Ponyboy Outsiders Drawing Novels & Stories

He unfolded it with surprising care before holding it out with both hands. "Look." I took the drawing from him, already smiling before my eyes had even settled on the page. The drawing showed four figures standing side by side on a grassy ground, all holding hands beneath an enormous tree. And on the grass was a brown basket and what looked like a picnic blanket. I smiled immediately. "You drew us having a picnic." Rowan beamed and I pointed to the littlest person in the drawing. "And is that your baby sister?" He nodded without the slightest hesitation.

ELEVEN YEARS AGO. His brush met the canvas with light brown strokes, and he looked to his magnificent drawing from all the corners. It was beautiful, not because of his talent for he was only learning but because of the person that was in it—the person Oscar Baron drew. He was the new boy at the elementary, and being the invisible brother he was, Oscar was fond of camouflaging. He would sit by the corner with his pen and paper by lunch and act so mysterious while the class went on. He was used to some attention because a few of the popular girl liked him—they fell for his mystery before his dark glistening hair and freckles.

he said and thought for a while. “Mister and Miss, do you want to have your picture drawn together?” We were interrupted when an old and nice-looking man tapped my shoulder and pointed to his small stall. It was tinier in comparison to the other stalls, and many drawn pictures were hanging on its poles. He had two chairs inside the stall while his weasel was located outside of it. I looked at the drawings and was amazed by how detailed they were. I held onto Clyden and shook his arm. “Let’s have our picture drawn together.”

But moments like that could not be rushed. I typed a reply slowly. “It won’t be soon.” The message showed as delivered. A few seconds later, the typing bubble appeared. “Okay.” That was all he wrote. No argument. No pressure. Just that one word. I set the phone down and looked at the drawing again. Three stick figures. A mother. A child. And a father who was still standing outside the picture in real life. For now, the drawing was the closest he had ever been to that place in our lives.

“It stays in story.” Al turned to me, his face already beginning to collapse again. “Mami.” I picked up a blue crayon and drew something on the other side that vaguely resembled a boy with a whale shark. “There. That’s you.” Al studied my drawing. “Why I look potato?” “Genetics.” “I’m not potato.” “No one said potatoes were ugly.” “Gabby will.” “I will,” Gabby said. I pointed the crayon at both of them. “One more word, and this entire family portrait is going into the shredder.”

I wasn’t a legend on their screens. It was in one of those corridors that a little boy tugged on my sleeve. He couldn’t have been more than seven. His cheeks were smudged with dirt, his clothes too thin for the draft that seeped through the walls. He held up a folded piece of paper. “I drew this for you,” he said shyly. I opened it and froze. The sketch was crude but unmistakable, me, standing tall, but with wolf ears atop my head and eyes colored in with a furious red. Around me, lines of light radiated. The boy looked proud.

Leo opened his small bag and took out a paper. He gave it to her proudly. Naomi looked at it. Her breath caught. It was a simple drawing. A small boy. A woman. And a tall man beside them. The man had no clear face. But something about the shape… The height… The posture… It felt familiar. Too familiar. Naomi’s fingers tightened slightly on the paper. “Do you like it?” Leo asked. Naomi forced a smile. “Yes… it’s beautiful.” Leo beamed. “I made him tall,” he said. “Because I think my daddy is strong.”

He curled on the sofa, and I was grateful for the screen’s glow that absorbed him, leaving me alone with the howling quiet in my head. I needed to pack a bag for him. For where? A courthouse? A brief, sterile ceremony, then back here to wait for a hearing that would decide if he’d live with his father? I pulled his small dinosaur backpack from the floor, unzipping it to shake out yesterday’s crumpled socks and a granola bar wrapper. A piece of paper, folded into a thick, clumsy square, fluttered out. I picked it up. It was a drawing, done in the waxy, exuberant strokes of a five-year-old. Leo’s work. He must have done it at the country house.

"What does your new friend look like, Heidi?" Heidi proudly lifted her drawing. It was a crude, childish sketch of a very tall figure standing between two giant green trees. The figure was colored completely in dark gray and black crayons, but the most unsettling part was the face. Heidi had used a bright yellow crayon to draw two massive, perfectly round circles for the eyes.

"How’s my boy?" Adrian’s voice was thick with emotion, the sound of it foreign to him after years of stifling his feelings. "Good! I drew a picture!" Elias exclaimed, pulling out a crumpled drawing from his backpack. In the backseat, Adrian glanced down at the picture. A crayon family Daddy was tall, Mama was in orange (a prison jumpsuit, perhaps?), and there was Elias with a big smile on his face. The innocence of it tore at Adrian’s heart.