As the months went by, any commotion from when I got first at the horse race finally started to go away and things started to calm down. It felt good once the hype ended. And cause I was the first girl both to compete and to win, no less riding Sport- who everyone knew was crazy- it was pretty crazy and I bet people thought I was nuts for it. They had my picture in the newspaper on the front page for a day with the headline: FIRST GIRL TO EVER WIN AT THE RODEO! And then for nearly two weeks, they had something about me. Sodapop had insisted that we keep all the newspapers, for the future generations as he claimed, but I knew he just wanted to keep them to tease me cause he knew I hated having as much as attention as I did from that.

School had started back up; I was a sophomore with Johnny, Ponyboy was a freshman, and Two-Bit was a junior again… yes, again. Long story.

Darry, Sodapop and Steve all had their jobs. Darry in roofing and construction, Soda and Steve at the DX. I still thought they were all too young to be working as much as they did, but it wasn't any of my business or my place to say anything about it.

Dallas was in the cooler- if you don't know what I mean by cooler, it means jail. I didn't know why he was there this time, but I'm pretty sure he was there for ninety days this time, which was shorter compared to a lot of other times. Like I said, I had no idea why he was there, but considering the time, probably nothing too bad.

The school year had started out weird, but as the time progressed, Angela Shepard starting hanging around me. At first, she had slowly started to hang around me; saying hi in the halls, sitting with me at lunch, even talking with me a little while I was walking around town. But like I said, slowly but surely it got even more. She had invited me over to her place to sleep over- which I thought was really weird- but I still said yes, mostly cause I had nothing better to do.

I was walking to the Curtis' place but stopped when I heard someone yelling in a familiar voice, yelling a couple of different names that I knew all too well, even mine. I turned and saw Darry, Dallas, Soda, Steve and Two-Bit run in the same direction. I gave a confused look and when I looked around, saw Johnny standing and watching form a distance by a house. I ran over by him while the five started to chase after a red car. "What's goin' on?" I asked.

Johnny sighed a bit, "I think they got Ponyboy." He started toward the others and I followed behind him.

"…kid's okay?" someone was asking when we walked up.

"I'm okay," Ponyboy answered softly then looked at Dallas, "I thought you were in the cooler for ninety days?"

Dallas rubbed his hands together a bit then lit a cigarette. "Got out early, good behavior, man."

We all walked to the front porch of the house, all of them saying their plans for the night. "Gonna come with us to the drive-in, Rain?" Johnny asked.

I shook my head, "Last time I went to that place with Dal around, he was drunk and nearly locked lips with me." Dallas shot a look my way and I glared right back at him. "Besides, I already told Angela I'd go over their place tonight."

Ponyboy gave a confused look, "Angela?"

"Shepard."

"Since when are you so chummy with her?"

I scoffed and shrugged. "I'm not, but she asked me to go over her place, I dunno why. Figured if I said yeah, maybe she won't ask me again soon."

"Well, good luck with that," he looked to Johnny and Ponyboy, "I'll see y'all later." Then he walked off after the two nodded at him.

…that night…

I walked back to my house and snuck in through the window of my bedroom. When I got in, I made sure the door to my room was locked then went to my closet and grabbed a small knapsack, then put whatever I would need in it to stay overnight somewhere. I put in an extra pair of clothes for the morning, clothes to sleep in, and a few other necessities including a few blankets and a pillow. I finished packing my bag, then snuck back out the window quietly, leaving the door locked and ran till I was around the corner form where my house was.

By the time I got to the Shepard's place, the sun was almost down. I figured Dallas, Johnny and Ponyboy would nearly be at the drive-in by now, unless Dallas got them arrested. "Maybe I should just ditch this and meet them there," I thought. I sighed and shrugged, then walked to the front door and rang the doorbell. A moment later, the door opened and Tim appeared. "Hey Rain," he greeted, "Angela said you'd be stoppin' by for the night."

I nodded, "Yeah… sorry to inform you, but you're stuck with me for the night."

He chuckled and let me in. "Believe it or not, I'll actually be at the drive-in."

"If you see Ponyboy, Dallas or Johnny there tonight, tell them I say hey alright? They're supposed to be goin' there." He nodded.

Tim and I had a weird friendship. Actually, we were more of acquaintances than anything else. We never hung out really, but we weren't strangers. We talked, said hi at school or in town, that kind of stuff. As long as we had known each other, we always had friendly conversations- as long as at the moment we were cool with the Shepard gang. But either way, once you got past the "hood" that he was, he was a pretty tuff guy.

Tim led me to Angela's room. He knocked on the door then when it opened, showed Angela in flannel pajama pants and a tank top. She smiled and pulled me in, closing the door behind me to prevent her brother from coming in. "Hey Rain," she smiled.

I gave an unsure look, "Hey Angela… look, can I ask ya about something?"

She nodded. " 'Course."

"Why have you been so nice to me and hanging around me so much?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well at school, you've been hanging around me more than you ever did. Now I ain't seeing that it's bad, but I'm just curious why."

She sighed. "Cause Tim thought I should find different people to hang out with and when I asked like who, he said people like you."

I nodded slowly. "Look, no offense or nothin', I'm flattered that y'all think of me that way, but I'm just not used to hanging out with girls. I'm just used to hanging around guys almost all my life."

"I respect that."

"I'll still stay the night and give it a shot," I smiled at her.

She smiled back, "Thanks, Rain."

The rest of the night we spent basically just hanging. We watched movies that were playing on the television that ended at twelve midnight like everything on the television did. After the movies ended, we went back up to her room and talked about whatever came into our heads.

The night had proved something to me: Angela wasn't so bad. I'd always seen her as this girl who both tough and tuff, most Greaser girls weren't both of those. But I had started to believe all that I saw her do outside of school and in town was all a thing for show to show that she was tough and so no one would mess with her. But throughout the whole night, she eased up and I saw her differently than outside of the house. She was alright.

We fell asleep at about three in the morning. We woke up when we heard loud knocking on the bedroom door. "Rain?... Rain, there's a phone call for you," Tim said through the door.

I groaned and looked at Angela's clock… 4:32am…I got up and opened the door. "Who is it?" I asked him groggily.

"Darry."

I gave a confused look. "Darry?" He nodded and handed me the phone.

"Hello? Rain?" I heard in Darry's voice.

"Darry, is that you?"

"Yeah… look, ya gotta come to the house right now." His voice was full of panic.

"Uh, sure… what's goin' on and why do you sound so nervous?" I yawned.

"Johnny and Ponyboy ran away!"

Hola mi *however you say readers in spanish*

Ok, as you can probably tell, the story is now at the point where Johnny killed Bob and him and Johnny and Ponyboy ran away to Windrixville. I'm gonna work this out as best as I can. I know most stories that have the actual book and movie in the plot, usual their own character was with them when they ran away, but I have it that Rain wasn't with them, but- you know what, no spoilers. :3

Part of the reason I did that was cause I wanted to be different like how I'm different with everything else in my interests contrary to the rest of the teenage population, so I like being different in what I write too. Plus I was too lazy cause then if I had her go with them, I wouldn't be able to figure out if I should go by the wording in the book or in the movie, so I just decided this.

Oh, by the way! I saw "Pretty in Pink" recently and seriously, the way how they had the rich kids and the poor kids seriously reminded me of "The Outsiders", it was crazy.

Oh, also! I watched "My Bodyguard" from 1980, it was so weird and Matt Dillon had (what I call) dirt on his lip! XP that's when a guy thinks they have facial hair, but in reality it's like peach fuzz above their lip (my best friend's boyfriend has that, so does her ex)

Anyway! Hope you liked the chapter! Peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=