I rode out in the back of the truck with Ben, Pony, and Two-bit. I almost fell asleep on the ride with my head in all of their laps- they all were sitting up against the cab while I lay down in the bed. Even though I was sleeping better, I still felt like I needed to catch up on all the sleep I had missed. Actually falling asleep would have been a challenge, because Soda was driving. It would be unfair to call Soda a bad driver, he was actually quite skilled at taking corners on two wheels and stopping in an unbelievably short amount of road- perhaps unconventional might be a better word. Along with Two-Bit, he viewed most road signs as suggestions rather than hard and fast rules. Somehow, though, he had never gotten a ticket.

When we got to the park, we claimed a spot on a grassy area by the lake and set up our chairs and blankets. I lay down on the grass, listening to the radio and enjoying the sunshine, while most of the guys played football. Darry sat in the chair and read a book, unable to join in the rough stuff due to his stitches. I was just too lazy to get up and join in the game.

"Hey, Darry?"

"Yeah?"

"What was Kevin talking to you about this morning? Was it about me and Ben?"

He hesitated, which I took for a yes, until he did reply.

"No. It didn't have anything to do with you." His voice was tense, upset. I felt bad for bringing it up, like I had ruined his ability to relax.

"Is it something bad?"

"Look, forget it, okay? It has nothing to do with you."

"Okay." I didn't want to make him mad.

"Darry?"

"Scout, I'm trying to read."

"Oh, sorry," I said, but didn't stop talking. "Do you think maybe next weekend Anna and I could go to the movies?"

"I guess so. Why are you asking me now?"

"Maybe you and Alison could go, too."

"Scout, would you lay off about that?"

"Why? I know you like each other! It's a good excuse to go on a date. You could go to the movies with her, then go out after. You could drop me and Anna off at her house, like last time."

"She works on the weekend."

"She would take it off if you asked her out, Darry. Even Mr. Harvey likes you."

He looked down at me, lying there.

"You know, Scout, it's nice to have the old you back. But seriously, lay off, would ya?"

"Okay," I agreed, "but just think about it. I like her."

"I like her too, but it isn't always that easy."

"Just don't use us as an excuse, okay? We all want you to be happy."

"I am happy," he said. But he didn't sound happy.

I was about to fall asleep, lying in the warm sunshine when suddenly somebody was on me, pinning my arms down, laughing. I could hear yelling, in the background.

"Two-Bit, don't. Don't do that to her… she's…"

I opened my eyes, already breathing heavy and starting to punch at him, to see Two-Bit, shocked, jumping off of me. From the look of him, I must have looked terrified, and he started apologizing immediately.

"Scooter, aw, shit, I forgot. I'm sorry, I mean… you know I ain't gonna hurt you…"

I sat up, catching my breath.

"It's okay, you just scared me." Darry was at my side, rubbing the back of my neck.

"I'm sorry, Scout," Two-Bit said, again.

"I know. It's okay, Two-Bit. I'm gonna have to get over it, being around you guys all the time. It's just stupid, to be so scared."

"It ain't stupid…" he said, quietly. "That was stupid, me scarin' you like that."

"Forget it," I said. "I thought you guys were supposed to be toughening me up, anyway."

"Yeah," Soda said, excited. "Now's a good time for your first lessons in getting tough."

I was up for it, with all the adrenaline Two-Bit's attack had sent coursing through my veins.

I stood up.

"Okay, so teach me," I said, going at Soda while he easily deflected my attempted punch.

"So, show me how to do that." I said.

Soda stood behind me, showing me what to do with my body, arms, and hands, while Two-Bit pretended to come at me. Darry coached from the lawn chair, while Pony and Ben, I think, were a little bit jealous. They'd never gotten lessons like this. By the time we were done, I felt confident that, against only one person, I might be able to fight back, a little. Still, Steve was so much bigger than I was.

Finally, we all got hungry, and sat down to eat lunch. The afternoon was more of the same- napping in the sun, football, and just hanging out, listening to music.

Finally, in the late afternoon, we packed up and headed back home. Darry wanted Pony and me to get our homework done early enough that he wasn't going to have to be on our case all night. As Soda and Darry cleaned up after dinner, I finished mine and brought out my math for him to check.

"You did this, right? Not Pony?"

I nodded. He looked it over, pointed out three mistakes, and, surprisingly, hugged me.

"What was that for?" I asked. "I screwed three up."

"It's good to have you back," he said. "The Scout who does her own homework," he added.

I just sat down and fixed the mistakes he caught. He checked again, handed it back to me, and I tossed the book and paper back onto my bed as I headed down to Ponyboy's room. I knocked at the door.

"What?" he asked.

"Can I come in?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, and I went in, closing the door behind me.

I sat down on his bed, not sure what to say, or how to say it.

"Thanks, Pony… for doing my homework. I just…"

"I know, Scout," he said. "I know. I'm sorry I couldn't do more… I just didn't know how…"

"I know," I said. "I understand." How could he help, after what had happened to me, really?

"I really want to help you, but I don't know how."

Again, he was the only person who hadn't apologized, who hadn't pitied me, and I loved him for it.

"Just be my brother," I said.

"I can do that," he said, coming over and sitting next to me, putting his arm around me.

We sat there, like that, for a few minutes.

"Scout?" he finally said.

"What?" I asked, leaning my head on his shoulder.

"I started writing… like you said… about them."

It took a moment but I remembered, after Thanksgiving, telling Pony that he should write about Mom and Dad, so we would all remember them.

"You did?"

"Yeah. I couldn't, before… but, suddenly, I just feel like maybe I can."

"Can I read it?" I asked, tentatively. I knew it would be bittersweet. It hadn't even been a year.

Pony stood up and went to his desk, taking out a notebook, turning a few pages, and handing it to me.

I lay back on his pillow and started reading.

THEIR HANDS

By Ponyboy Curtis

Their hands… I'll never forget their hands. How many times my own had held them – for comfort, for support, for confidence, for belonging. What little kid doesn't reach out in every moment of insecurity for one of his parents' hands, and take immeasurable comfort in its accepting grasp. It was their hands that, from the very beginning, protected me from harm. It was their hands that, bringing me home, held me safely above the curious fingers of the only other hands I ever completely trusted, those of my siblings.

Her hands. The softness, the gentle way in which she guided me along. She had held her hand over my own as we practiced the letters of my name.

"That's right, baby," she whispered in my ear as for what seemed like the hundredth time we made a balloon with a stick. "P," she said. "P for Ponyboy." Over and over she held my hand as we practiced. P for Ponyboy. The warmth of her fingers over mine eventually caused us to meld into one; finally I realized that she had withdrawn her grasp and, shockingly, to my three-year-old self, I was forming the first letter of my own name all on my own.

"You did it!" she exclaimed, and surrounded me with herself. My mother- her smell, the feeling of her arms around me, her hand over mine- I'll never forget it. Later that same day it was her gentle, loving hands that gingerly washed my newly scraped knee and smoothed the band-aid down over it. They were the same hands that smoothed back my hair while I cried, and rubbed my back when I was sick.

Her hands worked magic in the kitchen, an art none of the rest of us would ever come to master as she had. Every Christmas, her hands guided mine and Scout's as we pressed the cookie cutters down into the flattened dough, and her hands lovingly slapped at my brothers' wrists as they attempted to steal away with the scraps.

Her hands affected all of us in ways that no one else's could. Many a time, her steadying hand on one of his shoulders was all it took to bring Dallas down from dangerous to docile. None of the rest of us would have dared risk touching him, but her hands were capable of healing and soothing hurts that the rest of ours would never be. There was something magical about them.

His hands were different, but no less influential. They surrounded my own as he taught me to cradle the football, to palm the threads in a way in which they became a part of myself, and only worked to my advantage in terms of traction as I tossed a long one as far as I could for Darry to catch. His hands would land under my arms after the throw and lift me up to his level, where he would embrace me and pull me in close, whispering in my ear. "Perfect."

His hands steadied the handlebars as I struggled to achieve the balance that Darry and Soda had already mastered on their bicycles. I was still too young, but Dad understood, and his strong hands on both me and the bike ensured that no great harm would come of my determination to learn.

His hands were always at work for Darry and Soda. He taught Darry how to throw and catch, and how to fix anything that needed fixing around the house. Their hands, both of them, were just suited for tools. I never could handle anything more substantial than a screwdriver; but he always took me along, showing what hands could do, how they could solve a problem. His hands could solve most every one, it seemed to me.

Dad would stand outside with Scout for hours, teaching her to shoot the basketball so it hardly even touched the rim as it went through, patting her gently on the back with each success.

In Darry's case, Dad's hands had taught him to build, to create, to take separate pieces and to combine them together to make something. As for Soda, his hands worked to solve the problems that occurred in machinery. Guided by Dad's, Soda's hands learned to fix our cars, our appliances, our wiring. Between Darry and Soda, Dad's hands had already taught them how to fix everything we had before I was even old enough to learn.

There was nothing left I needed to fix.

So, both of them encouraged my hands to take a different direction. My hands were never empty, thanks to my parents, but instead of filling them with hammers or pliers, they filled my hands with pencils, crayons, anything that would encourage me to make my mark on this world.

So make my mark I did. In pastels, paint, and my less-than perfect handwriting. I filled notebook after notebook, sketch pad after sketch pad. For the longest time, nobody ever asked to see what I wrote or drew except for Mom and Dad. They would run their fingers over the lines of my sketches, feeling them as much as seeing them.

Soda came in once while Dad was looking at a pastel piece that I had just finished, and, seeing Dad so enthralled, as he ran his fingers over the section where the yellow and purple met, Soda took interest. After that, he would ask to see my pictures, but he never felt the need to touch them, to feel them. Mom and Dad's hands had never taught him how. Just as I couldn't build things, or fix cars, his hands were meant for other things.

Somehow, our parents' hands had always guided us down exactly the path that was intended for each of us.

When I lost them, for the longest time, I couldn't feel my hands.

It took a long, long time before I was able to pick up a pen or pencil again. I no longer felt that gentle hand encircling mine, guiding it across the paper, pushing me in the direction I was meant to go. I was no longer sure of which lines to make, which colors to use, which words would tell my story. It was a horrible feeling. "Idle hands are the devil's tools," I remembered me Dad saying. I agreed, because it felt like hell to have lost my gift- my hands. I had just about given up on ever getting them back.

So you can imagine my surprise when, gradually, tonight, I felt that familiar invisible warmth reappear around my hand, and sensed a gentle whisper in my ear. "P for Ponyboy," it said. A large hand took mine into his, and, invisibly, guided me to pick up a pencil.

Mom, Dad, wherever you are, thanks. I've got my hands back.

Tears were streaming down my face as I passed it back to him.

"It's perfect," I said.

"I didn't want to make you cry," he said.

"It's just… you wrote them perfectly, Pony. I miss them so much, but if you can write about them like that, I'll never forget them. You have to keep writing about them."

"I want to," he said, "I'll try to."

"I'll help you, if you want," I had the fewest memories of us all, I knew, but I never wanted to forget them. "I'll try, too."

"Okay," he said. We lay back on the bed, talking about them, until Darry was at the door.

"Pony?" he knocked.

"Yeah?"

"Scout in there?" he asked. I was almost never in Pony and Soda's room, nor were they in mine, unless we were waking each other up.

"Yeah," Pony said, and Darry opened the door, surprised to see us lying on the bed, talking.

"Bedtime, you guys," he said, "It's a school night." I rolled off the bed.

"'Night Pony," I said.

""Night," he responded.

I brushed my teeth and washed up, heading to bed. I lay there, thinking about what Pony had written, about how true it was. I wished Mom and Dad's hands were still there to guide me, to teach me.

I knew Darry would come in a while to sleep in the other bed. He had told me that he would sleep in my room until I was ready to be alone- until I could actually sleep- so far, I still wanted him there.

I was almost asleep when I heard Darry and Soda arguing in the living room. Darry and Pony I just would have ignored, but Darry and Soda hardly ever really yelled at each other.

"It's not a big Deal, Darry!"

"It is a big deal, Soda. I suspected it last night, but then Kevin told me this morning that he saw Steve buying drugs Friday night at Sweeney's party!"

Drugs. Then that was what the look was, in his eyes. Drunk and on drugs. Maybe he really didn't know what he had done, then. I kept listening.

"Well, Kevin should mind his own damned business," Soda said. "Who does he think he is, anyway, to come reporting to you on what Steve does?"

"He's concerned, Soda, because he doesn't want you getting involved in shit like that. Not to mention I don't want him bringing that into the house with Scout and Pony here. I'm glad he told me, and I'd do the same thing for him if I thought someone was using drugs around his brother!"

"Look, Darry, I'm not doing it. I can't tell Steve what to do."

"How long has this been going on?"

"I don't know, a while. Since after Mom and Dad died."

"Jesus, Soda, he has a problem, can't you see that? You saw how angry he got last night, over a stupid card game!"

"What do you want me to do, Darry? Honestly, I can't control him. His home life sucks, he says it's just an escape for him."

"I don't want him in this house when he's taking drugs. You can tell him that. And if he tries to come here when he's high, I'll kick him out."

"Fine, Darry. I'll tell him."

"I don't think you should be hanging around with him anymore, either, Soda. I mean it. If I catch you trying drugs, I'll kill you. I'm serious."

"I won't, Darry. Just because Steve does something doesn't mean I do."

"I hope not."

I heard Soda stomp off to his room, and Darry wash up and come in and lay in the other bed. I pretended to be asleep, thinking.

Maybe this secret could just stay hidden, after all, I thought. I was getting better, little by little. Maybe it would all just fade away.

……………………………..

A/N: Don't worry, it won't stay hidden…. "Their Hands" is a one-shot I originally wrote without Scout in it, but I changed it a tiny bit to include it here. Thanks for reading/reviewing, as always.