I just sat there for a few minutes, drawing moons and stars in the dirt with a stick, and wondering if all my brothers were off beating each other up somewhere over homework and lost loves. I was thinking hard enough about it that I didn't notice the car pulling up in front of the house until I heard the door slam. A tall, skinny guy that I didn't recognize, with far more than the necessary amount of grease in his hair, was leaning against our gate.

"Yeah, that's her," I heard someone in the car behind him say. I looked past him to see two other equally greasy looking guys sitting in in the car, staring. I stood up, slowly, and backed up the steps, still holding the stick, as if that was really gonna be any help against these guys if they decided to come after me.

"You a Curtis?" the tall one asked, struggling with the gate latch. It was tricky; you had to reach over and unlatch it from the inside. Our dad had installed it backwards, but we had left it that way because we all had decided that we liked the fact that people we didn't know had trouble with it.

I didn't answer; I just backed up toward the door. I tripped, walking backward, and fell back onto the next stair up, scraping my back, but immediately stood back up and scrambled up to the porch.

"Where's your brother at, little Curtis?" I didn't know these guys, but they knew me. Which brother did they want, anyway? It was strange, I thought, that they weren't more specific. But I definitely wasn't looking to lengthen our conversation by asking. He was getting violent with the gate at this point, banging it back and forth against the post.

"Inside." I tried to sound even the tiniest bit tougher than I was, which was not tough, at all. "I'll go get him."

I backed into the house just as the first guy figured out the gate, and I saw that the other two guys had gotten out of the car. I slammed the door shut and flipped the deadbolt, running down the hallway for Darry's bedroom. Most of the windows at the back of the house were too high for anyone to crawl through, and I just hoped that the windows in Pony and Soda's room were closed. I knew mine were, and the windows in our parents' room had been closed ever since they died. We never really went in there.

I knew Soda had a switchblade somewhere, but I had no idea where, and I didn't know how to use it, anyway, so I quickly grabbed the biggest knife I could find from the kitchen (which turned out to be nothing more than a glorified steak knife) and ran into Darry's bedroom and crouched down on the far side of his bed, away from the window. I could hear the guys banging on the door and then walking around the house, yelling "Curtis! Hey, Curtis! Come out here!" Finally I heard one of them yell to the others from the side of the house,

"Forget it, he ain't here. He ain't a fucking coward, he'd come out. The kid must be in there alone."

"We'll have to get him another time, I guess. Let's get the hell outta here." I didn't like the sound of the "coward" or the "get him" parts.

The whole thing had probably only lasted two minutes, but I crouched there, silently, my heart racing, until I heard banging on the door again, and my breath caught in my throat.

"Scout?" It was Soda, I was pretty sure.

"Soda?" I yelled.

"What are you doing?" I wondered what he thought I was doing.

"What's going on in there?" Darry sounded a little concerned. We never locked the door. "Scout! Unlock the door!"

"C'mon, Scout, this isn't funny!" Ponyboy, it figured. He would think I was just doing this to be a pain. Who did he think I thought I was, anyway? Two-Bit?

I went back to the door and flipped the deadbolt again, forgetting that I had the knife still in my hand.

They opened the door and could tell the second they saw me that it hadn't been a joke. Darry immediately took the knife out of my hand.

"What happened, Scout? Why'd you have to lock the door?"

I felt stupid.

"I was just sitting out there, waiting for you to come back, because I knew you'd get mad if I went looking for you, and some guys came up to the house in a car. I just got scared."

"What guys?" Darry sat me down.

"I don't know. I didn't know them, but they knew who I was."

"Greasers?"

"I guess so. I mean… yeah… not Socs."

"They knew your name? What did they want?" He sounded worried now.

"They didn't say my name, but they knew I was a Curtis. I don't know what they wanted. They just asked where my brother was. I don't know if they even knew which one of you they wanted. They never said any of your names, either. One of the guys got out and was trying to get in the gate, so I just said that I'd get you, and I came in here and locked the door. They were banging on the door for a minute, and walking around the house yelling for one of you to come out. I just got scared, so I grabbed that knife and hid in your room." I looked at Darry. "I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"I know I'm not supposed to go in there."

"Jesus, Scout, don't be an idiot. If you think somebody's coming after you, you can go wherever you want," he said. "What did these guys look like?"

"I don't know, I only really saw one of them. He was tall… I didn't really get time to study him, Darry. I was trying to get in the house before he got in the gate. He couldn't get in."

Darry sat down on the couch.

"What happened to you guys anyway? Did you just all go somewhere else to finish your stupid fight? Why'd you two have to drag Soda into it anyway?" Soda reached over and put his hand on my shoulder, and I wasn't sure whether that was a signal that I should shut up, or continue advocating for them to leave him out of it.

"No… Soda just made us chase after him so we'd be out of breath and he could get a word in edgewise to point out to us how stupid our fights really are," Darry said.

"Did he?" I asked. I looked at Soda and he almost smiled. I, however, did smile, wholeheartedly.

Darry sighed and ran his hand back through his hair.

"I'm gonna call Shepard and see if there's been any trouble around here tonight that he's heard about," he decided.

I truly didn't understand how Tim Shepard could know what was going on everywhere, all the time, but somehow he did. I imagined his living room having about ten phones lined up in a row, with him just sitting there answering them all day, giving and taking reports on what was going on. Yet I also knew he wasn't at his house a lot of the time, so he couldn't have been doing that. He was nothing if not a complete mystery to me.

"Look, Darry, it's probably no big deal. Maybe they knew one of you. I just got nervous, when they came up to the door." I was afraid if Darry got too worked up about this, I was gonna end up on house arrest. Up until now, I had at least been allowed out in the yard by myself. As much as they had scared me, I felt like I was finally getting a little bit of freedom, like what I had experienced that night at Anna's, and the last thing I wanted was for Darry to be reining me back in again.

"If they knew us, they would have told you who they were," Pony pointed out.

"And, of course you should get nervous when three guys you don't know try to get in our yard, Scout!" Darry sounded like he was getting pretty agitated.

"Well, I did, Darry, so what's everybody all on my case for? This is just like with Pony today, we don't go looking for trouble, it comes to us, and then we get in trouble for it! I mean… I was worried about trouble happening, so I came in here and locked the door! What the heck else was I supposed to do?"

"What are you talking about? What happened with Pony today?" I had figured Darry would already know. Bad assumption.

"Nice, Scout." Pony looked at me, and we both shut up. Darry looked over at Soda and he just shrugged.

"Out with it, you two," Darry stood up again, just so he could tower over us. "What happened?"

Neither of us spoke.

"One of you is going to tell me what happened, now." Darry said, and there was no denying that he meant it.

"Look, it's no big deal, Darry..." I started. "Just, we were at the grocery, and Pony was outside smoking and some Socs came in a car to bother him… but, it was fine, Darry. Really. Pony handled it real good." Don't you dare correct my grammar while I am sticking up for you, Pony, I thought, immediately after I had spoken.

"You two weren't supposed to be anywhere alone," Darry countered, and I could tell how hard he was trying not to yell. Whatever Soda had said to him about not fighting he must have really taken to heart.

"We weren't alone, Darry. We were with Steve and Two-Bit, and Ben." Even Pony seemed to be calm. Now I was dying to know what Soda had said to them to get them to back off each other so much- I'd have to ask him later.

"I busted off my bottle and they backed off, and just like you're gettin' mad at Scout, now, I don't know what else you would have wanted me to do." Pony was heartfelt. "We aren't causing these problems, Darry. Both Scout and me, we're not lookin' for any trouble. We're just reacting to it, the best we know how."

"I know, Pony," Darry said quietly. I think this was the first time in months that it seemed like Darry and Ponyboy were actually listening to each other.

"Things are gonna happen, Darry. You can't protect us from everything," I said.

"That doesn't mean I can't try," he said, putting his arm around me. I realized that exactly what I had been thinking in Two-Bit's car that afternoon had been right. Darry wasn't really mad at us when things like this happened, he was just afraid of what could have happened, of how much worse things could have been. And he was blaming himself for not being able to prevent it.

"I have to try," he continued. "That's what I promised Mom and Dad when they added me to the will."

"Darry, stuff still happened to us even when they were alive, too," Pony said.

"I know, Pony," he said. "I just can't stand the thought of something happening to you guys that I could have prevented."

"Look, Dar, go ahead and call Shepard if you want, but I'm fine, really. Those guys didn't actually do anything, they just spooked me a little." I really didn't want to be stuck in the house.

"I don't like it, Scout. Anybody who's a friend of ours wouldn't have scared you like that," Darry said. "You guys go pick up in the kitchen and get on homework."

We all left in silence. I saw Soda throw his letter from Sandy into the trash, and felt another rush of anger at her. At least it seemed like all the fighting in our house might ease up. That might cheer him up a little. I went into my bedroom and finished up my homework. I could hear Pony and Soda talking through the wall next door, but they weren't loud enough that I could hear what they were saying. I went back out into the living room and found Darry sitting on the couch, his head in his hands. I sat down next to him.

"Did you call Tim?"

"Yeah. He said one of his guys got into it with a carful of Brumley guys down by the Dingo tonight, but he couldn't describe the car. You know what kind of car the guys who came here were driving?'

Right, like I knew anything about cars. I hadn't noticed, and even if I had looked closely at it, I wouldn't have been able to identify it. I didn't even know what color it had been.

"No, but I'll look closer next time," I said.

"There won't be a next time," Darry said. "Listen, I'm just gonna go talk to Kevin for a couple minutes, make sure he keeps his eye out for Ben, too."

"Oh, Ben's gonna love that," I said.

"Ben's not gonna know," Darry said, in a voice that made it clear that I was not supposed to tell him.

"Okay, then," I said. He got up and headed out the front door. I flipped on the TV and sat back down.

Soda shuffled in a few minutes later, and flopped down next to me.

"So, what did you say to them, Soda? I never thought they would call a truce."

"I just couldn't take it anymore. I told them just what I told you- that I couldn't take sides when they try to get me to, because I see both sides. And that it was killing me to listen to it."

I knew both Darry and Pony must have felt horribly guilty when they realized what their fighting had been doing to Soda. I wished I had pointed it out earlier, though I guessed it probably rang more true to them hearing it from Soda himself. I put my head down on his shoulder.

"Well, I hope it's really stopped," I said.

"Me too," he agreed, as Darry came back in the door. That was fast, I thought.

"Homework?" he asked, looking down at me.

"It's done."

Darry nodded and headed back into the kitchen where he started working on something at the table. Soda and I just lay on the couch without moving, and I started to fall asleep until Darry pushed his chair back from the kitchen table and the noise startled me awake. I jumped, Soda laughed at me, and it was so nice to hear him laugh that I had to, too. Darry came around the corner to stare at us.

"What are you two bozos laughing at?"

"You had to be there," Soda said.

Darry gave us his "how did I get to be the only sane one in a family of lunatics?" look, and then said, "Scout, you need to get to bed. You got school."

I wasn't gonna argue. I was exhausted. I just got up and went straight into the bathroom and washed up, changed, and crawled into bed.

I was almost asleep when I was surprised to hear Darry at my door.

"Scout?" He whispered. "You awake?"

"Yeah," I said. He sat on my bed. I sat up, pushing my hair back out of my face. "What?"

"When I went over to see Kevin, he told me Pony has a big track meet on Friday."

"Yeah, he does," I said. "The district meet. So?"

"How come nobody told me?"

"I don't know. I guess Pony figured you had to work, so you couldn't come, anyway."

Darry was quiet.

"What, Dar?"

"I just feel bad, that Pony and I have been arguing so much that he doesn't even think I care about what's going on with him anymore."

I wanted to reassure him, but I wasn't so sure that what he had said wasn't the truth. I lay back down. I was pretty sure that Darry probably felt like Pony didn't care what was going on with him, either, and he might be just as right about that.

"Well, you guys agreed to stop fighting, right? For Soda's sake?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe you'll start to understand each other a little better, too." I hoped more than anything right then that they would. The arguing was so hard to deal with, for both Soda and me.

"Maybe," he said, but he still sounded sad. Just when I finally got Soda to laugh, now Darry was upset.

I was falling asleep, but Darry was still sitting there.

"Darry, no offense, but I'm falling asleep," I mumbled.

"That's okay," he said, "sorry I woke you."

"That's okay," I said. "'Night Darry"

"'Night."

But, now that I had another sad brother to think about, falling asleep wasn't nearly as easy as I had expected it to be. Sometimes I wish I just didn't have to think so much.

As always, thanks for reviews!