First off I want to thank all of the people who have reviewed so far. Thanks too weirdsista, LatinaChick4life, MamaCes, Silverwolf130492, Twitch in my eye, Caspervolleyballplaya18 and lil cwick you guys rock! I really appreciate every review and the more reviews I get the more I want to update. So please continue to R&R! Thanks! And here is Chapter 9…

Chapter 9

The Rise to The Top

The next few weeks went by in an absolute blur. But a happy blur. The drama with Jen slowly died down. But I assure you that Lee definitely got his lecture about how to treat a girl. Though I have to admit it was pretty hard to lecture him about treating Jen bad when I hated her so much. So I took it in mind to lecture him about girls in general, not Jen.

I honestly was beginning to hate the girl. Jen didn't even look at me any more. She use to hang around me every once in a while but now she completely avoided me. Not like I minded though. I still couldn't get over what she had done to Lee, what her reason was for hurting him like that. And I wasn't about to get over that for a long, long time.

But Lee had found himself a new girl. Her name was Danielle. She was actually a real nice girl. Middle class. She was the same age as Lee so she was older then me. But the two of us got along real good. But the biggest thing was she made Lee real happy. That's what really mattered. I honestly don't think I've ever seen Lee so happy in his entire life. He was pretty much always smiling and he lit up when Danielle. I was really glad for him.

Ponyboy and I had been getting along real good too. Though we've never really talked about our relationship before. Well we had, but it always ended up that someone would walk over and start talking to us. So for the longest time I didn't know where we stood.

But one day Ponyboy and I were hanging out when he remembered he had to grab something that he was suppose to give Johnny. So we went back to Ponyboy's place and it just happened that all of the gang was over there, including Johnny. Ponyboy said hi to everyone and they returned the greeting. It took a minute until all of them noticed me. Well I knew Johnny, Two-Bit and Dally pretty good and they all said hi to me. But Sodapop and Steve seemed to be drawing a blank to my name and Ponyboy's older brother, Darry, had never met me before.

"Who's this Ponyboy?" Darry asked as he wiped his hand on a towel and looked at us from the kitchen.

"Oh this is my girlfriend Kate." Ponyboy said with a smile.

I looked up at Ponyboy with kind of a shocked expression though I was trying to hide it. Ponyboy had never called me his girlfriend before, until now that is. But I definitely didn't mind. I liked it actually. I was Ponyboy Curtis's girlfriend. Ponyboy Curtis was my boyfriend. I definitely could live with that.

"So this is the famous Kate," he said with a grin, "Nice to meet you. I'm Darry."

"Nice to finally meet you too Darry," I walked over and shook his hand; he had a firm grip that's for sure.

Steve and Sodapop seemed to have finally put my face and name together. Or at least they had stopped looking at me so funny. Though Dally and Johnny were looking at me kind of weird. I guess they were just shocked that Ponyboy had called me his girlfriend. Well shocked isn't the right word. Johnny looked kind of happy. I had always liked Johnny and we had become pretty good friends. Two-Bit hadn't really noticed because Mickey was on TV. The house would have to be on fire or something and I'm still not sure Two-Bit would have noticed when Mickey is on. Though Dally was looking at Ponyboy like he was crazy. Dallas Winston wasn't the kind of guy that got tied down to a girl. He must have figured that Ponyboy was going to follow in his footsteps. Most guys were more into getting what they wanted with a girl, and then throwing her away once they had it. Dally was one of those kind of guys. But then again maybe he had just never met the right girl. I sure thought I had met the right guy. Maybe that's what it takes to change a person. The right person that makes you want to change.

So ever since that night Ponyboy continued calling me his girlfriend. I figured that it was okay to tell people he was my boyfriend then. Word had gotten around to pretty much everyone that we were a couple. And when I said everyone I meant it too. One day my math teacher had pulled me off to complement me on my A on my math test and he took the time to also congratulate me about Ponyboy. That was really, really weird. But Garrett found it hilarious.

Garrett and me were walking home from school and he was dying of laughter.

"Man that has to be the greatest thing I've heard all day Princess!" he said still laughing hysterically.

"Kind of creeps me out a bit," I said shaking my head.

"I can just imagine the teachers in the staff room talking about it!"

"I don't even want to think about it," I said.

It was kind of creepy to think that my teachers were talking about my social life. Before it use to be, 'There goes Kate. She's so smart I don't know why she thinks she has to get the guys attention all the time, " and now it was, "Did you hear about Kate and Curtis. I think it's so sweet."

Garrett was still coming up with jokes and I decided to change the something else. It was really creeping me out.

"So you wanna come to the Nightly Double tonight?" I asked.

"Would if I could but I can't," he said still laughing a bit.

"Why not?"

"Little Jenna's science fair is tonight."

"Seriously? I'm so coming with."

"I thought you and Ponyboy were going to the Nightly Double?"

"Well pretty much everyone is. Besides I have yet to miss a science fair and I don't plan to start now. He'll come with. Or I'll ask him if he wants to come. Besides we need to keep an eye out on these kids. They could be tough competition."

"You do realize that these kids are only 11," he said with a grin.

"Yes but what if they've got some like amazing project at 11. Can you imagine hey good they'll be once they get to High School? We need to keep tabs on these kids ya know."

Garrett laughed, "I suppose your right. But Little Jenna's gonna win. We both know that."

"Oh definitely. It's the second place winners I'm worried about. We don't need anyone sneaking up on our territory."

"You're a genius you know."

"I try not to brag."

I ran into Ponyboy shortly after I left Garrett. He was as creeped out as I was about the teachers talking about our social lives. Turns out his Gym teacher had told him good going for 'making a move.' We both started laughing. It was kind of one of those awkward laughs though. The ones where he don't know if you should be laughing or scared. I was a bit of both.

"Hey this is probably going to sound really weird. But I was wondering if you wanted to go to Garrett's little sister's Science fair? I have yet to miss a Science fair of any sorts. It's always fun," I said with smile before adding, "When I'm there that is."

Ponyboy laughed, "Sure I'm in."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

Then we kissed.

That night was an absolute blast. Jenna had won it was kind of obvious before we even got there. Garrett and I had helped her and half of the project. But Jenna took pride in her experiment. She sounded like a young Garrett. Smiling at everyone who passed and explaining her experiment to everyone walking by. She was a real sweetheart.

Garrett, Ponyboy and I went around looking at everyone else's projects. There was the usually volcanoes. Well 6 of them to be exact. Then there were a few poster boards here and there. Nothing to impressive. After about 20 minutes we had looked at everything twice. But I could be at a Science fair for hours. Garret and I kept coming up with stupid analyses and discussing which kids could be future threats. We also talked about what these kids were going to grow up to be. It was actually pretty funny. Ponyboy was even pretty into it. I thought he might get bored or something but he didn't. He jumped right in with little well… 'discussions.' He wasn't really into Science as much as Garret and I were. He was more into English, I knew that. But we were all having a good time. Definitely way better then a movie.

The next weekend I went to one of Ponyboy's track meets. It was actually great. I went with Garrett, Lee and Danielle. I've never really been into these kind of things but I had decided to give it a chance for Ponyboy. But I was so into it, it was kind of scary. I was screaming Ponyboy's name and cheering. Garret, Danielle and I had come up with this awesome little dance and cheer. Lee was just sitting there laughing, shaking his head at us. But finally Danielle even got him up and cheering.

After the meet, I ran up and jumped on Ponyboy. It was hilarious I was just so in the moment and caught up in the energy. I was just kissing him and cheering right in front of everyone. Everyone was looking at me crazy. Hell maybe I was. But I hadn't missed one of Ponyboy's track meets since.

Things were really started to look up for me. I had a great guy and great friends. Leon had even given me and Dez a raise. My friend Gary had just gotten engaged to his girl and I was so excited for him. I was finally making enough money to cover all of our bills. I even had enough to go out and buy Mrs. Hannigan a few new books to read.

I look back now and I remember this as the ride to the top because pretty soon it all came crashing down.

I really don't think I would have woken up the next morning if I knew what was going to happen.

So there you go hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think.