A/N: Hey! It's Friday night, and I have no life! So I decided to update. Yay. I want to thank the anonymous reviewer 'allie' for saying she was going to review twice a day. She didn't do that, but I still appreciate the thought. Thanks so much for the reviews, everybody! I so appreciate them.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Outsiders. I also kind of borrowed this chapter's idea from Taming the Star Runner, which is also an S.E. Hinton book. I was going to write something similar to this, but then I read Taming the Star Runner and it sort of inspired this. It will be sort of different from that book.

Two months later, I quickly walked home from school. The days before summer started were winding down quick, and I could tell that it was going to be a hot one.

Oh, glory.

I received another letter.

Mr. Curtis, I am going to be around Tulsa, Oklahoma for the next few days. I would very much like if we could go grab lunch and discuss your book…

I gripped my newest letter so tight I almost ripped it. Inhale, exhale.

…You know my number. Please call as soon as is best for you.

Mrs. Nancy Almost

Editor-in-Chief

Oh my God, I thought. Oh my God.

I put this letter in to the rest of my stash of letters I had stored up. I stored them all under a loose floorboard on my side of the bed. I knew that wasn't a very good place for them, but that was the best place I could think of. Nobody would think to look under there anyway.

I'd been checking the mail religiously since I got my last letter. Usually nothing. I could admit that it did get a little disappointing not hearing from Mrs. Almost, but I was still buzzing from the fact that I actually managed to sell my book. It was enough to make my heart stop beating for a few seconds.

So I nearly ran to the phone and looked up Mrs. Almost's number.

"Mrs. Nancy Almost's office," a voice droned on the other line.

"Uh, yeah," I replied. "I-I need to talk to her - to Mrs. Almost."

A short pause, and then - "Hello? Nancy Almost speaking."

Her voice was raspy and boisterous - but for some reason it sounded nothing like I expected it to sound like. From her letters she seemed so formal and proper. I pictured her voice to be small and petite, business-like.

"Um, hi … I'm Ponyboy Curtis. I was call -"

"Oh, hello, Ponyboy," she said brightly. "I was anticipating your call."

I grinned nervously and clutched the phone with a vice-like grip. My knuckles were turning white. I stared down at the hole in my shoe absently. "Really?" Man, that was so tuff! She was talking to me like I was a grown-up!

Man, I gotta say, it feels real good to not be treated like a kid. I was used to it - being treated like a kid and babied. I was the youngest of my brothers and the youngest of the whole gang, so I was always treated different, or called "kid".

"Oh, yes, indeed. Ponyboy, I am … I am appalled by your story. You truly have a gift. You just seem like such a wonderful person. I've been wanting to meet you for such a long time now."

I could feel myself blush, and I was extremely glad that I was home by myself and no one could see me.

I laughed, shuddery and nervous. "Wow …" I said, feeling very pleased by that compliment. "Thank you, ma'am."

I'd never thought of myself as a real writer. Sure, when I was little I wrote short stories, but what little kid didn't do that? When I thought of writers - real, real writers - like Hemingway or Mark Twain, I wonder what it was like for them. Did they always know they were writers? Were they born with a strong itch to write? Did they know their passion from the start?

Mrs. Almost kept talking on for a while, and we eventually made plans to go to this nice restaurant I'd seen and heard of but had never been to.

Oh, glory, I thought. What do I wear to this? How am I gonna afford this?

I sat and paced for a few good minutes. This was exciting. My mind was racing. My heart was thudding. I felt exhilarated - like I was about to be in a rumble.

I hung the phone back up after realizing that it was not yet back on the receiver. I smiled to myself and started to make dinner - it was 4:30 (my walk home from school was kind of long, and I stayed after to bum around with Mark Jennings a little bit. He was tuff, someone I could see me hanging around with a lot in the future) and Sodapop got off at five. I couldn't wait to tell him about this.

Soda came home around 5:15, and the spaghetti was done.

He was humming some song absently while he threw his shoes off. Some things never change, especially with Sodapop.

"Hey, Soda. Whatcha singin'?"

"I don't know," he said. He shrugged carelessly. "Heard it on the radio today."

"How was your day, Sodapop?" I asked, randomly deciding to change the subject.

"Uneventful. Nothin' happened all day. What about you? What is a day in the life like for my kid brother P.M. Curtis?" He grinned like a Chessy cat and lay on the couch.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "I gotta letter from Mrs. Almost."

His head snapped up to look at me from his spot on the couch. "Your - your book person?"

"Yeah!" I said, glad he was as excited as I was.

He stood up and grabbed both sides of my face. "Oh, golly, P.M. Curtis. What did she want?"

"She wants to meet up and talk about my book."

"Talk about your book?" Soda inquired as we walked in to the kitchen. I was putting some spaghetti on a plate for him. "That's a good thing, right?"

"I guess so," I muttered under my breath. And then, I asked, "Should I just leave this out for Darry later?" I pointed to the spaghetti to indicate that that was what I was talking about.

His eyes lit up at the sight of food. He brandished his fork and began to dig in eagerly as soon as I set his plate in front of him. "Shoot," he said with a full mouth, spaghetti sauce dripping down his chin. "Darry would eat anything. Don't matter if it's sat out for a while."

I sat down next to him and began to devour my own food.

"Yeah," I snorted. "I mean, he eats your cooking."

"What's wrong with my cooking?"

I just stared at him, a grin plastered on my face. "You're crazy, Soda."

Steve came over around the same time Darry got home about a half hour later, and Soda - of course - had to tell Steve about my future meeting with Mrs. Almost. He exaggerated some details - like when he said it was an interview with the press, and I was going to be on TV, but I wasn't about to tell Steve the truth.

Steve just smiled some wry grin and looked at me. "Hey, maybe you'll get rich, and we can all move out of this shithole neighborhood. Maybe even this shithole town!"

"Aw, this town ain't so bad, Stevie. It's just the neighborhood," Soda said, already getting poker chips and cards ready.

"Don't get too excited," I said. "My book might not even sell too good. It ain't like they're going to be like, 'Oh, we're buying your book. Here's a thousand dollars'."

"Yeah, but wouldn't that be just grand?" said Steve. He paused, and then went on quietly, "I'm sure it'll do good."

I looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Thanks, man."

"Don't mention it."

I knew he really meant to don't mention it. He did, of course, have that smart-ass reputation to uphold. We were supposed to be the two that always had less-than-friendly fights. And, as much as I hated to admit it, I could feel that burning dislike we had for each other for so long slowly diminishing. Maybe it was the fact that I was going to be fifteen in a couple months, but it still had taken me by surprise when Steve of all people invited me to go out with him and Soda to the strip.

Maybe I was growing up. Maybe everyone would treat me like a grown-up when I publish "The Outsiders". That would be major cool.

Or maybe Steve was getting bored with Soda and Two-Bit, and was desperate. I bit my cheek to hide a smile at the thought.

I was lost in TV and my thoughts for a few minutes when I felt a firm hand on my shoulder. "Thanks for making dinner, Ponyboy," It was Darry.

"You're welcome. It was no problem."

He grinned and sat down on the recliner. I remembered something. "Mrs. Almost wrote me a letter."

He looked over to me, alert. "What did she have to say?"

"She wants to meet up about the book soon. At some fancy place too."

"What restaurant?" Darry said, rubbing the non-existent stubble on his jaw line.

It was some French word. I had to struggle and rack my brain to remember how Mrs. Almost said it. I didn't really know how to pronounce it, but Darry seemed to know what I was talking about. "I went there with Holden once," he said. "Long, long time ago. Socy place. Real good food, though …"

I didn't want him getting all nostalgic on me, so I said, "What am I gonna do? It sounds real fancy. How are we gonna afford this?"

"It sounds like a business lunch," Darry said absentmindedly. "The rich people usually pay for business lunches. And besides, it wouldn't really be fair if she put together the lunch and then made you pay for it."

I thought back to something my dad told me before he died: Never let a lady pay for her meal.

I didn't think that rule counted in this case, because Mrs. Almost was a working woman and I was sure she could pay for herself. Not to mention, I wasn't going on a date with her or anything.

"You sure, Dar?" I bit my lip, worrying.

His confidence reassured me. "Yeah, kiddo. It'll all be good."

Sodapop and Steve's poker game was becoming a shouting match. "You dirty, rotten cheater!" Steve yelled. I just shook my head at them.

"What do I wear to this kind of thing?" I asked. I'd never done something like this before.

"You gotta act like it's a job interview, ya know? Dress for the job you want to have."

I had to think about that. I wanted to be an author. I'd seen pictures of authors before, but they all looked like regular people. "Well … What does a writer dress like?" I said semi-jokingly.

Darry chuckled softly and ran a hand through his greaseless hair. "Just gotta dress nice. I'm sure we have some stuff. I'm sure Soda has something in that pig-sty wreck of a closet …"

From the kitchen I could hear Soda yell, "I didn't do nothing, Steve!"

I laughed as Steve said, "You now owe me five bucks."

Sodapop cursed loudly. "Damn!" and then they busted out in to an arm wrestling match. Why does this always happen with them? I couldn't help but think.

"Where's Two-Bit?" I said aloud randomly as Darry went in to me and Soda's room.

"I don't know, Pony," Soda replied, in deep concentration from the arm wrestling match. "I think he's watchin' his sister or something."

"Darry?" I called. I was starting to get a little panicky again. "Are you sure we can do this business lunch? I can tell Mrs. Almost. I'm sure she'll understand. She seems like a pretty understanding lady…"

The truth was, I was starting to get nervous about the dinner. What would we be talking about? She seemed to like my book … that was a good sign. But I couldn't shake this feeling of anxiety. I was scared I was going to mess something up.

Darry came back out with some nice slacks and shirts. They were nicely folded, but all wrinkly. You're going to have to iron those, I thought in the back of my mind.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it. And just think, P.M. Curtis," he said, "in a while, you'll be able to buy all the dinners you want with your best-seller."

I threw my head back and laughed.

Hope you enjoyed!