"Shh, shhh, shhh. Girl, you wiggle more than a warm does." Two-bit said with a laugh following his comment.
"Put me down two! I'm leaving." I shouted.
"No you're not. We need you here and I know you. You would never leave us unless its for a trip." He said. He finally put me down and faced me to the front porch. Steve was standing there, looking down at his feet. Darry was behind him, gripping Steve's arm. "Say it Steve." Darry demanded. "I'm sorry, toots." Steve said softly. "And?" Darry said as he gets his grip tighter on Steve. "I didn't mean it. I was caught up in the anger." Steve mumbled. I nodded and Darry let Steve loose. We all head back into the house. Steve and Darry was cleaning up the dinner mess as me, Two-bit, Soda and Pony was out in the living room. "What a night." Pony said. All of us agreed.
"Hey Rose, how good are you at math?' Pony asked. I had to think about it for a moment. I always get honor roll since grade school but math was the weakest subject for me. I always get a high C, 78, 79.
"I'm okay in it. Why do you ask?" I replied.
"I need to get a 100 in it. I keep bring home 90's and Darry is bustin my ass about it. I asked Soda many times for help but he always say that he's stupid and Two-bit, well, Two-bit says every answer is beer." Pony said. I smacked Soda on the back of his head. He knew how much I hated it when he calls himself stupid. "I'll help you Pony.". We got up and headed to his desk that was in his room. I examined his paper that had math problems on it. Since Pony was a freshman, he was in Algebra 1. I'm in Geometry. Since I'm a junior, was suppose to take Algebra 2 but I done that for sophomore year instead. Pony was learning FOIL. I don't blame him about him struggling with it. It was pretty hard to learn. I grabbed his paper and wrote (Ax+Bx)(Cx+Dx) with FOIL on top of it. Under the letter, I wrote what it he is suppose to do. "F is first number. O is outer number. I is inner number and L is last." I drew a arch that was attaching A to C, and A to D on top. I did the same to B that was attached to C and D on the bottom.
"That makes a lot of sense now." Pony said.
"Try it." I told him. As he was working on the problem, Soda came in and jumped in bed.
"I wish Darry wasn't so hard on me about the grades. I always bring him A's but rarely B's." Pony told me, "I wish he wasn't so hard on me in general." he added to his statement. I rubbed Pony's back and made him face me. "You better be listening too, Soda." I shouted. I continued what I have to say once I got both of their attention. "The reason why he is so hard on you because he grew up too fast. When your parents died, he had to take reasonability for you and Soda. Being 17 and taking care of younger brothers isn't easy. Its like taking care of your kid as a teenager. I'll tell him be more easy on you, okay?" That statement was mostly for Pony but Soda understood too.