Chapter Sixteen: Sandy's Baby?
Soda nudged Ponyboy. "You hear that?" he whispered. Ponyboy grunted and rolled over.
I'll take that as a no, Soda thought. He blinked several times as his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room.
"Who's there?" he whispered loudly. There didn't seem to be anyone there, but Soda could feel a presence.
"Hello?" he whispered. His head whipped around as a breeze blew by his right ear. He broke into a cold sweat. "Hello?' he repeated. "Who's there?"
He was being ridiculous. There were no such things as ghosts.
Despite himself, he shuddered.
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"Dally, you're doing this all wrong!" Johnny groaned. "Will you just let me do it?"
"And what experience do you have, Mr. Smarty?" Dally demanded.
"I've been haunting Socs and my parents, okay? Randy Adderson hasn't slept for a month!" Johnny argued. "This is one place I know better than you, Dallas."
Dally considered it. "Okay," he said.
Johnny bent over and blew in Soda's right ear. Soda shivered and looked around.
"That's your brilliant plan?" Dally remarked sarcastically.
"That's just how you get started!" Johnny exclaimed defensively. He then clamped down on Soda's neck in an icy grip.
"For God's sake!" Dally growled. "I'm not trying to scare the living daylights out of him, I need to tell him something!"
"So scribble it on the wall or something," Johnny said irritably. "But make it quick, he's going back to sleep."
"Right. Hand me a marker."
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"Morning, Pony, Soda, time to wake u—What the hell is this?"
Those were the first words out of Darry's mouth the next morning.
Soda sat up and rubbed his eyes before staring at what Darry was pointing so furiously at. Ponyboy rolled over, sat up, opened his eyes, looked, shut his eyes again, and said firmly, "I had nothing to do with this."
On the wall, scrawled messily in thick black ink, were the words: "SANDY'S BABY."
"Who did that?" Soda said in horror.
"I was about to ask you two the same question," Darry said through gritted teeth. "You idiots—you know we can't afford to have that fixed!"
"We didn't do this!" Soda said furiously. "The two of us were sleeping all night long!"
"Then who did it?" Darry raged. "If you two didn't, then who did?"
Soda was at a loss for words. "I don't know," he admitted quietly.
"Well, it must've been one of you two! It can't have been a ghost!" Darry barked ironically, although he didn't know he was being ironic. He closed his eyes for a few moments, seemingly meditating. When he opened them, he said more calmly, "If it was one of you two, you can tell me. Just tell me why, and I won't get mad."
"Darry," Soda said. "It wasn't neither of us. We were sleeping all night!"
Ponyboy, meanwhile, was getting dressed. "I'll catch a ride to school," he said to Soda and Darry, who were still bickering when he left.
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"Suze, I need to talk to you," Ponyboy said urgently to Suze at school. She had mercifully gone back to her old style, though boys sometimes still made wise comments to her.
"I'm listening," she said, shoving her books in her locker. Ponyboy told her the whole story.
"Sandy's baby?" she echoed, eyes wide.
"Yeah," said Ponyboy. "D'you know what it means?"
"No," she sighed. "But I bet Johnny or Dally…did!" she said loudly and pointedly as Two-Bit approached Pony from behind.
Ponyboy frowned. "Did? But I thought you…" he trailed off at the nasty look Suze was giving him. He turned. "Oh. Hi, Two-Bit."
"Hey, kids. Whatcha talking about?"
"Nothing," Suze said hurriedly. "We were just…nothing," she hurried away. She had a strong suspicion that a certain Dallas Winston would know exactly what was going on at the Curtis house.
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Two-Bit nudged Ponyboy suggestively. "So? What were the two of you talking about?"
"Neuropsychological physics," Ponyboy responded. He had no idea if that was even such a thing, but he did know that it was enough to confuse Two-Bit enough that he would walk away, which is what he did, leaving Ponyboy to hope very much that Suze knew what the hell she was doing.