Chapter 10

In shock after Johnny’s death, Ponyboy wanders the streets denying reality until a concerned young man drives him home. He finds Darry, Sodapop, Steve, and Two-Bit battered from the rumble. Ponyboy announces Johnny’s death and warns that Dallas Winston has snapped.

The phone rings: Dally has robbed a grocery store and is heading to the vacant lot. The gang rushes there as police arrive. Dally pulls his unloaded gun; the officers, unaware it is a bluff, shoot him. Ponyboy realizes Dally wanted to die and collapses as the gang looks on, helpless.

Ponyboy later awakens at home, the house unnaturally quiet. Disoriented and feverish, he learns from Darry that he suffered exhaustion, shock, and a concussion and has been delirious since Saturday. Memories of Johnny and Dally’s deaths surge, and Ponyboy struggles to suppress them.

As he worries about school, court, and possible separation, Darry cannot reassure him. Darry says Johnny left Ponyboy his copy of Gone with the Wind, which Ponyboy now dreads to finish because it recalls Johnny’s idea of gallantry. Sodapop bounds in, overjoyed that Ponyboy is awake, and Darry prepares food, revealing how both brothers have kept vigil.

Soda recounts Ponyboy’s delirium—thinking he was in Windrixville and insisting Johnny didn’t mean to kill Bob—and assures him he asked for both brothers. Drained but comforted by their presence, Ponyboy eats, then falls asleep beside Sodapop, the fragile closeness of the brothers tentatively restored despite grief.