he had ever had.

Louis sat up and ran his hands through his brown hair. He was glad he was in the Curtis' living room. He got up. Darry had ironed a shirt and pants for Louis.

Louis got up. He put on the old button up shirt and blue jeans. He kinda liked the shirt. He had never had one like this. Louis looked up when Darry had stuck his head out of kitchen doorway.

"Breakfast. Come on in."

"Okay. I'm hungry anyway."

Louis walked in and was surprised to see what was on the table.

"Cake?" he said pointing towards the breakfast.

"Not just any cake," said Soda behind Louis. He almost made him jump.

"Chocolate cake. You should try it."

Louis sat down walked around to the other side of the table while Soda grabbed a fistful of cake and threw it on a plate.

"Sodapop," started Darry. "You better have washed your hands. Where's Ponyboy?"

"Taking his shower," answered Sodapop with his mouth filled with cake.

At that moment, Ponyboy walked in saying 'morning' to everyone. Everyone said morning back and Pony sat down to get his breakfast. After a while of eating and talking, Louis had gotten up and Soda asked,

"Hey Louis. While you're up, can you get me some chocolate milk out of the refrigerator?"

"Uh. Sure."

Louis stuck his head into the refrigerator. He looked around for a second and grabbed a carton off the shelf. He closed the door and extended the carton out to Soda. Soda looked at the carton confused. He then looked back at Louis.

"Um. This is regular milk."

"It is?"

"Yeah. Look at the carton."

Louis took a glance at it. Then went back the refrigerator. Darry got up and got behind Louis. Louis was searching through the refrigerator for the milk. Darry got confused too. The carton of chocolate milk was right in front of him. Louis finally got the right carton and gave it to Soda. Darry then came to a conclusion.

"Louis. Can I talk to you in the living room for a minute?"

"Uh…Okay."

Ponyboy and Sodapop looked at eachother. Was Louis in trouble? Louis thought the same thing. He hoped the milk carton thing didn't get in trouble. Louis second fear was being thrown out of the house.

When he got to the living room, Darry picked up a book. He gave it to Louis.

"What kind of book is this?"

Louis just started at the book. He wasn't sure what kind of book it was. He was clueless.

"I-I-I don't know."

Darry just nodded. He stooped down so he could see Louis eye to eye.

"You can't read. Can you?"

Louis just looked downward.

"No," he said quietly.

He was ashamed of not knowing how to read. A lot of people used to pick on him because of that. Darry continued.

"Have you ever been to school?"

Louis shook his head. He was feeling more and more useless by the second. Darry talked to him.

"It's alright. We can teach you. Ponyboy is excellent in English."

Louis brightened a little.

"Really," he said.

"Sure. C'mon on back in the kitchen. Finish breakfast."

Louis smiled. He really felt like he had three brothers. It was great. He followed Darry into the kitchen and finished breakfast. Darry started up,

"Hey, Ponyboy. I'm going to need you to tutor Louis."
"In what?" said Ponyboy looking up.

"He needs to learn to read."

That kinda settled a couple of suspicions Ponyboy had. He really felt something was wrong with Louis. He trusted, he just wanted to know what was wrong with his past. He spoke up.

"Okay. I'll start when we finish breakfast. Is that okay, Louis?"

"Yeah."

Louis felt good. He had never been surrounded by this much care.