Chapter 5

The silence between us was so complete, the sudden chirp of a cricket from a nearby shrub was like the blast from a steamboat.

A story that's worthy of being told. Ponyboy was right. I was there to tell a story. Or was I? I had let down the one person I wanted to impress the most, but did it matter? "Johnny is alive," I said. To my surprise, tears welled up, and my voice cracked when I spoke again in a choked whisper. "Johnny doesn't have to die."

Ponyboy's expression softened a little, though he gave his head a slight shake. "People die, Sarah. It's a part of life."

"But it doesn't have to be! Not if I can help it. There wasn't enough time for him." Didn't he see? Johnny didn't have enough time. Forget the story; Johnny didn't have enough time.

"He died a hero," Ponyboy said, his tone gentle but firm. "When Johnny died, he was ready to go. He did all he'd ever needed to do in this world. He was ready, Sarah."

I wiped my eyes and turned around, embarrassed that I had started crying. "Well, maybe I wasn't ready for him to die." I sniffled and swallowed and gave a shrug. "I guess this is it then, huh? I failed your little test. I didn't make a story, I don't have a plot, and I'm out of chapters. I did exactly what you told me not to do." I turned and looked him in the eye. "Which I'm not sorry about, by the way. And I never will be."

To my surprise, Ponyboy smiled. "Okay, Sarah. But before you leave, remember – Johnny was the story. You take away his story, and him and all the kids like him don't have a voice anymore."

Despite knowing that he was right on some level I wasn't ready for, I refused to give in and stop feeling sorry for myself. "You can go ahead and send me back now. Now that I'm a big fat failure." My throat tightened.

"Come on," Ponyboy said after a minute, setting a hand on my shoulder. His grip was strong and warm, and I couldn't help but lean into the safety of it. He guided me forward. "Let's go for a walk."

#

The streets were cold, dark, and quiet. Ponyboy draped an arm around me, allowing his unzippered jacket to stretch across my back. The fog of his breath hung for an instant in the icy air between us when he spoke. "What all do you want to accomplish?"

I stared at him, which made me trip over a crack in the sidewalk where a tree root had pushed upward and warped the pavement. "Accomplish?" I asked after Ponyboy had steadied me. "Like, what do I want to be when I grow up?"

He laughed, which made me bristle a little. "The story. What's this story for? Who're you writing it for? What's the point of it all?"

The point. "I just like to write. I guess. I mean, yeah. I like to write."

"But what's your agenda?" With a slight swagger to the right, Ponyboy let his arm drop off my shoulder as he kicked a rock from the sidewalk into the street.

I had no idea what he was talking about. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

A light breeze sent dry leaves swirling across the empty road. "How do I explain this?" Ponyboy asked nobody in particular. "Okay – look at it this way: every character in a book has their own story goin' on. Their own perspective. You dig? The story you're writing is just the one that focuses on your main character. So, if you're the main character, what's your story? What's important to you? What is it you want most in the world that you can't seem to get?" Ponyboy looked down at me. "Once you know that, you can figure out what's stopping you from getting what you want, and what – if anything – you're gonna do about it."

My brain was spinning. I wanted . . . I had no idea what I wanted. "I just wanted to hang out with the guys in the book I read. You know – I wanted to be a part of what they had."

He shook his head and turned around to lean against the hood of a parked car. "No. That ain't it."

I thought for a second. "Okay. Okay, I've got it. What I wanted most in the world was to keep Johnny from dying. To, you know, change it so he didn't die." I was proud of my epiphany until Ponyboy shook his head again after a few seconds of consideration.

"No," he said, and my pride deflated into a puddle of confusion. "No. That ain't it, either."

I watched Ponyboy dig a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and place it between his lips. He reached into his pocket again and pulled out a match, lit it on the bottom of his shoe, and, cupping his hand around the flame, set it against the end of the cigarette. His hair, having not seen a comb or more grease in hours, fell in unruly wisps across his forehead. He watched me, waiting.

The staring got me feeling awkward. For no apparent reason, I was all of a sudden acutely aware of my gangly legs, my slight overbite, my too-small boobs, my too-big middle. Even rumpled, Ponyboy radiated strength and beauty. For the first time, as I stood there withering in self-consciousness, I saw in Ponyboy a certain gentle grace that was familiar and comfortable to me.

And he was still waiting for me to tell him what was important to me.

"I don't know," I admitted with a defeated sigh. "I don't know what's important to me. I have no idea what I want."

He gave a slight shrug. "It's alright. Sometimes, you don't figure out til the end of the story what it's all about. Even when it's your own story." He tossed his cigarette on the ground and crushed it under his shoe. "Come on. Let's keep walking."

#

The moon shone bright as we walked, so it didn't matter that it was the middle of the night or that some of the street lights weren't working. After an hour, I had no idea where we were or how far we had walked, but I figured Ponyboy was keeping track.

We talked about everything – his parents, my family, the music we liked, the friends we had, our favorite foods, what we loved, what scared us – everything. That hour might just as well have stretched into years for as much as we talked.

"There's a lot of rabbits around here," I said after the hundredth or so brown fuzzball hopped across our path.

Ponyboy gave a distracted wave of his hand. "Plot bunnies," he explained. "It's an introduced species. They breed like crazy, and that's on top of all the ones that get brought in every day." His face brightened and he took on a renewed energy. "Come on," he said, apparently struck with inspiration. He took me by the hand and quickened his pace. "There's something I want to show you!"

I was out of breath by the time we got to the alley Ponyboy had dragged me off to. It was dark and creepy, but he strode through with the confidence of a panther prowling the jungle, so I followed. "Here," he finally said, kneeling down next to the back shed of a house that looked abandoned. Ponyboy rolled a huge rock out of the way with a grunt, reached under the shed, and lugged out a pillowcase-sized cloth bag that had a drawstring at the top.

"What is it?" I couldn't imagine what Ponyboy would be hiding in a bag under an old shed.

He pulled open the drawstring, flipped the bag over, and dumped the contents onto the ground between us. "Well?"

"Wow! I . . . where did you get all this stuff?" There were cell phones, CDs, DVDs, iPods, a bag of microwave popcorn, a Poland Spring bottle (still full of water), a copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – it went on and on.

Ponyboy sifted through the pile with a look of proud affection. "It's my bag of anachronisms. People bring this kind of stuff into stories all the time, so naturally some of it gets left behind. Cool, huh?" He had pulled a CD out of its case and was admiring the gleam of the moonlight on its mirrored surface.

"What's this?" I picked a worn, wrinkled piece of paper from the ground near the pile and gently unfolded it.

Ponyboy leaned over to have a look. "Huh. I don't know. I don't remember putting that one in. Somebody must've dropped it."

"It looks like a map." There were lines that clearly looked like roads, but it had been hand-drawn in ink and labeled in fancy writing, like calligraphy.

Ponyboy leaned in so we were both hunched over the paper. "It does look like a map," he agreed. "Wait." He took the side of the map and rotated it in my hand, turning his head in the opposite direction. "Yeah. Yeah, look – this could be the railroad tracks." His finger traced a narrow, ladder-shaped line, and then he pointed toward the houses on the other side of the alley. "Over there. See?" He pointed to the map again. "These big rectangles could be the warehouses where they unload the trains."

"But what does it say? This is all gibberish. I mean, except for the money signs in the corner."

"I wonder what this arrow is for." Ponyboy set the map on his thigh and smoothed it out, then took a closer look. "It is an arrow, right? Here inside this warehouse?"

I squinted at the map. "I don't suppose you've got a Maglite in that bag."

"A what?"

"Forget it. No, wait, look!" I reached into the pile and pulled out a bright red mini-mag light. "Perfect." I twisted the front, and the map was illuminated by a cool bright circle of LED light.

The largest rectangle on the map was the only one that had what looked like a floor plan sketched on it, with maybe steps, doorways, and other rectangles inside of it. There was a stairway along one wall of the rectangle, right next to what appeared to be a wide doorway. There was also a square inside of the rectangle that looked to be another stairway, and right under that was the mark Ponyboy had been talking about. "It does look like an arrow," I agreed, "but there's nothing there. I mean, unless . . . ." Thinking about the way I wrap up the first page of a letter when there's still more to say, I turned the map over. "Look, there's more on the back."

Ponyboy leaned in so close, his hair brushed against my cheek. "Is that supposed to be a waterfall or something? There's no waterfall around here."

The mournful wail of a train whistle called out from a few miles away.

Ponyboy turned toward the sound. "Shoot," he said, scooping all his anachronisms into the sack and stuffing it back under the shed, "it's real late. We'd better get back now." Ponyboy stood up and extended an arm to me, so I stuffed the flashlight in my pocket, took his hand, and let him pull me to standing. "Guess we're just about done here. We'll figure out how to send you back as soon as we're home."

A little stricken by Ponyboy's words – our time together was almost over – I followed along a few paces behind. Not that I was being overly slow or anything, but he was kind of speeding along, and his pace didn't exactly match the sullen mood I'd drifted into.

Ponyboy turned right at the end of the alley, onto a side street. "We'll cut through the train yard. It'll be faster."

The flatbeds and towering metal box cars, humongous replicas of the set we displayed under our Christmas tree every year, stretched alongside of us like great sleeping snakes. It was the first time I'd been that close to a train, and I was amazed at how big the wheels were. A disturbing image of one of those wheels cutting across a person ran through my mind. I moved up closer to Ponyboy with a shiver.

"Scared of ghosts?" he said with a grin. "Hey, watch out for that puddle."

I looked down at my soaking wet saddle shoe. "Guh."

He shook his head. "I sure ain't taking you on any secret missions, Sarah," Ponyboy teased. "Can't even walk through a train yard without stomping through puddles. You're worse than a little kid."

"It wasn't my fault." I shook my foot like a disgusted cat as we walked along. "If you had-"

I stopped talking when Ponyboy held his hand up and froze, listening.

"What-" I whispered, but stopped again when Ponyboy indicated with a glare that he would do something to make me sorry if I kept talking.

After a few seconds, he relaxed a little, but kept his voice at a whisper. "I think it was just-"

And that was the last thing he said before the world around us exploded.