The outsiders LD

When I stepped out into eleventh grade from the darkness of my house into the bright sunlight, I had only two things on my mind: doing better in school and dance. I was wishing I did better in school, but I had to be content with what it was. I'm different that way. I mean, my younger sister, Soda, who is fourteen going on fifteen rarely takes hard classes. So I'm not like her. And nobody digs science the way I do. For a while there, I thought I was the only person in the worlds that did. So Loaned it. My friends try to understand, at least. Maybe I've grown up too fast. She haven't grown up at all. I can't decide which way is best. I'll find out one of these days. Anyways, I was wishing I did better in school. You can't get too bad grades or someone will come up and yell "greaser" at you. That doesn't make you feel too hot if you know what I mean. We the greasers get teased by the Socs. It's the abbreviation for socials, the elite kids. We don't have as much as the Socs, and I reckon we're wilder too. Greasers don't have good after school activities or good grades. I don't mean I do things like that. I try to stay out of trouble as much as I can. I'm not saying either Socs or greasers are better, that's just the way things are. I'm smart and everything, but sometimes I don't use my head. It drives my parents nuts when I do that. Darry would apologize for criticizing me on driving.

"I'm sorry Ponyboy"

He wasn't really. Cuz he'd be too critical about other things. He doesn't understand anything that is not plain hard fact. But he uses his head.

Soda is happy-go lucky.

Sometimes Darry said things that made we want to cry, but you just don't cry I front of Darry.

Sodapop isn't afraid to tease Darry and Darry seems to enjoy being teased by Darry.

Sometimes at Dance I could feel like a tag along because everyone was younger than I was.

It wasn't my fault, that's just how it was.

Two-bit was the wisecracker of the bunch, and he couldn't shut up to save her life. She always had to get her "two-bits" in. Hence her name. I liked her. We hung out so much that I started acting like her. Life was one big joke to Two-bit. Some smart-ass like I could be sometimes. Everything she said was just so irresistibly funny.

Soda went to school for kicks. Yeah sure she got good grades, but never took hard classes. She didn't do much of anything outside school.

If I had to pick a real character in my life, it would be Dallas Winstion-Dally. I had met her on a school trip-she had been in my class, but then I really got to know her. Her hair was almost white it was so blonde. It was long too. She had a hatred of the whole world. She seemed tougher than the rest of us-tougher, colder, meaner. The shade of difference that separates a greaser from a hood wasn't present in Dally.

Of the friends in my greaser group-we were a small bunch that stuck together.

Dally had no sepefic thing to hate, no rival gang. Only Socs. And you can't win against them no matter how hard you try because they've got all the breaks and even whipping them wasn't going to change that fact. Maybe that's why Dallas was so bitter. She went around trying to break laws. You just didn't tell her what to do. She had told us how she cut class, I even heard rumors that she did drugs, smoked, hard sex. But I had just met her so I had to respect her.

Johnny Cade was last and least. If you can picture a sensitive person who bounces around always busting her ass, you'll have johnny. She was sensitive not in a bad way. She had it hard because so much was expected out of her.

Two-bit called the Socs every name she could think of that they looked like. Two-bit said that I'm tuff.

Tough and tuff are two separate words. Tough is the same as rough. Tuff means cool, sharp like a tuff-looking car. In our neighborhood, both are compliments.

Darry always says to me "you don't ever think. Not at home or anywhere where it counts. You must think at school because you got As this year and your good at reading. But do you ever use your head for common sense? No."

I Just stared at the hole in my tennis shoe. Me and Darry just didn't dig each other. If I got Bs, he wanted As. If I got As, he wanted to make sure they stayed As. If I was dancing I should be studying and if I was studying, I should be dancing. He never hollered at Sodapop, he just hollered at me. It's not my fault a lot of Socs go to my school.

My friends don't need to look at me the way they did right then. Sometimes I can't stand being a greaser. I mean it. Sometimes I hate it.

When my friends asked me if I wanted to hang out I signed just like I knew I would. I never had time to do anything anymore "I'm working."

On school nights, I could hardly leave the house.

I thought of some of the girls at my school. The popular girls who wore too much eye makeup and giggled and swore too much.

I liked some of them just fine though.

Suddenly I'm remembering of a friend of mine. She was our kind-greaser-built she was a real nice girl.

Some of the popular Socs didn't like us and remembering Dallas I didn't blame them. But most looked at us like we were dirt-and they yell "greaser" at us.

I was still thinking about it while I was doing my homework that night. I had to read The Outsiders for English and that kid, Ponyboy, he reminded me of me because he wasn't all that and was looked down upon. That's what happened to me once. I told my parents I wanted to have a sleepover with the people in my dance group so that I could give them a ride to competition in the morning. I forgot what I was saying or I would have clarified. That didn't make me feel so hot.

I get put into a lot of classes with the Socs. I take AP classes because I'm smart.

We deserve a lot of our trouble, I thought. Dallas deserves everything and should get worse, If you want the truth. I can understand why I dance-I have too much energy, too much feeling with no way to blow it off. My friends though I worked too hard anyway. I did too.

I didn't deserve to be treated like I am sometimes. I had been real popular in elementary school. In the summer I never did anything expect work and dance. I was tough. I never hurt the Socs, why did they hate us? We left them alone. I nearly went to sleep over my homework trying to figure it out.

Sodapop told me "Listen, Kiddo, when Darry hollers at you, he doesn't mean nothing. Don't take him serious, you dig? Don't let him bug you. He thinks your really smart-I mean he loves you a lot. I told you he don't mean half of what he says."

I signed. I didn't quite know what he meant about Darry. Darry love me? Soda was wrong form once, I thought. I don't care, I lied to myself. I don't care. But I was lying and I knew it. I lie to myself all the time, but I never believe me.