That was Then, This is Now

S.E. Hinton
Popular Fiction
pages 1-75

Since childhood, Bryon and Mark have been as close as brothers since they were little kids. They live in inner city of Chicago and are now juniors in high school. Bryon is very good at pool and the story starts off with them going into Charlie's bar and hustling guys out of $100 to make some quick cash. They then meet up with a younger kid named M&M. He got his nick name because he always had a bad of candy with him. As M&M leaves the store leaves the store he gets corned by Curly Shepard, one of the dumb hood in the Shepard gang. He starts shoving M&M around and beating him up a little. Mark and Bryon rush out of the store and surprise the two guys pinning them to the ground. M&M didn't like fighting and told them to let the Shepards go, he said he didn't believe in hurting someone else just because they were different. M informs them that his old sister Cathy is back from private school and will be attending their public school this year. Bryon doesn't remember much about Cathy, but can't help to thik that she was beautiful. The next day the boys go to the hospital after school to visit their mom. Their father left them and Bryon's mom adopted Mark. They had to raise money for the surgery, and Mark always had some extra cash. Bryon never asked where he got the money, but knew Mark was real bad when it came to stealing things and Mark couldn't see what was bad about it.

I really like this book because I can see how this can relate to many teenagers lives in the inner cities. I've never hustled or stole anything, but I'm sure this happens a lot in tough cities. However, I can relate to Mark and Bryon's fighting to help out M&M. My friends and I would never let anyone pick on someone. We would always stick up for someone no matter how different they were. from what I've read so far I can interpret some of the foreshadowing that Mark may get in trouble by stealing something and Bryon will fall in love with Cathy.