Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders; this story was written for pleasure, not profit.
A/N: First: The alternating points of view in this chapter are quite intentional and hopefully serve their purpose without making things confusing.
Second: This is kind of like the home stretch, with two or three chapters after this one. In an effort to get this posted as soon as possible, I'm skipping the review thanks this time, and hope everyone understands. Within the next three or four weeks, give or take, I'll be insanely busy and recovering from growing a person inside of me and then pushing it out. With that in mind, I am working to get to the computer and finish these last few chapters as quickly as I can without compromising quality (they're all in my head, just need to be put into words on the computer!). With that said, thank you to all who reviewed the last chapter; feel free to hold off on reviewing until the end if you like, or just enjoy the rest of the story, no reviews expected if you don't find any problems or have questions! If I can finish the next chapter within a week I will put my thanks and personal comments from chapter 13 at the end of that one. Hope you all enjoy, and let me know if you have any comments or suggestions. Thank you!
Pony's POV
I unrolled the top of the brown paper bag and reached inside until my fingers pressed into something with a sandwichy feel. Pulling it out, I wondered what Melissa had done to this one to make it special. On the surface it looked like an ordinary ham and cheese sandwich on Wonder bread. I unwrapped it, pulled the top off, and smiled; she had used the mustard to make a happy face before slapping on the top slice of bread.
Now that she's five months along, Melissa is no longer sick, has a lot of energy again, and has developed the little bulge in her belly that she'd been looking forward to seeing. She is also getting more maternal on all of us, fussing over the kids when it's real cold out and doing little things to let us know she's back and she loves us.
Like the mustard thing.
I don't really care, I think it's kind of cute, but Vic was pretty ticked off the other day when he pulled his lunch out as school and discovered that Liss had used a cookie cutter to turn his sandwich into a peanut-butter-and-jelly heart. That doesn't look so tough when you're fourteen and trying to come off as a cool cat. He was tactful with her, though, and to be honest I think he kind of liked that she would do something like that, even though his buddies laughed at him. Melissa has since agreed to be more subtle in her displays of affection.
The icy March wind working its way through my window brought me to stuff my scarf against the sill. I gazed down at the street below, to the people wandering about their lives, bundled up and huddling against the season. It wasn't like summertime, when you can tell at a glance who is happy and who isn't. You can't even see their faces in the middle of winter. I wondered if any of them were as happy as I was.
Our adoption of Linleigh had progressed almost to completion; Melissa's pregnancy was going well, and by the end of July we would have our baby; my visits to the therapist had actually been helping, so my dreams were becoming more scattered and less daunting; and soon enough we would be adopting Vic. All we were waiting for was that one phone call to let us know everything was clear to move forward, that his mother couldn't be found, that he was ours for good. One phone call, and everything would be perfect in our lives.
I guess perfection can be too much to ask for.
Vic's POV
I was lying on my bed reading my history assignment when Linleigh came in and sat down. I don't care if she comes in my room, but it really bugs me when someone watches me read. "What?"
"Huh?" she answered.
"Do you want something? I'm reading."
Lin sighed. I hoped she wasn't planning on rattling on about her teeny-bopper friends, or I'd have to just lock her out. She didn't say anything, so I glanced up at her. She looked like something was bugging her. I hate trying to drag information out of people.
"Linleigh, if there's something wrong, just tell me. I'm doing homework here." I didn't mean for it to come out as snappy as it had.
She looked at the floor. "I hate school. Kids make fun of me."
Now, there was something different – cruel kids who make fun of someone who isn't like them. "Ignore them, Lin. They don't know you. They don't know what they're talking about, and you don't need them if they can't see you for who you are." It was cliché, but I didn't know what else to tell her. Life sucks sometimes, and you either let it get you down or you give it the finger and move on.
Lin nodded. "Okay. Thanks," she responded sullenly. What the hell did she want me to do? She got up and left my room, so I continued reading.
It wasn't until over an hour later, when Lin came and sat down in the living room with her nightgown on while I was watching MASH, that I noticed the bandage on her. It was one of those things that looks like a band-aid for the Jolly Green Giant, and it was stretched across her knee. "What happened to you?" I asked like I was kind of interested, which I wasn't really but I'm trying to get better at being a brother. Sometimes I forget that I'm not alone anymore, and when you're not just looking out for yourself people expect things from you.
"I fell in the playground," she said. I would have left it at that, except that she avoided my gaze a little too quickly after she answered.
"How did you fall?"
Lin shifted around in the chair and tugged at her nightgown so it was almost covering the bandage.
"Lin!"
She looked down at the floor and switched to her soft defeated voice. "A boy in my class pushed me."
Now, I've never had any brothers or sisters, but for some reason when she said that something kicked in that I have never felt before in my life. It was like I was standing in front of someone challenging a fight. "Who pushed you?" I demanded.
"One of the boys." Lin shifted again. "They make fun of me. Everyone…" She stopped again.
"Everyone what?" By this time she had my full attention and I completely missed Hawkeye's punch line.
"Everyone laughed," she finished in a sigh.
"Lin, look at me." She did, so I didn't have to get up and get pushy. "You tell that kid tomorrow that your brother is coming to see him after school. Tell him to wait by the lunchroom entrance at the back of the school. And make sure some other kids hear you tell him that. You got it?"
Linleigh nodded. "Okay. What're you going to do?"
"I don't know," I shrugged, turning back to my show. Truthfully, though, I knew exactly what I wanted to do to the little jerk who pushed my sister. I wanted nothing less than to put the fear of God in that kid.
How is it that I need to go to the principal's office for a late slip if I walk into a classroom just after the bell rings, but the math teacher can mosey in from lunch whenever he's ready? My class was loitering in the hallway waiting for Mr. Vance. I wondered what he would do if I suggested he go down to the office before starting to teach. Haha, right. I'd probably get suspended for the next two days.
I gazed tiredly around at the kids who are in my class. I'm not friends with any of them. Hell, the only reason I know most of their names is because Mr. Vance calls out our names when he's handing back homework assignments, and I sit in the back row. As I scanned their faces and watched some of them frantically trying to finish their homework my gaze lingered on one of the girls who was sitting against the lockers doodling in her notebook. What was her name…Cathy…Kim…Katie. That was it, Katie. She was cute, but I had never really noticed her until now. She was humming, and I knew that song.
"You watch MASH?" I asked her.
It took a second for her to realize I was talking to her. "Who, me?" She squinted up at me.
I opened my mouth to make a sarcastic reply, but couldn't come up with anything fast enough. Kind of unusual for me, but I had been up late the night before. "Yeah. Isn't that what you were humming?"
"Oh, yeah. I watch it with my dad. Did you see it last night?"
"Yeah, it was good." I was trying to picture her watching a show that seemed anything but what a girl would like. "That cast thing was awesome."
Katie laughed. "Yeah. Isn't it weird that Hot Lips got married? I didn't think they would actually go through with it, you know?"
"Yeah, well, I guess probably because it was the last one of the season. They want everyone interested enough to remember to watch it next fall." Does she think I'm a dork and she's just being nice, or did she just give me one of those 'interested' looks? This one was hard to read.
"Good afternoon, class, sorry I'm late. Car trouble." Mr. Vance brushed past me to unlock the door, and then stood aside as everyone filed in.
I hesitated before walking in. "Yes, Victor?" he prompted.
"You got car troubles? I know a guy you should call. He's annoying, but he can fix cars good."
Mr. Vance raised his eyebrows, probably thinking I was going to refer him to a chop shop. "And who is this miracle worker?"
For the first time, it only took me an instant to come up with the answer to that, and what surprised me was that for the first time, it felt good to say it. "He's my uncle."
Pony's POV
I was so involved with my paperwork that I didn't hear the phone the first time it rang. I mean, I heard it, but it took the second ring to snap me out of my focus enough to reach over and answer it. "Pony Curtis, Child Protective Services." Where the heck did I put the paper clip I just had?
"Hi Mr. Curtis, it's Grant Smithson."
The sound of our lawyer's voice brought me fully into the present. "Grant, hi! I almost called you yesterday. Do you have any news for me?"
"Well, that's what I'm calling about." The tone of his voice instantly deflated my mood, and I felt myself go cold. "You see, Vic's mother was found. Or rather, she turned herself in last week."
"Okay…" I waited for him to tell me that this was just a little bump in the road, that it would just drag out the paperwork a little longer. "So how does this affect the adoption? What do we need to do?"
Grant's pause made me want to reach through the phone and shake him into spitting it out. "It's just that…well, it looks like the adoption won't be moving forward. Vic's mother had her lawyer with her when she turned herself in, and they've got a judge who's sympathetic to her situation. He's giving her custody of Vic."
I almost dropped the phone. "Custody? But…how the…how could he do that?" I was aware that my voice was steadily getting louder as I spoke, and my coworkers were starting to look over at me. "She was on parole for drug violations. She abandoned him with a father he barely knew. She's been gone for over three years! And the judge sympathizes with her situation? What about her son's situation?" The fury in my voice mingled with the desperation I was feeling; I knew already that no matter what I said, nothing was going to change. We were losing him.
"I understand how you feel, Mr. Curtis. I'm having trouble with this one as well. But the judge is extending her parole with no jail time, and she's demonstrated that she has obtained gainful employment. There are conditions attached to the custody arrangement, of course. But he strongly feels the boy should be back with his mother, so he's giving her another chance. I'm sorry. There isn't anything I can do at this point."
I knew he was sorry, and I knew he was upset about this. "Thanks. Thanks, Grant. How long do we…when does he leave?"
"The judge wants him back with his mother by the weekend."
I felt a cold weight drop into my stomach. "Three days." I leaned my head on my hand for support as the immense weight of all of this settled onto me. "I'll tell him tonight."
"Good luck, Mr. Curtis. And I'm sorry. I really am."
"I know. Thanks again, Grant." I set the phone back on the receiver and put my head in my hands. It was Wednesday. Vic was leaving on Saturday. For the rest of the afternoon, in everything I did, my foremost thoughts were of the reaction I would get from Vic that evening, and of what it would take for me to let him be angry with me so that he could go back to his mother without blaming her. Especially since I knew it would be all I could do to keep the bitterness out of my own voice as I tried to help him understand her actions. I didn't. How could he?
Vic's POV
As soon as I turned the corner I could see a cluster of kids near the back cafeteria entrance. I strode toward them, scanning the faces for Linleigh. She was near the back wall, looking like a trapped rabbit just barely convincing herself to not shoot off into the alley away from all the wolves.
Without warning, something else came to me with that glance. Lin's clothes were better now, Pony and Melissa had bought her a lot of new stuff and some of the teachers that Liss works with had donated some things, but there was still something there…that defeated, guilty, pathetic look that revealed her belief that whatever those other kids did to her, she deserved. Nobody had ever stood up for her, so she didn't stand up for herself because she thought she wasn't worth it. When they laughed at her, she hung her head. When they called her names, she winced. And when they pushed her, she cried and asked them to please stop. But they didn't, it just egged them on even more as they saw firsthand the power they could have over someone else. If they could focus that power on someone else, make the other kids think that something was wrong enough with that girl that it was okay to criticize her, then they would fall to the background as targets; nobody would pay attention to their flaws and insecurities if they could so easily control another person.
It all came to me within those couple of seconds, and it wasn't because I had ever been the kid that was being picked on and pushed around. I could see clearly in my mind a kid named Freddy Parker – red hair, freckles, glasses, and pants that were too short worn with a shirt that was so big it looked like he could have pitched it in the ground and slept under it. I could see him laying back on the crumbling black asphalt, elbows scraped, eyes pleading and tear-filled, while my buddies and I laughed at him. And for the year that we kept everyone laughing at Freddy, they all failed to notice my shabby clothes, my ragged hair. They didn't suspect Ray's punishments, and nobody ever noticed the bruises.
So when I looked at my sister that day, I saw little Freddy Parker who lived with his grandparents on welfare. Only this time, Freddy had a big brother; and the shame that was now burning through me was even stronger than the anger I had felt the night before. Whatever happened today, these stupid little kids were going to understand that they should never hurt my sister again, no matter what was going on in their lives. It was like I had come full circle, and I was not going to let the rabbit be a martyr to the wolves.
I motioned for Lin to come over to me as a hush fell over the group. As she came to stand beside me I put my hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly. "Where's the little punk who pushed my sister?" I shouted.
Some of them looked scared. The kid who stepped forward with four of his buddies on his tail gave me a cocky look. "I'm not scared of you."
I smiled, and his face faltered slightly. "You don't know what's good for you, then, little boy." Like I'd figured, he looked angry at the insult, and some of the other kids laughed.
"You won't do anything to me, you'll get in trouble," he reasoned in an overly confident and practiced tone.
That time I laughed and walked toward him until I was looking straight down at him and he took half a step backwards. "I been in jail, kid. I have been in trouble for so many things that weren't even worth it." I switched abruptly to a serious look. "You think I'm about to let you get away with touching my sister just because I might get in trouble?" I grabbed him by the front of his jacket and pulled him partway off the ground with a little shake. "You like pushing girls? You think you're tough?" The kid had already been scared, but now he was showing it, and I kept going until the tears were running down his face and he was stammering and sniffling and trying to reason me out of following through with my threats. "You wanna know what it feels like for someone to laugh at you? Maybe some of these kids would like to see what kind of underpants you wear. Batman and Robin? Spiderman?" Some of his buddies were actually snickering now. "Maybe I should just knock out those two front teeth, see how good you can whistle."
By the time I was done with the kid I had done absolutely nothing to him, but he was clearly not the tough guy he had been trying to pull himself off as, and I figured he'd have to figure out a better way now to build his rep back up.
I pushed him to the ground and turned to the cluster of kids who had been watching. "Anyone else have anything to say about my sister?"
Instant silence. "I think she's nice," one girl finally piped up in a defensive voice, like she thought I was going to come after her next, and a few of the others nodded.
"Good. If I ever find out that someone else thinks they can push Lin around, I'll be back, and I won't be nice next time. Now go home, you stinking little brats." They all scattered like cockroaches so that a couple of minutes later it was just me and Lin standing there.
Lin looked up at me and grinned, and some of that defeated look was gone. "Thanks."
I took her books out of her arm and stuffed them into my bag. "Sure." Some kids might still make fun of her sometimes, but now they wouldn't get the reaction they were looking for, and it would get boring fast. It hadn't just been about making them think I was a threat. Now, Linleigh knew she was worth fighting for. Now, she wouldn't believe them anymore. And I knew then without question that she would never need me to step in to defend her again.
Pony's POV
"Vic…" It was all I could think to say.
He avoided my gaze, blinked and swallowed, then took a deep breath. "When am I leaving?"
"Saturday morning. I'll take you to the courthouse, so the paperwork can be finished." The lump in my throat wasn't betrayed as I kept my voice steady and calm, a feature gained through years of staying cool and tough under pressure and keeping emotions in check enough to deal with them later. Lin and Melissa weren't so lucky, or maybe were more so, I don't know. At any rate, Melissa kept taking big shaky breaths, and Lin was crying outright.
"I'll start packing," Vic announced stoically.
"Vic, wait…" I reached out and took him by the arm as he stood. "Look, this wasn't supposed to happen, but maybe it'll be okay. Maybe she's changed. Maybe…" Vic's disgusted look stopped me from spilling out the rest of my rehearsed spiel.
"Look, just forget it, okay? I should have known she would want to win. She don't want me. She never did. Just forget anything different was ever supposed to happen, because the good guys don't always win and kids don't have any say. So just forget it, so I can. Okay?" With that said, Vic turned and strode up the hallway; seconds later his bedroom door slammed shut.
"Oh, Pony…what can we do?" Melissa eased herself onto the couch next to me, one arm around Linleigh.
I could feel the rising frustration being trampled by defeat as I leaned over and put my head in my hands. "Nothing, Liss. We can't do anything." After years of struggling financially and emotionally with my brothers after our parents died, and sticking together through it all, I finally had a wife, a house, a good income, and a stable life. Yet now, even all of that wasn't good enough. And all I could picture for the rest of that night and for the next two days was that on Saturday morning, I would have to hand Vic over to the person who was in my mind the equivalent of Johnny's mother. I hated her already.
