The Church

Today I woke up on the cold cement floor of the church. I tried to convince myself that it had all been a bad dream. I'd wake up and be at home in bed sleeping but when I opened my eyes and saw no one around, the harsh reality of the past 24 hours decended on me. Where was Johnney? Why had he left me by myself? I started to panic and I ran around the church until I noticed a piece of paper stuck to the ground with a rock. I picked it up and read it...gone to get supplies for us be back in a bit. So I decided to go out back and think about things. I sat in the morning sun, and I must of passed our for when I came too, I heard a person whistling and it was getting closer and closer. I ran inside and hid. I cautiously peeked out to see Johnney walking in the door with bags in hand.

I ran out to see what he had brought back. Baloney, bread, matches, and a book. It was the book. The book I had always wanted. How did he know? I looked at Johnney and he started to get red. My face must have shown shock and question. He told me that he remembered me saying something about wanting to read it and he thought it might help us pass time if we read it now. I could see there was still more in the bag. The next thing Johnney pulled out was peroxide. What was that for? Then it hit me, we were going to colour our hair. He pulled out his knife and i knew what would come next.

He said that we didn't want people to know it was us who had killed Soc. Our pictures had to be on the front cover of all the papers so we needed to do something to hide our identity. I grabbed my hair. No way was I going to cut it off, I liked it how it was. He approached and started cutting it off. I begged him to stop because I did not want it short. But he cut and cut and when each strand was removed he pulled out the bleach and poured in all over my head. The smell was breathtaking and we gagged several times. Then he told me to do the same thing to him. I took his knife, cut his hair off then poured more bleach over his head. After it sat on our heads for quite a while we ran out to the pump and pumped the cold ice water over our heads. Shaking we re-entered the church and wrapped what little clothing around us that we had. He had also bought chocolate bars which we consumed quickly while we sat there.

We sat talking about the Soc he killed and how I missed Soda and the gang. Johnney admitted he really hadn't meant to kill the Soc but he was afraid they were going to drown me and he didn't know what else to do then to stab his captor. Being so scared he just stabbed him and stabbed him until he dropped to the ground and it was at that moment he began to cry. I joined in knowing how wrong things had gone in such a short amount of time. The Soc's life or mine. We cryed ourselves to sleep. Exhaustion sweeping over our bodies and minds one more time.

When we awoke in a heap, we looked at each other and laughed. We wondered if we were all cried out and for our sakes I hoped so. We lit up some cigarettes and sat smoking in silence. He warned me about smoking too much on an empty stomach because getting sick was the last thing either of us needed. I just couldn't stop. I smoked and smoked and next thing I started heaving. When there was nothing left in my system to heave I walked over to the corner and curled up into a ball to try and sleep some more. Just as darkness closed in I felt a foot hitting my side. I looked up and there was Dally.

I jumped to my feet and almost hugged him but I remembered to stay cool. Johnney joined us and Dally shoved a letter from Soda in our faces. I read it and then Dally asked us if we were hungry and wanted to eat. We both nodded in agreement and walked out of the church and then headed to Bucks car. Dally drove to us into town were we stopped at a Dairy Queen and he got us burgers. Well we gulpped it down, Dally told us that in the last 48 hours there were big fights between the Socs and the Greasers and they all were walking around wtih loaded weapons. Dally warned us if we ever came back we would always have to carry a blade. We were still gulpping down our food when he told us that we would have the advantage because we now had a spy. We looked at each other and then asked at the exact same time who was it?. He answered us by saying it was a Soc by the name of Cherry.