Disclaimer and A/N: I own nothing here except Cinnamon and a couple of the teachers. SE Hinton, the wonderful author who made me want to write young adult novels, has that honor. Thank you to all of you who took the time to read and review this. I truly appreciate it and Cinnamon is very happy, after all these years, to be out of my head.

-- Sox

Chapter 13

Two days later, I waited after school for Mrs. Mayron. Pony had been working on his English paper just about nonstop, and he was going to try to finish it in the school cafeteria while I tried to get her to explain the geometric gibberish to me.

Mrs. Mayron came down the hall, looked at me frostily, and went into her classroom. I followed her stubbornly.

"What do you want, Miss Curtis?" she snapped.

"I want to understand geometry." I sat down at her study table, opened my book, and glared at her.

"I told you --"

"You told me you didn't have to teach murders and hoodlums," I interrupted. "Well, I ain't neither one. But even if I was, you'd still have to teach me because this is a public school and my brother pays taxes just like those rich Soc parents."

"Get out of my classroom," she said. She looked horrified. Completely horrified. And something else – she looked scared.

"Something wrong?" Mr. Decker stuck his head in the door. He taught math, too, but to the older grades, trig and calculus.

"Miss Curtis was just leaving," Mrs. Mayron said.

"No, Miss Curtis needs help with geometry and my brother says it's your job to give it even if you do think I'm no good," I retorted.

We stared at each other. Mr. Decker said, "You're Cinnamon, right? I had Darrel in Trig. Come on next door and we'll figure out why you're confused." And then he gave Mrs. Mayron a look that would have frozen a thousand suns. It was wonderful. I never had a grown-up take up for me like that, except my parents. And Darry.

An hour later, I wasn't a math genius, but I was well on my way to being less puzzled. Mr. Decker was patient and he was funny and nice, too. I remember Darry liked him, and I could see why.

"You'll figure it out," he said encouragingly as I left. "Then next year, we'll make sure you're in my class."

I went after Ponyboy, who'd fallen asleep over his notebook. He was finally done, and slipped the assignment under Mr. Syme's door before we left. I dragged him to the Dingo for a Coke to celebrate.

He sat across from me, drinking his Coke and smoking, and eventually said, "Hey, do you think we really could?"

"Could what?"

"Go to college," he said.

I thought about it for a minute. "Yeah," I said finally. "I think we'd have to work and get scholarships, but I think maybe we could."

"We should bring Darry," he said thoughtfully. "He should be able to finish if he wants to."

I grinned. "We'll just wait for you to graduate and we'll all go together," I said. "Soda can fix cars. People everywhere have cars."

"Holy cow." Pony gestured across the crowded floor. "Lookit that."

It was Sylvia, Dally's girl – or she'd been Dally's girl until she cheated on him for the millionth time and he'd finally had enough. She was unsteady on her high heels and she spotted us and tottered over, falling into the seat next to me. Her breath blew in my face. Not even five o'clock, and she was drunk.

"Cinnamon," she said brightly, as if we were long-lost friends, "how are you doing?"

"I'm fine, Sylvie," I answered.

"I miss him," she said dramatically. "I miss Dallas. You must miss Johnny something awful."

I heard Ponyboy's breath catch. He stubbed out his cigarette and shot me a look and we both stood up. I had no desire to discuss Johnny with Sylvia. She'd been awful to him, jealous, I realized now, that Dally paid him so much attention, and she'd tease him and try to get him to touch her and embarrass him to death. She hadn't loved Dally, either, not really. His death was just an excuse for her to act like something important had happened to her.

"No, you should stay, Cinnamon," Sylvia slurred. "I'll buy you a beer – no one will tell your brothers. We can talk. We got somethin' in common, now. We both lost our boys."

I looked at her, her brassy dyed hair and thick makeup and her tiny skirt, smelling of whiskey and it wasn't yet dinner time. "No, thanks," I said, pushing Pony behind me and toward the door. "I ain't nothing like you."

When report cards came out two weeks later, they weren't great, but they were better than any of us had expected. Both Pony and I had made noticeable slips, but Darry didn't fuss too much because he knew we were trying. I pulled off a C in Geometry and I hope it killed Mrs. Mayron to give me the B I'd gotten on my last test. Ponyboy ended up with a C in English, which had never happened. He confided to me that he'd been flunking but Mr. Syme liked his essay so much he passed him.

"Was that the thing you wrote for like forty hours straight?" I asked. "He should have given you an A based on time and effort."

"That's the one." He looked at me shyly. "You want to read it?"

I gaped at him. "You want to let me?" I knew Pony wrote well, and I knew he wrote poetry and little stories sometimes, and he could draw, too – but usually the pieces of paper were well-hidden or destroyed. We would never make fun of him, and I think he knew that, but I also think he lived in mortal fear that some musing about a sunset would end up in Two-Bit's hands.

"Yeah." Pony's voice was more serious than I'd heard it in a long time. "Yeah, I think I do."

The theme filled up a whole notebook. I sat on my bed and read it straight through. It took me almost two hours. He kept sticking his head in and I kept waving him off. It was all about us. About Soda and Darry and me, and what had happened that night in the park and after. It was about being fourteen and losing your parents. It was about having a family and having real friends, friends who were family too, even though they weren't really related to you.

When I was done, I just sat there and waited, and he wandered back in, as I knew he would. "Oh, glory, Cinny – I'm sorry," he said, when he realized I was crying.

"No, no – Pony, this is wonderful," I stammered, trying to stop. "I didn't know – oh, man. You made Johnny alive again. And Dallas, it's just how he was -- it's so real, it's just like it happened, just like – Pony, this is amazing"

I flipped back to the beginning and got all choked up again. My sister is kind and strong and beautiful, he'd written. She looks like our mother, and sometimes when I feel sad or scared, it helps to just go sit by her. "You never told me that," I said.

He shrugged, halfway between sheepish and embarrassed.

"And you love Soda best, huh?" I teased.

Ponyboy looked stricken. "I didn't mean – I mean, it's not that I don't love you or Darry, I just --"

I held up one hand. "It's okay. I love him best too. How can you not?" I handed Pony his essay back. "You should tell him that."

He rolled his eyes. Of course he wouldn't.

"And Pony?" I said as he was leaving. "You should save that notebook forever."

I put on my nightgown and brushed my teeth and wandered into the living room. Darry was sitting on the couch waiting for the news. A commercial for "I Dream of Jeannie" was on.

"Nice shirt," I said of Jeannie's outfit.

"Over my dead body," Darry answered.

I watched him for a minute, thinking about Pony's theme. In geometry, I was finally understanding, some things are called "givens." You don't have to monkey around with them to make them work. They just are. You start with the givens and then you can figure out your problems. You prove your answer.

We were like that. We loved each other. We were a family. Those were the givens. But it's nice to hear it every now and then, isn't it?

I went over to Darry and sat next to him. "Hey, Darry."

"Hey what? Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"I'm going. I wanted to say good night." I hesitated a split second and then I hugged him, hard, like I had that night in the hospital after the fire. After a surprised moment, he hugged me back.

"What's all this about?" he asked.

"Nothing," I said. "I just love you. Thank you for not putting us in foster homes."

It sounded completely stupid, but I meant it with all my heart. Darry must have known that because he just said hoarsely, "Why, you're welcome, Cinny-spice" before he kissed my cheek and let me go.

I went into Pony and Soda's room. They were in bed, but Pony was reading and Soda was fussing at him to turn out the light. I crawled in between the two of them.

"Cinny, you can't stay here," Soda complained.

"I came in to say goodnight."

"Goodnight," he smiled. Soda really is a beautiful boy. I know boys are usually called handsome, but Soda had some quality that flowed out of him, from somewhere inside of him, that made him beautiful in some sort of a masculine way. It wasn't just his good looks -- he was kind and loyal and sweet. Some girl, some girl better than Sandy, would be lucky to have him. We were lucky to have him.

I kissed his cheek. "I love you. Thanks for being such a great brother."

He raised one eyebrow at me, looking, for a brief second, like Two-Bit. "I love you, too, but you still can't sleep here. Scat."

Pony put his book down and sat up, looking at me curiously, then held out his arms. I scooted into them. He was going to be tall like Darry – even though I was a year and a half older, I fit right under his chin.

"Thanks for coming after me," he whispered in my ear.

"Thanks for letting me read your theme," I whispered back.

We sat there for a minute, and then Soda said in an exasperated voice, "Good glory, could y'all maybe do that at a decent hour? I know I said I didn't want any more fights and this is nice and all, but I have to get up for work in the morning."

I went into my own room and got into bed. The house was settling down for the night. I heard Darry brushing his teeth, the creak of Soda and Pony's bed as they got comfortable, the hum of the fridge.

"Soda?" I called.

"What?"

"Did you make cake?"

"'Course I did," he answered. "Go to sleep."

"You won't eat any anyway," Pony said.

"I might."

"You won't."

"Better than blue eggs for breakfast."

"Cinny, you don't eat breakfast."

"Enough of that, quiet down," Darry said sternly. I snuggled under the quilt, feeling content and safe, maybe for the first time since Mom and Dad died. You don't mind so much when someone's stern with you when you're sure they love you.

The End