full time – and their station got more customers than any other in town. Whether that was because Steve was so good with cars or because Soda attracted girls like honey draws fl ies, I couldn’t tell you. I liked Steve only because he was Soda’s best friend. He didn’t like me – he thought I was a tagalong and a kid; Soda always took me with them when they went places if they weren’t taking girls, and that bugged Steve. It wasn’t my fault; Soda always asked me; I didn’t ask him. Soda doesn’t think I’m a kid.
Two-Bit Mathews was the oldest of the gang and the wisecracker of the bunch. He was about six feet tall, stocky in build, and very proud of his long rusty-colored sideburns. He had gray eyes and a wide grin, and he couldn’t stop making funny remarks to save his life. You couldn’t shut up that guy; he always had to get his two-bits worth in. Hence his name. Even his teachers forgot his real name was Keith, and we hardly remembered he had one. Life was one big joke to Two-Bit. He was famous for shoplifting and his black- handled switchblade (which he couldn’t have acquired without his fi rst talent), and he was always smarting off to the cops. He really couldn’t help it. Everything he said was so irresistibly funny that he just had to let the police in on it to brighten up their dull lives. (That’s the way he explained it to me.) He liked fi ghts, blondes, and for some unfathomable reason, school. He was still a junior at eighteen and a half and he never learned anything. He just went for kicks. I liked him real well because he kept us laughing at ourselves as well as at other things. He reminded me of Will Rogers – maybe it was the grin.
1. What is so attractive about Paul Newman for Ponyboy? 2. Why can’t Ponyboy walk home from the movie theatre by himself? 3. What happened to Ponyboy’s parents? 4. What kind of people are the ‘Socials’? 5. Why can’t Ponyboy ever get involved in stealing or fi ghts?
