The Outsiders: A Soc's Betrayal

Chapter One

It was quite a surprise that I had never seen these boys around before. But after rethinking it, we hardly scoped out the North side of town, anyways. I guessed I had caught them at the right time on the right day.

Cherry turned to look at me as she responded.

"That's one of the greaser gangs who live in the neighborhood. They seem like swell guys, they really do-- don't you think?"

All greasers could be swell if they tried, I retorted in private, but vocally, I requested, "They don't look half bad. Want to go and talk to them?"

She didn't say anything back right away. Cherry just watched the greasers in their scuffle.

"I don't know . . ."

I leaned against the side of the car in surprise. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to have heard her say that or not.

I had been expecting a simple no from Cherry. We were who you'd typically call Socs, which was the abbreviation for the Socials in our town. Socs were the elitists, the rich kids. Cherry and I were known as Socs to most people at our high school. Cherry's a cheerleader. Just from the way she acted, I could tell she loved the popularity. Everybody knew her, and she grew to enjoy it.

I had noticed over the past years that Socs didn't get along with others of their kind. When a gang of Socs did, for once, like each other, they would jump the greasers, just for kicks. If they were heading down the street and ended up spotting a grease on the other side of the road, that was all it took.

Cherry had snapped out of her trance and looked away as fast as she could. Maybe they had spotted her. I could see why she was putting so much thought into it-- she was as social as me, and liked talking with others as much as I did, if not, more.

Cherry looked like she was fuming, the way her eyes glowered like that. She slowly pushed her foot onto the pedal, and sped further away from the house. "No . . . Maybe next time."

"But--"

"No, just no. I want to talk to them too, but we're Socs. We've got to cut out spending so much time wondering about them."

By then, I had remembered that Cherry had always been concerned about how she was thought of by others. It was like she was pushing herself away from the unknown. She didn't want to get attached to the greasers, so she didn't want to take her chances. A wide majority of Socs didn't speak to greasers, and when they did, most would judge them differently. Raquel Wood was another of my Soc friends, and she acted the same way, though more aggressively. Raquel was a tad shorter than me with a slight build. I had known her for almost as long as Cherry. We had gotten to know each other in the later part of the year I had moved from Texas to Oklahoma. If you got on her good side, you'd make it a priority to keep that spot on her nice list. Raquel wasn't as easy going as Cherry, or as sharp as hoodlums in general, either; she was a definite follower, not a leader. She was like any other Soc to a complete stranger, though I knew what had really been like since I had known her for so long. I looked at it this way: she had been sucked into publicity, and turned into the person she wasn't. She took every opportunity offered to talk trash about greasers. I had asked her before why she hated them so much. Her reaction surprised me. Raquel had no answer to give; her brown eyes went big, and she turned away as if I had never said anything. Whether it was because of something that had happened in the past, or that she just followed the rest of the Socs' lead, I had no idea.

Right then, when I gazed at those six or seven well-built hoods, I didn't care what others would think of me. To hell with it, I thought, they're people, just like us. Nothing more than clothes and housing and jobs separates us from them. But maybe Cherry was right-- maybe we should stick with our regular routine and stay away from them.