I woke up to an unfamiliar room.

I could hear loud voices and a TV running. I think it was Mickey Mouse. I haven't seen Mickey Mouse before, but I could hear it when I was walking down the streets where all the houses were.

I could hear lot's of boys talking outside the door. I slowly got up and opened the door to peek out and to see what was going on.

"Hey what's a lousy kid doing here?"

I jumped back. The guy that talked to me was scary. He was pale blond, and had scary ice blue eyes. I was really scared of him.

I stumbled backwards towards the room but I fell over.

All of the boys started laughing. I couldn't help it, I started crying. I wasn't used to people joking around with me.

I felt somebody picking me up and sitting me in their lap. I looked up, it was sodapop. He was stroking my hair and rubbing my back.

"Hey honey, don't cry, we weren't laughing at you." I sniffled.

"y-you weren't?" Ponyboy came over.

"Of course we weren't"

A guy with a Mickey mouse t-shirt came to me and sat down.

"Did mean ol' dally scare you?"

I nodded; he was probably talking about that guy from before.

A dark skinned boy came up. "Is this the kid you were talking about Pony?"

Ponyboy nodded his head. "Carlie, this is Johnny." Johnny smiled.

They guy with the Mickey Mouse shirt sat down on the couch. "You can call me Two-bit cutie"

I grinned and he continued, "I guess you already met Dally…"

He pointed over to a guy sitting next to Soda. "That's Steve, he's Soda's best friend." Steve glanced over at me and gave a small smile.

Two bit looked around trying to find something. He glanced at Soda, "Hey Soda, where is Darry?"

Soda stopped talking to Steve and said "Darry's at work, he should be back soon."

Dally got up from where he was sitting and asked Pony and Johnny if they wanted to go see a movie with him. They gladly went. Soda and Steve went out saying something about "seeing Sandy and Evie" Two bit had went somewhere.

After the house was empty I went to my bag and got out a book.

About half an hour later the house was still empty, and it started raining hard, with thunder and lightning and all. I hadn't ever heard thunder or seen lightning before because where we lived it doesn't rain that hard. The thunder scared me.

I got tired of my book pretty soon, so I turned on the TV. Some Mickey Mouse cartoon was playing so I sat down and watched it. I fell asleep about halfway through the cartoon. By the time I woke up, the house was dark and still empty.

I wandered around until I heard the door open.

"S-Soda? P-Pony? Is that you?"

I walked around trying to see them until I bumped into someone. I screamed and ran into the room I slept in before.

What if it was a crook? What if it was the state trying to take me back to my parents? I hid under the blankets and hoped that the person would go away.

I heard the door open and felt the light being turned on, and then the person left the room. But the person didn't leave the house. I could hear that the kitchen stove was running, and I could smell food was cooking.

I didn't know what to do so I just stayed inside the room. About half an hour later I heard the front door open, and I could hear Sodapop and Ponyboy come in.

I could hear soft murmurings and someone open the door to the room. It was Pony. I breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Hey Carlie… so I guess you ran into Darry huh?"

"Darry?" he smiled at me.

"Yeah, Darry is me and Soda's older brother, now can you tell me what happened, because Darry said he came in and he heard someone call our names, and he bumped into you. He heard you scream and he went to the room to investigate, he found you here…am I right?"

I nodded and sat up. "Well…you guys all left so I watched Mickey and then I fell asleep. You guys still weren't back and then I heard the door open so I thought it was you, and then I bumped into Darry. He scared me so I ran here and hid. The thunder scared me before too."

"Ah I see" I giggled.

"So, you want to come meet Darry for real?"

I nodded. "But will he like me?"

He looked at me like I was crazy. "Sure he'll like you, what's there not to like?"

I shrugged. Pony pulled me off of the bed and took my hand.

We walked towards the kitchen where I saw a man making dinner. Pony nudged me forward.

"Darry this is our cousin, Carlie" I became shy and slowly walked up to him. I was suddenly embarrassed of what happened before.

Darry kneeled down to my level; he was still pretty big though. I looked over him; his eyes were the first things I noticed. They were blue-green and they looked ice cold. His hair wasn't like the other boys, his was short, and it wasn't slicked back.

"Hi there, we sorta got off on the wrong foot, I'm Darry, and you must be our cousin."

"Hi, my name is Carlie"

He stood back up and continued to make dinner. "Nice to meet you"

I followed Pony back to the living room where I sat with Two bit to watch Mickey Mouse. After dinner we had the issue of where I was going to sleep.

"Well, she can't sleep on the couch"

"Or my old room, cause it's crammed with……stuff"

"How about she sleeps with me and Soda? We have room and she won't bother us, will she Soda?"

"I'm cool with it, how 'bout you Darry?"

He looked at Soda and Pony. "I'm not too cool with it but since it's for the time being, it will have to do."

That night I crawled into bed with Soda and Pony, I was sandwiched in the middle of them.

I fell asleep to the rhythm of quiet and peace, not like in my own home.