CHAPTER 12

The day came for the hearing where there was only Darry, Soda Ponyboy, Randy with his parents, Cherry Valance with his parents and a couple of the other guys who had jumped Johnny and Ponyboy, there was also the doctor who had a long talk with the judge before the hearing. All the Socs told the same story and stuck mainly to the truth, except they said Johnny had killed Bob. Cherry told them what had happened before and after Johnny and Ponyboy jumped. The judge asked Ponyboy simple questions such as did he liked living with Darry, did he like school, grades, etc. The hearing was acquitted and the case was closed.

But not everything went back to normal, Ponyboy started bumping into things, losing things. He stopped eating and his school performance dropped. In addition, some people were afraid of him, including the teachers at school. At lunch hour Ponyboy met Two-Bit and Steve out in the back parking lot and They drove over to a little neighborhood grocery store to buy cigarettes, cokes and candy bars. The Socs were causing a lot of trouble in the store by knocking over silverwarePony wasn't afraid he was sitting on the fender of Steve's car, smoking and drinking a Pepsi while he and Two-Bit were inside talking to some girls, when a car drove up and three Socs got out. They were accusing him of killing Bob so, Pony busted the end off the bottle and said  You get back into your car or I'll get split. They left in fear. Then Two bit talked to him and advised him not to be like them and not to try it. 

Pony had a fight with Darry because she didn't want to do a school assignment that her English teacher had given her about writing a subject so she wouldn't fail the subject. Besides, he wanted to drop out of school and if he didn't accept it, he would decide to leave home. Soda with teary eyes ran out of the house. Pony didn't understand his reaction, so Darry told her that the same week he left home his girlfriend Sandy had gone to live in Florida. So they went out to look for him, and when they found him, Soda said that he didn't like to see them fight and that Pony should appreciate the effort he makes to give him the study. They hugged each other and raced home. Pony didn't want to do homework so he decided to read the book that Johnny left him. That book had a note where it said that Johnny had asked the nurse to give you this book so that you can finish reading and I explained the meaning of the poem that being gold is when you are a child, because everything is new. He also said that it is necessary that he tells a version of how the world really is and so that they do not suffer as happened with Dally. So he called his teacher to find out how many pages he could write. Finally he sat down, picked up his pen and started this way.. When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.