I rolled over and starred at the pictures around my bunk. I had a family picture of my Mom, step dad, Holly and I. Grace had given me the pictures she took of my brothers and I. I took one off the tack. It was one with Soda and me. I had him wrapped up in hug. He was laughing. God, I do anything to see that kid laugh. I tacked the picture up and looked around my bunk. It was a single room the size of a walk in closet. I thought about the day today. My job was to break these people. They had some secret information. I had a translator with me at all times. What was worse is I felt something inside me break. I felt like I was before the anger management, when I was on drugs and drinking all the time. The person before I met my brothers. The alarm clock went off. I rolled out of bed. Five am, today I got absolutely no sleep. The prisoners didn't sleep either. I didn't let them go to be until four. I grabbed a night stick.

"ON YOUR FEET!"

Soda's (P.O.V)

I sat behind the Piano at school. I got done early with lunch. I ran my fingers over the keys.

"That sounds great."

I stopped playing and looked up to find Anna standing in the door way. "Thanks." I said. Anna was pretty but she was really tuff. I moved to sit in the line of chairs that were set up. We had theory at the beginning of each class. Since it was Friday we all had to perform too. "Did you make that yourself?" I asked gesturing to her dress.

"Yeah, Jay, Buddy, Allen, Jan and I had a tie-dye party last weekend."

"Sounds fun." I said. I didn't know who Allen or Jan were. They were probably in performance or the art part of school.

"Hey Anna, I read that book. Your right that's amazing." Jay sat down in front of us. He tossed Anna a book. Jay was kind of weird. He always had a peace sign dangling from his neck. He also always wore black on Fridays, when we had out of uniform days. I wasn't sure if it was because he wanted to be Johnny Cash, or Bob Dylan.

"Have you read Caught in the Spiders Wed, Soda?" Anna asked me.

"No, I don't read." I answered.

"Not even Jack Kerouac?" Jay jumped on his knees.

"Jack Who?"

"Soda, you have to read On the Road. It's amazing."

"Really, I don't read unless I have too." I said.

"Leave him alone Jay. Not everyone likes to read." Anna nudged him with her tree.

"I just think you should read. Especially with the books that are coming out now. Take Caught in the Spiders Web. The author Sunshine Curtis, he has this satire about societies expectations of people, and a journey of self discovery."

"I thought his journey of self discovery came with us." I mumbled. Everything went silent. I looked at Anna and Jay and realized they were both giving me weird looks. "He's my oldest brother. He helped raised me and my little brother Ponyboy."

"Helped raised?" Jay asked.

"My parent died in a wreck. So my brother Darry became guardian of me and my little brother Ponyboy. Then Sunny showed up on our doorstep and helped take care of us. About a month ago he got drafted." They both stared at me with shocked expressions.

"Look man, some of us are going down town to the record store and then to Pete's. You want to join?" Jay asked fiddling with his peace sign.

"Sure." I answered.

"I'm home!" I yelled.

"Where have you been?" Darry hollered from his bedroom. "Grace is coming over around 7."

"I went out with some people after school." I answered walking into his bed room.

Darry turned over to look at me. "Oh you mean, your making friends."

I grinned a little. "I guess."

"You guess?"

"Well, I don't think they would have asked me if they didn't know I was Sunny's brother." I sat down on Darry's bed. He was looking at me like I was crazy.

"They read his book and they are really big fans."

"Oh" Darry said.

"Darry, the people I'm meeting, they're real different. They ain't like socs or greasers."

Darry laughed. "Well see buddy, not everyone falls into those two categories. I'm sure there are clicks."

I shook my head. "I don't, not with these people I'm meeting. They are all into politics and stuff. They were talking about Bobby Kennedy. I don't know who that is."

"He's a senator Soda, he's related to John Kennedy. Hopefully our next president."

I starred at Darry. "Yeah anyways, they talk about books and movies. Darry, it's like there is a whole different world out there and it's revolving around Vietnam. There's even all this new music popping up from it. When we went to the record store on Main Street today"

"You went where?" Darry half hollered.

"The record store on Main." I answered.

"Soda, Main Street is crawling with people who do drugs."

"I didn't know. I ain't ever been there before. It's like this whole other part of town that I haven't been to before."

"Yeah, there's a reason for that." Darry grumbled.

"Maybe you shouldn't shelter me so much."

Darry cocked and eyebrow at me. "You new friends teach you to be smart mouth?"

"Nope, I learned that from my big brother." I grinned.

Darry lunged at me. I got put into one of his crazy holds. I couldn't get out. I felt the blood rush to my head. I struggled but he had me held tight. "Holler Uncle!"

"PONY HELP!" I screamed

"That's not Uncle." He sang.

"Darrel put him down before you hurt him." Grace stood on the doorway with her hands on her hips. Pony was next to her grinning.

"Nope, better than uncle." I said.

Darry dropped me on the floor. "You came over a little early." He said to Grace.

"No, Darrel I'm right on time."

(Darry's P.O.V)

I sat back in the chair. It was nice to finally relax. "Thank you."

Grace looked up at me. She was sewing one of my shirts. Apparently I've been doing it wrong, something about needing a cross stitch. But, hell, I only had to sew after Mom died and even then, I only did a basic stitch to hold my stuff together. "Anytime Darry. The boys seem to be doing okay."

I looked at the dirt under my nails. I think it was something about me, not matter how hard I tried to be clean dirt just found its way to me. "Well you know. Soda got tired of being mad at me about school. Pony's a little brick wall. I know they are mad. They write to him once a week. Still no reply."

"Maybe he's not getting his letters."

I shrugged. I didn't want to think about him not getting his letters because then it made me think he was dead.

"And you say Pony's the little brick wall." Grace commented.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You don't exactly display your emotions."

I wished I had a newspaper or a TV guide to hide under right now.

She set my shirt on the coffee table. "Darry, Sunny made me promise to watch over you. What's going on in your head?"

I looked at my hands. "I think I should check on Pony and Soda."

I felt a hand on my shoulder as I stood at the foot of the boy's bed. "They look just fine to me." She whispered. She tugged on my arm. I followed her back out to the living room. "What's going on?"

"Grace, I'm twenty one. I'm a big boy. I'm their guardian. I wouldn't take on that task if I needed someone to watch me."

She tucked some of her auburn hair behind her ear. "I'll see you later. Until then try not to take anything out on them. Sunny wouldn't want that. Or has his name become forbidden in this house?"

"I really don't think you need to tell me what I need to do with my kid brothers. I can't let them sit and stew on everything that has been going on."

"You're right. You just try and go back to what's normal. You don't realize what normal to them is having Sunny around."

"Grace, normal was having a Mom and Dad do my job. Normal was before the wreck, before two of our friends died in front of us, and before Sunny showed up at our door step. So don't tell me what normal, because in this house, there is no such thing as normal."

"Guys go back to bed; Darry and I are just bickering over nothing."

I turned around to find both of them standing behind me. "Back to bed, you have school tomorrow!" I yelled. "Now!" They took off down the hall.

"That's nice." Grace said. "I hope you can keep your promise to Sunny. You know the one where he asked for you to tell them you loved them."