The Baptists

By Pinkmoon

AN: Well, thanks for all the reviews and the kind compliments. I don't know if I'll always update this soon but I'll try. Hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Outsiders and for the rest of the story I don't own the Outsiders so I'm going to stop putting this up with every chapter.

Chapter Two

Hidden Treasures

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Matthew 6:21

The living room looked spotless before I left for work that morning. Our coffee table had shone in the early morning sunlight. My chair, and let me repeat, my chair had looked comfortable and inviting with an old throw blanket tossed on the back.

This was of course, this morning when only Ponyboy was around. Now it was around five and probably everyone I knew had come over at one point or another through out the day.

Hence, my living room looked like a nuclear missile had exploded in it.

Beer and coke cans covered the coffee table along with the random, empty potato chip bag. On the floor sat an unfinished game of Monopoly along with more coke cans, all of them half way full. And my chair was "decorated" with candy and Little Debbie cake wrappers. And was that chocolate and cream filling that someone smeared on the arm? Oh, someone was definitely going to die.

"Who was eating in my chair?" I hissed. I didn't see any of the guys and began to listen for their voices. The kitchen. Perfect. Plenty of sharp utensils at my disposal.

"Er..." Pony half shrugged. I marched toward into the kitchen, Ponyboy tagging along, beginning to nibble on one of his nails.

"DARRY!" an excited voice cried. It was Soda and his silly grin almost made me feel guilty for the crime I was about to commit. Almost.

Soda sat at the table, shuffling a deck of cards. Based on his reaction to my entrance, I reasoned he hadn't been the one who decided to dine on chocolate in my chair. Two-bit and Steve were in the mist of an arm-wrestling match, glaring ice at each other. Neither had given me a glance.

"Who was eating in my chair?" Silence. All active ceased.

"Ah..." Soda's eyelids moved rapidly. Steve shifted in his chair, ready to jump up and run if things got messy. Two-bit fiddled with the collar of his shirt and swallowed. Ponyboy was leaning against the counter, chewing on a nail that decided to be stubborn and refuse to break. I stood, towering over them all, drawing power from their immense fear of my retribution. (Or rather my ego was getting a boost from their nervousness but I like that other sentence a lot better.)

"I don't know, Darry. It wasn't me," Sodapop said in a rush, immediately returning to shuffling with his eyes transfixed on the deck.

"I never go near your chair," Steve added, looking at me with a mixture of fear and awe.

"Me neither," Two-bit practically shouted.

I stared hard for a moment to see if any of them would break. Nothing. Then I turned around to get a glass out of the cabinet. Behind my back I heard collective sighs of relief. Conversation started back up and I turned on the cold water in the sink, filling up my glass.

"So who were those girls Steve was telling me about?" Soda inquired, one of his feet tapping out an odd rhythm on the floor.

"They were from a church and talked about Jesus," Pony quickly answered with a kind of child-like enthusiasm that seemed odd for him.

"Oh." For once Soda seemed at a lost for words.

"And one of them told us how to get to Heaven. I never heard anything like that before." He acted like he would have said more if Soda hadn't interrupted.

"I see. Hey do you two wanna play?"

"Nah, Pony and me were gonna go up into the attic." I turned off the water and took a long gulp of the liquid, drinking the majority of it. I glanced at the clock on the wall and began to calculate.

"What are you going up there for?" Soda asked dealing out cards.

"Look for Mom's Bible. Darry said I could go to church Sunday and that I'd probably need one," Pony answered.

"Why didn't you do that when Pony was going before?" Soda looked at his cards and avoided my gaze. Why?

"I didn't think I could go up there and it never crossed my mind anyways." I watched as Two-bit laid two cards down. Soda dealt him two. "I see. Are y'all gonna have time to do that?"

I shrugged. "I'll have about an hour before I need to come back down here."

"Then lets go." Pony grabbed one of the unoccupied chairs and dragged it down the hall. I searched for a flashlight in the drawers, shaking my head at his eagerness. After I finally found one, I followed him.

Pony stood at the end of the hall, positioning the chair underneath what we called the "attic door." It was more like a crawl space, a rectangle cut out from the ceiling surrounded by a border with a piece of plywood that covered it.

"How long has it been since we were last up there?" Ponyboy asked when he saw me. I shrugged and climbed onto the chair. Pushing up on the plywood, I slid it over to reveal the hole. Only one person could squeeze through at a time, which meant that most of the boxes were going to be small which in turn meant that there were more than I cared to count. I sighed at the thought of just how many boxes I would probably look through.

Then, placing my hands on either side of the opening I quickly pulled myself up and into the attic. Once I pulled my legs out of the way, Ponyboy climbed onto the chair. I helped Pony up and then looked around.

I had placed the flashlight in my pocket before I entered the attic. Now I pulled it out and began to shine the beam of light around. Insulation blanketed the floor. The roof was so low that Pony and I would only be able to crawl to get around. The boxes were right behind us but there seemed to be a million and one. Dust covered them and stirred in the air. The air itself was sweltering and I was beginning to perspire and I hadn't even done anything. Was one worn-out Bible really worth this much trouble?

"Glory, it's dark up here," I heard Pony whisper behind me.

"Yeah, it is. Come on, Mom and Dad's stuff should be behind us," I turned around and placed the flashlight on the floor. We started opening up boxes and not finding anything for the first fifteen minutes. Heat burned the air and I could feel the sweat running off my nose. Boy, did that put me in a mood. Now, not only did I have dried on sweat from earlier and red dirt all over my skin, but I could also add your friendly old attic dust and the all so wonderful fresh sweat my own body produced to the list. And you still have to work to night, my brain reminded me. That just made me madder.

Of course, Ponyboy, perceptive soul that he is, never picked up on my disposition and began to hum absently. And it was one of those up beat, cheerful tunes; the kind that just makes you want to kill whoever is producing that sound because it was grating on your already raw nerves.

But, being the mature older brother that I am, I resolved not to say anything, even if I had to bite my tongue until it bled.

"How many more do you think there are?" Ponyboy asked, finishing up on a box.

"Not sure. Some of them are labeled so that should help eliminate the ones we don't want and save time. We got about forty-five minutes left."

"Darry, why can't I just stay up here and finish while you go get ready?" Pony reached for another box and looking it over for a label.

"Because I don't want you alone up here," I explained, looking in another cardboard box. Mama's old clothes.

"Why not?" he persisted, pulling out old papers and pictures.

"Because I don't," I muttered absently. I opened another box and found Dad's old clothes. Some of it looked like it would fit me. Now I'm the type of person who doesn't like to let things go to waste if they're useable so I sat the box off to the side to take back downstairs.

Ponyboy by now had found my mother's old jewelry box and looked at random pieces.

"Pony," I reprimanded. He quickly dropped the ring he had been looking at and stared up at me.

"Sorry," he mumbled, blinking his eyes rapidly. That stopped any tirade I might have engaged in about wasting time. Looking good and hard at my baby brother, it seemed to me that only a thread held him together and that thread was about to break. Did my parents' death still affect him so, even after a year and a half? I wondered as I watched him try to keep his tears at bay. 'Why can't he do this when Soda is around?' I grumbled to myself. Soda was always better at this stuff.

I messed around with the contents of a box, debating on whether or not to let his near-breakdown pass unnoticed. He made the decision for me.

"Is this Mom's engagement ring?" He held a gold band with a tiny diamond in the center. Looking at it, I could here my Dad tell me the story of how he proposed.

"So there I was on my knees and I finally asked her the question," he'd say, his hands moving with each word. "And then before she said anything I showed her the ring. And do you know what she did?" I would always shake my head no. He would never finish if I had said yes.

"She squealed like a pig! I still don't know if it was because of the ring or not." He would then turn his teasing eyes to Momma only to meet her glaring ones. She'd then stick her tongue out at him and say in a voice that sounded an awful lot like a soc, "Of course it was because ring."

They did that once when Ponyboy was five or so. At Momma's words, he started to bawl and when he finally calmed down enough to talk, he said that he thought Mom didn't love Dad because she had only married him for the ring. Of course, Mom knew just how to set him straight.

"I do love your daddy, baby. I was just teasing. Anyways, I only squealed like that because I never thought he would ever ask me to marry him, never thought anyone would really." Then she grinned mischievously and leaned in close to Pony, "But that was the first diamond ring I ever saw so I wasn't about to pass it up."

This resulted with Dad chasing her down the hall to their bedroom, her screeching like a banshee, and us three brothers running after them. We weren't about to miss out on any of the fun.

"What are you smilin' about and are you ever gonna answer my question?" Ponyboy's irritated voice shattered the memory and brought me back to the here and now.

"Sorry," I smiled a little sheepishly. "Yeah, it's her ring and it reminded me of something."

"What?" He returned the ring to the box and picked up another.

"Remember how Dad would tease Mom about her squealing when he asked her to marry him?" At his nod, I actually started to look inside the box I should have been looking through for the past ten minutes.

"Then remember how you thought they were being serious once and started crying? We ended up in their bed, tickling each other to death."

"I remember," Laughter colored his voice, "Soda about suffocated me before you pulled him off and went after him."

"And then you jumped in there with me and Soda started screaming for Mom and Dad to help him," I added, closing up the box.

"Yeah but instead of helping him out, they went after all three of us and somehow everything that had been on their bed ended up on the floor."

"Including us," I laughed, "which Dad thought was hilarious but we were so mad because we all had managed to hit something when we fell."

"And Mom immediately began to scold him about being too rough on us. Hey, I found it!" Ponyboy exclaimed, delicately (or at least as delicately a greaser can) holding his treasure: a worn, thick Bible.

I noticed that the red leather cover's edges were frayed. Gold lettering had slowly worn off so what should have said "Holy Bible" now read "oly B l e." Pages were falling out, Pony trying to put them back into place.

"Not in the best conditions, is it?" Disappointment filled my voice. Why was it nothing I tried to do turn out right?

"It's perfect. It's old and I like old things," he said softly. I glanced at his face. He looked down at that book like he was staring at diamonds or gold.

"Well then, I guess I'm going to have to take you up here more often." He smiled at me and I grinned back.

"Yeah, otherwise I'm going to have to sneak up here." That wiped the grin off my face

"You better not, kid," I warned as he rolled his eyes.

"I'm fourteen. What's the big deal?" he cried, looking at me like I was insane. Perhaps I am, but hey, who's going to know that?

"I don't want you up here alone, that's the big deal," I answered, and got ready to leave the attic. I swung my legs in the door. Pony sighed behind me and mumbled something I didn't quite catch.

"Hey Dar, can I bring Mom's jewelry box down?" he suddenly asked. I was about to slide off but stopped. I glanced over my shoulder at him. He ran a finger over the lid, back and forth, back and forth.

"I guess. Can you carry all that?"

He gave me a disgusted look and that was answer enough. I slid out of the hole and landed on the chair. My head was still though the attic door and I grabbed Dad's clothes.

Once I got off the chair Pony came down, Bible and jewelry box in hand. Dust adhered to his skin and sweat ran down his brow. I looked down at my clothes. My t-shirt no longer shined a pristine white but orange dirt and brown dust decorated it. My faded blue jeans looked about the same as my shirt and I could see the beginnings of a hole in one of the knees. Perfect.

"Thanks Darry," Pony's quiet voice spoke up. I looked at him; he didn't look at me. He gazed lovingly at the jewelry box and Bible.

"No problem. Look, I'm gonna go get ready. Can you or Soda get dinner goin'?" I asked. He nodded, still looking at his prized possessions. I wondered for a moment if he even heard me.

But with the box of Dad's things, I headed toward my room.

Once in my room, I put the box on my bed. That bed looked so comfortable, so soft at that moment that I almost decided to crash right then and there.

'Don't you dare, Shaynne.' I warned myself and got my clothes out of the closet. (And yes, when talking with self I refer to self by my middle name. And I haven't the slightest idea why.) I gave my bed one last, lingering look and head for the shower.

'Man, I hate working the night shift.'

Thanks for reading and please review.

-Pinkmoon