A/N: I had a very, very rough weekend – which is really kind of an understatement – and at the suggestion of a friend and fellow author here, I decided to write a little oneshot branching off from Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right, to maybe kind of cheer me up, or make me feel better. I really don’t know. But it’s a happy memory type thing – kind of like some of Eleanor’s memories in the first few chapters. I have also decided not to write this in first person. (And if I do any more of these in the future, ones that include Eleanor anyway, they most likely won’t be in first person.)

Disclaimer: Negative. The title is borrowed from a Jimi Hendrix song of the same name.

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Up from the Skies

August, 1965

“I don’t care how much money you’d give me, I am not getting on that thing.” Indignantly, Eleanor crossed her arms over her chest and gave her pretty head a toss and refused to budge from the spot in which she’d planted herself five minutes prior. “You know how much I do not like heights.”

“But you gotta face your fears sometime, El,” Soda told her, a bit incredulous, because in the past his sister had never seemed afraid of anything, except for spiders. She hated spiders with a passion. But her seemingly sudden phobia of heights puzzled him. She wasn’t always like this, or was she? “Besides,” he went on, “it’ll be fun.”

“Fun?” She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. The air was hot and humid and stifling and she wasn’t so sure she’d be able to endure it much longer; she’d have to find some water – or at least a bit of shade – before she passed out. “Dying of fright doesn’t sound like very much fun to me.”

“Come on, you ain’t gonna die. It’s a carnival ride. They’re supposed to be made safe.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“Well, what is it, then?” He began to look agitated and impatient. “Better tell me or I’m gonna drag you on by your hair.” He tugged on a lock of her ebony waves playfully, but she swatted his hand away and scowled.

“Last two times I’ve been on one of these things,” she explained, “we’ve always gotten stuck at the top.”

“So you’re scared ‘cause you think that’s gonna happen again?”

“Oh, no. I don’t think it’s gonna happen again. I know it’s gonna happen again. It’s like we’ve been cursed by the carnival gods, or something, and now it’s gonna happen every time.”

“Carnival gods, El?” His eyebrows raised slowly and she thought she saw him take a step back from her. “And so what if we get stuck at the top? It ain’t like they’re gonna keep us up there all day. They just do it to let another person on and then they have us moving again in no time. You’ll live.”

“I don’t like heights,” she reminded him firmly. “I’m not going to have a panic attack at the mercy of a dumb carnival ride because of that.”

“Dumb carnival ride is right,” Steve cut in, returning from the bathroom. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing, El, I hope you know that.”

“It’s a big deal out of something, if you ask me,” she said.

“I didn’t.”

She frowned, but Soda jumped in with a bargain before any semblance of an argument could erupt. “Tell ya what,” he said, grinning doggedly. “You go on just this once, and I won’t ask you ever again. Ever. Deal?”

“Or,” she said, “we could just forget all about this and do something else. Because there is no way in hell I’m going on that Ferris wheel.”

But not five minutes later, that’s exactly where she found herself. She couldn’t believe she’d let them talk her into it – again. She was always so submissive, at least where it concerned her best friends, and she wished she could stand her ground once in a while and not allow them to win her over that way. Or perhaps she just didn’t notice that she loved them both too much to care.

She sat across from the two of them, her arms still crossed precariously over her chest, and she smacked on her gum in awaiting anxiousness. She was the portrait of unhappiness at that point, and every facial expression she shot in their general direction practically oozed indifference.

“You better stick to your end of the bargain, Soda,” she said. “This sure as hell better be the last time I let you do this.”

“Geez, loosen up a little,” Steve said to her. “I told you you’re makin’ a big deal out of nothing. It ain’t that bad.”

“Easy for you to say,” she remarked. She jumped from her seat slightly as the ride began moving, which earned her a few snickers from the boys. “You aren’t the one dying of fright over here.” She looked up at the sky for a moment, thinking hard, or pretending to, and then said, “Which reminds me. If that does happen, you two are out of the will. And stay away from my funeral.”

“Thanks a lot, sis. But what did you have in your will for us, anyway?”

“Well, I haven’t made one yet, genius. But if I did, I’d erase your names in a heartbeat. So you’d better consider yourselves very lucky if I don’t go into cardiac arrest from this today and die.”

Steve shook his head and lit up a cigarette. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a bit of a drama queen?”

“Yeah, you kind of are, El.”

She threw her arms up in exasperation. “Well, how would you like it if you were deathly afraid of heights and somebody insisted on dragging you onto something that scared the living daylights out of you every time?”

“Well, lucky for me, I ain’t afraid of that kinda stuff,” Steve told her. “I ain’t scared of much, really.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Soda chimed in.

The ride stopped.

“How very fortunate,” Eleanor seethed, her snappish comment serving as a double entendre, and she pulled her dark hair away from her face and neck, tying it off to the side. It fell down past her chest and to her elbows in loose banana curls. It was becoming much too long again, and she remembered she had an appointment in a couple of days to get it trimmed.

She was planning on having at least three inches chopped off, and she wished she could just cut it herself, but her mother would go berserk. Because she wasn’t a professional and would most likely ruin it, it was out of the question, although it wasn’t as if she hadn’t experienced with cutting her own hair in the past. She’d always had a fascination with it. It wasn’t vanity; it was just a hobby, something she enjoyed doing – or would have enjoyed doing, had she been allowed to – besides writing, or her love for cats, or her increasing interest in politics.

She’d just turned fourteen on the tenth of July, and it amused her parents and her brothers that she could be so involved with something that most girls her age could care less about, especially on their side of town. But she was an intelligent girl, and her family knew she could make a living out of something political someday, if it was what she really wanted, and they didn’t banter her.

“Aren’t they finished letting people on yet?” She contemplated looking over the side, but then decided not to risk it. If anything, she’d be better off looking up. “I just want to get this over with.”

As if on cue the ride began moving again, and she braced herself, for they were nearing the top now. She wanted something to hold on to, but there was nothing nearby that she could get a good firm grasp on, except maybe for the sides of the seat, but that was corrugated metal, and she knew she’d only end up hurting her hands for pressing too hard if she held on that way. Not to mention the heat in itself would have her pulling her fingers away before she could even touch it.

Eleanor tried to breathe normally, but it became more and more difficult as they rose higher to the top, and she stared at her feet for fear of looking anywhere else. Her bright green toenail polish caught the stifling sunlight and sparkled like emeralds. She sang softly to herself to calm her rampant nerves. It was a silly song she’d heard on the radio weeks earlier, and she kind of liked it.

“‘My mother told me, if I was goody, then she would buy me, a rubber dolly, my auntie told her, I kissed a soldier, now she won’t buy me, a rubber dolly …’”

“What the hell are you singing?” Steve demanded. His flippant attitude annoyed her a bit and she couldn’t figure out why he and Soda just couldn’t accept that she was afraid of heights and that was that. They acted like, if they weren’t afraid, then what gave her any reason to be?

“A song,” she answered simply. “I heard it on the radio. What’s wrong with it?”

“It sounded like a nursery rhyme.”

“Well, who knows? Maybe it was adapted from one.”

Her voice trembled slightly and then she let out a long sigh of relief as they surpassed the top of the wheel completely, only to come to a halt mere centimeters away. The carriage swung in its suspension for a moment, and then gradually slowed to a complete stop.

“God damn it!” Eleanor exclaimed. She looked over the side, where the ground was hazy and far away, and then she came back in and sank low in her seat. All of the color drained from her face, and she closed her eyes. She hated being up this high; it frightened her something awful.

A small prop plane flew by overhead and she shielded her face; she didn’t want to have to look and see if it was low enough from up here to scare her any more than she already was.

“Uh, you okay, El?” Soda asked her. He worried now, just a little bit, and he leaned forward, awaiting something, anything – a nod, a shake of her head, a ‘yes,’ or a ‘no.’ But Eleanor remained unresponsive. She was young and beautiful and deathly white, and her brother almost hoped she’d throw up already, because she sure looked like she was about to. He hadn’t realized before how much this scared her.

Steve hadn’t taken notice of her situation yet; he was busy reading the ‘Do Not Rock Carriage’ sign on the tiny little door with an evasive smirk on his face. But he didn’t fool Eleanor – she knew him and she could sense what he was up to, and when she opened her eyes again she regarded him with the most hateful, frightened glare she could muster under the circumstances.

“Steve Randle,” she said, the tone of her voice aloof and edged with an impending onslaught of tears. “Don’t. Even. Think about it.” And then, “I mean it. Why would you do that?”

“I wasn’t really going to.” He was blatantly lying and she could see right through it.

“Uh-huh,” she answered, looking away. A single tear had rolled down her cheek but the blistering heat dried it up pretty fast, and none of them were the wiser. “Sure you weren’t.”

He didn’t say anything more to her, just muttered something to himself and leaned back in his seat, and when the ride began moving again, Eleanor’s color returned but she was shaking and sweating and she couldn’t seem to make it stop. It was the anxiety of the ride, she guessed, and when at last the Ferris wheel had made its three rounds – without stopping, much to her delight – it came to rest at the platform and Eleanor was the first one off.

Soda and Steve stumbled off after her, and her mother was waiting on the ground below with a camera, ready to take their picture together as she so often insisted upon doing. She did so, and Eleanor pretended to look at least a little bit happy for a moment, and then as soon as her mother walked off and out of sight, she turned to face Steve and shoved him back against the railing.

“I hate you,” she spat, her voice dripping venom. Soda stood behind her, watching, not exactly sure what to do.

“What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.”

“You were about to,” she snapped, “just to scare me even more. Don’t think I didn’t see that, because I did.” She paused and they glared at one another for a moment, eyes locked in silent, angry communion, and then she took a step back and wrung her hands nervously. “You know something, Steve?” she said. “Sometimes I wish you would just go somewhere and die.”

And then she turned on her heel and stomped off, not really knowing where she was going. Maybe to find her parents and Darry and Ponyboy; she didn’t know where else she’d go.

It had taken a lot for her to say that to him, and she hadn’t really meant it. It was just blind fury. She was upset with him for wanting to scare her, but she would never, ever want something that bad to happen to him. She’d known for years now that if one of them died, she would die too. Because they kept each other going.

Later on, just before they were getting ready to leave, Steve got her a big thing of cotton candy, her favorite at carnivals, and she accepted it excitedly and forgave him instantly – which had been his plan all along, because buying things for people was really very unlike him, and he didn’t want her to stay mad at him for too long. She never did, anyway; he just figured he’d speed up the process.

And for the quadrillionth time that day, she chided herself for being so painfully submissive.

But it was true: she loved the two of them too much to really even care.

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A/N: The being stuck at the top of the Ferris wheel with the airplane flying over was based off of an actual occurrence. A few years ago my mom, aunt, brother, and myself went to Chicago and spent the day at Navy Pier, ironically during practice for the annual Air and Water Show which was that weekend, and we rode the Ferris wheel - which, I might add, is ungodly high - and this humongous, camouflaged B-52 bomber flew right over our heads. It was the scariest thing. Moral? Never ride the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier anytime during the Air and Water Show, unless you enjoy being scared half to death. So that's where that idea came from.

And the song she was singing was The Clapping Song by Shirley Ellis. Anyone catch the irony in it ... ?

Feedback would be lovely. :)