We couldn't get along without him. We needed Johnny as much as he needed the gang. And for the same reason.

You take up for your buddies, no matter what they do. When you're a gang, you stick up for the members. If you don't stick up for them, stick together, make like brothers, it isn't a gang anymore. It's a pack. A snarling, distrustful, bickering park like the Socs in their social clubs or the street gangs in New York or the wolves in the timber.

Sixteen years on the streets and you can learn a lot. But all the wrong things, not the things you want to learn. Sixteen years on the streets and you see a lot. But all the wrong sights, not the things you want to see.

It seemed funny that the sunset she saw from her patio and the one I saw from the back steps was the same one. Maybe the two worlds we lived in weren’t so different. We saw the same sunset.

I was desperate for something to read that dealt realistically with teenage life, and I thought others might be, too.

Johnny almost grinned as he nodded. "Tuff enough," he managed, and by the way his eyes were glowing, I figured Southern gentlemen had nothing on Johnny Cade.

Y'all were heroes from the beginning. You just didn't 'turn' all of a sudden