Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns all characters.

Don't kill him, don't kill him, don't kill him.

No, death might be too merciful for whatever Pony'd done to get suspended an entire week. Worse yet, the secretary wouldn't tell me why. Just said it was a conversation best had in person.

Well, here I was now face-to-face with Principal Brown for the first time since junior year. I tried to suppress the memories, but sitting across from that stoic face sent me back to age sixteen. Lord, was I a dumbass. Cutting class with Paul, hiding behind the football bleachers, passing a joint between us, taking swigs from his old man's flask … We wasted two hours before a janitor caught us and chased our asses straight to the principal's office.

Maybe I was meant to remember, though. Humble me. Remind me whatever Pony'd done couldn't be worse.

"Always nice to see you, Darrel." Mr. Brown flashed a phony smile. "I hope you're doing well."

He hoped nothing, the way his eyes widened real big when I walked in. He was anticipating someone put together, someone professional, someone who was going places, the very someone I was back in senior year. Anyone but me. Decked in a tattered uniform, reeking of tar and sweat, I'd aged a decade in two years.

"Doing fine, sir." I forced a grin and extended my hand to shake his.

He grimaced, staring me down like I was some kind of disease, and kept his hands neatly folded atop his desk. "Glad to hear," he said, phony smile returning.

"All right, what'd he do?" I demanded, no longer able to maintain a polite facade. "It'll save us both time if you cut straight to the worst of it."

"Darrel Curtis, I may no longer be your principal, but you will still treat me with respect."

"Yeah, there's a funny thing about respect." I looked him straight in the eye, refusing to let him think he'd humiliated me. "It goes both ways."

"Indeed, I've shown you respect, and now I expect the same in return." He combed through a stack of papers for a few moments and glanced up. "For starts, should we ever need to conference again, show up in clothes that aren't soiled. This is a school, not a barnyard."

"Well, excuse me, your highness, for not having the time to change into a tuxedo," I snapped. "I didn't realize I was having a meeting with the king."

"Cut right to the worst of it, huh?"

I nodded. "I'm missing an hour of work to be here. Make it worth my time."

"Mrs. Morris caught your brother writing another student's paper last week."

"That all?"

"Surely, you understand the severity of academic dishonesty."

"Of course, I do. Just seems harsh for one lousy paper." The urge to defend Pony grew stronger and stronger with each passing second. "You suspended him an entire week for that?"

"Believe me, I wish it were one paper. Here." He pushed a stack of papers in front of me—dozens and dozens of them. "Take a look and see for yourself."

I glanced down and back up. "He wrote all of this?"

"Most of it, yes," he explained. "His scheme involved many students, or should I say, customers. In short, your brother was making a business out of completing other students' work."

"C'mon, this ain't even his handwriting." I sifted through the so-called evidence and held up a paper with penmanship worse than Soda. "This." I shook it and slapped it back down on the desk. "This proves nothing."

"Mimicking handwriting was part of his business plan."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"No, I have it on good accord he was advertising his ability to forge handwriting."

"Look, I mean no disrespect." I meant all the disrespect in the world. " It just sounds far-fetched, like something out of a movie."

"Believe me, I know," he acknowledged. "Let's just say in my twenty-five years in education, this is the worst case of plagiarism I've ever seen. We've been investigating it all week. Must've been quite the lucrative business given a grand total of twenty-nine students admitted they paid him to do their work. Well, twenty-nine that we know of. I wouldn't be shocked if we uncover more."

"So that's your schtick—encouraging kids to nark?"

He snatched the papers back from me and tucked them in a folder. "We interviewed several students, and yes, out of necessity, we offered a plea deal of sorts. In exchange for information, a chance to redo the plagiarized assignments."

"That sounds shady," I concluded. "If I were failing a class and you told me I could redo the assignment, I'd throw a kid under the bus, too."

"I don't think you understand how serious this is," he rattled on. "The English department is having a heck of a time cleaning up the aftermath, and I wish I could tell you English was the only department impacted. He was writing lab reports, history essays, you name it."

"Christ, that's ridiculous." I raked a hand through my hair, fighting the urge to storm right out of the office. "I know plagiarism ain't a laughing matter. I know you could justify flunking him if it's true, but we're talking about a kid who can barely remember to brush his teeth or put on his shoes before he leaves the house. There's no way. You expect me to believe he single-handedly pulled this off?"

"I'm not sure what to tell you other than all fingers point back to him."

"Because you bribed everyone to rat him out."

"We had to," he insisted. "With so many students implicated, we had no other choices. Now you can chew me out all you want, but it won't matter. He already fessed up this morning."

"Probably only because you had him framed. What kind of plea deal did you offer him?"

"Suspension instead of expulsion."

Expulsion. Fuck. The word settled in my stomach like a bolt of lead and knocked the bravado right out of me. "So, suspended a week?" I sat up a bit straighter, wishing I were dressed more like Paul's father than my own. "This ain't gonna affect his grade or nothing?"

"We considered failing him for each class in which this occurred, but when we did the math, it would amount to failing two grades of high school."

Might as well expel him at that point. I swallowed the remainder of my pride and spat out the sincerest apology I could muster. "I'm sorry, sir. I shouldn't have lost it with you. I'm sure you have his best interest at heart."

He didn't and never would, but if my outburst tipped him over the edge, if my outburst dared him to flunk Pony, I'd never forgive myself. Pony would graduate. I might fuck up parenting in every other regard, but I wouldn't fuck that up.

"I assure you, we all do," he told me, tone anything but genuine. "His teachers are furious, but none of them, not a single one, wants him to flunk out of high school. We're making an exception. Suspended one week starting today and a month's worth of detention upon his return."

"So his grades won't be impacted? His As will remain As?"

"If he had As, then yes," he agreed. "Completing everyone else's assignments doesn't leave much time for your own."

"Thank you, sir. I mean that. Thank you for not flunking him.

"I couldn't justify it when he has such a bright future ahead of him, and thank God for that, considering what he came from."

What he came from. God, he'd said the same thing to me junior year—that I had a chance, one I shouldn't squander—and I'll never forget how he read me the Riot Act and let Paul off with a light tap on the wrist. Out of concern, he'd claimed, concern my old man didn't care about my academic future.

"I'm worried about him," Mr. Brown continued, voice oozing in feigned concern, "and what kind of home environment he's coming home to."

"You don't have to worry about that. He's in good hands, I promise."

"I want to trust you, but you hadn't the faintest clue this was happening. What else are you missing?"

"You don't have to worry," I repeated. "If anything, I'm too hard on him."

"Not hard enough, I'd say." He shook his head firmly. "If he were my kid, I'd put the fear of God in him before it got worse."

And here came the unsolicited parenting advice.

"Keep closer tabs on him, and do something about that attitude," he suggested. "Pony was anything but remorseful with me this morning, and he's been lipping off to his teachers, too."

"Don't worry, I'll take care of it," I assured him. "I'll shape him up so good you won't even recognize him when he returns."

"I hope you will." And with that, Mr. Brown stood up and shooed me to the door. "That was all we needed to discuss today, Darrel. Now if you'll excuse me now, I have a meeting in five minutes."

"I'll handle it," I reiterated as he closed the door. "Don't you worry. I'll handle everything."

I'd handle it all right, but how?

"Thank you for coming in on such short notice, Darrel," Mr. Brown's secretary said. "I'll call Ponyboy down to the office, and you can take him home."

I said nothing. Just gave her a slight nod, so she'd know I'd heard her.

My mother used to tell me if I had nothing nice to say to say nothing at all, and I should've followed that advice with Mr. Brown. One call to the state would land us in hotter water than we'd ever been in. I knew that, and I knew our caseworker would believe any lie from his lips before she'd listen to me.

I knew that, and my temper still got the best of me.

The drive home was dead silent. Mom used to fall quiet like that when we'd really pissed her off—keep us in suspense until the punishment felt like mercy. Maybe that was what I was going for, but truth be told, I didn't know what to do, or what to say, or how to punish him.

"Go to your room," I ordered the moment we set foot in the house.

"Ain't you gonna yell at me?"

"I dunno yet." I shrugged and stabbed a finger at his door. "Go. Now."

"Fine."

"And wait for me," I added, trying to sound intimidating, but that brat still slammed his door three times. "I heard that, you little shit."

"Good."

"Jesus, what happened?" Soda asked before I could even sit down.

"None of your business."

"What happened?"

"I said none of your damn business."

"Look, if you won't tell me, I'll march right into his room and ask him myself."

"I'll tell you later." I hurled myself facedown into the couch. "Let me take a nap first."

"Or you could tell me now." He took a seat on the coffee table and poked my arm until I sat up. "I ain't bluffin'. You wanna tell your side of the story first, you better start talking."

"For the love of all that's holy, little buddy," I hissed. "Give me a break. I don't even know where to begin."

"How 'bout the beginning?" he pressed on. "Seems as good a place to start as any."

"Sometimes you piss me off even more than him."

"Right back at you."

I gave his shoulders a light shove and tried to walk away, but he pushed me back into the couch twice as hard. "Start talking, Superman."

"Fuck this." I chucked both throw pillows across the room. "Fuck him, fuck you, fuck everything, but fuck you especially. Go ask him. I'm tired."

Soda retrieved the pillows and hurled them at my face one by one. "Too bad. I'm only asking you now."

Fuck off, I muttered under my breath yet relented. "He's suspended a week and has detention for an entire month after that. Happy now?"

"Mm-hmm."

"And you'll never guess what he did," I said. "Not in a million years."

"Well, If I had to guess, I'd say shit finally hit the fan on that business he and Curly were trying to run."

"Curly?!" I scoffed. "I mean, yeah, they nailed him for plagiarism, but I didn't hear shit all about Curly."

"Yeah, he recruited the customers," Soda stated as if it were front-page news to everybody except me. "That was their agreement. Curly found the students, Pony did their homework, and they split the profit 50/50. I told 'em both it was a stupid idea."

"And when were you planning on telling me this?" I demanded. "I can't believe you knew."

"I thought I'd convinced him not to go through with it," he continued. "Told 'em it was dumb and Pony agreed, but then he started staying up later, claiming he had all this homework. He said it was all his, but I knew better. For a smart kid, he's kinda a dumbass sometimes, huh?"

"Nah, not this time at least." I sighed, finally admitting I was impressed. "It's brilliant, honestly. Damn, I could've made a killing if I'd dreamed up something half that wild. You know how many football players would sell their left kidney for someone to write their English paper? I don't know if I should kill him or congratulate him."

"Y'all talking about me?" Pony piped up from the corner.

"I thought I sent you to your room." I shot him a stern look and pointed back at his door. "Get your ass back in there."

"Yeah, well, I heard you hollering at Soda and had to see what was up."

"Nothing's up," Soda lied. "Go back to your room."

"If you're both gonna yell at me, you might as well do it now."

"Fine," I said. "Tell me about Curly."

"Soda already explained it," Pony replied. "I told Mr. Brown it was all my idea, so he'd lay off him."

"Jesus Christ," Soda laid into him before I could even open my mouth. "You should've saved your own ass and told him it was all Curly's idea. I thought he dropped out anyway."

"Nope. Tim made him go back. Figured it'd keep him on the straight and narrow and out of juvie."

"Hey, not a half-bad idea." I glanced at Soda. "I oughta send your ass back to school. Keep you out of trouble."

"Shut up," Soda growled and turned back to Pony. "Look, I know you ain't the type to rat out your friends, and I respect that, but I'm begging you just this once…"

"Nope." Pony shook his head in staunch refusal. "Not a chance in hell. Besides, I couldn't blackmail him if I did that."

"Blackmail him?" Soda asked.

"Yeah. I told him he had to give me half his portion of the profits, or I'd tell Tim."

"Tell Tim what?" I asked.

"Beats me." Pony shrugged. "Just said I'd tell Tim, and that's all I had to say."

And what I wouldn't give for him to fear me like that. What I wouldn't give to live in a universe where I'll tell Darry meant something to him.

"Don't get too excited," I said. "You're putting all that cash in a college fund. Every last cent."

Without a word, he rolled his eyes and started walking toward his room.

"I'm talking to you, Ponyboy Michael," I called after him. "Get back here."

"We ain't even close to done," Soda added.

"You both sent me to my room, so I'm going there." And with that, he slammed his door a fourth time.

Soda stared at the door for a moment and turned back to me. "You asked me if you should congratulate him or kill him … I say kill him. Definitely kill him."

"Yeah, whatever." I planted my face back into the couch cushions and shoved the pillows over my head. "Tomorrow," I mumbled into the fabric. "Tomorrow, I'll kill him."