I was a greaser. I had my gang and I wouldn't desert them. I wish I could say everything went back to normal, but it didn't. The Socs cause trouble and everyone tried to blame it on the greasers. That was really funny-we weren't even in the same place.

I was by my buddy's car and some Socs got out. I just sat there and looked at them. I took another sallow of the Pepsi. I wasn't scared. It was the oddest feeling in the world. I didn't feel anything-scared, mad or anything. Just zero. They didn't like us but whatever.

"Ponyboy listen, your not like the rest of us and don't try to be…" what was the matter with Two-bit? I knew just as well as he did that if you got tough you didn't get hurt. Get smart and nothing can touch you.

I tried to write about it I really did. Then there was the discussion when I had been moping about being a greaser. "You don't stop living just because you loose something. You don't quit. I thought you knew that by now."

While I was thinking about it, I ought to pay attention more to other people's problems. I guess I took it for granted that they didn't have any. How many times had they told me something, only to find I was daydreaming? They would always listen to me, no matter what they were doing.

When Cherry said she couldn't stand fights she said that it felt like she was refereeing a tug of war. I suddenly realized the fighting caused her harm too. "Darry takes everything too serious and Ponyboy, you don't think enough. Sure your happy, but some people would never be happy doing something like that. Darry you ought to be easier on her about every mistake she makes. She feels things differently than you do. We're all we got left now. We got to be able to stick together against everything. If we don't have each other, we don't have anything. If you don't have anything, you'll end up like Dallas. And I don't mean dead either, I mean like how he was before and that's worse than dead. So please guys don't fight anymore."

I suddenly realized how much fighting costs. Darry and I would probably still have misunderstandings, we were too different not to. But no more fights.

Finally, I picked up The Outsiders and looked at it for a long time. I knew I was a greaser. I had known it all the time, even while I was pretending I wasn't. I did Soc things. I knew that too. I just thought that maybe if I had played that it wasn't real that it wouldn't hurt as much. But it still hurt anyway. You know someone a long time and I mean really know yourself. You don't get used to the idea overnight. Johnny was more than a buddy to me. I guess she had listened to more problems than any of that will that'll really listen to you, listen and care about what your saying is something rare. I couldn't get over it. I turned to The Outsiders and flipped to the last page.

Ponyboy,

I asked the nurse to give you this book so you could finish it.

It was Johnny's handwriting. I kept on reading, almost hearing Johnny's quiet voice.

The doctor came in a while ago, but I knew anyway. I keep getting tireder and tireder. Listen, I don't mind dying now. It was worth it. It was worth saving those kids, their lives are worth more than mine, they have more to live for. Some of their parents came by to thank me and I knew it was worth it. Tell Dally it's worth it. I've been thinking about it, and that poem, that guy who wrote it- he meant your gold when you're a kid, like green. When you're a kid, everything's new, dawn, it's just when you get used to everything that it's day. Like the way you dig sunsets Pony, that's gold. Keep it that way it's a good way to be. I want to you ask Dally to look at one, he'll probably think your crazy, but ask for me. I don't think he's ever really seen a sunset. And don't be so bugged over being a greaser. You still have a lot of time to make yourself be what you want. There's still lots of good in the world. Tell Dally. I don't think he knows.

Your Buddy,

Johnny

Tell Dally. It was too late to tell Dally. Would he have listened? I doubted it. Suddenly it wasn't only a personal thing to me. I could picture hundreds and hundreds of boys and girls living on the wring side, boys and girls with big black eyes who jumped at their own shadows. Hundreds of boys and girls who maybe watched sunsets and looked at stars and aches for something better. I could see boys and girls going down under street lamps because they were mean and tough and hated the world and it was too late to tell them that there was still good in it, and they wouldn't believe you if you did. It was too vast to be just a personal thing. There should be some help, someone should tell their side of the story and maybe people would understand then and wouldn't be so quick to judge someone. It was important to me. I sat down and picked up my pen and thought for a minute remembering. Remembering a pretty girl with a reckless grin and a hot temper. A tough, towheaded girl with a bitter grin on her face. Remembering, and this time it didn't hurt, a quiet defeated looking eighteen years old. One week had taken things from me and I decided I could tell people. I wondered for a long time how to start that theme, how to start writing about something's that was important to me. And when I finally began I started like this: When I stepped out into eleventh grade, from the darkness of my house into the sun-rising summer sky, I had only two things on my mind: doing better in school and dance.