Quote 10
"He didn't used to be like that… we used to get along okay… before Mom and Dad died. Now he just can't stand me." (3.111)
Pony understands that Mom and Dad's death isolated him in many ways, but he doesn't quite understand the impact on Darry. He has all the facts – Darry spends all his time working and worrying, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and even ironing. Pony and Soda help, but it's really on Darry – and he has nobody to turn to for the extra support he needs.
Quote 11
"He's hard as a rock and about as human. He's got eyes exactly like frozen ice." (3.33)
Pony is dramatizing Darry's appearance to persuade his audience that Darry is cold and mean. He's also dramatizing it in his own mind because of the pain that Darry's actions have caused him.
Quote 12
"He's a dropout," I said roughly. "Dropout" made me think of some poor dumb-looking hoodlum wandering the streets breaking out lights – it didn't fit my happy-go-lucky brother at all. (2.39)
As it turns out, Soda doesn't like school, but he does like his work at the gas station. He isn't unintelligent, but his intelligence is different from Pony's. And he simply has other goals and interests. If the Curtis parents hadn't died, do you think that Soda would have stayed in school?