"Rain, c'mon, wake up. C'mon! We haven't got all day," I heard a voice say with an annoyed tone as they shook my left side in attempt to wake me up.
I opened my eyes slowly and yawned, "What?" I could hear the tiredness in my voice but chose to ignore it as best I could.
I heard an annoyed sigh from the other person who- once my eyes adjusted- I figured out to be Dallas. "We're here."
I started to sit up and stretch. "Where?"
He let out another sigh, starting to annoy me. "Windrixville."
For some reason that word woke me right up. I sat up even quicker, making him chuckle. I did my best to ignore him and looked in the right side view mirror and fixed whatever bedhead I had, thought I think it's physically impossible to get bedhead when you fall asleep in a car and the way you woke up is the seat you're in is only tilted backwards a tiny bit and your head is resting on the inside of the car door. But one thing it can give you: a huge crick in the neck, so much that you feel like every time you move your neck that you're gonna kill yourself.
Dallas started the car back up and drove off. The whole car ride to Jay Mountain had been the worst car ride of my life, not including the ride through the night on the way to where he had parked the car for us to take a break and sleep overnight.
It took about twenty minutes to get to the old abandoned church Dallas had told me, Johnny and Ponyboy about. I knew he said it was beaten down, but I didn't think it would be as beaten down as it was. All the windows were broken and had wood boards over them, probably to keep people from going inside or whatever the reason. The paint on the outside was either chipped, faded, or gone. There were cracks throughout the outside walls, showing just about how old it was and how long no one had been there. To me, it looked like the whole place would collapse into a pile of rubble any moment now.
He stopped the car a little ways away from the church, got out and motioned for me to follow after him. I got out and followed him over to the old church. He walked around, peeking through the panels over the windows and the small slits in between each of them, probably making sure Ponyboy and Johnny were actually inside. A few minutes later, he slipped in through a window with a few boards on it, but not too many so that we could get in, then helped me through the boards.
There were two figures asleep on two old benches in the building. One had short dark hair and the other had short blonde hair. We started to-
Wait…. blonde hair?
Dallas woke the two boys while I tried to comprehend why there were two boys with short hair and one with blonde. The two sat up. I saw Johnny's face under the head of hair that was dark and short, and Ponyboy's under the short blonde hair. Either way, I couldn't help but run over to them and hug them both, just happy that they were both ok. "I was so worried about you two! Are you guys ok?" I asked them when I pulled away from the hug.
The two shrugged a bit. "As good as we can be," Ponyboy said.
"Is… is what happened true?" My voice got quiet, I felt bad about asking but I had to know if the papers were true and if what Dallas told me was true.
Johnny nodded, "Yeah… but it was self-defense! I didn't mean to kill him! They were drownin' Ponyboy in the fountain in the park and they were beatin' me up too, they probably would've left us for dead if they could… you believe me right, Rain?"
I nodded. "Of course I believe you. I knew it had to be some sort of self-defense. No offense, but neither of ya could hurt a fly on purpose if you had to." They both chuckled at what I said, making me smile a bit.
Dallas continued to explain what was going on back home with the whole thing. He even explained on how he managed to get the police to believe that the two of them ran off to Texas, and how Two-Bit said he wanted to go to Texas to go to find them, saying that it shouldn't take that long or whatever. He then remembered about some letter and handed it to Ponyboy saying that it was from Sodapop, explaining how other than me, he was the only one who didn't believe a word of Dallas' story and how he said he knew nothing about where they were.
Dallas offered to take the two to the Dairy Queen we had seen on the way, considering they'd been there for almost a whole week and they were probably hungry. And by their reaction as soon as he said the words "Dairy Queen", they must've been starved and reminded me of probably what a nomad in the middle of the desert who'd been traveling for nearly a week and ran outta food.
"So, how're Darry and Sodapop doin'?" Ponyboy asked cautiously on the way to the Dairy Queen.
"Honest?" I asked.
He nodded. "Honest."
I sighed a bit. "They're worried sick. Don't tell anyone this happened cause I dunno if he wants anyone else to know except for me and him, but Darry basically had an emotional breakdown a few days ago, saying how this whole mess was all his fault."
Ponyboy gave a confused look. "His fault? Why's he think that?"
"He said it was cause he lost his temper when you got home so late cause he was so worried if something happened to you or not that he basically just lost it that night."
He sat there, probably thinking about what I had just told him about Darry. He shook his head and looked back at me, "And Sodapop?"
"He's been goin' back and forth between being able to handle it calmly, and sometimes going all the way down to depression or having his own emotional breakdown," I answered.
He stayed quiet the rest of the ride there, either thinking about what I had told him about how his brother's reactions- or hiding his fear as best as he could just like it looked like Johnny was doing. The whole time, while the three of us were fearing about how long we would be alive in the car, Dallas took his hands off the wheel for a moment or two, smiling and laughing his head off.
We got to the Dairy Queen a little while after, the three of us thankful that the car had finally stopped moving. We went to the order window and got some things to eat and parked on the far side of the lot, probably so no one would get the chance to identify Ponyboy and Johnny by their faces if they were in the newspapers here too. While the three of them talked, thankfully, no one came up to the car, looked at the two and yelled anything like "Murderers!" or "Call the cops! They're wanted!" or anything of the sort.
Dallas told them about the whole rumble coming up, and apparently that we had a spy- who was a Soc. Ponyboy jumped up when he said the name Cherry Valance. I didn't know why, but I figured I would ask him about the name and why he got so excited about it on the way back to the mountain.
On the drive back, Dallas was a little better at driving, probably cause we had all just eaten- but he didn't fully calm down. Him and Johnny were talking about something, so I decided to take the chance and ask Ponyboy why he got so excited about the name Cherry Valance. "I met her at the drive-in that night," he shrugged.
"And…?" I asked, trying to get him to explain further.
"And…? What?"
I scoffed a little bit. "Ponyboy, she's obviously just not some other girl like I am too you… you like her, don't you?"
His cheeks started to turn slightly pink a bit, but it looked like he tried to ignore it. "I don't know… I've never liked someone before."
"Well, I'll tell you this much… if you two ever start going out, I'll help ya with her and how to handle a girl. Ok?" I said in a teasing voice. He chuckled and nodded.
We were cut short when I heard the two in the front of the car say something and I heard people yelling. Ponyboy and I looked straight ahead and saw the church they had been hiding out in was now being looked at and scaring a group of little kids about ten feet away from the building along with some adults, watching the church go up in flames.
Look boss! De fire! De fire!
Excuse the fantasy island reference to "look boss! De plane! De plane!"
But oh my gahd the fire at the church! :,( y'all knew it was gonna happen eventually. But anyway, I didn't know whether I should use wording from the book or the movie and like I said, I'm lazy, so I just did things that Rain explained in her thoughts as if she was talking to you (the reader) what was going on.
This story is almost near to finished though X( it's fun to write it, don't get me wrong, but I honestly wanna get it done and over with so I can focus on the other stories I'm writing, plus I wanna finish reading the sequel to "North and South", "Love and War" cause I still need to see the second mini series based off that one so I can read the last in the trilogy "Heaven and Hell" so then I can watch that show, then read "That Was Then… This Is Now", "Tex" and "Rumble Fish" so then I can see those movies so then I can read "Gone With the Wind" so then I can watch that so then I can read "The Godfather" (my dad doesn't know about that one so no one tell him that, it's a secret that my mom got the book for me cause he's offended by the mafia stereotype even though he's not full Italian but whatever)
And I just gave you my whole reading schedule for the year leading into next year, but whatever
Anyway, hope you like this chapter! Get ready for the fire at the church next chapter! Peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=