S.E.Hinton

memory’s screwed up some

. I always drank chocolate milk instead of Coke or something

e looked twelve. He acted forty.

“You’ve been acting funny ever since the Motorcycle Boy left.”

saw a rabbit once at the zoo

I wondered why Steve was my best friend. I let him hang around and kept people from beating him up and listened to all his worries.

God, did that kid worry about things! I did all that for him and sometimes he did my math homework and let me copy his history stuff, so I never flunked a grade. B

"There sure is a lot of blood in people."

"Johnny," Dally said in a a pleading, high voice, using a tone I had never heard from him before, "Johnny, I ain't mad at you. I just don't want you to get hurt. You don't know what a few months in jail can do to you. Oh, blast it, Johnny"--- he pushed his white-blond hair back out of his eyes--- "you get hardened in jail. I don't want that to happen to you. Like it happened to me..."

I kept staring out the window at the rapidly passing scenery, but I felt my eyes getting round. Dally never talked like that. Never. Dally didn't give a Yankee dime about anyone but himself, and he was cold and hard and mean.

"Is that guy coming?"

Johnny shook his head. "The window stopped him."

"Too scared?"

"Naw..." Johnny gave me a grin. "Too fat"