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Chapter 8:
When we got home, I ran into Darry's room; hoping he hadn't left for work yet. He had. But Soda was home, so I went to him. " Has Darry found out anything from the court yet?" I asked. He looked at my dumbfounded.
"What?" He asked. I figured he wouldn't know, but hadn't thought of a follow up of what to say after he said that.
" Nothing"
" No, Ponyboy, you said something about court. I'm not that smart, but I know court, and what happens there. Why did Darry go to court?"
" He's going to tell you I imagine." I said. " Please, I can't say anymore now. Not with him here." I tilted my head toward the door, motioning to Johnny who was sitting at the kitchen table doing homework. After that I went out and joined him. We were working on a project for science. It was really starting to aggravate both of us. " Who cares what the difference between cold and warm fronts are? One is cold, and the others warm! When mixed together they create tornadoes! Who cares how fronts and air masses are made!" Johnny screamed. This surprised me; I'd never heard him scream before. Maybe a couple times after a bad beating, I'd seen him cry and cuss out his parents and yell about them. But never had I heard him scream at an inanimate object.
"Man, calm down." I said. " It's no use getting yourself worked up over something like this.
"I know." He said. " Its just, why do we have to know something useless like this."
"I don't know, but we're not going to get anywhere whining about it. Let's finish it up." Just then Darry walked in the door, it was about 4:30 P.M. " Darry!" I exclaimed. Then ran over and pulled him into his room.
" Whoa, boy. Now calm down. Please. Let me take a quick shower, and get into regular house clothes."
"Darry, I need to know what they…" He cut me off there.
" I know, I'm going to have to explain things to you. OK, and its going to take a while to tell you everything. Not to mention, I have to think of a way to word it." He then, without meaning to be, roughly pushed me out of his way and went into the bathroom. I went back to Johnny, who was pounding his fists on the table yelling at the homework. We started doing the assignment again, but my mind wasn't there mentally. Darry scared me. I mean he has to explain? That can't be good.
We sat there working on the project for about another 45 minutes. When Darry came out of the bathroom, he said, " Johnny, I want you to hop in the shower, and Soda you need to go to the grocery, we're out of milk." Johnny got up and went into the bathroom, just as Darry had ordered. Soda complained though.
"Why do I have to go to the store? Can't Pony do it?"
" Pony's not the one who eats us out of house and home." Darry replied, and I chuckled. Its true, Soda is always eating. He had nothing to back up his fight. So Soda left the house and when he had closed the door, Darry and I went out on the front porch.
"OK, Pony. After you went to school today I went to the courthouse, as you know."
"Yeah" I said.
" I spoke to a social worker, and she said that it'd be against her better judgment to let me take in a third kid, because of how young I am. But, there's no reason why I couldn't take him in either. To make a long story short, this isn't going to be easy. Tomorrow, she's coming for a home study, and there's going to many of these throughout this adoption process. Then she's going to have a talk with Johnny's parents, and inspect there home."
"What's there to inspect?" I interrupted. He gave me a look, and I knew he meant shut up. But he didn't say anything, and continued talking about the court.
" Once that's cleared up, we are going to have to go to family court against his parents, regardless of what happens in the house studies, or what Mr. And Mrs. Cade say. But that's going to be fairly easy, because really, all they have to do is state that they don't want him to be an inhabitant of their house anymore, and that they would like him to be taken in by us. Then there are going to be more house inspections after that, to make sure we can take care of him. But we already know we can. So that's nothing." Just then Soda popped out from behind the house with milk in his hand.
" Don't you think you should ask Johnny if he wants to stay with us first." Darry was mad. You can tell when he's mad.
" Weren't you supposed to be at the grocery?" Darry asked with evident anger.
" I got the milk." He held it up. " Then I came home the back way and decided to listen in on your conversation."
" OK, so you know our plan." He said.
" Take Johnny in."
" Yes. You got it, Little Buddy." Then we went inside, and waited for Johnny to get out of the bathroom. We had to ask him if he wanted to stay with us. But we all knew he'd say yes.
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