FicWad

I was walking home with Lizzie and Riley down the street home from the Dairy Queen. We were going to meet Sarah at the corner store before we head to Pony's house.

Sarah is a rough girl, nearly five feet four inches tall, just below the shoulder dark brown hair, pale freckles, and a wide, wild smile like Sodapop's. But she packs a punch. She could beat any guy in a second. She also plays basketball, she's really good at it too.

Lizzie looked at me and (as I predicted) asked, "How are the guys lately?" I could tell she meant Johnny, she's kinda predictable that way.

Lizzie is a five foot five accident waiting to happen. She can't be trusted with anything; she's clumsy and likes to fiddle with things. I learned the hard way. It was the last time I trusted Lizzie with a cigarette lighter.

She has a huge poof of brown hair with a black undertone, natural, I might add. She's skinny as a pole (though she eats like a horse) and has big brown eyes that look like they're hiding something, and they usually are, and that's usually a bad thing.

Riley answered Lizzie question for me. "You'll find out soon enough."

Riley is a good five foot seven, long back hair, slight acne, big dark brown eyes, and she is really pretty, plain and simple.

She's athletic, like Sarah, and sorta like most greasy girls, lots of eye makeup and not the cleanest mouth in the world. But then, she's far from being a greasy girl: she's smart, wears decent cloths and isn't only concerned with guys. She'll be the first girl (besides me and Sarah) to get into a rumble and fight to the death (almost).

She was in jail once. But she didn't actually do anything wrong, and the fuzz figured that out after a few hours. Some chick (probably a Soc) stuck a magazine in Riley's school bag, and Riley almost got charged with shoplifting, until some quiet kid who hangs around the store a lot spoke up.

"Ya Lizzie and by the way you need to work on your cover up skills, I could tell what you meant." I said.

Lizzie's eyes got a fraction wider and she went red.

"Look Liz, go ahead. Sylvia was... a tramp for lack of a better word. You're different, and I'm all for it. I don't know how many times I have to tell you." I looked at Lizzie with a frustrated look on my face.

"Ya sure." She says the same thing every time.

"Isn't this the place?" Riley broke an awkward silence, pointing to our destination.

I could see Sarah in the inside reading a poster for a men's basketball tournament. She can't get into a good tournament and it's near killing her.

We walked in a and a cool AC greeted us.

"Hey Sarah," I said looking around. That kid who helped Riley was hanging around again.

"What? Oh hi Terri." Sarah's lightly absent minded, but tuff. "Hey Lizzie. Who's the raven head?"

"Riley," Riley said sticking out her hand.

Sarah shook it. "Let's blow this pop stand guys. Ain't we goin to your friends house?"

"Ya Ponyboy's," I answered.

"Right I dig that kids name man. Let's go." She headed towards the door with us in hot pursuit.

We walked out the door and the hot air welcomed us back.

I was the first one in the door at Pony's.

"Hey y'all!" I was happy to get off my feet, it was a long walk if your dragging Lizzie along who's practically tripping over her own two feet every two seconds or stopping to look at something.

"Hey," Two-Bit said. He, Soda, and Steve were all playing poker. Riley went right to join them.

"Who's the chicks?" Two-Bit asked.

"Lizzie and Riley, you know them and this is Sarah," I named them off absently. Dally was sitting on the couch and was beckoning for me to come over.

"Hey, babe," he said. He pulled me down to him and kissed me. He spun me around so I was leaning on his chest and his arms were around my waist. "Keeping my ring safe for me?"

"You know it!" I said looking up at him. Just then I noticed someone missing, Johnny.

"Where's Johnny?"

"He'll be around soon, he's over at the lot lookin for something," Steve answered.

Lizzie sat on the floor watching a chess game between Darry and Ponyboy.

"Full House!" I heard Riley say in her naturally excited voice.

"How did she do that?" Two-Bit asked completely bewildered.

"Maybe Soda taught her how to cheat!" Steve punched Soda's shoulder across the table. "Ha! I bet that's what happened!"

Riley went a shade darker pink in the face and I think Soda did too.

I glanced at Soda's shoes. The Ace of Hearts. I looked at Riley's shoe. The King of Spades.

'Classic,' I thought.

Dally was reading my mind. "Two peas in a pod, they are."

"Yep."

I noticed Sarah lingering by the door.

"These guys don't bite you know, you can come sit down."

"Oh? Right, okay." She went and sat next to Lizzie.

My foot was next to Lizzie's side.

'I never can help it.' I thought as I lightly jabbed her in the side.

"Ahh!" She screamed two pitches lower than her usual voice, as Johnny walked in.

"Hey Johnny. You find what you were looking for?" I asked. Lizzie was looking at me angrily.

"What?" he cast a quick glance in Lizzie and Sarah's direction, "Oh ya, I..."

"She is cheating!" Steve hollered.

Two-Bit grabbed Riley's arms and held them behind her back while she screamed and kicked. Soda and Steve went for her foot.

"A King!" Steve exclaimed.

"He's cheating too! He's got an Ace in his left shoe!" Riley yelled, referring to Soda.

Steve lunged for Soda, and Riley was till trying to free herself from Two-Bit's grasp.

"Check," Ponyboy said.

I quickly turned my attention to the chess game. Pony had Darry in check with a knight. I turned back to the fight.

"Say 'uncle'!" Two-Bit told Riley.

"Never!" she grunted and pushed him back wards into the wall.

"Ow!'' Two-Bit yelled maintaining his grip on Riley.

"Hey, hey, hey! Don't tear the house down guys!" Darry said.

Soda had Steve in a head lock and Steve was reaching wildly for Soda's shoe.

Riley was still struggling with Two-Bit and made the mistake of throwing her head back.

"OW!" they both yelled at simultaneously holding their heads reeling.

"Oh my," Lizzie said not taking her eyes off the fight. She has a strange attraction to violence.

"It's a shame really," I said.

"About what?" Dally asked.

"They're all acting like idiots."

"Ya I agree," Lizzie said still staring intently at the festivities.

"You do know I was including you in that statement?"

"Well ya... maybe. No. Never Mind."

Johnny went into the kitchen, cleverly avoiding the wrestling match and the dazed two, to find something. With any luck it would be cake.

Lizzie kept her head facing the fight but her eyes followed Johnny into the kitchen.

Sarah turned back to the game of chess which was steadily becoming a do-or-die for both players.

I was still the fight. Riley was now being pinned to the ground by Soda and Steve was going for her shoe again.

"She's gotta have a whole deck in here if she's winning so much," Steve remarked shortly thereafter being kicked by Riley.

Soda looked like he was having a genuinely good time, since Sandy left.

"Hey Soda check this out, two queens and a joker!" Steve said, Soda put his knee on Riley's chest and moved over to see.

"Oof! How chivalrous Soda..." Riley half-scowled half-grinned to the back of his head.

"All this with a side order of Mickey Mouse socks!" Soda said starting to tickle Riley's feet, keeping his knee on her chest.

Riley screeched but Steve held her other foot down so she couldn't kick. Her punching and slapping didn't do much to him anyway.

"Check Mate!" Darry said.

"I'll beat you some day." Ponyboy said.

"Lookin' forward to it little buddy!" Darry looked at the tickle fest. "This is getting a little loud for me."

He walked over to them and lifted Soda and Steve up by their collars. He said to them "You two play nice. And by nice..." he warded off an incoming comment from Soda, "... I mean not like this, or even better, not at all." He dropped them and helped a wheezing, teary-eyed Riley to her feet. "Anyone for a beer ?"

"Sure," said Soda and Steve together.

"Ya," said Dally.

"Do you have to ask?" Two-Bit asked. After recovering from the impact of Riley's head he had parked himself on a cabinet far from the fights conclusion.

Sarah and Riley accepted , I said no, I wasn't up for booze tonight, and Lizzie's never touched a drop.

Johnny declined and left for the lot to see the sunset.

We talked for hours.

Two-Bit told us about a new blonde he tracked down, her name was Reane or something like that.

Soda and Steve were telling us about this guy who came in to the DX today, he said he was from Canada, but they didn't think so. They said he said, "Oh ya I'm from Canada." not "Oh ya I'm from Canada, eh."

I told them Canadians don't talk that way. People from the Maritimes do sorta, but not from the west. Of course the guys all looked at me like I was retarded so I said I met a group of Canadians once who told me that they didn't talk that way, and they showed it. And that was part true.

After a while Lizzie got up. "I'm gonna go out to the lot for a while."

I sat up. "Have fun." Judging her, I think she actually forgot Johnny was out there. Time to spy!

I watched her out the window. I could see her pretty good from where I was sitting. I looked really closely. She sat down and sprang back up again, I could here her scream like she does, two pitches lower than her usual voice, and then I saw some newspapers rise up and fall down. Johnny sat up scratching his head.

I laughed in my head that is just like Lizzie to sit on someone.

"Whatcha lookin' at?"Dally asked catching my waist pulling me back down onto his chest.

"Lizzie," I said. That was all that needed to be said. Dally knows Lizzie is always worth watching, she's unpredictably predictable. You always know she'll do something unexpected, like sit on Johnny. I settled back into his chest and listened to the guys go on about their daily issues.