The next Saturday morning, after a particularly unsuccessful night of sleeping, largely due to the fact that Steve had had a fight with his father and was sleeping on our couch, I must have finally dozed off in the early hours of the morning. It was a gray, rainy day, so I never woke up to the sun shining into my room. I was having a dream- not necessarily a nightmare, but one of those dreams where everything feels confusing and wrong, when all of a sudden I felt someone's hand on me.

I awoke with a start, screaming, and flawlessly executed what Tim had taught me. I grabbed his arm and twisted, pinned him onto the bed, jumped on his legs and raised the knife in the air.

"Get off me! Don't touch me! I'll kill you! I swear I'll kill you!" Compared to practicing it with Tim, it had actually been easy, as this time I had the element of surprise on my side.

A second later Darry's voice was pure panic in the doorway as he flicked the light on. "Scout, what the hell are you doing? It's Soda! Scout!" I could barely hear him, it was like I was in a trance. I didn't feel like I was the person holding the knife, it was like I was watchng myself, in a movie.

I finally looked down, breathing heavily, my whole body shaking. Soda looked up at me, fairly terrified.

"It's me, Scout! It's me. I was just coming in to wake you up. Jesus! It's just me!"

Darry had come running over and taken the knife out of my hand and closed it.

Immediately, lashed out at Soda.

"You scared me, Soda! I thought you were him! God! I thought it was him!" I didn't want to start crying, that was not exactly part of the whole badass routine I had practiced with Tim, but I wasn't sure if I could stop it. My whole body was still trembling. I collapsed down onto Soda and he wrapped his arms around me, as I beat my fists against his chest. "Don't sneak up on me like that, Soda! God, you scared me to death! Don't do that!"

Soda had no idea how to react to my overreaction, and was holding me tight, trying to stop me from shaking. "I'm sorry Scout. I didn't mean to scare you. I just came in to wake you up. We used to wake you up like that all the time. I wasn't trying to scare you. You're okay."

I didn't bother to state the obvious, that things had changed, that sneaking up on me was no longer just a harmless prank.

"Well, it looks like I'm up now," I said, still shaking and crying. I knew there was going to be some explaining to do. Darry was staring at me, puzzled. Soda still looked absolutely stunned that I had just pinned him down and held a knife to him.

"Where'd you get the blade?" Darry asked, pointedly. "And don't even try to tell me you don't know."

I thought about it. I had never actually told Tim that I wouldn't tell Darry that he got it for me. It had just kind of been understood that I wouldn't.

"Out with it, Scout, now. Was it Two-Bit?"

"No."

"Steve?"

"No." I actually got it to kill him, I thought.

"Then who? Fess up. Who the hell gives a twelve year old girl a switchblade?"

"I asked for it, Darry, he didn't just give it to me."

"Who, Scout?"

"Tim." I gave in. I had a big enough secret already. "Tim Shepard."

"You're hanging around with Shepard now? He's letting you play with deadly fucking weapons?"

"Did I look like I was playing, Darry? There's nothing about this that's fun. At all. I'm not playing!" I didn't mean to be yelling, but with all the adrenaline running through my body, it was hard to control it.

"Jesus Christ, he gave you a knife, Scout. A deadly knife. You should know, for Christ's sake, that's how Johnny killed that Soc. You don't just give a kid a knife. Fucking Shepard… I'll kill him."

"I told you, he didn't just give it to me, Darry. In fact, he wouldn't give it to me until he made me practice about a million times how to use it and how to stop somebody bigger than me from hurting me with my own knife. He wouldn't give it to me 'til I could at least kinda fight off someone as strong as him. He made me earn it."

"Darry, she knew what she was doing. You saw her." Soda sounded a little bit impressed. "She pinned me, for real."

"So, Scout, you're telling me you spent time rolling around on your bed with Tim Shepard practicing fighting over a knife? When the hell was this?"

"Last week. He picked me up from school. Pony saw me go with him."

"Pony never said Tim was here."

"Well…he wasn't. He took me somewhere else."

"Jesus Christ, Scout. He took you home to his bed? Christ." He closed his eyes and started rubbing his forehead. I felt like I was watching him age five years before my face.

I didn't really know which would be worse- Darry thinking of me in Tim's bed, or the truth.

"Not exactly."

"Would you just tell me the whole truth, Scout. Please. I don't have the patience for this right now. I just saw you nearly cut our brother wide open. I think you can have the decency to tell us what the hell is going on here. The whole story." Darry looked pretty upset, and I could tell he was having to work very hard not to yell.

I knew he was right. I owed an explanation. I took a deep breath.

"Fine, Darry. Look, I'm scared. I've been scared all the time since I got hurt. All I think about it that he's going to come back and get me again. I couldn't sleep at all and I couldn't take it. When Tim came over here to see me that time right after, he said to call him if I ever needed anything. So, after a while of being exhausted all the time, I started to think maybe I'd feel safer if I had something to fight back with, that maybe I could actually sleep.

They both were staring at me, listening.

"I know you guys would never let me have any kind of weapon, and if I asked Two-Bit he'd rat me out right away. I guess it's the kind of thing I woulda asked Dally for help with, but he's gone. So I thought of Tim, and I called him. He agreed to meet me."

Soda was wide-eyed, loving every minute of this story. Nothing I did normally was ever exciting enough for him, but pulling a knife on him had upped the interest factor quite a bit.

"I lied to you Darry. I'm sorry. That night I told you I was going to Ben's to help with his essay, he waited in the lot with me for Tim. I told him about not feeling safe and I asked him to get me something to fight back with, and he said he would help me out."

Darry's eyes were closed, and he was shaking his head.

"Then the next day he showed up after school with the knife. I wanted him to just give it to me but he told me I couldn't have it 'til he was satisfied I knew how to use it. He was worried I'd hurt myself. So he pretended to attack me and taught me how to fight back until he was convinced I could."

"In his bed. Christ," Darry muttered.

"No, actually..." I said, hesitating. I stared at the floor. "At Buck's."

I guess that was worse than thinking of me in Tim's bed. Darry fairly exploded.

"Jesus Christ, Scout! Shepard took you into a room at Buck's? What the hell were you thinking? I've told you a million times that nothing good goes on at that place! And you let him take you in there? What the hell is wrong with you, Scout? Where is your goddamned common sense these days?"

I supposed I had expected him to be mad, but my own reaction surprised me.

"What's wrong with me, Darry? Well, I'll tell you what's wrong!" I yelled. "I'm scared, all the time! I guess it's pretty easy for you all to forget about what happened to me, but it sure isn't for me! I couldn't sleep at all afterward- I still can't! That's why I was falling asleep everywhere in the day! I couldn't even think in school, I could hardly even keep my head up! That's why I'm failing all my tests!"

The frustration and anger was building in me, about to take over.

"Every night I lay outside your door, Darry, on the kitchen floor, not sleeping, because every noise I heard sounded like someone coming into the house to hurt me again, and I was afraid if I was in my own room nobody would hear and come to help me. I couldn't so much as close my eyes at night without being terrified. He's gonna come back, I know it! He's gonna come back because he didn't get what he was after the first time, and I am scared to death!" I picked up my pillow and threw it, knocking all sorts of things off my desk and dresser.

"I hate this! I hate who I am! I'm a coward and I'm scared and I can't do anything right now without being scared and messing it up and then everybody just gets worried and then we fight and I hate it! I hate it that this happened to me! Why did this have to happen to me? Why can't I just get over it? Why can't I just make it go away?" I was screaming, crying tears of anger; basically, to my embarrassment, throwing a tantrum.

Darry sat me down and just held on to me for a couple of minutes until I calmed down enough to be able to talk again. He just held me tight, let me cry and yell, and do what I had to do. Finally, I spoke again.

"Look, Tim offered to help and I accepted. And I don't care if you think he's an asshole for it, because he not only got me the knife so I can get a few hours of sleep at night, he actually took the time to teach me how to fight back if it ever happens again. None of you seemed too eager to teach me that. I felt helpless, but Tim taught me to not be. The same exact thing could happen again but Tim taught me how to at least try to prevent it."

Soda spoke thoughtfully, after a pause. "Scout, we never taught you how to fight because we don't want you to turn into the kind of troublemaker Angela Shepard is. That's not who you are."

"Well, there's a difference between being a troublemaker and knowing how to protect yourself, Soda. If he came back for me, he would have been able to do exactly the same thing as he did to me the first time, before Tim showed me what to do. Nobody around here seemed to want to teach me how to defend myself, so I went and found somebody who would."

Nobody talked. I could tell they were thinking about what I had said.

"You know I'm right, Darry." I said. "You and Soda are good fighters, but that doesn't mean you go around starting trouble just to start it. Me knowing how to throw a punch isn't gonna turn me into Angela Shepard. In fact, nothing could possibly turn me into Angela Shepard. She could probably kick you and Soda's butts combined."

Darry laughed softly. "You're probably right."

"Stuff happens, Darry. What about the time you guys forgot to pick me up and I had to walk home? Even Tim said, it was a good thing nobody tried anything with me, because all I know how to do is run, and I'm too small to run fast enough to get away from anyone. Maybe you wouldn't have to worry so much about me all the time if you felt like I might be able to fight back. Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I have to be totally helpless."

"Point taken," he said. He hardly ever admitted I was right.

Soda spoke up. "I know this sounds dumb, but, you know, I do feel kind of bad it had to be somebody else's brother, who taught you how to fight back, Scout. You're right. You're not a troublemaker, but enough trouble comes our way without us looking for it that we shoulda made sure you knew how to look out for yourself. I mean, we taught Pony and Johnny how to protect themselves, best we could. You're our sister, after all. It's our job."

"Yeah, well, don't worry," I assured him. "You can still show me plenty. I'm pretty sure my training with Tim was a one-shot deal. The only way I know how to fight back is from my bed with a knife under my pillow. Somebody jumps me standing up, and I have no knife, I'm a dead girl."

"Scout, you are not walking around with a switchblade. That's just asking for trouble." Darry was always thinking.

"I don't want to walk around with it, Darry. Just sleep with it."

Darry picked up the knife and fidgeted with it. He spoke without looking up.

"Scout, first of all, none of us has just 'gotten over' what happened to you. I think about it all the time, and it still makes me sick and angry. We didn't know you were still so afraid, or not sleeping. We don't know this stuff if you don't tell us. We can't read your mind."

"I know," I said. I was still hiding the biggest secret of all from that night, and I felt pretty terrible about it. It just hung over me, all the time.

"Why on Earth," Darry continued, "instead of sleeping on the kitchen floor, didn't you just ask one of us to sleep in your room with you? You know we would have. You have an extra bed, even! I still will, if you want."

I hesitated to answer because I knew it would sound stupid. I stared at the floor while I tried to decide what I wanted to say.

"I didn't want you to know how scared I was, because I'm trying so hard to get you to stop treating me like I am five instead of twelve all the time. I felt like if you knew I was afraid you'd just have another reason to treat me like a baby. I guess that's why I went to Tim, too. I don't care if he thinks of me as a stupid little scared kid, but I care what you guys think of me. What happened to me wasn't even my fault, but it probably just makes you want to give me even less freedom, while I'm trying to get more. I don't wanna have to be locked up in the house all the time, or have a babysitter everywhere I go."

"Scout, you know I sleep with Pony because he gets scared." Soda said, gently. "This doesn't make us think of you as a baby. Something really scary happened to you. Its not like you are afraid of monsters under the bed or something imaginary. You have every right to be scared. I just wish you would have told us how bad it has been. We want to help you."

"So then help me be tougher, so I can look out for myself better. Or did I scare you too much, Soda?"

He laughed. "Yeah, okay, baby. Me and Stevie will toughen you up."

My insides froze and I tried to not let it show on the outside. Tim teaching me to fight had required me to trust him enough to put his hands on me. I had allowed that because I truly trusted that he would not hurt me. There was no way I would ever let Steve touch me again. I would kill him first.

"Can't we just keep this one in the family?" I asked. "Brothers are supposed to teach their sisters to take care of themselves, not brother's friends."

Darry looked at Soda. "That sounds reasonable," he said.

"Good," I said.

Soda got up. "Well, now that you're up… I better go reheat breakfast. At least I'm still alive to do it. Didn't realize I was taking my life in my hands coming in here to wake you up," he teased.

"Sorry, Soda," I said. He turned and winked at me and left. I heard him talking to Ponyboy in the hall, who had slept through the whole thing. I only wished I could have found such a deep sleep.

Darry was still toying with the knife. I slid over next to him.

"Can I keep it, Darry?"

He looked down at me. "I don't know, Scout. I don't think it's a great idea. Not to mention it's illegal for you to have it."

"Just at night? It helps me sleep."

"Well, I'm gonna sleep in here, for the next few days anyway. You can't be staying awake all night and then trying to stay awake in school. I promise you, nothing will happen to you with me in here."

That was certainly the truth. I dared anyone to get through Darry to get to me.

"You don't have to Dar-"

"I want to," he interrupted. He paused, and I could see that he was hesitating to say something.

"So… Shepard… did he treat you okay? He didn't actually hurt you or anything, did he?"

"No. I did cut him though."

Darry laughed. "The hell you did!"

"No, I really did."

"And he didn't kill you?"

I really wished he could have seen how Tim had treated me.

"He was nothing but nice to me. If he had ever did anything to scare me, I wouldn't have trusted him. I hate to ruin his reputation by saying this, but he's actually a nice guy. He's nowhere near as much like Dallas as I thought. He reminds me a lot of you, actually."

Darry laughed at the comparison.

"Hey, Dar?"

"Yeah?"

"Please don't fight with him over this. He was just trying to help me- to look out for me like Dally would have. He's trying to fill Dally's shoes, I guess. He never would have given it to me if I didn't ask for it. And even then he wouldn't just give it to me."

"I won't, baby. But next time you are having a problem like this, could you have a little faith in me that I might be able to help you out before you go running to someone else's big brother?

I realized I had hurt his feelings by going to Tim. Why do I do these things that keep hurting my brothers, the people I love most.

"I will, Darry. I promise."

"I just wish you woulda come to me first."

"Would you have got me a knife?"

"Never," he laughed. "But I woulda slept in your room, and made sure you were safe."

"I guess now's your chance," I said. "You're better with a knife than me anyway."

"Well, I don't know… You learned from Shepard. He's no slouch."

"I'd rather learn from you and Soda. Pony got anything worth teaching?"

"Well, he's still climbing the learning curve. But don't hurt his feelings by telling him that. With your lessons from Shepard, you could probably take him. But you won't tell."

"I won't," I said.

But, of course there was still that other huge secret.

.........................

So? Looks like no more knife for Scout. Review me!