Prologue

1899

Florence Pulitzer clenched a part of her dress in her hand as she neared a large amount of people- all of them boys. "I know Davey's in there somewhere," she mumbled to herself, her eyes wandering around, looking for the familiar face of her friend, "he said so." Suddenly, a hand grabbed her shoulder and Florence (otherwise known as Flo) shrieked and whirled around to see a smirking David Jacobs. Flo laughed softly and punched his shoulder. "What was that for?"

"Annoyance," Davey replied, grinning.

Before they could continue in their conversation, they heard Jack Kelly's voice shout out, "Villages burnt down in horrible fire!"

"Where does it say that? I haven't heard about it," Flo said, snatching a paper from Davey.

"Page 10," Davey chuckled.

Flo leafed through until she got to page 10. "'A small fire burns down a dog house and tree house'?" she asked, looking up at Davey.

"Devastating fire brings down tons of houses!"

"He told me that it's improving the truth," Davey replied, snatching the paper back. "After all, newsies sell papers, not headlines sell papers. Y'know?" Flo nodded. "Anyway, you wanna sell newspapers with me, Jack, and Les?"

"I don't think I would be able to," Flo hesitated. "I mean, you boys have louder voices and are... men. I'm shy and just a plain girl- girls don't sell newspapers."

"Oh, come on," Davey grabbed Flo's hand and dragged her (Les on his tail) to where Jack was. He handed Flo about 10 papers- "For a start," he said- and pushed her towards the crowd. Flo froze, scared of being laughed at.

"Come on, you can do this. Davey thinks you can do this," Flo mumbled to herself. She drew in a big breath, inhaling all she heard from the other newsies she heard as she scanned the top newspaper in her hands. She looked up, drew another breath to calm herself... and yelled out, "Flood fills whole neighborhoods!"

Page 5: Unstoppable sink flooded house.