Ok, here's chapter 7. I accidentally made Dally dead and Johnny alive. Sorry about that, I didn't mean to, and I forgot to explain it. Well I hope you like this chapter!!!

Disclaim- I do not own The Outsiders

Chapter 7

Joey's POV

I woke up to the sun shining in my window. I looked at the clock and it read 11:36. Wow, I slept in late. I usually woke up early, but yesterday was a long day. I remembered Johnny, and I went to his room. He wasn't in there, and he wasn't in the kitchen, and I figured he went to Ponyboy's house. I didn't want to go bother him about it, because I really didn't want him to get mad at me. I thought I didn't really need to take care of him, just watch over him. He's sixteen, not a baby. When I was sixteen, I was out on my own. My cell phone rang and it made me jump. I picked it up off the dirty table and answered it.

"Hello? Oh, hi Beth. What's up?"

"Hey, baby. Where'd you go? I called your apartment, and the guys said you left."

"Yeah, sorry it's a long story. You wanna come over to my house?"

"Your house?"

"Yeah, I had to come back to my house to take care of my little brother."

"Oh, how sweet! So, you gonna come pick me up?"

"Yeah, see ya in an hour or so."

"Ok. Love you."

"Love you too." I hung up the phone and set back on the table. I changed my clothes and washed my face and headed out the door without breakfast. I wasn't really hungry anyways. I got in my car and decided to stop by the Curtis house. I pulled up in the driveway and got out of my car. It was a pretty decent car, it was a red shiny one. I opened the screen door to the house and walked inside. I walked in and Johnny's eyes were on me. I just stood in the doorway and said,

"I'm gonna go pick up Bethany. She lives kinda far away, so I'm gonna be gone for a little while, alright."

"Okay, I guess." He had a little attitude, but I didn't really mind. I walked out the door and got in my car.

Johnny's POV

"So now you live with Joey like I live with Darry?" Pony asked me.

"Yeah, pretty much. Except I don't have someone like Soda. Joey has to work, too, so he's gonna be pretty busy. He also has a girlfriend, and I don't think he's as devoted to me as Darry is to you guys. But it's okay, I've always got you guys."

"Yeah" Ponyboy was staring at the ceiling like he expected it to move. "Johnny. What do you wanna do? I am really bored."

"I dunno. Wanna go walk somewhere?" There really wasn't anything to do.

"Yeah, sure." He turned around to look at Darry. "Hey Dar, we're gonna go out."

"Yeah okay, little man. Be careful." We picked up our jackets and walked out the door. I stuck my hands in my pockets and looked at my feet. Ponyboy looked up at the clouds.

"You know who I saw at school the other day?"

"Hmm?"

"Cherry Valance. She passed me in the hallway, and her friends yelled 'greaser' at me and she just walked away. I don't know why she does that. She talks to us when her friends aren't around, but at school she pretends like I don't exist."

"It's okay. She just doesn't want to ruin her reputation. Don't worry about it."

"You know, Johnny. I liked her. She understands things the way I do. But you better keep your trap shut."

"Yeah, okay." I thought about if Cherry and Pony went out. It would be kind of weird since Cherry is two years older than him. My mind wandered to Joey. I wondered how things would be since I was living with him. Darry, Soda and Ponyboy seemed to get along fine, but Darry really loves them. I can't see Joey doing all those nice things for me. We walked all around town, and we were up by the movie house when that blue Mustang came around the corner and my stomach tied into a few good knots. Ponyboy looked at me.

"Pretend like you don't see 'em. Act natural." We pretended to be in a deep conversation when the car stopped in front of us. We stopped, too. Then someone got out, and it wasn't Randy. I wondered why they have his car. Someone got out of the passenger seat, and two more guys got out of the back. They crowded around us, and since me and Pony are so small, the towered over us. One looked down at us and said in a way-too-happy tone,

"Hey there, grease." We tried to push through them, but that got them even madder. A different one spoke up.

"Hey, why don't we do society a favor and kill em now?" Then they all jumped on us. One guy got a hold of me and shoved me into the car. He punched me a few times really hard in the stomach and pretty much knocked the wind out of me. I got some of my strength back and I kicked him in the stomach back, knocking the wind out of him. He must have been really wimpy because he fell onto the ground. I saw that one of them was sitting on Ponyboy and the others were watching. He was punching him in the face. I knew I wasn't going to have much luck, but I threw myself at the boy sitting on Ponyboy. He fell over and rolled onto the ground, and one of them on the side punched me in the face and knocked me over. I stood back up, helped Pony up, and said,

"Run, Ponyboy. Let's get out of here." We started running and of course, Pony was faster than I was. We cut through as many people's yards as we could, so the Socs couldn't see us or catch up to us on the road. We finally got back to his house, and we stopped running when we got to the porch. We opened the door and were still panting, and sweating. Darry looked up from a newspaper and sensed what was going on.

"What happened to you two?" Ponyboy held his stomach where they were sitting on him.

"Got jumped by a few Socs." I looked at Pony's face, and he had a really bad black eye. I figured I had one too. Darry let out a huge sigh.

"You okay, kiddo?" he came over and gave him a hug and messed with his hair.

"Yeah" Ponyboy answered.

"What about you, Johnnycake. You okay?" I automatically looked down at my feet.

"Yeah I'm okay."

"I'm gonna get you a band-aid for your eye, alright?"

"Why? Am I bleeding?" I wiped my face to see blood on my fingers.

"Yeah". Darry went into the bathroom and came out with a band-aid. He peeled off the wrappers and placed it near my eye where I was cut. "There ya go, little buddy."

"I'm sure this makes me look tuff, huh?" Ponyboy let out a little laugh.

"Yeah." Then the door opened to reveal Joey's face. He was with a brown-haired girl. He looked at my face then at Ponyboy's.

"What happened to you guys?" I looked at him. He was holding hands with this girl and I already figured that that was his girlfriend. I spoke up and said,

"We got beat up. But it's okay. Nothing big." He looked at the girl and said,

"Come on Johnny, I've got someone to introduce you to." I said bye to Pony and Darry and headed out the door with Joey. We got into his car and went down the road to my house. In the car, Joey turned around and looked at me.

"So what happened?"

"I told you. Me and Pony were walkin and some Socs decided to beat us up."

"The who?" I guess he never knew that we called them that or he didn't remember.

"The Socs. You know, the rich kids who have nothing better to do with their time than to get drunk and jump some innocent greaser kids." He turned back around.

"Oh."

"It's okay. Darry already gave me a band-aid. I'll be okay." We got into the house and Bethany headed towards the bathroom.

"That's my girlfriend." I looked at my feet.

"Yeah I know." He looked at my face and leaned over into a hug.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. I promise I'll try to be the best brother ever. I'll always be here from now on." And I knew everything was going to be okay.

The End! Ta Da! Tell me what you think!!!!!!!!!!