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“This will be a partner project, and I am allowing you to pick your own partners…”
Pony jerked forward in his seat as it got a sharp kick from behind and grimaced at the loud screech it made. Sometimes if he ignored Curly for long enough he got distracted by something else-
“Pony, hey,” Curly’s loud whisper came over his shoulder and Pony waited until their teacher turned back towards the blackboard to turn around. Curly brightened when he turned and leaned forward to get his elbow up on the desk. “You wanna be partners? Fer the project?”
“Curly I ain’t gonna know what the project’s about if you keep talkin’,” Pony whispered. A middle class girl, Julie or Juliet or something, shushed them when he did and Curly made a face at her until she scoffed and turned around again. Pony tried to look at her in apology, like he did at most girls who came close enough to Curly, but he didn’t think she saw. When he made to turn back towards the front Curly tapped his shoulder.
“Okay, but we can be partners?”
“Yes Curly, we can be partners,” Pony ground out, and this time their teacher caught his eye as he was saying it and stopped dead in explaining the project and turned towards the two of them in the back corner of the room.
“Do you or Mr. Shepard have something to share with the class, Mr. Curtis?” she asked, prim, and Pony nearly cringed when he heard Curly lean back hard against his chair and make a production out of clearing his throat.
“Can’t say I do, Ms. S. Pony, you?”
He could feel his face heating up and he made a note to pop Curly one as soon as they got off school property. “No.”
“I would ask you stop talking and pay attention then, especially you Mr. Shepard.”
A few kids snickered at that and Curly shut them all up with a hard glare a second later as Ms. Sullivan started talking again. Say what you want about Curly but by his third year at Will Rogers there weren’t very many people he couldn’t shut up with just a look. Just about everybody had a story of their friend, or their friend’s friends’ brother, or somebody getting whipped by the youngest Shepard while he had reign over their high school. It was a point of pride for him.
But Curly did keep his mouth shut for the rest of class, save for a few notes Curly passed forward with some pretty crude drawings of people in their class. Pony didn’t write anything back on those.
It was their last class of the day too, creative writing, one of the only classes Pony and Curly could get together with their schedules, and Curly walked with him to his locker after, a habit they’d gotten into since Curly kept his whole locker in his backpack so he didn’t really have much else to do before he split.
“So, what’s this project for anyhow?” Curly asked idly, picking at the edge of his fingernail while Pony dug around his locker. “We’re writin’ somethin’, right?”
“It is a writing class.”
Curly reached over to flick his each and smirked when Pony scowled at him and slammed his locker shut. “I know that smartass, and I pay attention most’a the time anyway, y’know I’m pullin’ a B minus in that class.”
He puffed out his chest a little when he said it, it was his best grade so far this year, and Pony couldn’t help but feeling a little proud himself. Curly wasn’t a half bad at school when he really tried, and as much flak as he gave their teacher he knew the greaser liked the class just a little.
“We gotta go somewhere famous in Oklahoma and write about it,” Pony explained, Curly actually looking half interested as he went on. “I don’t think it’s gotta be anywhere real official, just somethin’ interestin’, like you’d see on the side of the highway, or on a map.”
“Touristy, got it.” Curly lit a stick the second they were out of the building and offered it to Pony, who shook his head. “You got any ideas?”
“Not really,” Pony said. Ms. Sullivan threw out a few places kids had gone different years, but most of them were just those kinda places in the city they all took field trips to as kids. They had the whole state, and a car as long as Curly could convince Tim to let him drive, they might at least go someplace neat. “We oughta go somewhere cool, original, y’know?”
Curly nodded serious and kept walking alongside Pony as they started away from the school. “Need an original idea if ya wanna go somewhere original.”
“We could go to the-”
“I ain’t going to the library,” Curly practically spat, looking him straight in the eyes and pointing a finger at Pony when he rolled his eyes. “See? I knew you was gonna say that. C’mon man, you know they hate me in there anyway.”
“Gee, wonder why,” Pony said dryly. He was sure the SAT was using “Curly Shepard is to library as bull is to china shop” as an analogy in the English section at this point, the hood had been kicked out and shushed and generally harassed by the librarians so many times. It was partly Pony’s own fault for still dragging him there at this point. “And it’s the best place for it, probably won’t take more than fifteen minutes.”
When Curly didn’t say anything else, still frowning at Pony like it’d change his mind, Pony offered, “You can wait outside if ya want?”
“Fine.”
Curly ended up following him inside, he always did, and to his credit behaved himself for the most part. He caught a few sharp looks from the librarians but they had a whole lot against him so Pony called it fair. They ended up finding a book on different tourist spots and places in Oklahoma, and most of them were either too expensive or too far, but they wrote down the names of a few and a little about what they were and got out pretty fast.
Curly’s absolute favorite place they found was what Pony would definitely classify as too far, but somehow he’d managed to sneak it onto the list when Pony wasn’t looking, or else there was no chance in hell they’d still be talking about it on the walk home.
“Pony please ,” Curly whined, real shamelessly in that way he only really did when it was just the two of them, and moved to start walking backwards in front of him. “It ain’t that far, and its free, and it’s better than all’a those other places ya wrote down, and-”
“Curly, there ain’t no way in hell Darry’s gonna let me drive three hours-”
“It’s two and a half.”
“And two hundred miles-”
“Only about one ninety, book said.”
Pony sighed hard and stopped walking, Curly stopping too with a satisfied look on his face, probably proud he’d remembered all that from the book. He wasn’t all that surprised though, the place was real cool, it was called Magnetic Hill way out in Springer right off Route 77 near the interstate. Supposedly, if you drove half up the hill and put your car in neutral it rolled uphill instead of down. Curly, naturally, went wild over it
Honestly though, as tuff as it would be to go, Pony had no idea why Curly was going on like he was the only one that wouldn’t be able to go. “You really think Tim’s gonna let ya take his car that far? Last week it took ya half an’ hour to convince him to let us go to the drive-in ‘bout ten minutes away, and yer gonna convince him to let ya go halfway across the state?”
“Don’t worry ‘bout me an’ Tim, Baby Curtis,” Curly said with a confidence he sure as shit didn’t earn, “I got that all figured out, we just gotta figure out Superman, that’s all.”
He said it like it was nothing, especially considering that Darry still rolled his eyes every time he made eye contact with Curly, who was one smart remark away from getting tossed out of their house with a lifetime ban. But Curly did look excited, and it would be real nice for the two of them to get to hang out all that time alone, they never got more than an hour or so at either of their houses before someone came busting in.
After a couple seconds he sighed and fixed Curly with a look. “Alright, you got any ideas?”
Curly rocked up onto his toes and practically beamed, nodding furiously and moving back in step with Pony while they walked. “Well, lyin’s always sorta the go to, if ya know what I mean…”
“And yer teacher assigned you someplace three hours away?”
Darry was standing over Curly and Pony at the kitchen table, glued to the same spot he’d been in the last twenty minutes grilling them about their assignment. Pony was doing his best to keep up with the story Curly had come up with for them, but it was still pretty hit or miss if Darry was buying it.
“Two and a half,” Curly corrected for the third time. “And she didn’t assign it, she just put a bunch’a names of places on the board and we picked one, didn’t know how far it was ‘til after.”
Pony nodded when Darry looked at him for confirmation and asked for the second time, “And you can’t ask for a different place, why?”
“‘Cause she don’t let you do any off the list and they were all taken, she said somethin’ about kids who already did it before cheatin’ and just tellin’ everybody what to write about so they don’t have to really go.”
“And we ain’t cheaters,” Curly affirmed, knocking on the table lightly after each word, being one of the few people outside the gang who still acted smart around Darry. Not that he’d ever admit it, but Pony had a feeling Darry was sort of impressed by it at times. “And if we leave real early we’ll be back before dark, scout’s honor.”
He did that dumb “cross your heart” motion over his chest and Darry rolled his eyes for the fifth time since they’d gotten to talking, if Pony was counting right. He was debating whether or not to add in another ‘please’ when Darry broke the silence.
“Fine.”
Pony blinked at him for a few seconds, barely keeping himself from going slack jawed while Curly looked like he’d just won the lottery. “Really? We can go?”
Darry nodded tightly, and looking dead at Curly said, “Yeah, but I swear on my life if anything happens - shit if y’all get as much as a speeding ticket, I’ll skin ya both and then hand you over to Tim so he can do the same, ya dig?”
They both nodded quickly. Darry still didn’t look too happy about it, and Curly still hadn’t said much about his secret plan for getting Tim on board besides telling Darry that he’d already worked it all out, but hell they got past the worst part.
“You said Saturday mornin’ yer goin’?”
“Yeah,” Pony and Curly said at the same time, the latter canning it as Pony kept going. “And we’ll be back before it gets dark.”
“Alright, and you got gas money?” He was asking Curly, not Pony, and the greaser held Darry’s gaze steady and nodded.
“Yessir, got enough for both ways,” Curly said, and Pony couldn’t tell if he was bluffing or not, four hundred miles racked up a lot in gas. “And the car’s runnin’ fine too, Tim just got it fixed up ‘n everything.”
Darry looked one more time at Pony, searching his eyes in a way that almost made him squirm. Lying to Darry or Soda was always like that, it came with a guilty feeling. But he sighed again and waved a hand, gesturing at nothing. “Okay, as long as Tim ain’t gonna be comin’ around sayin’ you stole the keys, y’all can go.”
“Thanks, Dar.” Pony smiled, genuine, and Darry gave him a small one back as he dragged Curly off up the stairs towards his room.
“And keep the door open!”
“Okay!” Pony shouted, still shutting it almost all the way before he turned to Curly, already sprawled out on his bed, back against the headboard. “Shit, man, I can’t believe that worked.”
“Like I said, lyin’s the go to, works almost every time.”
When he got a funny look in his eyes Pony cocked his head and then let out a low whine when Curly grabbed at his wrist and started tugging him forward. Off sex drive alone you’d guess Curly was thirteen the way he was always trying to go at it. “Damnit Curly, not in my house.”
“Why?” Curly asked, getting two fingers in the belt loop on either side of his jeans and barely tugging. “Soda Can ain’t home and Superman’s on the ground floor.”
“Because-”
“Ponyboy Curtis open the damn door all the way!”
Darry’s yelling from the kitchen cut him off and Pony climbed up off Curly and the bed, swinging the door open all the way and shouting, “It’s open!”
He gave Curly a withering look when he moved back to sit on the bed. “That’s why, dumbass.”
Much to his surprise, Curly got up right after he said that and swung his backpack on, making to leave. Frowning, he kicked lightly at the other greaser’s knee and asked, “You leavin’ already?”
“Yeah,” Curly said with a shrug, “I gotta take care of some shit with Tim, ‘bout the car y’know? I’ll see ya on Saturday though, bright ‘n early.”
“Wait,” Pony said, Curly almost out his door by the time he processed what he’d said. “Today’s Thursday, you ain’t comin’ to school tomorrow?”
“Nope, gotta do some shit, ‘fore we go.” Curly had about a thousand different expressions for different things, and after knowing him this long Pony figured he’d seen every one, but he had no idea what look the Shepard boy was throwing his way now. Sort of a cross between apologetic and that one he got right before he did something worth serving time for. It sort of made his stomach drop, but he didn’t ask anything else, or say anything else besides a soft, “Get outta here,” when Curly decided he needed a proper goodbye on his way out.
He didn’t let himself relax until he heard the front door slam on Curly’s way out. Darry was saying something to himself downstairs that Pony couldn’t quite make out but he was sure it was foul and directed at Curly.
Gosh he really hoped Curly wouldn’t do anything stupid before they left.
The first thing Pony did when Curly pulled up onto the curb Saturday morning, in Tim’s car just like he’d promised, was let out a low whistle, followed by, “Shit, what happened to you?”
Curly grinned in a way that looked mighty painful with a split lip and a black eye and leaned over the seat to throw open the side door. “Tell ya all about it once we’re on the road.”
Darry was watching from the porch and Pony waved at him one last time before hopping in. Curly stepped on the gas as soon as he got his door shut and tossed a folded up map at Pony. “I can get to the highway just fine, you gotta tell me after that though.”
“‘Kay,” Pony mumbled, squinting down at the mess of highway lines and back roads. They were heading south but that was as much as he knew. “And yer face?”
“Pretty ain’t it,” Curly teased, flying right on a red without signaling. “But really, so yesterday…”
The first hour or so of the ride was spent with Curly telling the story of what he and Tim had gotten into yesterday. Apparently, Tim was fine with him taking the car as long as Curly helped him jump some guy that had been giving Angela trouble around school. The way Curly told it, somebody must’ve tipped the guy off that the Shepard’s had it in for them, and when the two brothers pulled up for a fight he had three other guys with him.
The details got a little foggy after that, it was just awful hard to believe Curly knocked two of them out cold by himself, even though he swore back and forth it was true. At one point he’d lifted up his shirt to show a bruise across his ribs Pony just knew had to be smarting something awful.
“One of the kid’s buddies had those real heavy boots, y’know? Kind Dally wears,” Curly said, a note of awe in his voice when he followed it up with, “Tim got him real good, pretty sure he broke his arm or somethin’, the way he was moanin’ on the ground when we took off.”
That part Pony chose to believe, Tim had never been above fighting dirty like that, especially when it came to folks messing with his sister. Hell, that Bryon kid was in bed for a week after Curly and Tim worked him over last year, kids around school still talked about it sometimes.
As it went, once Curly’d given him every gory detail he had to offer and they’d finally pulled off the highway for gas and some food, the hood got bored and got whiny.
“Hey, wanna play a game?”
Pony was looking hard at the map again, they had to get off and switch highways coming up soon and the map Curly had was old and worn out, hard to read at places. He hummed at the question and didn’t look up. “What kinda game?”
Curly rapped his fingers over the top of the wheel and shrugged. “I dunno, wanna see if I can push a hundred? Too far into the country to pass any cops.”
“You heard Darry, he’ll skin us both if we get a ticket,” Pony tried reasoning, but Curly stepped on the gas a little harder anyway. “Lay off Curly.”
At around eighty five Curly finally did, with a huff, and gave Pony a side eye. “Y’know, when most people go drivin’ with someone they’re goin’ steady with-”
“Wouldn’t say we’re like most people goin’ steady,” Pony mumbled, and Curly just spoke louder, as if he hadn’t heard him when he continued.
“They have some fun, y’know…” He trailed off and flicked his eyes over to Pony a few times, a smile playing on the edge of his lips when Pony’s ears went red. “C’mon - hey !”
The car swerved a bit when Pony reached over and thumped Curly one on the head. Thirteen years old, he swore. “Shove it, Curly. I ain’t a girl and I ain’t tryin’ to get strung up by the neck out in the fuckin’ sticks ‘cause you want one rubbed out.”
Lord help him, Curly didn’t even have the decency to blush at the remark. For a guy who was still technically illegal in the state of Oklahoma, jail being the least of their worries if anyone caught wind of what the two of them did together, he sure asked for it ‘til he was blue in the face. Didn’t matter if they were out in public or not. “Y’know, you’d make an awful slutty girl if you was one.”
“And you’d make a damn good prude,” Curly replied easy, switching over lanes and laying on the horn when he passed the pick-up they’d been trailing behind. “And if we ain’t gonna mess around why the hell are we drivin’ all the way out here.”
“For school , Curly,” Pony answered, picking up the notebook he’d brought with and waving it in Curly’s face. “We still gotta write a paper ‘bout all this when we’re done.”
“Work for the ride home.” Curly said it resolutely, with the confidence of someone who knew they weren’t going to be any sort of help with the academic side of it. “And anyways, you know ya can’t resist me forever, Curtis.”
He’d snuck a hand over onto Pony’s lap when he said it and Pony held back a gasp, slapping it away when he started really messing with him. “Glory Curly watch the road, would ya?”
Although he hated to admit it, especially with the dumb look Curly had on his face as he moved his hand over to fiddle with the radio dial, Curly wasn’t wrong. He was stupid, asking for stuff at the wrong time and generally working to get Pony as riled up as he could whenever he got the chance, but shit, Pony was seventeen too. With more patience than Curly sure, but still, he figured they’d pull off into some flat dead road once they got there. He just had to keep Curly distracted while they were still going eighty five on the goddamn freeway.
The rest of their time was spent playing whatever game came to Curly’s head while Pony kept good on the map. They had one close call passing one of those cop cars that hid out on the side of the road when Curly was going near fifteen over, but the lights never came on and they kept on going.
“Get off here.”
Curly flipped the signal and took the exit. It looked like the place was right off the highway, at least he hoped it was. “Now what?”
“Straight shot down ‘til you hit the third turn, then it should be right there on the left,” Pony said, leaning back in the seat and staring out. It looked pretty much like the whole ride had, fields and farms, real spread out without much to see except a couple cows or horses every so often. Curly had been complaining about there being nothing interesting to look at in the whole state most of the time they’d been driving, but Pony sort of liked it like it was.
He’d never gotten Curly to understand why he liked the country so much, probably because he liked it for the same reason Curly didn’t. It was quiet, peaceful, and nobody was running around getting into fights and heading in and out of jail. Minus the jail bit, it was almost Curly’s worst nightmare.
“Alright, we’re here.” Curly turned off onto the side road, a big hill stretching up in front of them. He squinted up at it and turned to look at Pony. “Well? What’re we supposed to do with it?”
“I think,” Pony said, flipping through his notebook he’d filled with as much as he could get on the place, “I think you back up at the bottom and just put it in neutral.”
Messing with the stick, Curly started doing just that and Pony felt a burst of excitement. It was kind of dumb, but he really wanted to see if the place worked and everything. It seemed when he read about it like it’d be a real marked off place, but except for a couple signs saying the name, Magnetic Hill, it just looked normal.
“Okay, ready?” Curly drummed his fingers against the wheel, waiting for Pony to nod before he threw it into neutral.
And goddamn, the car really did start rolling uphill. “Son of a bitch, y’know, for some reason I thought it wouldn’t work or somethin’ - Curly?”
Pony stopped and nearly bust out laughing. Curly had half his body out the window of the car, bent over like he was trying to see what the hell the ground was doing to make them move like that. “Curly get in the car, yer gonna fall out.”
Curly did after another second, and gaped at a still laughing Pony when he did. “If that’s not the most batshit thing I’ve ever seen - there ain’t even nothin’ on the ground! Shit, lets go again.”
“How do ya think it works?” Curly asked once he got them set on the other side of the hill going up again. He still looked blown away and Pony was sure he did too. Besides looking wrong it felt funny, like something was pulling the car.
“I dunno,” Pony said, leaning over a little to get a good luck out the window at the ground. “Gotta be magnets underground or somethin’ right? I mean that’s what they named it.”
“Whatever it is it’s tuff. Y’know, if I took my momma here she’d start screamin’ about some kinda black magic makin’ it. Hell, guess it could be, sure as hell ain’t natural.”
Pony agreed, nodding, and they went up and down it a few more times with him writing down notes: what it looked like, how it felt, anything they could maybe bullshit into an essay. Besides the hill the place was pretty empty, and he thought it was a miracle nobody had thought to try and make some money off the place, charge for rides or something.
He didn’t even notice Curly was done going up and down the thing until they had stopped for a good minute or so. When he did look up from his notebook, Curly was looking at him expectantly. There must’ve been some movie Curly’d seen that put it into his head that looking at someone like he was and saying nothing was some kind of come on. It was corny but it worked fine.
“Well, you done resistin’ me yet?” Curly asked, face falling into more of a pout when Pony snorted. “What’s so funny?”
“That’s gotta be the dumbest line I’ve ever heard come outta your mouth.” Pony chuckled and only laughed harder when Curly punched him weakly in the shoulder for it. “I’m kidding , you don’t gotta-”
Curly always had a way with shutting him up. His reputation for having a bad mouth held two different meanings and by now Pony knew them both well enough. After a second though he shoved at Curly’s chest and pulled back, biting at his lip. It was warm. “Fuckin’ park somewhere.”
“Atta boy,” Curly said, real low, winking at a red-faced Pony as he started the car back up. “Hold on.”
They’d never found a good spot so fast.
True to his word, after Pony and Curly were back on the road, now running an hour behind with clothes that looked like they’d been thrown around and back on without a thought, Curly let Pony write for most of the way. He was sure as hell in a much better mood, singing along to the radio and swerving between lanes like he was racing.
They were about fifteen minutes from home when they noticed. Pony was shaking out a cramp in his hand from writing that long, the whole paper was sketched out and about half done, when Curly reached and got a grip on his head, turning it and looking away from the road at his neck. “What’re you doin’?”
After a second or two he dropped the grip and let out a whistle. “Might wanna look in the mirror. My bad by the way.”
“What’re you talkin’ about - oh fuck .”
“Not so bad, if do say so myself.” Curly actually predicted Pony swinging out on that one and managed to catch his hand. “Hey, calm down, just pop yer collar up or somethin’.”
“God damnit Curly,” Pony hissed, turning back to the mirror and tilting his head. Curly, fuckin’ dog that he was, left a bruising mark right on his lower neck, above the collarbone. It was bruising from pink almost into purple. God if anyone in the gang caught sight of it he’d catch hell for weeks. “Why’d you gotta go and do that? Fuck , you know how hard its gonna be to hide this?”
“Couldn’t help myself, I guess,” Curly replied, although he changed his tone when he looked over and saw Pony really was pissed off. “Aw c’mon, I’m sorry, okay? Just pull yer shirt down by the neck in the back and pop up the collar - yeah, just like that, can’t even see it.”
He was right, it was low enough that it covered as long as he kept his shirt back like that. He had no idea how he was going to keep it out of sight from the guys until it faded. The idea of any of them seeing it had him groaning.
“Don’t be a crybaby about it,” Curly said gently, making the turn onto their street. “If it comes up say it was some chick or somethin’, ‘sides, I like the way it looks.”
“I’m sure you do,” Pony growled, although the panic had sort of worn off now that he had it covered up. They were up on the curb in front of their house now and Curly cut the engine. Twisting in his seat a little he turned to look at the other boy. “You got plans tomorrow?”
Curly shook his head. “Nope, no way in hell Tim’ll let me take the car, but I’ll come by.”
Normally, if they were like most other couples they would’ve kissed goodbye and all that, but they weren’t, and Curly shoved him towards the side door with a ‘goodbye’ and a look over his head at Soda and Steve looking over at them from the porch.
The car sped off right away and Pony messed around with his shirt, getting it right again before walking over to Soda. “Hey.”
“Hey, heard you drove way out fer some school project with Curly.” Soda didn’t sound all that approving either, but he offered Pony a smoke when he walked up and nodded.
“Yeah, we drove out to this big hill, you put your car in neutral at the bottom and it rolls you uphill.”
“Uphill?”
Soda and Steve said it at the same time, even Steve looking more interested than he normally would when Pony was talking. “Yeah, called Magnetic Hill.”
“And it goes uphill?” Soda asked again, disbelief written across his features. “On its own? Shit you gotta tell me all about it, I wanna go!”
“Yeah, and it ain’t fake or anything like that, here I wrote a whole bunch about it…”
Soda ended up so distracted by the hill he didn’t pay any attention to Pony or what may or may not be under his shirt collar. If Steve caught his eye and looked at it later into the night, he didn’t say anything.