Disclaimer : I do not own the Outsiders, or anything else you recognize.

I was kind of getting excited. Only kind of. It was difficult to get really excited because my brothers, and Steve and Two-Bit, thought it would be fun to constantly tease me.

The whole 'Pony's got a Da-ate!' thing gets old real fast.

But since I was going on a date, my first real date, I decided to dress up for the occasion…kinda.

I borrowed a dark pair of blue jeans from Soda. And a clean white tee shirt, which is usually hard to come by in our house.

I had greased my back. I would love to say that I shaved, but I have yet to grow facial hair.

I asked the guys how I looked. Big mistake. I got a lot of 'awes' and 'how cute'. Christ, they're annoying.

I left in a hurry.

Any excitement I felt leaving the house was slowly turning into terror. I started thinking, what if she doesn't answer the door, and I had to sit with her father and get a deeply discouraging talk? Or what if I screw up majorly on the date, and she never wanted to see me again?

Other negative thoughts went through my head as I went up the step to her front door. I knocked on the door. No one answered right away. I straightened my shoulders. I almost knocked again, but someone answered the door.

He looked Soda's age. And height. He had light blonde hair, which was slicked down and parted on the right. His eyes were dark brown, and he had sharp facial features, highlighted with faint amounts of pink blush, pink lipstick, pink eye shadow, and black eyeliner….or black mascara, I'm proud to say I can't tell the difference. For some reason he had on a suit, dark purple with grey stripes, with a pale blue dress shirt. We just kind of stared at each other. Neither of us saying anything.

"Oh…" Was all he said. He turned around and headed to the staircase behind him, and yelled, " Rose! You're date is here!"

I noticed he had an English accent.

I followed him into the living room, and, I noticed one a boy identical to the one who opened the door, only his shirt was a pale green and his hair was parted on the left.

I never seen a set of twins in real life, before.

I sat down on a plush chair, and he sat down on the couch by his brother. They both looked at me for a moment. In unison, which was very disbursing to me, they reached into an inside pocket of their blazer, One of them, the one with the blue shirt, pulled out a silver cigarette case, while the other took out a zippo.

They both took a long, slim cigarette out of the case and placed them loosely in their lips. After they lit up, the one in the blue shirt looked at me and held out the case, "Fag?"

It took a moment for me to realize he wasn't insulting me, but offering me a smoke.

I took one, said thanks. The one in green offered to light it, but I took out my own lighter. I cut back on smoking, but I still had one now and again. When I was nervous. Like now.

By the time I finished my smoke, Rose came down stairs.

Her hair was styled very much like her step brother in the green shirt. She also wore what looked like a business type skirt and blazer the same color as the suits her step brothers were wearing. Her shoes were brown plat form high heels that strapped around her ankle. Her make up was also like that the twins had, only more noticeable. Which is okay. It's still less than most girls wear.

". Gimme a sec." She went into the closet in the hall, only to come out a second later, "Oscar, where's my purse?"

"Which one?"

I now knew the one with the part on the right was Oscar. And, by process of elimination, the other one was Sebastian.

"Uh…black sequins and silver chain strap."

"Kitchen."

I watched her walk toward the kitchen and come back her purse. "Okay, I'm ready." She said goodbye to her brothers and we left.

We walked in silence for a moment, when she asked, "So, what are we seeing?"

"Torn Curtain."

"Smashing. I love Hitchcock."

We talked about Hitchcock's other films all the way there. I almost headed around back, to the whole in the fence. But since it was a date, I thought I'd make a better impression by paying the quarter to get in.

We didn't get to watch too much of the movie. Less than an hour into the movie, a gun shot went off somewhere near the entrance. People scattered, and I took Rose around back, to the hole in the fence. Several people were already crawling through it, wanted to get away before the cops show.

I went first, then held up the broken part of the fence, so she wouldn't have to get as low to ground, and not get her clothes as dirty as I just did.

Reason number 12 as to why there are never any clean white tee shirts in my house.

When she stood back up, she started brushing the dirt off of her clothes. I knew the cops were heading over here, so I grabbed her hand and pulled her away. She ran okay, considering the kind of shoes she was wearing.

We stopped in front of a convenience store. Actually, I stopped. Rose nearly ran into me. Leaning against the wall was the make-up wearing twins, smoking a cigarette. In between them, was delinquent extraordinaire, Two-Bit, in the same pose as the twins. We didn't stay and talk. We just exchanged pleasantries and kept going.

We went back to her house. She said we'd be there alone. Who could pass up an opportunity like that?

We headed right upstairs. The first think I noticed about her room was the large black mass in the middle of her bed. It was a Great Dane. He raised his head and just kind of looked at Rose and I for a moment, waged it tail for a brief moment, and then put its head back down.

"Marc Antony!" Rose said. She went over to the bed, and gave the large dog a little shove, "get off my bed."

The dog raised his head and looked at her, but didn't move. She tugged at his collar and still didn't budge. She kept trying. Eventually the dog left. But I think it was because the dog was annoyed by her pushing.

We made out for a while. It was real cool. We both had taken our shirts off, but we didn't get too much further. Afterwards, she put on a record. I forget the name of the band, but the album was called Surrealistic Pillow, which I thought was a bit strange. We just lay on the bed and listened to the music. At some point we had fallen asleep.

When I woke up, the music had stopped and the alarm clock by her bed said 10:47. The ticking seemed louder than before. I got good like at the room, by this time. Each wall was a different color, one pale blue, one dark purple, one pink and one orange. The walls were pretty bare, but there were several boxes under a desk with 'ROSE'S ROOM' written on the side. They must have just moved recently.

I got up and picked my shirt up off of the ground. I put it on, and then walked over to the desk. I took a pen, and a piece of paper, and wrote a small note, basically asking her to meet me tomorrow morning…and wear something more…casual. I left the note on her night stand, and quietly left the room, closing the door behind me.

I was about to go down the staircase, when I heard two voices down stairs. One of which was British…probably Rose's step-father. I saw two shadows moving down the hall, towards the bottom of the staircase.

William Hazlitt once said 'First impressions are often the truest.' And if that's true, and he catches me sneaking out of his daughters' bedroom at 11 at night…well…you don't have to be a genius to know it won't end well.

I ducked into the nearest open door and closed it. I pressed my ear against the wood. The other voice was male, I noticed, and it sounded familiar. I couldn't really make out too many words. I heard footsteps going down the hall, and a dog growling. I figured Marc Antony must have been kicked out of his room. The growling was getting louder and it seemed closer. Too close. I glanced over my shoulder. There were two beds, and on the beds, were rather large German Shepards. The both of them were growling at me, and bearing their teeth. The second I heard the door in the hall close, I opened the door, and closed it as fast as I could. The dogs were now barking and scratching at the door. I didn't even bother using the stairs. I slid down the banister, almost falling on Marc Antony who was lying in the hall. I flung open the door and barreled outside, slamming the door behind me.

I didn't stop running until I was home.

Darry asked me why I was out of breath.

I told him I was almost eaten by a couple of German Shepards. He just laughed. I just wanted to go to bed.

I was mildly surprised that Soda was already asleep. I slid into the bed beside him and went to sleep.

Uh…nothing really to explain I don't think….