I slept like a rock, I assumed due to the medication that Dr. Bryant had given me to prevent the nightmares. I woke briefly to Darry's hand on my forehead, checking to make sure I wasn't running a fever, and then saying goodbye as he headed off to work with Soda, telling me Pony would be around to stay with me. I nodded and fell immediately back asleep.
The next time I woke up, I felt more refreshed and awake than I had since before the whole tornado incident. I looked at the clock and was surprised to see it was almost eleven. I remembered Darry and Soda were both at work, and Ponyboy would never wake me up unless he had to – he liked to sleep late just as much as I did.
I grabbed some clean clothes and headed down to the shower. I stayed in there forever, it seemed – the steam felt soothing to my lungs after all my coughing. I was still coughing a little, but nothing like when I had first gotten sick. I guess I worried Pony by staying in there so long, though, because he startled me by knocking at the door. I jumped and knocked all the shampoo bottles to the floor.
"Scout? You okay in there?"
"Yeah, I'm okay. I'll be right out."
"No hurry, I was just checking. You really are turning into a teenager, huh? Hogging the shower and all," he joked.
"Haha, you're hilarious. I'm just washing off a week's worth of being sick," I called back.
"Okay, well… don't hurt yourself," he said, laughing.
I finished up and got dressed, feeling fully human for the first time in a week. It's funny how you don't realize how good you feel when you're well until you can compare it to how completely crappy you feel when you're sick. I was glad Darry wasn't home; he'd probably make me stay in bed all day even though I felt good. I wasn't planning to run any marathons or anything, but I was looking forward to getting back to living.
I looked around for Pony and finally found him out on the porch, reading. He smiled and put his book down when he saw me.
"Hey," he said. "How you feelin' today."
"Good. Really good. Don't even tell me Darry left orders for me to stay in bed or something."
"No, just to take it easy, and to make sure you ate lunch. You hungry? There's a ton of food left over from the party."
I was sort of hungry. I must have looked it, because he laughed.
"Yeah, me too," he said. "You stay here, I'll grab some stuff." He went inside and in a few minutes was back with leftover pizza and macaroni salad, as well as a Pepsi for each of us.
"You leave some pizza for Soda?" I asked. I knew Soda would be mad if we ate it all without leaving him some. Cold pizza was one of his favorite leftovers.
"Are you kidding me? There are still two whole pizzas left in there!"
"Why did you guys order so many?"
"We didn't. Mr. Harvey just brought them, for free. He brought all that salad, too. Everybody else brought all the food – we didn't pay for a thing."
I was surprised. First, that Darry would allow such blatant generosity without letting it hurt his pride, and second, that so many people cared enough about me to want to be so generous. Pony must have sensed what I was thinking.
"It's good to have you home, Scout. Everybody really missed you. Things just don't feel right around here with one of us missing."
"Yeah," I agreed. "I know what you mean." I thought of the night Darry and Pony had gone to his track meet, and how the house had felt empty with just me and Soda, and felt bad again for the way Pony and I had taken off to the church, leaving Darry and Soda to worry.
"Well, if I have any say in it, I don't plan on goin' anywhere again for a long time," I said.
"Amen to that," Pony said. "They're gonna name a wing at the hospital after our family, we keep endin' up in there," he joked.
I laughed. It sure would be nice to stay away from the place for a while.
"What's so funny over here?" Ben's voice broke into our laughter as he came around the corner of the house. He sat down on the steps next to me.
"You guys having a party without me?" he asked, pretending to be hurt.
"We wouldn't have had a party in the first place, if it weren't for you and Anna," Pony said. I was happy to hear him giving Ben some credit – the two of them didn't always get along all that well. There was never any outright hostility, but I had a feeling that Pony was always a bit wary of the closeness Ben and I shared. I think as Pony and I had come to understand each other a little better, he had started to trust and accept Ben a little more, though.
"You allowed to come out and play?" Ben joked.
"Yeah, as long as I stick around here. Is your Mom home?" I didn't want to break Darry's rule again, after everything that had happened last time when he was upset with me.
"No, but we can just hang out out here," he suggested, grabbing a piece of our pizza. "Pony can chaperone us," he laughed.
"Knock it off, you two," Pony said. "I ain't chaperoning anything. Just don't do anything to get Darry upset. He's in a good mood now that Scout's home and he's got all these new jobs."
I was glad for all the work Darry was getting, but I was still pretty wary of his association with Tim. That was something I was planning on talking to him about a little more. The shock of seeing him beaten up in the hospital had stuck with me.
"So, c'mon, you wanna play catch?" Ben asked, pulling me up. "You wanna play too, Pony?" he added.
"No, I'm in the middle of a book," he said. "You take it easy on her, though, Darry'll blow his top if she gets hurt.
"I'll take care of her," Ben assured him, pulling me around the corner of the house and giving me a quick kiss.
We tossed the football around for a while until we both got bored and sat down on some of the cinderblocks that I had moved over to the side of the yard when I'd cleaned up. We leaned back against the fence, enjoying the rare summer breeze.
"Scout?" he said.
"Yeah?" I didn't open my eyes. It felt so good to feel the sun on my face, and just to be home.
"I just wanted to say, I'm real glad you're okay. I mean, when I think about what could have happened… I don't know what I would have done."
I opened my eyes and looked over at him.
"I'm not gonna lie… it was scary. I really thought I was gonna die."
He traced the scar on my neck where Dr. Bryant had cut me open.
"I'm glad he was there," he said. "And I'm sorry you got sick again, after. I wanted to come see you but my Mom told me to stay away so you could rest. I guess she thought I'd get you too excited," he joked.
I punched him lightly in the gut, though I was laughing, too.
"It's okay. I pretty much slept the whole time anyway." I thought for a minute, then added, "Dr. Bryant is making me go to a therapist… to talk about what happened, with Steve. I had to tell him about it 'cause of my broken ribs."
Ben was quiet for a minute.
"I hope it helps you, I mean.. talking to somebody."
"I guess we'll see," I said, leaning against him. We just sat there for a while, enjoying the sunshine which, for once, was not accompanied by unbearable humidity.
Suddenly I noticed that my flowers weren't looking as good as they had been the day before. I looked around for the watering can, and guessed it must be in the shed. There was no way on Earth I was going in there, I knew, now that I had a real reason to fear the spiders.
"Hey, can you get the watering can out of the shed for me?" I asked Ben. "I don't think I should be going in there."
"I don't think so either," he added. "You stay here." He got up and walked over to the shed, just starting to open the door but immediately jumping back as there was a loud crash from inside.
"What was that?"
"I don't know," he said, coming back over toward me, "but I think there's something in there." He stood in front of me as there was another small crash from inside. I jumped.
"Is it a person?" I whispered, imagining a crazy murderer about to jump out at us. I grabbed onto Ben's waist and cowered behind him.
There was slight movement as something pushed the door open, and I could feel him tense up as we both held our breath.
What happened next caused us both to burst out into laughter. Out of the depths of the shed crawled a tiny orange kitten.
"Aw!" I cried and immediately ran over to it. It hissed a good show, but after I picked it up it nestled against me and even started purring.
Ben looked a bit sheepish for having been so scared.
"Aw, c'mon," I said, holding the kitten up for him to pet. "You didn't know what it was in there. For all you knew you could have had to protect me from an alligator or a skunk or… a murderer, or something!"
Ben laughed.
"A murderer? In your shed?"
"Well, maybe," I insisted, turning my attention back to the kitten. "It must be scared, and starving. Here, you hold it while I go get it some milk." I passed it to Ben, who held it at an arm's length like it was a poisonous snake or something.
"Ben, it's a kitten. It's not gonna hurt you."
"I never held a cat before," he said, pulling it in a little closer.
"I'll be right back," I said, running into the kitchen and getting a bowl of milk. Pony followed after me, since I didn't tell him what I was doing with a bowl of milk. By the time I got back, the kitten was purring happily against Ben's chest.
"Oh, no way, Scout. Darry'll have a stroke."
"What am I supposed to do, Pony? Let it starve? It's just a baby. It was hiding in the shed."
"It is pretty cute," Ben admitted. I put the bowl of milk down and as he set down the kitten it lapped ravenously at the milk.
"Darry doesn't do cute," Pony said, though I could see him looking at the kitten with interest.
"Yeah he does. He likes Alison, doesn't he? She's cute."
"Yeah, well he doesn't have to feed Alison."
"Oh, c'mon, Pony. It's little. How much can it really eat?"
"Don't even start getting attached," Pony said. "I'm telling you, there's no way he's gonna let you keep it."
But looking into that little face, as it washed up with its tiny paws after finishing off the milk, I knew that, somehow, I'd make it mine.
I already had a plan – one to sell Darry on the Curtis family getting a cat.
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A/N: I apologize for the time between updates. Real life has cut into my fanfiction time. I hope I am not losing readers due to that – lots more to come in Scout's story. Thanks for reviewing!