“Darry is such a dick,” he mutters to you—his older sibling—as he paces around your yard, hands shoved in his pockets. “I know that he's your favorite, but I don't understand why. He's on me all the dang time nowadays.”

He sighs sharply, kicking at some dirt. He spins around to face you.

“We were getting on fine for a while, but then he flipped a switch again! I don't get him!” Pony complains. It seems like he doesn't realize that he's the one who flipped a switch.

Dally and Johnny died around two weeks ago, and Pony's mind has been super foggy, swarmed by something, as you've seen. Those deaths messed him up bad. Of course they did. So bad that he barely even acts like him anymore; not the thoughtful kid he was, not the smart one, as seen by his new grades, and more like the ‘tough’ one. Nobody's ever seen him as tough, because he's just not—but he has this air around him now, this hatred and bitterness at anything and everything, air that Dally had as well.

It worries the hell out of you, and it worries the hell out of Darry and Soda, too. Your little brother isn't your brother anymore, but someone else entirely.