It occurred to me over the weekend that I completely forgot my disclaimer in all of the previous chapters. So, here goes:

Disclaimer: The Outsiders belongs to S.E. Hinton. I am making no profit from this story.

And now, the last four chapters. Thanks for taking the time to read the story!

Chapter 9

It took a lot of grunting, sweating, clawing, pushing, and lifting before we finally got out of that cave, and that only happened after one of us finally noticed there was a ladder just lying there under the water at one end of the cavern. We set it on one of the coin ledges, leaned it up against the mouth of the hole, and climbed up out of the ground.

"Well, that sucked," I announced. We were lying side-by-side in the grass next to the fountain, panting.

"I can't believe those tunnels connected to this fountain," Ponyboy said for the third time. It had taken only a moment of orienting ourselves for him to see that we had, indeed, emerged from the middle of the fountain in the park where Bob had gotten killed in The Outsiders. He leaned up on one elbow. "I mean, it doesn't even make any sense. If the middle of the fountain-"

"Don't," I said. "Just don't even try to figure it out. I mean, we met The Goonies down there, for godsake. In tunnels. Under Tulsa, Oklahoma! And for the amount of time we've been gone, it should be, what, like seven in the morning by now? Yet, here we are, middle of the night still. None of this makes any sense."

"Hey, whatta ya know?"

Ponyboy closed his eyes and swore under his breath, and I groaned. "You have got to be kidding me," he said.

We both dragged ourselves to our feet to greet a group of boys who I surmised was Bob and Company as they staggered toward us.

Bob gave a too-friendly smile. "Here's one of the little greasers that picked up our—"

"Look," I said, "my uncle owns a bar and pool hall over on Picket and Hamilton. Fifty cent drinks from midnight to closing, and they don't check i.d.s unless you start trouble." It was almost scary how easily I had just spouted out some random made-up nonsense like it was real.

The weird thing was, they all stood there looking like maybe another feasible option had just opened up. "Is that, um, all drinks?" one of them asked. "Or just the fruity girly ones?"

"Hey," came another familiar voice from behind us. "Whatta ya know?"

That time, Ponyboy and I both groaned. "It's contestant number two," I whispered.

Ponyboy looked down at me. "What?" Then he gave his head a slight shake and turned his attention to the two lunatics who had just climbed out of the fountain. "Sorry," he told them, "you're gonna have to stand in line. These gentlemen were here for us first."

Everybody looked confused and wary. Bob was squinting at contestant number two.

The lunatics hadn't taken their eyes off of us for more than an instant. "I believe you two have something we're looking for," one of them said, his tone menacing in that overly-friendly way.

My heart pounded, and I stepped up next to Ponyboy. We were going to die. Those guys were going to kill us, and then they'd probably kill Bob and his friends. I'd come here to stop Johnny from dying, but instead all I'd done was fix it so a whole bunch of other people would get killed instead for no reason at all.

"Dad?" Bob said.

Contestant number two stopped and looked at Bob, whose face was so scrunched up in confusion he was nearly unrecognizable. One of the boys—I assumed he was Randy, based on what he was wearing—gave a little wave. "Hi, Mr. Sheldon."

And all at once, Ponyboy and I were forgotten. We stood there watching as if we were the cameras in one of those ridiculously dramatic reality shows, taking everything in but not interfering.

"Bobby!" contestant … er, Mr. Sheldon, greeted, like they had just bumped into each other at the grocery store. His pants were ripped, his shirt was coated with ash and slime, and he was wading across a fountain in a park at two o'clock in the morning, but it was all just totally normal.

"Dad? What are … what are you doing? What's going on?" Apparently shocked into sobriety, Bob held no trace of a slur in his voice. "What ….?"

Mr. Sheldon reached the edge of the fountain and stepped out onto the sidewalk, a flood of icy water swooshing out with him and splashing me in the leg. I took a step back. "Bobby," he said. "I was just out looking for you! Your mother is worried."

Ponyboy and I exchanged a look, and Mr. Sheldon shot us his own look as if to say, 'go along with this and we'll forget about all that other stuff with the trains and the gun and the money and the tunnels.' Okay, so I tend to read a lot into people's looks. But really, he did look desperate to keep things under wraps.

Ponyboy had realized the same thing. "Lucky for us you heard us calling for help from the fountain and brought us that ladder," he said. "You're like a hero."

"Hero?" Bob repeated. "Fountain?" He glanced over his father's shoulder. "But how can there be a-"

"Let's just all be glad nobody was hurt," Bob's father said, wrapping his soaking wet arm around Bob's shoulder and leading him toward the cars. "We need to get home now and get cleaned up. Maybe Mom will make some hot chocolate."

"Make sure she adds sugar!" I called after them, and Ponyboy jabbed me in the ribs.

There was an awkward moment then when we stood there looking at Bob's friends, and they stood there looking at us, before they finally started retreating in a slightly tipsy, vastly confused jumble.

Ponyboy finally looked at me. "Well, I guess that's that." With a yawn, he stretched his arms over his head.

I raised my eyebrows and sighed. "I guess so."

"We should probably head back to the house."

Cold, wet, and exhausted, we each put an arm around the other, leaned into one another, and started walking. Not too fast, though. In the morning, we'd be sending me home.

#

Outside the window, the late-morning sun shone bright against a deep blue early-autumn sky. Ponyboy and I, after explaining to Darry where the heck we'd been because it was two o'clock in the morning, kiddos (we basically told him we'd fallen asleep in the lot and were sorry and we promised to do all of the laundry the next day), we collapsed into our beds and slept until nearly ten. Johnny had been asleep on the couch, so all of the yelling and apologizing and negotiating had occurred in whispers.

Now, showered and dressed, I sat in the living room watching Johnny yawn and rake his hands through his rumpled hair. He stole a quick glance at me before standing up to fold the blanket he'd been using.

"So," I said, "what now?"

He glanced at me again before focusing back in on the blanket. "What now, what?"

What are you going to do with yourself this morning, now that you're waking up here instead of in a little abandoned church on Jay Mountain? What now, that you don't have to eat bologna all week and listen to Gone With the Wind and replay over and over in your mind the last moments of another boy's life, taken by your own hands? What now, now that you've got tomorrows that extend more than a week from today?

What now, Johnny?

Of course, to Johnny, "now" didn't mean anything different than it had yesterday, or the day before that, or any of the weeks and months and years prior to that. Now was just now, and it wasn't any different than yesterday or tomorrow.

I sighed and ran the toe of my shoe across a rip in the rug. "You got any plans for today, Johnny?"

He shrugged and rolled his shoulder around, working out the kinks of sleeping on the couch. "Probably just head home." He gave me a curious look, as if nobody had ever asked him before what he planned to do with himself, but didn't say anything. After a minute, he turned toward the door. "Tell Ponyboy I'll see him tomorrow or somethin'."

As Johnny opened the front door, I stood up. "Wait."

He stopped, hand on the doorknob, waiting, but I hadn't even known what I was going to say. With his dark hair hanging across his forehead and a world of patience in his tired eyes, Johnny looked back at me. "Yeah? What is it, Sarah?"

"You're important," I blurted out, and his eyes got a little wider, maybe because he thought I was a little crazy and I was wasting his time. But I hadn't let him do all he ever needed to do in the world and then die, so I needed to do something else. Maybe since Ponyboy hadn't gotten the chance to be Johnny's voice, maybe instead Johnny could figure out how to be his own voice. I licked my lips and straightened my skirt. "You're important," I repeated. "My mom, she used to say, 'There's something special about Johnny. He's got important things to do in his life, soon as he leaves this old town behind.'" I notched my hair behind my ear and gave a one-shoulder shrug. "It's just…I just thought you might want to know, is all. My mom thought you were meant for great things. She knew you were. And my mom was usually right about stuff like that."

Johnny stared at me for another few seconds, his eyes looking a little less defeated and a slight smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. He looked down and gave a slight nod. "Thanks. Thanks for telling me."

And then, the door closed behind him, and he was gone.