The Outsiders: Before My Time Sequel | Sodapop

Visiting Grandpa Two

Bri's POV
June 2, 2018

Jenni, Lillian, and I helped the boys unpack to officially move into their old-new home. It took a couple of weeks. Lillian and Darry set the living room and kitchen back to its original glory, while I helped Soda put his and Ponyboys rooms back together. I think Jenni and Ponyboy were unpacking Darry's stuff, and set up the boys' parents room back to the way they left it.

"After this, why don't we go visit your grandpa?" Soda suggested after he put up a car poster next to his bed.

"Two?" I asked. I was making the bed with his blue sheets. We had dusted and vacuumed the room first so it was nice and clean before we started stuffing it with his belongings.

"That's the guy." Soda grinned.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

When Soda and I finished decorating his room, it looked almost exactly the same as it did fifty years ago. The only thing to change was to take the wooden boards off of the windows, but those were outside.

"Does this look the same?" I asked Soda, even though I knew it was.

"Nothing will ever be the same without the others," he said with a frown. He pulled me into a hug and finished, "but, yeah, the room looks the same."

Lillian was helping Darry clean up the rest of the house while Pony and Jenni were still in their parents room. We snuck out and hopped into my car, and we made the quick drive over to my grandfathers house.

Soda knocked on his off-white door. He still lives in the greaser side of town, on the east side where the Curtis house resided. He doesn't live in the house he grew up in, but he lives pretty close.

"It's open!" He yelled from inside.

Soda opened the door for me and we walked in. He was sitting in his recliner and watching a Saturday morning cartoon. Typical.

"Hey, Grandpa Two." It felt too weird to call him K, or Keith anymore. He has always been Two-Bit, and he always will.

"Two?" Grandpa snickered and look up at us.

"Howdy, Two-Bit," Soda said, suppressing his excitement. Besides Steve, this is the first member of the gang he has seen in this century.

"I don't believe my eyes." He stood up from his arm chair and walked over to us. He looked about the same, his previously thick head of hair was grey and thinning, and he grew out a Van Dyke beard, and he was now wearing thin, circular glasses. He stood with a slight hunch, and he moved slowly.

"Bri?" He folded his glasses and stuck them on the table.

I smiled and nodded.

"Sodapop?" He turned to Soda.

"Yeah, man." Soda grinned widely.

"It is okay that I call you, Two, right?" I asked.

"By all means!" He exclaimed and threw his arms up in the air excitedly. "It don't feel right if you call me K, or Keith. Yuck."

"That's exactly what I thought," I chuckled. "Now, what about the grandpa part?"

"Either or," he said with a shrug. "Just don't go around calling me Two around your mama. I wanted you kids to call me Grandpa Two growing up but your mom said, 'it's too inappropriate of a nickname'." He mocked her and rolled his eyes.

"Makes sense," I chuckled.

"I can't believe I ain't seen you in... what... fifty years!" He said enthusiastically.