"Are you both all-right?" Darry asked looking back and forth from Pony to Soda. Soda nodded.

"Oops." Is all that Ponyboy could say.

"Pony, are you ok or not?" Darry asked again.

"Yeah, just a little sore?"

"How bout you, Darry?" Soda asked.

"I'm ok." Darry said. Luckily he'd stopped fast enough so that they didn't hit the other car to hard. The person they'd hit jumped out and started screaming. "Both of you stay here. I mean it." Darry said getting out of the truck and walking over to give the person his information.

"What are you doin!?" The older man screamed. "Are you blind!?"

"I'm very sorry about that." Darry said.

"I hope you're sorry!" The man continued to yell. "The whole back of my car is smashed in!"

Darry looked at the guys car. How he'd described it was a bit of an exaggeration but Darry nodded. "Like I said, I'm very sorry. I'll pay for the damage, ok?" The man rolled his eyes. "Listen, I'm really really really sorry." Darry said as he wrote down his license plate number. "I…"

"It's ok." The man cut him off. "It's ok. I aint gonna sue you or anything. Your paying for it so there aint anything else I need to do."

"Thank you." Darry said relieved. It was a good thing this man was being nice. Darry couldn't afford to be sued and if he was he would lose indefinitely. The accident was completely his fault. He probably wouldn't even be able to afford a lawyer.

A couple of police showed up a few minutes later to check out the situation and a tow truck was called for the other guys car. The Curtis's truck wasn't in as bad of shape but in the mean time Darry studied his car. The front was smashed. He moaned. It was gonna cost a ton to fix and a ton he didn't have. This was a perfect addition to his horrible morning. He felt sick thinking about how much money it was gonna cost to pay for the damage to the other quys car and his own. "At least everyone was ok." Darry thought, thankful that they'd all had seatbelts on. It was a good thing for Soda's warning about the red light or Darry probably wouldn't have noticed.

"Man, why do we gotta stay in here." Pony whined. Soda shrugged as he watched Darry talking to one of the police men. He was having a little bit of trouble sitting still himself, with all the excitement that was going on but Darry was in no mood to be disobeyed so they stayed in the car.

He finally stopped talking and came back to the truck. "I'm gonna be two hours late." He said getting in and starting up the engine. "Are you sure you're both ok?" Darry asked.

"Yeah, we're fine, Darry." Soda reassured him but Darry was still worried.

"Can we go now?" Pony asked impatiently.

"Yeah, and I'd better not hear a single word from you the whole way there." Darry said harshly. He pulled the beaten up truck back out onto the road and they were off.

Darry's head hurt as he reviewed all the events of that morning. Fighting with Ponyboy, crashing, all that money he'd have to pay… It was all really depressing. At long last they FINALLY pulled up to the DX and let Soda off. "Have a good day, little buddy!" Darry called after him and Soda waved. Was it possible for any of them to have a good day now? Pony climbed up to the front seat when Soda got off and waved to him. Darry pulled out and headed towards Ponyboy's school.

"Did you finish your homework?" Darry asked.

Pony nodded. "I did it while you were talking to that guy." He said.

"Did you do it right?"

"Yeah, I think so." Pony said.

"You'd better not lie to me again, Pony."

"I didn't lie!" Pony yelled.

"Yes you did! I asked you if you'd finished last night and you said you had when you still had math left." Darry turned the corner.

"Fine, I'm sorry." Pony mumbled.

"See, why can't you just say that in the first place?" Darry asked. "If you had just apologized we wouldn't have to go through such a hassle about it."

Ponyboy stared out the window and ignored Darry as he continued talking. He just nodded and said 'uh huh' occasionally so Darry would think he was listening. Pony didn't think he could take any more of his lecturing. He was so tired of it. That's all Darry ever did now.