Chapter Text
“Dear Diary,” Ponyboy began, taking out his small journal and a pen. “I believe I’m a good person. You know, I think that there’s good in everyone. But, uh, here we are. First day of senior year! And…I look around at these kids that I’ve known all my life and I ask myself: what happened?” Ponyboy took a deep breath and closed his journal. He braced himself one last time before stepping inside Will Rogers High School.
“Freak!”
“Slut!”
“Burnout!”
“Bug eyes!”
“Poser!”
“Lard ass!”
“We were so tiny, happy and shiny, playing tag and getting chased,” Ponyboy started.
“Freak!”
“Slut!”
“Loser!”
“Short Bus!”
“Singing and clapping, laughing and napping, baking cookies…eating paste,” He added.
“Bull dike!”
“Stuck up!”
“Hunchback!”
Ponyboy ignored the list of insults his classmates were throwing at each other and continued, “Then we got bigger. That was the trigger, like the Huns invading Rome.”
“Uh!” A kid who pushed past Ponyboy groaned.
“Oh! Sorry!” Ponyboy apologized, but the classmate already shoved past him and moved on. “Welcome to my school, this ain’t no high school, this is the thunder dome. Hold your breath and count the days, we’re graduating soon—“
“White trash!”
“College will be paradise, if I’m not dead by June!…” Ponyboy paused and took a breath, “But I know…I know, life can be beautiful. I pray…I pray for a better way. If we changed back then, we can change again. We can be beautiful…”
Suddenly, Ponyboy sees another one of his classmates get shoved to the ground, “Ow!”
“Just not today,” Ponyboy adds before rushing over to help. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Get away, greaser!”
“Oh, okay…” Ponyboy walks away, squeezing past students in the crowded halls.
“Freak!”
“Slut!”
“Cripple!”
“Homo!”
“Homo!”
“Homo!”
Ponyboy grabs a lunch tray and gets into line with the other students, “Things will get better as soon as my letter comes from Harvard, Duke, or Brown. Awake from this coma, take my diploma, then I can blow this town…dream of ivy covered walls and smokey french cafés…”
“Watch it!”
“Fight the urge to strike a match and set this dump ablaze!—” Ponyboy groans. He jumps a little when he feels his lunch tray get slapped out of his hands.
“Oops.”
Bob Sheldon, third year as linebacker, seventeenth year as a social, and eighth year of smacking lunch trays, Ponyboy thinks to himself before he adds, “and being a huge dick!” out loud.
“What did you say to me, skank?”
“Uh— nothing!” Bob starts walking away while eyeing Ponyboy, “But I know…I know life can be beautiful. I pray…I pray for a better way. We were kind before, we can be kind once more. We can be beautiful…” someone appears behind Ponyboy and taps him on the shoulder, startling him, “Oh— hey Cherry.”
“Hey!”
Cherry Valance, Ponyboy begins to think, my best friend since diapers. She’s got a huge heart…but around here that isn’t enough.
Cherry bends down and picks up Ponyboy’s tray before handing it to him, “We still on for movie night?”
“Yeah!” Ponyboy responds. “You’re on Jiffy Pop detail.”
“I rented “The Princess Bride”!”
“Woah, again?” Ponyboy lets out a small laugh, “Wait, don’t you have it memorized by now?”
“What can I say? I’m a sucker for a happy ending,” Cherry smiles.
“Cherry Valance! Wide load!” Someone yells while running over to smack Cherry’s lunch tray, knocking it on the floor.
Randy Anderson, quarterback, Ponyboy thinks while looking at Randy, who was currently laughing in Cherry’s face with Bob close behind him. He is the smartest guy on the football team…which is kind of like being the tallest dwarf. “Hey! Pick that up, right now!” Ponyboy demands.
“I’m sorry, are you actually talking to me?” Randy asks.
“My buddy Randy just asked you a question!” Bob adds. Bob and Randy quickly nod at each other before turning their attention back to Ponyboy.
Ponyboy looks up at the two socials, “Yes, I am. I wanna know what gives you the right to pick on my friend! You’re a high school hasbeen waiting to happen, a future gas station attendant!”
Randy leans closer to Ponyboy, getting right in his face. Finally, he comments, “You have a zit right there.”
Randy and Bob walk away laughing, leaving Ponyboy standing there while Cherry walks away to find herself and Pony a table to sit at. “Dear Diary,” Ponyboy says again, “why?—“
“Why do they hate me?”
“Why don’t I fight back?”
“Why do I act like such a creep?”
“Why—?” Ponyboy restates.
“Why won’t he date me?”
“Why did I hit him?”
“Why do I cry myself to sleep?”
“Why?…”
“Somebody hug me.”
“Somebody fix me.”
“Send me a sign, God!”
“Give me some hope here!”
“Something to live for…” the student’s voices quiet down when the cafeteria door opened and three people step inside, “Heather, Heather, and Heather…”
Then there’s the Heathers… Ponyboy thought, They float above it all.
“I love Heather, Heather, and Heather…”
Ponyboy moved to the side a little more to let the Heathers pass as they strutted by. Their first names aren’t Heather actually, only their middle names are. Ponyboy thought. Johnathon Heather Cade, head of the student council. His dad is loaded, he sells engagement rings. Steve Heather Randle, runs the yearbook committee. No discernible personality, actually… And Dallas Heather Winston, the almighty. He is a mythic bitch. They’re solid teflon, never bothered, never…harassed. I would give anything to be like that.
“I’d like to be their girlfriend!”
“That would be beautiful…”
“If I sat at their table, guys would notice me.”
“That would be beautiful…”
“I’d like them to be nicer…”
“…that would be beautiful—“
“I’d like to kidnap a Heather and photograph him naked in an abandoned warehouse then leave him tied up for the rats…”
——————————————————
“Grow up, Steve. Bulimia is so ‘87,” Dallas complained while checking his appearance in the bathroom mirror.
“Maybe you should see a doctor, Steve,” Johnny suggested.
“Yeah, Johnny. Maybe I should,” Steve replies, rolling his eyes.
“Ah, Heather and Heather,” Mr. Wood said before being interrupted by the sound of Steve throwing up, “and Heather…Perhaps you didn’t hear the bell over all the vomiting? You’re late for class.”
“Steve wasn’t feeling well, we’re helping him,” Dallas explained.
Mr. Wood cut Dallas off, “Not without a hall pass you’re not. Weeks detention—“
“Actually, Mr. Wood—“ Ponyboy cut in, coming out from behind one of the bathroom stalls, “all four of us are out on a hall pass…yearbook committee…”
Mr. Wood took the hall pass out of Ponyboy’s hand, “I see you’re all listed. Hurry up and get where you’re going,” he gave the pass back to Ponyboy then left the bathroom.
Ponyboy watched as Mr. Wood left until the hall pass was snatched out of his hands, “This is an excellent forgery. Who are you?” Dallas Winston questioned. Johnny and Steve were standing behind him, watching the interaction.
“Uh- I’m Ponyboy— Curtis. I crave a boon—“
“What boon?” Dallas snapped.
“Um, let me sit at your table at lunch, just once. No talking necessary— if people think that you guys tolerate me, they’ll leave me alone,” the Heathers laughed at Ponyboy’s request until he added, “Before you answer, I also do report cards, permission slips, and absence notes.”
“What about prescriptions?” Steve asked.
Dallas whipped his head around to face Steve for a second, “Shut up, Randle.”
“Sorry, Dally,” Steve mumbled.
Dallas took another look at Ponyboy. He looked him up and down, examining him. “For a greasy little nobody, you do have good bone structure,” he finally commented.
“And a symmetrical face,” Johnny butt in, “if I took a meat cleaver down the center of your skull I’d have matching halves. That’s very important.”
“Of course you could stand to lose a few pounds,” Steve began, before Dallas put his hand in Steve’s face to shut him up.
“And you know, you know, you know,” Dallas pondered, “this could be beautiful. Mascara, maybe some lip gloss, and we’re on our way. Get this boy some blush, and Steve I need your brush, let’s make him beautiful.”
“Let’s make him beautiful!” Johnny exclaimed.
“Let’s make him beautiful…” Steve muttered.
“Make him beautiful!” Dallas ordered. “Okay?”
“Okay!” Ponyboy affirmed.
——————————————————
“Out of my way, geek!”
“I don’t want trouble—“
“You’re gonna die at 3PM!”
“Don’t you dare touch me! Get away, pervert!”
“What did I ever do to them!?”
“Who could survive this?”
“I can’t escape this!”
“I think I’m dying!”
“Who’s that with Heather?”
“Woah…”
Everyone turned around to face the doors of the lunchroom again, looking for the new person. “Heather, Heather, Heather…”
“And someone?”
“Heather, Heather, Heather…”
“And a babe!”
“Heather, Heather, Heather—“
“Ponyboy!?” blurted Cherry.
“Ponyboy, Ponyboy, Ponyboy…!”
Finally, Ponyboy enters with the rest of the Heathers. This time, he looks completely different. He’s wearing a blue jacket to go along with the Heather’s red, green, and yellow outfits, “And you know, you know, you know, life can be beautiful! You hope, you dream, you pray, and you get your way! Ask me how it feels, looking like hell on wheels!” Ponyboy pauses and looks around at his classmates again, “My god it’s beautiful…”
“Beautiful…”
“I might be beautiful!” He rejoiced.
“Beautiful…!”
“And when you’re beautiful…” Ponyboy started, “it’s a beautiful fricking day!”
“Heather, Heather, Heather, Ponyboy!”
“Heather, Heather, Heather, Ponyboy!”
“Ponyboy!”
“Ponyboy!”
“Ponyboy!”
“Ponyboy!”