Diaclaimer: Please see previous chapters.
A/N: First and foremost, I would like to address the wonderful reviewers: thanks for reviewing! Some thought that the whole story behind Babygirl's being taken was a bit unbelievable. It was a wild story, but not at all impossible. Keep in mind that this is not at all present day law. Also, as hard as they may be for some to believe, this is not only possible it HAS HAPPENED. I found that story so interesting I decided to incorporate it into my work. I'm sorry for those of you that don't like the lack of brothers being in all of the chapters a lot, but I have several reasons for doing that. You will see a little more of them.
Chapter 10: Tough As Nails
Maria, who seemed to be have a half-smoked cigarette constantly glued to her hand, drove me to school. She was a very fast driver and rather reminded me of a hung over Two-Bit. That was no fun, and I sure missed Eugene. Milly had said he was doing well. That was about all she had said too. I wasn't sure whether to believe her or not. After all, how well can anyone be doing directly after a heart attack? Eiether way, I was eager for the ride to end. I think that was partly because I couldn't wait to get away from the house and partly because I couldn't wait to tell Nelly and Miles what I had done yesterday. I only hoped they would believe me.
At lunch, I eagerly spilled my entire story beginning to end and then, of course, the bell rang. Luckily we still had recess, and once outside Miles turned around, gave me an uncharacteristic skeptical look, and demanded: "Did that really happen?"
"Of course it did!" Nelly shouted. We both looked at her questioningly.
"Babygirl is a terrible liar." She said simply. It was true too, and I knew it.
"So," began Miles, lowering his voice considerably, "You really heard them fighting and John threw a vase?"
"Yeah." I solemnly reported.
"Must have been what her hand was about." Nelly cleverly observed.
"I think I may be nicer to her now that I know what's going on. I should have known about John's temper. He scared me that night he picked me up."
"And remember the day we got locked out of your house?" Nelly recalled.
"I bet Eugene was trying to keep me away from their fight." I finished for her.
"If the cops find out though, do you think they'll let you go?"
"Yeah, to a new home God-only-knows-where. They won't let me go back to my brothers for sure. I don't want to change schools again, or be too far from home."
"You said Johnny knows all about the whole abusive dad thing?" Miles asked.
"Yeah; and so does Mark, apparently."
"Maybe you could talk to him." He offered.
"I would, but he'd tell my brothers. Besides, he's so bad off he could barely say but a few words to Dally when I was there. As for Mark, he doesn't know that I know. I think he's kind of mad about me getting him in trouble and I rather not get all nosy and have not liking me."
"I can't believe you spoke to Dally like that." Nelly repeated. "It was tuff."
Right then and there I felt like nothing could touch me. I was the toughest thing on that playground. I, 9-year-old, orphaned Babygirl, had stood up to possibly the most dangerous greaser in the city.
I felt like I could do anything. I could steal Milly's Cadillac. I could fight Steve Randal. I could climb to the top of the monkey bars and jump off. As only one of those things were available, I did the latter. As a result, I went to piano practice with skinned knees.
As you can probably imagine, "Miss" Stephanie Reynolds was not very pleased. It was like a second etiquette class. "Miss" Reynolds was about 87 and demanded no sound but music, not even shuffling or scuffing of feet. I knew just a little piano from my mom and so, in the beginning, I thought I'd like it. I soon learned otherwise. With her screeching that I was "not feeling it" and "defacing the Mozart" she blew my confidence. I practically trembled as I banged my way miserably through the notes.
This day however, was to be different. I had walked into that stuffy old house with a new sense of confidence. My head and chin were up and stiff. I was not going to mess up, for I had spent the ride thinking what would Eugene say if he were here. I had finally come up with an answer. To keep myself focused, I walked like Dally, and smiled thinking of Sodapop, and when I sat down on that bench I closed my eyes and pretended my mom was sitting next to me.
I went back to a time when death was still a distant thing that only happened to old people; a time when greasers and Socs didn't exist; where all the people I loved were perfect; and my life would never change. My mom smelled sweetly, but not like Milly's stiff perfume. It reminded me of honeysuckles that grew out in the country. Her shining hair was thrown back behind her shoulders and her dress was spread around her, slipping onto my knee. It was summer, and the boys were outside playing football. I was sad and whiney because they wouldn't let me play. We had lemonade on the table where cake would be today, and the screen door was open to thick summer heat. She put my hands on the keys softly and began the song. It was easy just one, two, three four, one, two three, four. Just touching the notes wasn't enough for Miss Stephanie, but I tuned out her fussing by remembering mom's deep, sweet laugh.
The notes took shape like a picture being filled in, and soon I could hear the words in my head. Just like that, I played. Suddenly, I wasn't playing the notes, I was playing the song. I had feeling. I had rhythm. I wasn't massacring Bach, I was playing it. It felt kind of good to succeed at something by myself. In fact, I think it was the first time I had ever done that.
As I went home, I could not think of anything else but my victory. Even Marie's cloud of smoke could not deter my feelings, until I saw John's car parked outside early again.
As I stepped into the house, I began to feel and anxiousness. Nothing had even happened yet, but there was a mood in the place that was as grim as it was inescapable. The first thing that I noticed was Marie's vexed expression. It grew as she moved further into the interior of the house. I stayed in the kitchen retrieving a banana and some peanut butter from the pantry for a snack. I thought that a little milk and plate would be wise, but reaching for the cupboard I found it bare. I tried another..nothing. They were all empty. For some reason I thought to check the trash bin where I found bags full of broken ceramic plates poking through the black plastic. Someone had had a fit. Not feeling very hungry anymore, I went up-stairs.
There, I heard the familiar thumps on the floor beneath me and turned on my radio. Elvis was shouting that apparently somebody of something was nothing but a hound dog crying all the time and renouncing that he wasn't his friend. It reminded me of John. Once a girl had been shot at the Dingo and I remember mom getting really scared about it. Dad was the angriest I had ever seen him. He said only a coward of a man would attack a woman. When seeing Johnny's father out and about he never spoke a word to him. It struck me now that he was disgusted, and I felt the same way. I was shaking.
Maybe it was the sounds, or the injustice, or the helplessness of the situation but I was trembling slightly. I turned up the radio hoping to drown out the kind of noises one's imagination clings to with grim and morbid fascination, like eyes focusing on funny shadows in the dark. With each bang I pictured a stricken Milly hitting the wall. With each crash I saw her fling herself in a attempt to escape the next blow. I saw, in my minds eye, the pulsing vein in John's temple as his voiced raised. I could just make out her name, spat at her in a deep, loud voice and occasionally some furious nos.
I hoped a prayed that this would be over soon. It wasn't. Realizing it did no good and not being able to stand it anymore, I packed a few clothes and went downstairs.
It had quieted a good deal, so I crept into the kitchen stealthily. Once I arrived, I was in for a shock. A weeping Milly was standing at the kitchen sink, glass at her feet, and hands under running water. If you have ever seen a grown woman sob then you already know what a disturbing sight it can be for a nine-year-old. However, something else entirely made it disgusting. John was standing behind her, all traces of anger gone, arms wrapped gently (almost romantically behind her) murmuring comfortingly and washed her cut hands in the sink. Marie was white as a sheet cleaning up the glass with a broom and puffing half-heartedly on a cigarette. Then scene was so alien, so wrong, and yet I considered staying. Maybe he was sorry.
"I told you not to mess with the glass, darling." he softly scolded, his face in her hair, his voice tired.
Maire bumped into them and immediately excused herself. John's glance became harsh and unmerciful.
"You will not repeat what goes on here on bad days," Here I remembered Eugene's words. "Not even to your little gossip friends. No one. Am I clear, Maire?"
"Yes sir."
"It is no one's business, our private life."
"Yes, sir. But sir, the child..."
"The child is fine." He snapped. "She's in no danger here." I actually couldn't picture John ever hurting me. He had hugged me for my grades, after all, and given me everything I asked for. If I just stayed in line, perhaps...
"She's much better off than she was on the north side with no food in the house, surrounded by rough boys, walking the streets at all hours, and going to public school. We can provide for her, and she won't be harmed here, so I see no reason for her not to stay. What's more Massey won't either. Wouldn't you agree?"
'Who's Massey?' I thought.
"Yes." She snapped her jaw closed and moved around the counter to throw away the glass shards. Without a sound, I slipped inside the pantry and waited. Once the coast was clear, I didn't hesitate a moment. I leapt from the hiding place and ran straight to the door.
It must have been a half hour later that I arrived on the doorstep of Emily's house, where I told her everything. It seemed the whole story of 'everything that has happened' was getting longer and longer each time I told it. It seemed years ago that I was sitting on my back porch thinking life was boring and I needed an adventure. It was only a couple months ago.
Emily's mom was out at work again. Two-bit was out at Bucks. I never thought about it being dangerous to be alone until now. I shook it off as a Soc thing. She handed me some hot chocolate, which her mom taught her to make, and told me all that was happening.
Johnny was home, but in a wheelchair. He would never walk again. Everyone visited him even though his parents hated it. My brothers and Johnny had to go to a trial next week. It would decide whether Johnny went to jail (but I don't know if they can do that to a cripple) and who got custody of Ponyboy. With my parents gone, Johnny crippled and maybe facing prison, me getting taken away, and Ponyboy maybe getting taken away, I felt like the world was trying to whittle my family down to nothing.
"They aren't still mean to Johnny, are they?" I asked, thinking about his parents. She didn't answer.
"Come with me." She said, darkly.
In the cold night we crept along, like Indians trying to sneak up and get some scalps on the western films. It didn't take long to reach the spot across from the lot in between Johnny's house and mine.
They were fighting again, but what surprised me was not the fact of it, but the noise. It sounded just like my house. I had been put in my 'new home' because it was supposed to be better. Actually, it was just like Johnny's, only prettier on the outside. Irony is cruel.
The yells were like fighting cats and they growled like rabid dogs. Crashes were faster and bigger than at my house, but they were crashes nonetheless. Why don't people realize how terrifying that is for little kids?
Then, it occurred to me that Johnny and I were alike. We sure didn't look tuff. People liked to look out for us. When things went wild at home, we had both left and went to our best friend's house. It's weird that people teach us behaviors without us noticing. I knew what to do, because I'd seen it done before.
That worried me. If Johnny would kill a Soc in self-defense, would I react the same way now? No, I thought. That's where me and Johnny are different. I squeeze by, but he is as tough as nails. He learns things from Dally. I was a Curtis.
Speaking of the devil, he came busting out of the door of my house with Darry grabbing at his shirt. The boys were chasing him, hanging off his arms, but it did no good. He looked furious, big, strong, and dangerous. I shrunk in intimidation, although he couldn't see me and emily, next to me, drew in a sharp breath. That is why, I remembered, people are scarred of Dallas Winston.
I noticed that in his hands was a familiar object. My baseball bat! What was he doing with it? That question was all too soon answered. He ran over to Johnny's door and I watched in horror at the scene which unfolded before me.
He kicked it in with one cocky, deafening blast. Wielding the bat above his head, he broke something that busted into a million sharp pieces, by the sound of it. His shadow through the curtain was as petrifying as a horror real at teh drive in. We all just stood in the street, not moving or speaking, and not seeing anything but that. His muscular shoulders arched and swung like he was hacking away with a sling blade. Johnny's drunk mother, in a mess, came running unsteadily from the house screaming and ranting.
Johnny's father soon followed, only to take a hit to the back of the knees from my bat and fall to the ground. With face full of dirt he struggled, shocked. He was used to being the one doing the hitting, I sickly remembered. Not anymore. Dally made sure of that. Whack after whack hit his body, until a disgusting crack broke the trance we were all stricken with and Darry rushed forward and pulled him off. They were trying to stop him from killing him, I realized and felt my throat swell uncomfortably tight.
At first, I thought this violence and vengeance possessed Dally would hit Darry, but Darry raised his fists and called his friends name, bringing him back down to earth where he strode angrily and determinedly back into the house, emerging a few minutes later with Johnny in his chair and a bag.
Out of breath and sporting a bloody lip, he breathed out fiercely : "Say bye-bye," to the people in the lying in the Cade yard who called themselves Johnny's parents. They and we knew that they would never be able to go near Johnny again from that moment on without fearing the wrath of Dallas Winston.
I was just in awe. Dally may be a hood, but he had just stood up to the man that abused his friend and taken him out without touching the woman. I didn't know if I should, but couldn't help but respect it. Now I knew why they feared like they did and why Johnny looked up to him. Dally really was tough as nails.
The neighborhood watched as they, now calm, took Johnny to my house. Emily branched off in the direction of home as she wasn't allowed to be out after dark and didn't want to wait around for her brother to notice she was. Sodapop unconsciously reached a protective arm around me and walked us forward.
Once inside, Darry cleaned Dally's lip and Ponyboy settled in Johnny. Two-bit watched the food on the stove. I sat on the couch next to Steve. He shot me a mean glance, and then a questioning one, and then he shouted: "BABYGIRL! What the hell are you doing here?"
It got real quiet real quick.
A/N: I'd love a review for this chapter! Thanks for reading, as always!