Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders. I am making no profit from this story.

Chapter 3

Darry stepped through the doorway in front of me. "Just toss your stuff on the couch for now."

I walked into the house and took a second to get my bearings before dumping my ancient suitcase and jacket onto the couch. It wasn't a big place, but it was clean and it looked like home. That might not mean much to most people, but I'd stayed in houses that felt about as homey as a train terminal. "What's the dog's name?" A yellow hound with a swishing happy tail had wandered over and leaned into me.

Darry looked up from the stack of mail he had carried in. "Eden. She's Pony's dog."

I squatted down and got a wet tongue across my face. "Hey, girl." She leaned against me and sank herself onto the floor to get her belly scratched. "You the guard dog?"

"Yeah, right. Don't make any sudden moves, or she'll show you where we keep the spare cash." I laughed, and Darry leaned down to give the dog a few solid pats on her side. "Unless you need anything immediately, I'm going to take a shower. Three days in the same clothes ain't feeling so good."

I wrinkled my nose. "Don't do much for the senses of those around you, neither."

He gave me a look. "Small price to pay for a prize like you, though, right?"

"Damn straight." Darry headed off toward the back of the house, so I followed until we got to the kitchen. It was tiny but, again, it was clean. Can't even tell you how many roaches I've squashed on kitchen counters. Suckers are disgusting.

Now see, I guess most people get all awkward in other people's houses, not sure if they should touch or take or whatever, but I was fortunate enough to have bypassed that sort of instinct. One at a time, I examined the inside of each cabinet before moving on to the refrigerator and the freezer. Didn't look like they kept a big stockpile of food around, but the basics were there. I unwrapped a foil brick that turned out to be a meatloaf, dug out some mustard, and pulled a couple slices of bread out of the bag so I could make a sandwich.

I was just about finished eating when Darry came in with a towel wrapped around his waist. I took a lingering look at his arms. "You have no idea how happy I am that you turned out to be a relation," I told him.

He looked down and flexed one of his arms in front of himself. "Was kind of disappointed, myself. Been too long since I've had a chance to use these for anything but work."

I stopped chewing. "I'll keep that in mind. You want a sandwich?"

"No thanks. I need to head over to work soon, make sure nobody burned the place down while I was gone."

"You guys are back," said a voice right behind me, almost making me drop the last bite of my sandwich.

"I told you he was smart," Darry said, and winked at me.

I turned to see one of my other cousins standing in the kitchen doorway. I was thinking he was Ponyboy, but I hadn't seen them in so long, and he was older. Plus, the two of them looked like each other – him and Sodapop. He was wearing decent pants and a white dress shirt that he'd unbuttoned so I could see the light stains on his white undershirt. Dressed like that, he was probably the one going to college, I figured. He was smaller than Darry, but I was impressed at how solid he looked.

I guess months of analyzing people to figure out who can beat the crap out of you and who can't had become an automatic feature for me.

I held out my hand to shake his. "How's it going?"

"Not bad." He shook my hand and gave me a thoughtful look-over. "You sure did grow up."

I shrugged. "Maybe. I was thinking everybody around me just shrank some." Even their house was smaller than I remembered.

"You done with classes for the day?" Darry asked, confirming my suspicions that this was Ponyboy.

"Yeah."

"Good. I need to get over to the site." He glanced at me.

"I don't need a babysitter," I said.

"So you got the contract with those guys in Oklahoma City," Ponyboy said, ignoring my comment.

"Yeah. Our bid came in way ahead of anybody else's. The job starts in three weeks."

Ponyboy picked the knife off the counter and sliced off a piece of meatloaf. "It'll be getting cold." He broke off another piece and tossed it to Eden, who had been trailing him since he appeared in the doorway.

Darry walked out of the kitchen, but kept talking from the other room. "Yeah. That's why they want us to frame it in by the end of the month – so the inside crews can get started."

I took some bread out of the bag and handed it to Ponyboy.

"Thanks. Did you talk to the school, Dar, or do I need to do that?"

Darry came back into the room with his shirt unbuttoned, his socks draped over his shoulder, and his boots in his hand. "I called from the motel yesterday. We're meeting with Mrs. Ross tomorrow at two. That works for you, right?"

"Yeah, I'm done at one tomorrow. I'll meet you there."

Darry sat down to pull his socks and boots on. "You got dinner covered?"

"Yeah," Ponyboy said from where he was digging around in the refrigerator. "Soda's coming over." He emerged with a stack of wrapped-up stuff.

Darry stood up. "Is he bringing . . . " He trailed off with a wave of his hand.

"Carol," Ponyboy supplied. "Nah. It's a school night." He laughed when Darry smiled. "No, she's got something going on with her family."

"Alright. I'll see you guys later." On his way tromping through the living room, Darry picked up a tool belt from behind a living-room chair.

"Bye," Ponyboy said just as the door slammed shut. He had set everything on the counter and was unwrapping corners and edges to see what was inside. "The girl Soda's seeing is seventeen," he told me. "She's in twelfth grade."

"Ah."

"So everything went okay this morning?"

"Yeah." I picked up the mustard and put it back in the refrigerator, then wrapped the bread up. "Darry said it was more like a formality, meeting with the judge. I guess that Phil guy took care of things from here."

"Yeah, Phil's an okay guy. He got bumped up in Family Services a couple of years ago. Real big on keeping families together, and apparently he took us to be some sort of model of success." He gave a little laugh. "The guy's a little gung-ho, but he took us off the hot burner, so we didn't argue." Ponyboy pulled back one foil cover, made a face, and tossed whatever it was in the trash. "He even had Darry go to some meeting to talk about siblings raising siblings."

"Oh yeah? Did they let you say anything?" I leaned against the counter and picked up one of Ponyboy's mystery packages. "What the hell's this? It's blue."

Ponyboy peeked inside. "From when Soda was here last week. It's okay, he uses food coloring. No, I didn't get to talk. So what do you think – some chicken, some green beans, potatoes, corn . . . sounds like stew tonight."

I gave Ponyboy a pat on the arm. "Long as I ain't cooking, that'll be just fine."

He grinned and raised one eyebrow at me. "I got a paper to write. Who says you ain't cooking?"

#

Sodapop leaned back on the couch and stretched his arms over his head. "No, it was good. Mom used to make chicken soup kind of like that."

"It was stew," I told him.

"You didn't put the flour in, did you?" asked Ponyboy.

I gave him a skeptical look. "I thought you were kidding."

Soda laughed. "Pony's just happy there's finally somebody younger'n him in the house to take all the blame."

Pony, who had one leg stretched out across the couch, kicked at Soda. "Hey, keep quiet. Now he's on to me." He gave me an easy smile. "It was fine, AJ. I'll be able to help you out more next time. I got kinda wrapped up in that paper and lost track of time."

The living room had this warm cozy feel, with just a few mismatched table lamps doing their thing. Looking through the window behind the couch, I could just about see that autumn chill when a sharp breeze whipped some leaves off the tree out front. Remembering what it was like to sometimes not be able to get in from the cold, I shivered.

Darry came in from the dining room and sank into one of the wing chairs that flanked the fireplace. "You need a blanket or something?"

"No, I'm alright. Just remembering, is all." I curled my legs up against me and settled back further in the chair. "Hey, is there a bus stop near the school?"

Darry squinted at me. "Yeah. Why?"

"I got some family around here somewhere. My dad's relatives – you know, cousins of cousins thrice removed, or some such malarkey. Figured tomorrow'd be a good day to hunt 'em down."