The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

This story is about a young boy of 14 named Ponyboy. He is part of a hood group called Greasers on the east side of town, a group of lower-class teenagers who wear their hair long and greasy, wear jeans and ripped-up T-shirts, and are at odds with the rich-kid bullies known as the "Socs". This group of hoods are born into rich families from the west side of town, are of a high "social" class, drive around in Mustangs and Corvairs, and mostly wear checkered jackets with a madras on them. One day, as Ponyboy is walking home from a movie, he is jumped by a gang of Socs. At the last minute, his buddies from his group (made up of his brothers Darry and Sodapop, who raised Ponyboy now that their parents are dead, the hardened hood Dally Winston, quiet innocent Johnny, and wise-cracking Two-Bit) scare off the socs and rescue him. The next night, Ponyboy and Johnny join Dally to go looking around for a good fight and maybe catch a movie. There they sit behind two attractive young girls and Dally attempts to obnoxiously get their attention and pick one up. After Johnny tells him to stop, Johnny and Ponyboy sit with the girls, Cherry and Marcia, and Ponyboy and Cherry discover to their mutual surprise that they have a great deal in common. Two-bit appears, and the three greasers walk the Socs girls back to Two-Bit's house so that he can drive them home. On the way, they run into Bob and Randy, the girls' drunken boyfriends and the socs that beat up Johnny a couple years ago, and the girls agree to leave with them in order to prevent a fight between the two gangs. On his way home Ponyboy takes a stop by the vacant lot with Johnny and accidentally drifts off. When he wakes up and goes home his brother Darry angrily lectures him on what could have happened and slaps him. Then he runs out the door, finds Johnny, and goes to the park to get away from things. There, however, the two young greasers run into Randy and Bob, with a few of their Soc friends. One of them holds Ponyboy's head under an ice cold fountain, and Ponyboy blacks out. When he comes to, he is lying on the ground next to Johnny.