14. Questioning

They hauled Dally in for questioning on Tuesday.

Pony was doing a pretty good job of ignoring Darry, and he didn't try to start any kind of conversation with her either, which was just fine as far as she was concerned. The night before, Sodapop had made dinner, the two of them eating together, and by the time Darry had come home, she'd already been in her room. Then on Tuesday morning before Keith had picked her up for school, she'd managed to grab an apple her way out the door when Darry had been in the shower.

On Tuesday night, she made macaroni and cheese for dinner since she'd finished her homework early. When her brothers got home, riding together in their dad's old truck, they both thanked her for cooking, but she'd only nodded at Soda. She'd felt kind of mean for ignoring Darry like that. When she hadn't given him any kind of response, he'd just dropped his eyes and gone to his room to get changed. She'd been surprised at how bad she'd wanted to call him back. To try and say something that made all this better.

But then she'd remembered the pain of his hand on her face and the way he'd yelled at her that night and decided against it. Let him be the one who was sad for a change. She was sick of it just being her.

They sat down to the table for dinner together since they were all home. It was an old rule from their parents, and she'd thought about trying to just eat in her room or something, but she knew that wouldn't go over well, and might make Darry mad all over again. She wasn't scared of him. She really didn't think he'd meant to hit her…not anymore. But he'd been that mad at her…all for being late and standing up for Soda.

So if he got real mad again…maybe he would hit her again.

Pony picked at her dinner, all three of them more quiet than usual. Usually him and Soda would talk about work and stuff, and Darry would ask her about school. But her and Darry fighting always got to Soda, and he wasn't talking to Darry much either. Plus she knew he was still upset about Sandy. Pony wondered if he'd talked to Darry about what had happened with Sandy, or if he'd ever written her that letter. He couldn't spell for nothing, so if he did, she kind of wished she could check it over for him first. Her brother wasn't stupid. He just wasn't great in school, and he never could spell all that good. Still, Soda was one of the best people she knew, no matter how bad he was at writing.

"How was school, Pone?" Soda finally asked, breaking the silence. She shrugged. School had been fine. Cherry hadn't come near her, and she'd eaten lunch with Susie and Evie again. Johnny had joined them while Keith and Steve had gone to see Soda, so she figured they were taking turns babysitting. She preferred eating with Johnny to eating with Steve, even though he hadn't been as much of a pain lately. She was still doing good in her classes. Still keeping out of trouble. She'd cleaned her room when she'd gotten home, dusting and vacuuming and reorganizing her art supplies before she'd been satisfied and had decided to make dinner to give herself something else to do. Shd couldn't stand to sit still right now.

"It was alright."

"Johnny walk you home?"

She nodded.

After school she'd gone to track practice and had won all but one of her races, but she didn't want to talk about that. That might get Darry interested in the conversation. Once she'd showered and changed, she'd found Johnny waiting by the bleachers again to walk with her. He'd been kind of quiet, but that wasn't anything unusual. Johnny was always pretty quiet. Some days she could get him talking and laughing too, but she hadn't tried too hard earlier. She knew he suspected something. She just couldn't do anything about it.

Soda was opening his mouth, obviously about to try again to get her to talk some more, when their screen door slammed against the wall, making all of them jump.

Darry threw Steve an irritated look when he came hurrying into the room, but Pony's stomach dropped. He looked upset…eyes wide and his face kind of pale.

"Hey man. You want a plate? Pony made…" Soda started, but Steve cut him off.

"I just ran into Tim. He said the fuzz picked Dally up."

"What? Why?" Darry asked, putting his fork down.

"Something to do with Bob Sheldon. Word on the street is he's the one that killed him."

"He couldn't have," Darry argued, shaking his head. "He was with Pony." Her brother turned to her. "He was with you, right?"

She nodded, anger with Darry momentarily forgotten. "Yeah. He was with me. Dally didn't do it."

Soda kept glancing over at her, trying and failing to look calm. "Why do they think it was Dal?"

Steve shrugged. "I don't know, man. You know the fuzz has it out for Dally."

"They got any ideas of who else it could be?" Soda wondered, and Steve followed his quick glance at Pony before shaking his head.

"Not that I've heard. Why? Do you?"

Sodapop shook his head.

They were all quiet, then Steve turned to her. "How about you, kid? You were there that night. You see anything?" he asked, looking at her too close, and she shook her head, blood running cold.

"I don't know anything about it."

He leaned on the table, moving closer. "Then how come those socs think you do?"

"I don't know," she insisted, voice wavering, not missing the warning look Darry gave him. Steve ignored him, glaring at her instead.

"Look, kid, if you know something and you let Dally go down for this..."

"Cut it out, Steve!" Soda snapped, sounding almost scared, like he was the one being backed into a corner and not Pony, but he was glaring right back at his friend. "Lay off. She doesn't know anything."

Steve just stared at him for a minute, looking sad, like he understood all of a sudden, and that scared her more than anything.

"Sit down, buddy. Get some food." Soda broke the silence, but it was more an order to end this conversation than just an invitation to eat. Steve did, grabbing a plate and sitting beside Soda, and Darry looked between the three of them, bewildered, but not asking any questions.

How could Steve know? She kept picking at her food while she tried to make sense of it. She didn't know that he knew but…had he talked to Dally? Or Keith? The more people knew, the better the chance the cops would find out, even if it was just their gang that was in on it for now. It made sense that everyone in town thought Dally had done it. He was known for being real rough and getting in fights, and he had been at the movies that night. It wasn't all that strange to think he'd kill a soc if a fight went too far.

But he hadn't! And she couldn't let him go down for something she'd done. No way.

Soda came and found her in her room later after Steve went home. His face was drawn and tired, and he still had those dark circles under his eyes. She hated that all this was worrying him so much, but not so much that she regretted telling him. It was selfish, but she felt better now that he knew.

He shut her bedroom door behind him and came to sit on the bed, back propped up against the pillows. Pony was at her desk, reorganizing her art supplies for the third time already that week, hands shaking as she put her pencils back in their pouch after making sure each one was sharpened. Their mom had gotten her new art supplies for Christmas last year. It was the last present she would ever unwrap that her parents had given her.

Soda watched her for a little while, but she couldn't take the silence for too long. "Does Steve know?" she asked, careful to whisper.

"I don't know for sure. He might suspect something."

"He's right."

"Pony…"

"I can't let Dally go to prison for something I did, Soda. I can't!"

He shook his head. "C'mere, Pone."

She did, climbing onto the bed beside him and letting him wrap an arm around her shoulders, holding her close as she leaned on him. "I ain't gonna let them take you, you hear me? Not you too."

Pony hid her face in his shoulder and squeezed him hard. She wanted to believe him…wanted to pretend that he somehow had the power to keep her safe. But what if he couldn't? What if she ended up in prison, or in a juvenile detention center like Dally had been to. What if she never got to see Soda again? Or Susie? Or even Darry?

Would Darry come visit her? Would he hate her? Would he say she'd asked for all this and now she was on her own?

When he pulled away, his eyes were red, but he wasn't crying, unlike her. "All you've gotta do is keep your head down, okay? Don't tell anyone anything. Dally knows what he's doing. They can't prove he did anything. Please, kiddo…don't do anything without talking to me. Okay? Promise me."

"I promise." She meant it too. She couldn't stand the thought of at least telling her brother goodbye before she got taken away.

"Nothings going to happen to you, you hear me? I ain't going to let anything happen to you."

She knew that Soda meant it. She knew he'd do everything he could to keep her safe, but she just didn't know if he was going to be able to keep her safe from something like this.

Pony left her homework on her immaculately clean and organized desk when she went to take a shower. She could practically feel Darry trying to figure out how to approach her, but she was doing her best to stay out of his immediate sight. Her relationship with her big brother was something she could worry about another time. Just not now…not while Dallas was getting questioned by the police for something she'd done.

Once she was back in her room, she curled up on her bed with a book and tried to focus, but ended up turning it all over in her mind again and again instead. She'd killed Bob. It had been self-defense, but she didn't even know if that mattered. Cherry and Allen both thought Dal had done it, and they thought she knew something. But no one suspected her of anything, as far as she knew. Steve knew something was up. Johnny too. Him and Cherry and Marcia were the only ones that knew that Pony had gone to the bathroom by herself.

How long would it be before someone started to suspect her? How long before the fuzz questioned her? Dally wouldn't rat her out, so if they kept saying the same story and Johnny backed them up…

She needed to ask Dally. He was the one that knew about all this, not her! But they were questioning him! What if he said something that they thought was him admitting to killing Bob, or what if they questioned him for so long he just confessed? She'd heard of that happening! Then…then she would have to go and confess! No matter how much that scared her.

Pony wasn't even surprised when she woke up early from nightmares again. These nightmares were worse than the ones before…these nightmares she could remember. It didn't matter if it was Bob holding her down and taking her clothes off, or the knife going into his back and her brothers finding her murdering someone, or being taken away from her family. They always ended the same. Her, scared and alone, crying out for help that never time, she just stayed in bed, curled up in a ball under the covers and trying to keep from crying. She wanted her brother...but not her brother like he was now. She wanted the Darry who'd loved her. Who'd always been there for her when she needed him. Even as she thought that, she felt kind of bad. If she went to him right then, crying because she'd had a nightmare, she knew that it wouldn't matter that they were fighting. He'd still pull her into his arms and hold her and tell her that she was okay...that she was safe. She wanted to. All of a sudden, laying there in her bed, she wanted to go to Darry and beg him to be her big brother again...to be the person he'd been before their parents had died. But she couldn't do it. She couldn't stop remembering how mad he'd been and how he'd hit her...how he acted like he regretted keeping her half the time.

Which was it? Did he love her, or did he want to get rid of her? That was the question that haunted her as she fell back into an uneasy sleep.

Keith had told her he'd give her a ride again Wednesday morning, and she was starting to feel guilty about him driving her every day. She hurried out the door that morning, calling out a 'see you,' to the room in general, and shutting the front door behind her before Darry could respond. Soda wasn't pushing her to talk yet, but she figured he would before too long. He hated it when they fought, even if he was still mad at Darry for hitting her. She knew he'd forgive Darry faster than she would, and he'd talk about Darry being stressed and upset and worried about her, and then he'd tell her that Darry didn't really hate her, even when all of the evidence pointed to the opposite.

She didn't get how he couldn't see it. Or maybe he just didn't want to.

Susie opened the back door for her, and Pony climbed in, dropping her backpack on the ground. "You don't have to drive me every day, Keith. I can walk."

"Don't worry about it. Your brothers are paying me."

She gave him a look as he pulled out on the street. "They are not."

He chuckled, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror. "You doing alright, Pony-kid?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"Heard they brought Dal in for questioning. Don't worry. He ain't gonna say nothing. They'll have to let him go when they don't have any evidence."

She nodded, trying to feel as optimistic as he always seemed to.

"Things okay at home?"

Pony nodded again.

"You still giving Darry the cold shoulder?"

She gave him another look and he smiled a little.

"Just don't keep him on the hook for too long, alright? He's real torn up about all this, and he's sorry for what he did."

"How would you know?"

Two-Bit grinned, tapping his temple. "I know things, kid."

Pony and Susie rolled their eyes in tandem, and it felt good to have her friend back.

The air was tense inside the school, with socs and greasers eyeing each other. She knew there was going to be a rumble Saturday night, even if neither of her brothers had told her about it yet, and according to the rules, no one was allowed to fight before a rumble. But it felt like there might be fighting anyway. The guys with slicked back hair and leather jackets and the ones in nice Madras shirts and shiny new shoes all walked around each other like feral cats, waiting for the other to attack.

And Pony felt like she was stuck in the middle of it all.

"Hey, Susie. Pony. How you been?" She turned from where she was standing at her locker with Susie to find Evie approaching, looking as nervous as she felt. They were all keeping an eye on the boys, wondering when the inevitable fights would begin.

"We're alright," Pony spoke for both of them, Susie nodding hello.

"You had any more trouble with Russell?"

Pony shook her head. It was true. Since Soda had beat him up, he'd kept out of her way. But he was still watching her. She could feel his eyes on her every time they were in the same hallway.

"That looks like it hurts." Evie winched, touching her own eye, and Pony shrugged.

"It's alright. It's going away." She knew the older girl was right, though. It looked worse than when she'd first gotten it, turning blue and purple and brown at the edges. At least it wasn't swollen anymore.

"Why don't we cover it up some? I've got some makeup in my purse."

Pony and Susie exchanged glances, and Pony shrugged. She'd thought about trying to cover it up, but she'd been kind of preoccupied. Besides, she wasn't great at makeup. She'd just started using it when she'd started high school since lots of other girls did, but she wasn't any good at it yet. She was afraid to experiment too much, lest she mess up. Then the guys would probably all make fun of her for looking stupid. But although she knew none of her teachers had seemed concerned by her black eye and bruises, the absolute last thing she needed was for one of them to call social services. Even girls showed up with bruises all the time at her school, and the teachers all seemed to figure it was none of their business, but better safe than sorry.

Evie led her to the girl's room, Susie following along, and Evie sat her purse on the countertop, pulling out a little compact of powder foundation. "Liquid would probably be better but this should help some."

"Thanks, Evie." Pony let her apply some of the powder to her face around her eye, trying not to blink too much. "Where'd you learn to do your makeup so good?" she asked before she could even think about it, trying to fill the silence with small talk, but her heart dropped when Evie hesitated, her smile kind of sad.

"My mom taught me a lot of it. But my girlfriends and I get together and teach each other new stuff from the magazines."

Pony nodded a little, swallowing and dropping her eyes.

"We ought to do that, Pony. You should come over, and maybe my mom can show us. We can practice on Keith."

Evie laughed, and even Pony smiled. "Yeah?"

"Why don't you two meet here before class tomorrow and I'll show you a couple of things. I'll bring my whole kit." Evie's smile was kind, and when she pulled her hand away from her face, Pony had to fight hard not to let her eyes water.

"That sounds fun. Thanks."

"Sure thing." She regarded her seriously for a minute, nodding to herself. "That looks a little better. It doesn't hurt?"

"Not anymore."

Evie glanced at the bathroom door. A couple of girls had been in the stalls when they'd started, but they'd left, and it was close to time for class to start, so no one was in there now. "Steve said Cherry was asking if you knew anything. About her boyfriend."

That made sense. It seemed like if one person in their gang knew something, they all did before long. "Yeah."

"He said the boys are all going to fight Saturday, and they hauled Dally in, so maybe they'll leave you alone from now on."

"Dally didn't do it."

"I know. And the cops don't have a reason to hold him either, so they ought to let him go today. Don't worry, Pony. It's going to be okay."

She wanted to believe the older girl. She also wanted to know what the hell she saw in Steve Randle. But she didn't know where to even begin to ask, so she just smiled. "Thanks."

"You need anything, you come find me, huh? Steve too."

"Steve don't like me," she confided, looking around like he might pop out of a stall or something to confirm it.

Evie laughed a little. "That's just the way he is, honey. But he wouldn't let anybody mess with you either. You're Sodapop's baby sister. That makes you like his family. So if any of those socs start bothering you, you tell him, and he'll take care of it."

The thing was, when it came to that, Pony did believe her. Steve might be an asshole most of the time, but she did know that he'd protect her from those socs if it came down to it. The only thing was, those socs weren't her biggest problem. The cops were. And there wasn't a thing Steve Randle could do to protect her from the fact that she'd killed someone.