~Chapter 1~

Most of this chapter is from the original book, I did not write most of this. The story starts close to the beginning of chapter five.

Then I heard a whistle, long and low, ending in a sudden high note. I knew that whistle well enough. It was used by us and the Shepard gang for "Who's there?" I returned it carefully, then darted out the door so fast that I fell off the steps and sprawled flat under Johnny's nose. I propped myself on my elbows and grinned up at him. He was so cute, his dark eyes were the color of the night sky. "Hey, Johnny. Fancy meetin' you here." He looked down at me over a big package. I think I saw him blush a little.

"I swear, Ponyboy, you're gettin' to act more like Two-Bit every day."

I tried unsuccessfully to cock an eyebrow, damnit he was cute. "Who's acting?" I rolled over and sprang up, happy too see him. "What'd you get?"

"Come on inside. Dally told us to stay inside." We went in. Johnny dusted off a table with his jacket and started taking things out of the sack and lining them up neatly. "A week's supply of baloney, two loaves of bread, a box of matches..." Johnny went on. I got tired of watching him do it all, and I got distracted watching his bangs bob up and down.

"Wheee!" I sat down on a dusty chair and stared. "A paperback copy of Gone with the Wind! How'd you know I always wanted one?"

Johnny reddened, blushing. "I remembered you sayin' something about it once. And me and you went to see that movie, 'member? I thought you could maybe read it out loud and help kill time or something."

Of cource I remember the movie! It was the moast nerve-wracking, most exiting time of my life. I put the book down reluctantly. I wanted to start it right then. "Peroxide? A deck of cards..." Suddenly I realized something. "Johnny, you ain't thinking of..." Johnny sat down and pulled out his knife.

"We're gonna cut our hair, and you're gonna bleach yours." He looked at the ground carefully. "They'll have our descriptions in the paper. We can't fit 'em."

"Oh, no!" My hand flew to my hair. "No, Johnny, not my hair!" It was my pride. It was long and silky, just like Soda's, only a little redder. Our hair was tuff--- we didn't have to use much grease on it. Our hair labeled us greasers, too--- it was our trademark.

The one thing we were proud of. Maybe we couldn't have Corvairs or madras shirts, but we could have hair.

"We'd have to anyway if we got caught. You know the first thing the judge does is make you get a haircut"

"I don't see why," I said sourly. "Dally could just as easily mug somebody with short hair."

"I don't know either--- it's just a way of trying to break us. They can't really do anything to guys like Curly Shepard or Tim; they've had about everything done to them. And they can't take anything away from them because they don't have anything in the first place. So they cut their hair." I looked at Johnny imploringly. Johnny sighed. "I'm gonna cut mine too, and wash the grease out, but I can't bleach it. I'm too dark-skinned to look okay blond. Oh, come on, Ponyboy," he pleaded. "It'll grow back."

"Okay," I said, wide-eyed. "Get it over with."

Johnny flipped out the razor-edge of his switch, took hold of my hair. The feel of his hand on my skin felt good, I shuddered. A memory of us in the lot came to me. It was just us too, under the stars. I remember glancing at him then quickly glancing away, afraid of him seeing me looking at him.

"Not too short," I begged. "Johnny, please..."

Finally it was over with. My hair looked funny, scattered over the floor in tufts. "It's lighter than I thought it was," I said, examining it. "Can I see what I look like now?"

"No," Johnny said slowly, staring at me. "We gotta bleach it first." After I'd sat in the sun for fifteen minutes to dry the bleach, Johnny let me look in the old cracked mirror we'd found in a closet. I did a double take. My hair was even lighter than Sodapop's. I'd never combed it to the side like that. It just didn't look like me. It made me look younger, and scareder, too. Boy howdy, I thought, this really makes me look tuff. I look like a blasted pansy. I was miserable. Johnny handed me the knife, our hands brushed. His face flushed, and he pulled his hand back quickly and stamered. "C-c-cut the front and thin out the rest. I'll comb it back after I wash it."

"Johnny," I said tiredly, "you can't wash your hair in that freezing water in this weather. You'll get a cold." I was worried about him. The amount of times he got sick from the cold was uncountablel. His old man kiked him out of the house so often that he had made himself a bed in the lot.

He only shrugged. "Go ahead and cut it."

I did the best I could. He went ahead and washed it anyway, using the bar of soap he'd bought. I was glad I had had to run away with him instead of with Two-Bit or Steve or Dally. That would be one thing they'd never think of soap. I gave him Dally's jacket to wrap up in, and he sat shivering in the sunlight on the back steps, leaning against the door, combing his hair back. It was the first time I could see that he had eyebrows. He looked kind of cute without his bangs, his forehead was whiter where his bangs had been; it would have been funny if we hadn't been so scared.

He was still shivering with cold. "I guess," he said weakly, "I guess we're disguised." I leaned back next to him sullenly.

"I guess so."

"Oh, shoot," Johnny said with fake cheerfulness, "it's just hair."

"Shoot nothing," I snapped. "It took me a long time to get that hair just the way I wanted it. And besides, this just ain't us. It's like being in a Halloween costume we can't get out of."

"Well, we got to get used to it," Johnny said with finality. "We're in big trouble and it's our looks or us."

I started eating a candy bar. "I'm still tired," I said. To my surprise, the ground blurred and I felt tears running down my cheeks. I brushed them off hurriedly. Johnny looked as miserable as I felt. "I'm sorry I cut your hair off, Ponyboy."

"Oh, it ain't that;" I said between bites of chocolate. "I mean, not all of it. I'm just a little spooky. I really don't know what's the matter. I'm just mixed up."

"I know," Johnny said through chattering teeth as we went inside. "Things have been happening so fast..."

My inpulce to help my friend took over, I put my arm across his shoulders to warm him up. He shrunk back at the feel of my arm. But he blushed and sank into my side. "Two-Bit shoulda been in that little one-horse store. Man, we're in the middle of nowhere; the nearest house is two miles away. Things were layin' out wide open, just waitin' for somebody slick like Two-Bit to come and pick 'em up. He coulda walked out with half the store." He leaned back beside me, and I could feel him trembling. "Good ol' Two-Bit," he said in a quavering voice. He must have been as homesick as I was. "Remember how he was wisecrackin' last night?" I said. "Last night... just last night we were walkin' Cherry and Marcia over to Two-Bit's. Just last night we were layin' in the lot, lookin' up at the stars and dreaming..."

"Stop it!" Johnny gasped from between clenched teeth. I had not expected this outburst. "Shut up about last night! I killed a kid last night. He couldn't of been over seventeen or eighteen, and I killed him. How'd you like to live with that?" He was crying. I held him like Soda had held him the day we found him lying in the lot. I was blushing like crazy. He was cold and shivering besid me.

"I didn't mean to," he finally blurted out, "but they were drownin' you, and I was so scared..." He was quiet for a minute. "There sure is a lot of blood in people." He got up suddenly and began pacing back and forth, slapping his pockets. "Whatta we gonna do?" I was crying by then. It was getting dark and I was cold and lonesome. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, but the tears came anyway.

"This is my fault," Johnny said in a miserable voice. He had stopped crying when I started. "For bringin' a little thirteen-year-old kid along. You ought to go home. You can't get into any trouble. You didn't kill him."

"No!" I screamed at him. "I'm fourteen! I've been fourteen for a month! And I'm in it as much as you are. I'll stop crying in a minute... I can't help it." He slumped down beside me. I sniffed, his presence beside me calmed me down.

"I didn't mean it like that, Ponyboy. Don't cry, Pony, we'll be okay. Don't cry..." I leaned against him and bawled until I went to sleep. I woke up late that night.

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Thanks for reading! 

-Hazel <3