A/N: I'll just keep putting this at the beginning of every chapter: This is just a little fun story, not going anywhere specific, and it primarily focuses on some of the characters I created for Ten Years Later. I have to post it on this site instead of on Fictionpress, though, because the cannon characters do appear, and I don't own them (see disclaimer). Have fun, hope you enjoy! Liz

Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders

My Exciting Life and Other Oxymorons
Chapter 3

Independence Day

Is it just me, or does everybody else's simple family outings turn into a tremendous undertaking?

"Gina, I thought you were planning on having Del and Ty with you," Mom asked again.

"Just for the fireworks," I answered, again, patiently. "They're going to be with Robbie during the parade so they can get more candy. I'm watching from in front of Jackie's house, where all of Jackie's old relatives will be sitting in lawn chairs. Most of the candy is going to go to the kids in front of the drugstore. Everyone knows that."

Dad chuckled. "And how many years did this take to figure out?"

"Okay," Mom continued – Mom is a teacher, and she needs to have everything organized to a T – "they'll be with Robbie during the parade, and then Jon will bring them to -"

"No."

Mom sighed. "Just please tell me what's going on so I know where everybody is going to be."

Robbie cleared his throat. "Allow me. Uncle Darry is dropping Del and Ty off by Rem's Furniture Outlet, since it's off the parade route. I'm taking them to the drugstore, where Jon," Robbie used a hand to indicate my brother, who had a mouth full of Cheetos, "will meet us. THEN, at the commencement of the parade, I will unload the little" he glanced a Mom and grinned at the warning look she gave him, "the little tykes on Gina, who will have appeared at the drugstore by then, since she will have been inhabiting an alternate dimension, where the parade will have already finished." Jackie's house is a few blocks down the parade route from the drugstore.

"Then," Jon took over, wiping cheesy orange residue on his shorts, "Robbie and I are skateboarding down to Ryan's house for his family's barbecue -"

"To be appropriately refueled," Robbie added, nodding his head back to Jon, who nodded.

"And then we'll head up to the ball fields to find Gina and her cronies and the cousins, who will have picked out a prime location for firework watching."

"So as soon as those two get to me," I continued, as the next obvious participant in the verbal relay, "I will call Uncle Darry and Aunt Jenn from one of the payphones, since they will have finished painting the Daniels' bathroom by then, so they can come to the house and pick up the two of you," I indicated Mom and Dad, "who will have prepared the cooler with snacks and drinks for all of us."

Mom gave a quick nod. "And what about Jason?"

I shrugged. "He'll probably be with the team after the parade. I'm sure as heck not asking him what he's doing." The high school baseball team had won the division championship, so they were going to be in the parade on one of the fire trucks.

"I have a question," Dad said, raising his hand. "In a field of over nine-hundred people, wouldn't it be a good idea to have a prearranged meeting spot? You do realize it could take over an hour for the two of you to find Gina."

Robbie waved a dismissive hand. "No problem, Dad, I have it all figured out. When we're ready to find Gina, Jon will use his Extra-Sensory Twin Powers to contact her, and they will both then rely on their Super Special Semi-Magnetic Twin Locator Receptors to pinpoint each others' location."

Dad nodded like it was a good idea that he hadn't even thought of. "Great. Brilliant. Have fun at the parade, and don't get run over by any clowns on stilts." He stood up and got us all moving toward the door. "Your ride should be here any second. Go on, out; have fun."

The three of us shuffled out the door. "I think Dad's trying to get rid of us," Robbie commented as we walked up the driveway to wait for Jackie's aunt, who was picking us up.

"Yeah," I agreed. "They must be anxious to start getting the cooler filled up."

Robbie and Jon exchanged a glance. "Uh-huh," Robbie said. "Yeah, that's it."

"What?" I hate when they act like I'm stupid. "Mom already cleaned the house, I put away all the laundry this morning, and Dad said he finished up that thing he was writing. What else is there for them to do?"

They both gave me a look, and it clicked. "Oh! Argh! Ew, do you really think they still…" I couldn't even say it. "I mean, they're parents. They're old and all."

"Gina," Robbie said, draping an arm over my shoulders, "this is one of those subjects that I think we all would like to drop right now, without further discussion or thought. Okay?"

"Okay."

>>>>

"Ty, do you have any more Smarties in there?" I reached over for my cousin's brown paper bag.

He shrugged. "Go ahead and check. I just want the lollipops."

I pulled his bag over and dumped it onto the blanket next to me. Ty is nine, and looks just like his dad, my Uncle Darry. His brother, Del, is eleven. Del's name is really Darrel, like his dad's, but when Ty was little he couldn't say Darrel. It came out "Del", and pretty soon that was what everybody was calling him.

"Here." Del tossed me a packet of Smarties. "You can have mine."

"Aw, thanks, Del!" He smiled when I put my arm around him. "You're the best!"

"Are those your brothers headed this way?" Jackie asked, pointing. Jackie and I have been friends for a little over a year. We knew each other before then, but didn't hang out or anything.

I looked up and let out a relieved sigh. "Finally." They trekked the last twenty feet through the crowd, and Jon flopped down next to me and rolled onto his back. "How long were you looking for us?"

"Oh," Robbie answered, glancing at his watch, "let's see, maybe…hmm…well, technically, it was just a couple of -"

"Seventy-three minutes," Jon finished. "You can go call Uncle Darry now."

"I already did." I reached over and gave him a pat on his stomach where his shirt was pulled up. "You guys were taking too long. It's already getting dark." I waved a hand at Robbie. "Where did you get the soda? Can I have some?" I was so thirsty I was ready to drink the plasticy liquid stuff in the little wax bottles that Del had in his candy bag.

Robbie jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Bought it off a guy back there in a trench coat. He had a nice selection of watches, too." He handed me the soda and smiled at Jackie's new friend Dawn, who was practically rolling on the blanket laughing at him. "It's diet," he warned.

I shrugged. "Whatever." I put the straw up to my lips, but stopped when Jackie gasped. "What?"

She gave me a startled look, like how you look at somebody when they're about to make a life-altering mistake but haven't yet realized it.

"What?" I asked, getting impatient.

Jackie lowered her voice. "Isn't, you know…isn't Robbie…sick?" She glanced up at my brother like she thought he might not have heard her.

Before I could answer, Robbie started coughing, gagging, and clutching his throat, and fell to the ground in a wicked imitation of somebody in the jerking throes of death. He let out one last choking gasp and went limp.

I took a sip of the soda. "Jackie, he's diabetic. He doesn't have cooties."

"Oh." She brushed her dark hair away from her face, clearly still confused. I like Jackie, but she can have some weird ideas.

"You can't catch diabetes from somebody," Jon offered. Jackie still didn't look convinced.

Dawn cleared her throat loudly.

"Oh!" I took another swallow of the soda and handed it back to Robbie. "Guys, this is Dawn. She moved in down the street from Jackie a couple of weeks ago. Dawn, these are my brothers, Jon and Robbie."

My brothers said their hellos, and Robbie sat down next to me. "How was Ryan's?" I asked.

"Good," Jon said. "Lots of kids stopped by. We're forming some baseball teams for the summer, to play over in the fields at Venue Park."

"Oh yeah?" I tried to look interested, but could feel my brain stretching to think about something else, like when you have your foot holding the door open while you're trying to reach something that's just out of your grasp.

Jon pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket. "We've got eight so far on our team."

"Sounds good." What had he said? I was watching some older kids who were walking by waving those light-up necklaces around. Dad used to get us those at the carnival. I wonder how they make them light up? Would you die if you accidentally swallowed the stuff inside, or would your eyes glow or something?"

"- our bikes over for the games." Jon gazed at me for a few seconds. "You didn't hear a word I said, did you?"

I tried to look insulted. "Of course I did! Baseball. And you're riding your bikes over."

Jon shook his head in a gesture of defeat.

"Hey guys, we're here." Dad and Uncle Darry dropped the cooler onto the edge of the blanket with a thump.

"Here, if anyone wants to sit down, we brought some chairs," Mom offered, setting down the lawn chairs she was carrying. I declined. Who sits in a lawn chair to watch fireworks?

Jason showed up a few minutes later, after I was done introducing Dawn around, so I went through the routine one more time. "Hey," Jason greeted.

Dawn, who kind of rubbed me the wrong way if you want to know the truth, gave him what I would categorize as a seductive smile. "Hi there."

And for the rest of the fireworks, I wanted to vomit. Before the first one had even been lit, she had sidled right up next to Jason and was laughing at everything he said, even when he wasn't being funny, which is pretty much all the time. But to top it off, Jason was just eating it up. He was saying clever things, teasing her, and I even saw him tickle her when the fireworks were going.

I leaned over to Jon and whispered into his ear, "If I acted the way she is, he would tell me to stop being a ditz and leave him alone. How come he can be so nice to somebody he just met when he's so…so…so not nice to us?"

Jon shrugged. "Basic male instincts, I guess. If he's not nice to other people, he'll never find a mate and reproduce. His superior anatomic makeup will never be contributed to the gene pool, and his descendancy will be lost."

I laughed, but it still bugged me, and the more I thought about it, the madder I got. I had seen Jason at school events and parties with his friends, and they all thought he was great. He was fun, he was nice, he was polite, he laughed with them, and he treated them with respect, even when they did stupid things. Then he came home and talked to me like I was the most annoying thing since Barney, and I never even did anything to him. And I was his own sister!

By the time the fireworks were over, I liked Dawn even less than I had when we'd first met. And all because she could make my brother like her in thirty minutes, but I hadn't gotten him to like me in eight years.