My eyes popped open as the shrill sound of the ambulance siren flooded my hearing. Instinctively I put my hand up to my neck to see if I had been shot again. There was no wound. Not knowing where I was I tried to sit up. When I did my breath fell short and I coughed and gagged.
"Hold on there. Just lie still." The gray haired paramedic pushed down on my shoulder to be sure I didn't try to sit up again.
I looked at the older man and stayed on my back. "What… happened? Was… was I shot?"
"No." The medic had a look of confusion on his face. "You were in a fire, went in to save your friend, they say."
"But, I … thought I heard gunfire?" I said hoarsely. I was sure I had heard the sound of Duke Dobbins' gun.
The man smiled gently and spoke. "I don't know nothing about gunfire, but I do know that everyone on Jay Mountain was talking about how you and your friends are quite the pack of heroes. You saved all those little children from sure death."
His words reminded me of why I was on the mountain to begin with. "The others?" I coughed again. "What happened … to them?"
A comforting smile crossed the man's face and he patted me on the forehead. "I don't know little darling. I was just in charge of takin' care of you. We'll know more when we get to the hospital in a minute."
"Hospital?" I breathed in and could smell the lingering smoke in my hair and clothing even with the oxygen tube in my nose. "What hospital am I going to?"
"Tulsa Memorial."
Tulsa, I was headed home. I closed my eyes and thought of how Ponyboy had been laying lifeless near the church. My stomach turned and my eyes began to tear at the mere thought of my brother being dead. When the ambulance stopped the rear door was pulled open and again my body was pulled through the doors of the emergency room. As I rolled down the hall I looked to my right and left for Ponyboy, but he was nowhere to be found. The gurney rolled into the treatment room and the controlled chaos of the hospital staff swirled around me just as they had weeks before.
"Hi there honey. What's your name?" The female nurse had a sweet drawl and a pretty smile. She stood by my side, clipboard in hand.
"Scout Marie Curtis." I said and my head began to throb harder from the bright overhead lights.
The nurse paused a moment and I figured she was familiar with my name. I wasn't sure if she had been working in the emergency room the day I was shot or if she had become familiar with my last name from the newspapers. She never let on to which one was the reason. "Sweetie we heard about what you all did in Windrixville. Us nurses here at the hospital are real proud of you all." She paused to check her watch as she took my blood pressure. "Only problem is, you've got yourself a case of smoke inhalation so we are going to have to check you out before we let you go home."
Home! That sounded good, but what about my brother? "Mam', the boys I came in with…" I choked on the strong emotions welling up inside my throat. "Are any of them... did they?" Tears rolled down my cheeks and I began to cry.
"Shhh. Just relax there honey." The nurse gently stroked my filthy hair. "I don't know anything, but I'll have someone find out for ya. How's that sound?" She didn't wait for and answer. Her words were merely idle and meant to comfort and calm me. Instead she went about speaking to the doctor in medical terms, which I could barely understand.
The doctor and nurses spent a fair amount of time asking me questions about how I felt and checking my vital signs. When I had pulled myself together emotionally they gave me an "ok" bill of health and let me sit up to get ready to leave. I dangled my legs off the edge of the bed. Looking across the room into a mirror was the first chance I had to see myself. My sweatshirt had large burn holes in it and my face and hair were covered in soot, other then the tear streaks down the sides of my cheeks.
A nurse's aid walked into the trauma room and noticed my stare. "Don't you worry none about how you look. I'll get you a few towels and you can clean up in the bathroom." The large woman gently grabbed my hand. "Come on darlin' you are free to go. It's my job to walk you out." I slid off the gurney and let me feet hit the ground one foot at a time for fear I would be dizzy. When I convinced myself I was all right I slowly walked hand in hand with the lady to the waiting area. "Girl, you sure got a nice looking set of boys waiting out here for you." She pushed open the door and I saw all three of my brothers sitting together in the hallway looking exhausted.
Sodapop looked my way and called out with relief. "Scout!" He jumped to his feet, ran down the hall, and wrapped his arms around me. "You're OK! Gosh, Darry and I don't know whether to kiss you or skin you!"
"I'll take the kiss." I told him and buried my face into the crook of his neck. He smelled good.
Darry jogged down the hall and grabbed a hold of me. "Sissy…" That's all he could muster before he broke into tears. I hugged him tight and looked over at Ponyboy who had joined us.
"Pony… I was so worried you were dead." I cried as hard as Darry while Ponyboy assured me he was fine.
The scene at the hospital was overwhelming as reporters and photographers showed up to be the first to get the heroic story. The four of us posed for our picture over a dozen times and a handful of reporters continued to ask us the same questions over and over again. By the end of the night my head ached worse, my voice was nearly gone and all I wanted was to go home and go to bed, which we finally did after Darry talked alone with the police one last time. Those private conversations made me nervous. Anything that couldn't be said around us couldn't be good.
The four of us squeezed into the cab of the truck and Darry commented that if Ponyboy and I got any bigger Sodapop was going to have to ride in the back. I joked with Soda that it didn't bother Ponyboy and I that he may need to ride in the truck box. On the drive home I crawled onto Soda's lap and Ponyboy fell asleep between our two brothers. Pony must have been real tired because none of us could wake him up when we got home. Darry finally gave up trying and had to carry him into the house and put him to bed.
With the strong odor of smoke still trapped in my hair I changed into my pajamas and climbed into my own bed. At first I tossed and turned but couldn't sleep even though I was tired. Images of the fire kept running through my head as if the incident were a movie. Each time I could hear Johnny's terrified scream for help. At one point the image of being trapped inside the church with Dallas was so strong that my body felt overwhelmed with heat and I had to kick off my covers to cool down. After the visual memories faded voices took their place. The one that kept me awake was the doctor's "… If he lived he'd be crippled for life…" Even though I had seen Johnny trapped under the burning timber I couldn't seem to believe the prognosis. Finally I decided I didn't like being in my room alone, so I grabbed my pillow and quilt and tiptoed into Soda and Pony's room. It was there, on the floor next to Ponyboy, I felt the most comfortable as I fell asleep fast on the hardwood floor.
The early morning sun woke me as it peeked through the window blinds. Above me I heard Ponyboy stir in his bed. "Ponyboy? Are you awake?" I whispered.
"Yeah," Pony said quietly then rolled to look down at me, resting his cheek on the edge of the bed. "What are you doing down there?"
"Couldn't seem to sleep without you." I smiled lightly then remembered my fear from the middle of the night. "Last night I had a nightmare …how'bout you? Did you have one?"
Ponyboy paused I could tell in his eyes that he did even before he told me so. "Yeah, but I don't remember what about. Scared me so bad I almost didn't fall back to sleep."
I looked at my brother and talked just above a whisper so I didn't wake Sodapop. "Did you have nightmares at the church?"
Ponyboy's eyes drifted away in thought before returning to look into my eyes. "No, not that I remember. I do remember dreaming a lot about home. Things like playing football, hanging out in the lot with Soda, Sandy, Darry and..." Ponyboy stopped his description at the site of my eyes growing wide. "What?"
"Pony, Sandy aint here no more."
"What do you mean?" Ponyboy furrowed his brow. His dark eye brows contrasted with his bleach blond hair.
"Her family sent her to live with her grandmother in Florida." I reached under my head and fluffed my pillow up.
"Florida? Why Florida?"
I rolled my eyes because Pony didn't get the gist of the story. "Pony she got pregnant. Soda wanted to marry her, but she didn't want anything to do with him. It wasn't even his baby."
"Wow." Ponyboy simply said as he momentarily picked up his head to look at Sodapop who was still asleep. Pony laid his head back down and asked. "How'd Soda take it?"
"Not well. He was crushed, but he wouldn't let nobody know it but me and Darry." I took a moment and thought about the past week. So much had happened at home that Ponyboy didn't know about. "Pony it was pretty miserable around here without you. I couldn't eat or sleep or think. In fact I haven't done a lick of homework all week. We're both gonna have a lot of work to do on Monday."
"You aint done your school work? What'd Darry have to say about that?"
"Nothing, he doesn't know yet. He was so upset every night that he never asked once about my homework. I think his mind was preoccupied with worrying about all of us." I sighed heavy and stared at the ceiling. "I was a mess, Sandy broke Sodapop's heart, and with you gone and in trouble I don't know how Darry ever got some sleep." I looked my brother in the eyes. "He cried every night…and most of the mornings. He really does love you Ponyboy."
"I know that now." There was a long pause as we both thought about how good to us Darry really was then Ponyboy had another question. "Scout, how did you end up with Dallas yesterday?"
"Well, I got sick of waiting for you to come home so I decided to go look for you." I flashed a clever smile and cocked an eyebrow. "I had a good hunch Dally would lead me right to you so Friday morning I followed him."
"How did you know Dally knew where we were?"
"Early in the week Sodapop went to talk to Dallas after the cops let him go. Soda found your sweatshirt in Dally's room at Buck's place."
"Oh, but how did you convince Dally to bring you to where we were hiding?"
"I told him I would follow him day and night and never leave him alone. He must have believed me because he gave in real easy and let me come with." My mind drifted off to the church all alone on the top of Jay Mountain. "Was it scary being at the church?'
"Yeah, sometimes. You know me, I don't like being alone too much unless I'm reading or at a movie or something."
"Did ya'll have food?" I asked as questions popped into my head about how the two boys survived.
"Dallas gave us fifty bucks so Johnny bought us some groceries before our descriptions hit the papers." Ponyboy made a sick expression with his face. "We had baloney nearly everyday. Johnny liked it but after one day I could barely stand it."
"What did you do all day?"
"Talked, played cards… Johnny bought the book Gone With The Wind so I read that out loud. I love that book." Pony said and glanced over at the stack of books on his desk that he loved almost as much.
My mind wandered to the past. "That sure was some fire."
"Yeah." Pony said with similar memories in his head.
"I'm proud of you." I looked up at my brother as the sunlight grew stronger in the room. "I don't think I would have had the same courage to run in there to save those kids if you and Johnny hadn't gone in there first."
"You would of. Hell anyone of us in this family would have." Pony declared and we fell silent just long enough to hear Darry's footsteps in the hall coming to wake Sodapop for work.
Our brother came in through the door and walked around to Ponyboy's side of the bed almost stepping on me. "Scout, what are you doing down there?"
"I wanted to sleep next to Ponyboy." I smiled and Darry smiled back at the two of us. Not just a normal smile. It was one of those pride filled smiles you would see on the face of a father.
"It sure is good to have you home Ponyboy." Darry rubbed the tattered mess of blond hair on Pony's head. "That goes for you too Sissy! From now on I don't want no one in this family running off. You two understand? There is no need for that. There's nothing we can't get through as a family, we've proven that!" Darry's voice was stern but the smile on his face told us he was trying to be gentle, the way our dad always was.
"Ok Darry." I spoke for Pony and I.
"Good. Now the two of you oughtta get out of bed and take a shower. Neither one of you smell too good." Darry smiled wide at his joke. We couldn't help but laugh along because Darry wasn't known in the family for being funny. Our oldest brother stood up and looked at Sodapop. "Make it quick cause Soda's gonna need to shower too if I can pry him out of bed."
A shower sounded like a good idea so Ponyboy and I headed to the bathroom. As we walked through the kitchen I could see Ponyboy rubbing hard at his forehead. "Are you ok?" I asked.
Ponyboy looked back at me. His eyes told me not to ask again because he was lying. "Yeah, I'm ok." In the bathroom Ponyboy grabbed his toothbrush and ran water across the bristles while I started the water for my shower. I always showered first since it took so long for my hair to dry.
"You gonna tell Darry about your nightmare?" Ponyboy didn't answer immediately so I encouraged him to trust our brother a little more. "You know he'll wanna know."
"Yeah, I'll tell him." Ponyboy said and wandered out of the bathroom to give me some privacy. I wouldn't care if he had stayed. It wasn't uncommon for us to all use the bathroom while someone else was in there. I guess that's what happens when you only have one bathroom and your family is close.