AN: So I've read some stories where Ponyboy isn't related to the Curtis's at all so I kinda wanted to write one. The time is set just after the Curtis parents died, so Ponyboy is 13. In the first chapter, the point of view only follows him, but I will definitely write about Darry and Soda and everyone else. I'm not positive about when their parents died so I'm not sure how old they are right now. In my head, their ages are: Darry 19, Soda 16, Steve 16, Johnny 15, Dally 17, and Two-Bit 18.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders, SE Hinton does. If you have not read the work of art that is her book, go do it. It's great.
Ponyboy Adams was wandering. Just wandering. He had no other place to be. He had no money and no home to go to. Well, the second part isn't exactly true. He simply had no home that he was ever going back to. Never again. He wouldn't make it if he went back. He had run away almost 3 years ago. He was good at surviving on his own. Pony had always been smart. Well, mostly. He used to be known for daydreaming and, as some might say, 'not using his head'. His older brother, Jack, used to say that. The events of 1962 made him use his head. He couldn't daydream anymore either. Speaking of, he had to wonder if his father regretted what he did that day. If he was sorry. If he wanted him back. If he missed him. If he missed Jack. If he missed mom… No! He wasn't going to think about that. His father never cared. He was never going to care. It was in the past. He was never going back.
He walked for a while. A long while. Ponyboy had spent the night at the train station, hiding behind a bench in an attempt to block the cold winds. It hadn't worked. When he woke up he was stiff and cold. He had started walking around, following the train tracks, hoping to work some heat into his sore muscles. The guy had been walking for about half an hour when he had heard shouts coming from not far behind him. When he turned, he couldn't see anybody.
He strained his ears. And he still heard them. Not shouting this time, but whispering. He couldn't make out what they were saying and he didn't wait to listen longer. He had grown up in a gang. A real gang with fights and drugs and criminals. He knew what came next. He was about to be jumped. There was no other possibility. They saw him, they shouted at him, now they're sneaking up on him, and soon the punches will come. He had to get out of there. He ran forward, he was a fast runner, and soon he heard rustling behind him and more shouts. Luckily for him, the previously hidden crew of guys didn't have a car and he had a head start. He kept running and before he knew it, they were gone. It seems they had given up the hunt. They were looking for fun and a way to kill time not exercise.
Ponyboy knew that his pursuers were gone but he kept running. It was nice to feel the wind in his hair. It had been a while since he had run for pleasure. He was having a bit of a hard time finding food and good sleep lately, so his energy was really low. Most of the time it was all he could do to get up in the morning and move where he lay so that he wasn't caught. He couldn't risk being sent to a boys' home. He would rather die than get sent back there. About two weeks after he had left home some lady found him and tried to help him. She wanted to bring him back to his guardians but he wouldn't tell her his name so she had no way of knowing who that was. She decided that she wasn't going to just deal with this hood anymore so she dumped him on the doorstep of her nearest boys' home. It was about an hour out of the town he had grown up in. Ponyboy grew up in a small town called Osceola. Osceola is located in Iowa and he never knew where exactly the woman dropped him off. When he got to the boys' home he had figured that the Social Services would need to be called to get him back to his dad but he was wrong. He slowed his pace as he remembered that awful day.
Flashback
The woman who had been pestering him for the last four hours for his name had stopped the car in front of a large shabby building to the right of the highway. He didn't look at the name of the place. He was too busy struggling to keep the door closed against that beast of a woman. She was angry, he could tell. She had driven all the way out here (where ever 'here' was) after spending nearly three hours trying to get him to talk, and the darn kid wouldn't get out of the car. She had places to be! Finally, ponyboy managed to remember his manners. Even if they did bring him back to his father, he could always run away again. It had gone quite smoothly the first time. Or at least, he thought so. He had sort of blocked that night from his mind. He hated to think about it. He wasn't sure… Anyways, he let go of the door handle and allowed the woman to open his door.
He stepped out of the car. The woman led him to the front door of the three-story-tall house and knocked heavily on it. The door opened to reveal a small child of about 6. He took one look at Ponyboy and the woman next to him and quickly pulled his sleeves down. The woman hadn't noticed but Ponyboy had and he didn't like what he saw. The young boy's arms were covered in bruises. They looked to be a few weeks old, already turning yellow more than purple or blue. Pony dreaded to think of the person who had given the boy those bruises. He knew first hand what it was like to be beaten and he had hoped that he had left all of that behind the night that he left his father.
"Um, how can I, uh, help you two?" the young boy asked. Pony cringed at the sound of his voice. It was raw yet innocent. He wondered how long he had been here. He wondered if he had always been like this. Pony doubted it. The innocence in the boy's voice showed hope. Ponyboy had a feeling that the boy had known love once, however long ago that was.
While Ponyboy was inspecting the boy, the woman had answered his question, with a question of her own. "Is there a Ms. Claw around here somewhere?" she said.
"I can go get her… if-if you'd like. Y-you can stand inside while you wait. I'm Kenny by the way. Kenneth. If any of the other kids run into you, just say I let you in and I'm getting the mistress. They won't bother you then." Kenny turned and ran down the hall to the left and up the stairs. They could hear the pounding of his feet above them. They also heard it when he stopped at a door. They heard him panting for breath from running then pulling himself together. They heard the three knocks on the door to the office of the dreadful Ms. Claw. They heard her screech for him to come in. They heard the door open and the mumbled explanation as the two walked across the floor above them. They heard Ms. Claw grumbling about how Social Services had overfilled her single-man-run boys home. And yet more boys came, and zero help showed up along with them.
She had been fighting a losing battle with the Social Services for years now trying to get them to stop sending her children faster than she could get rid of them. Or at least back down on the paperwork. The kids were easy for the most part. You just show em who's boss and boom! You've got a slave for life (or until they leave the home.) But that damn paperwork took hours for her to not even care. Hell, she don't care where the kid's from, or what his mom smoked, or where his dad worked. Long as he don't backtalk or nothing she can deal with him. She would take in just about any boy if it meant no more paperwork.
"Hello! I'm Ms. Claw, how can I help you today?" Ponyboy held back a wince at the foul woman's sticky-sweet voice. He hated fake people. That is why he hated the lady who brought him here so much. He knew that she didn't want to help him. He knew that she was only doing this for her own personal gains, whether that meant showing others that she was 'selfless' (we all know that isn't true) or hoping to please whatever god she believed in by helping some "poor, helpless boy who could never survive on his own".
"Hi, I'm Shauna." so that was her name… huh. "I just came to drop off this young boy here who won't seem to tell me anything about him. Don't know his name, his age, his parents, nothing. I want to help him but I'm really busy at the moment and I don't have time to deal with stubborn hoodlums. Could you maybe deal with him for me? I really ought to be going, I have a meeting in just over an hour that I mustn't miss."
Ms. Claw wanted to growl at the righteous woman standing before her. She held back, for the sake of her pride. Shauna had no right to come here, unannounced, to drop off another stubborn boy who would take at least a month and a half for her to break."Of course! We'd love to have him! I'm sure he'll get along great with the other boys! What did you say his name was?" She used her loveliest voice.
"Oh, I didn't. He absolutely refused to tell me his name! I have been with this boy for the whole day, it seems. Yet I still don't know the darn kid's name!" Shauna spoke as if sharing a joke with an old friend.
Ponyboy scowled. They were talking about him like he wasn't RIGHT THERE.
"Well, if the boy has no name, he has no identity! Great for me! Less paperwork!" Ms. Claw was happy. Maybe her wish would come true! Servants and cleaners with zero paperwork. Shauna laughed along with her not knowing what was funny in the slightest, but feeling the need to impress this woman.
"Bye now!" Shauna left Pony's life as quickly as she had come and just as boisterously. He was glad to see her go. That is, until he remembered that he was now in the hands of a bat-looking woman that he was near positive, beat on her wards.
Pony didn't last long there. The moment after Shauna left Ms. Claw yanked him up the steps that she had previously descended. It was all downhill from there. He was beaten until the woman got a name out of him. He said it was Adam. Eh, close enough to the truth. Unfortunately for him, that didn't stop the beatings. Throughout the next seven days, he had been punched, shoved, whacked, and whipped in order to be "kept in line". Personally, he wasn't sure why that was necessary. He had never done anything to make him seem untrustworthy. On the seventh day, he decided that that was enough. He wasn't staying another day just to be treated like some no-good juvenile delinquent. He gathered his stuff. It wasn't much. He had three books, one sketchbook, three changes of clothes, a toothbrush and a bar of soap (he wasn't an animal), hair grease, a switch, and $20 that he had taken from his father before he left. He had all this in a gray school bag.
Once he had his essentials packed, he left, covered in bruises, never to return again. Never again. Before he left he spoke with Kenny. He offered to bring him along. Pony didn't feel right leaving a 6-year-old here with that woman, even if she did seem to favor him. Kenny said no. Said he was perfectly fine staying with Ms. Claw. Said she wasn't so bad. Ponyboy had to disagree. Kenny still denied it, so when the clock struck midnight, Ponyboy Adams left the home alone. Again.