Disclaimer: I am not S.E Hinton and do not own The Outsiders (Well, I do own a copy of the book, muwhahah). All the characters belong to her except any characters that you are unfamiliar with, which are owned by me and any unfamiliar plot.
Author's note: This is my first time writing a Fanfic so be gentle. Read and Review and tell me what you think. Your ideas and comments are welcome. Oh, and this story begins on the first day of school, 1965(I think the movie said it was based on 1966, this is a year prior to the books events). Enjoy!
It was the beginning of the school year. Summer had just ended, and Nina Ambrosia would be joining Will Roger's High School just like the many other freshmen. Her father had just dropped her off, extra early, wishing her good luck and to take care. He knew that she could handle herself, even if this was her first time going to a public school – She had been going to a boarding school since she was 5.
Nina glanced up at the tall building, towering over her. Her bright green eyes sparkled as she admired the architecture. She brushed her long hazel brown hair to the side and slowly walked into the school building, trying to drag her large backpack full of all her textbooks, whilst she still looked up.
There was no one in the corridor, and the lights were not on yet. It was a relief for Nina. Arriving at 7 o'clock had its benefits. She could look around before anyone arrived, that was if she could find her designated locker first.
Nina opened up her backpack and took out a small piece of paper. Written on it was her locker- #216 and the combination to her lock. Nina walked through the dark corridor and took a turn to discover another corridor with lockers #200-250. She found her locker there. It was pretty damaged and beaten-up, but not as harshly as the lockers next to hers.
Nina tried her combination on the lock multiple times, but to no avail did it open. Frustrated, Nina gently banged her head into her locker door. The sound echoed through the corridor.
"What a surprise, an early bird on the first day back!" said a deep and cheery voice from behind her. Nina jumped up, startled and turned to look at the stranger.
"Good Morning. My name is Nina Ambrosia and I'm a freshman." Nina said in a polite, but still startled voice. The stranger looked to be a man in his early 30s. He looked at her and smiled. Nina simply started to fidget her glasses gently, a habit of hers when she was shy or embarrassed, particularly by someone who was of higher authority.
"Nina Ambrosia? Oh, that's right, you're one of the many new students to join us this year. I'm Mr. Syme. You signed up for advanced English right? I'll be your teacher for the rest of this year. How do you do?" said the man, looking at her unopened locker. "Seems you're having trouble opening your locker. May I be of assistance?" Nina nodded, trying not to look too helpless.
"I wasn't sure which way to enter my combination" Nina said, looking at her combination lock.
"Oh, Is that all? Just turn the handle to the right when you enter your first number. Then to the left for the second and back to the right for your third and pull the lock down."
Nina did as he had said, and the lock did open. Nina felt like a child, having not being able to open the lock earlier. Mr. Syme smiled at her and told her that he'd be seeing her in the assembly hall when the bell rang, with all the other students.
Nina managed to carefully assemble all her textbooks into her small locker. To kill time, she took out Great Expectations, a book that she would be studying in English, but decided to read it for fun because she just happened to like reading in general, as she leaned against her locker. She got up to page 5 before she was interrupted by a wave of laughter coming down the hall. A guy was sluggishly walking down the corridor with a girl on his back, ramming against the walls as if drunk. The boy had slick combed brown hair and was wearing a sleeveless shirt with the Mickey Mouse logo on it and worn out jeans. The girl on his back had curly blonde hair and denim pants with a white T-shirt and a denim jacket. Both looked like seniors to her. They were laughing as they continued on down the corridor. When they saw Nina, they stopped laughing and stared as they continued on. Nina tried smiling cheerful, even though she was a bit shy, but was replied with one cocked eyebrow by the boy and a dirty look by the blonde.
Nina didn't comprehend what just happened, and looked back at her book. Not to soon was she interrupted again by more voices. She looked down the corridor and saw that students had finally showed up and were heading to their lockers. The freshmen in particular were looking around for where their designated lockers were. A beautiful girl with bright red hair wearing a yellow cardigan and creamy orange skirthad walked up to Nina and stopped next to her.
"Oh, sorry" Nina said, moving to the side. The redhead opened the locker to the right of Nina's.
"Hi there. You must be a freshman. I'm Sherri. Sherri Valance, but my friends call my Cherry because of my hair," the redhead said, grinning at Nina.
"O-Oh, Hello. I'm Nina Ambrosia. And yes, I'm a freshman" Nina replied politely. She fidgeted with her glasses again. The redhead smiled at her and looked at what she was wearing. "You must be one of us," she said, looking at the way Nina was dressed. She wore a black dress that had white frills at the end of her sleeves and neck. The dress went a bit past her thighs, and there were more white frills that extended down to her knees. She also had white stockings and wore a pair of polished black schoolgirl shoes. Nina didn't understand what Cherry meant by that remark, but that was answered unexpectedly.
"Soc" shouted a scruffy looking boy between coughs as he walked down past the two girls. Nina stood there, completely dumb struck.
"I'm guessing you must be an out-of-towner. A Soc is the slang way of describing the Socials, the upper class of Tulsa; You and me," Cherry said, reading Nina's expression. "That boy was a Greaser. In other words – A Hood. You should watch out for Greasers like him. They're mostly the underprivileged East Side kids and they don't like us Socs." Nina looked puzzled. I'm a Soc? She thought. Nina had never really had a title or ever fitted to any particular group back at her boarding school. Mostly, she was just too shy to be a part of one. Cherry stopped the conversation there and started to fiddle around with the books in her locker.
Soon enough, the corridors and hallways were full of returning students from over the long summer holidays. People were yelling and shouting, greeting each other and going on about how great or how horrible their holiday was. The freshmen just stood in their friendship groups from Junior High. A girl Nina's age walked up to the locker on her left. The girl was wearing jeans and a T-shit with groovy colours on it. Her earth coloured hair was short and bounced when she took steps. The girl looked down at the book still in Nina's hand.
"Howdy! You're reading Great Expectations! That's so neat! I'm Millis Rowett," said the girl with a cheery southern accent.
"Hello. I'm Nina Ambrosia, Nice to meet you." Nina felt like a record player that just kept repeating the same song over and over. "I'm not supposed to read this book till we study it in English, but I just love all the works by Charles Dickens, not to mention books in general". Millis' jaw dropped.
"Wow! I thought I was going to be the only book worm startin' this year" she replied with joy in her voice. Millis hugged Nina, who dropped her book by the sudden gesture. Nina giggled and picked up her book and put a bookmark at the page where she stopped, placing it neatly into her locker.
Millis cracked open her combination lock as if she had done it many times before. As she opened her locker, a whole heap of scrunched up papers, apple cores and blunt pencils fell out onto her. Cherry let a giggle out and walked off waving to the two. Nina just looked at Millis who had her eyes wide open.
"Oh great. They gave me a friggin' garbage bin". Nina sighed and started helping Millis pick up the mess and put it into a nearby trash bin. A few juniors passing by giggled as they watched Nina and Millis clean the mess. One boy in particular told Nina not to get her dress dirty. She cheeks got red from embarrassment. Millis knew he was being rude to her, and would have loved to hit him for her. Nina saw the expression on her face, and realized that this girl was tough, which was a good thing in a way, but stopped her from doing so.
"I think we should be heading to the assembly hall now" Nina told Millis once the rubbish had been picked up. Nina and Millis locked their lockers and headed down the hall followed by freshmen and returning students. Nina took a sharp turn to the right and bumped into someone, falling straight back onto the floor, her glasses sliding off her face and landing on the floor.
"Hey, are you alright?." Said a voice ruefully. The person helped Nina up, and Millis gave Nina her glasses. Nina put them straight on and stared at the person. He was a boy who couldn't have been older than 14. He had gentle greyish green eyes, and light brown hair that was greased and combed to the back.
"Shoot, Ponyboy, why do you care? She's just another one of 'em Socs," commented a boy with slick oily hair that was combed in complicated swirls, leaning against the wall next to a boy with golden hair and a movie star smile. Nina felt her ears get hot. It was the second time that morning that she was addressed as something that she didn't even truly know she was until Cherry had informed her. Nina looked back at the boy who helped her up.
"Oh, no. It was my fault. I'm terribly sorry. I should have been looking where I was going" Nina said politely. Millis stared at her in utter disbelief.
"Nina! It was his fault and you know it." Millis yelled at Nina, then turned towards the boy with the slick hair. "And you. Shut your mouth greaser and learn some manners or two." Millis grabbed Nina by the arm and marched her down the hall to the assembly room. Nina looked back at the boy sympathetically. She wished that little incident had gone a lot better.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter. More to come : D The next chapter starts getting a bit exciting, or at least builds up the plot. Thanks to my friends for giving me ideas. And just normal things that happen during the day :P