"Why does I always have to go after Colin?!"
Crutchie and Jack were glaring at each other in the doorway of the Lodging House. Luckily, no newsies were waiting to walk inside.
"You found 'im!" The two had had this argument for many a week, most often when Colin had run off. "So you gets to take care of 'im!"
Crutchie gave Jack a dirty look. "S'not my fault he runs off every day," he muttered.
"Yous not keepin' a good eye on him! So you gets to go find 'im. Go on, Crutchie." Jack had more important stuff to look at, and he walked into the Lodging House, declaring the argument over.
Crutchie kicked at a pebble mutinously, wondering what would happen if he didn't go look for Colin. Lots of trouble, probably. As a matter of fact, Crutchie wouldn't have to look for Colin after all. The boy ran up to him as fast as he could and stood there, panting.
"Where've you been?!" Crutchie asked. "You can't jus' go runnin' off like that again! Jack's already mad at me for, well, you know, the turkey, but the point is, you have to stick near me, okay? We can't have ya gettin' lost. Again. You got that, Colin?!"
Colin glanced up at him with an excited gleam in his eye, and Crutchie seriously doubted that he had been listening.
"I found a place!"
"Yeah?" This was just Colin's way, he wanted you to ask questions before he did his big reveal.
Colin shook his head. "Come on! I have to show you!" He took hold of Crutchie's hand, dragging him through the streets of New York as fast as he could. Jack looked out the window, watched them go, and quickly followed.
"Hey, where're you two goin'?!" he yelled after them, but Colin didn't answer.
The three raced down the street, bumping into pedestrians and passerby. Colin and Crutchie turned a corner, Jack coming up behind. In front of them was a big hole in the street, dark and musty. Jack and Crutchie peered into it.
"What's this?" Crutchie asked right before Colin pushed him down the hole.
"Crutchie!" Jack hollered as his friend disappeared from view. He turned to glare at Colin and probably give him a lecture, but lost his footing and fell down into the hole. Colin looked left and right, and then jumped in after the two.
They passed through stifling darkness, landing in a heap on what felt like graveled stone. Crutchie spit some dirt out of his mouth and raised his head to see Jack's foot dangling in front of his nose. Crutchie pushed him away and sat up to see Colin staring in confusion.
"This wasn't where I was last time," the boy said uncertainly, and Crutchie and Jack got their first view of where they actually were. Surrounded by huts with golden-thatched roofs, the boys had landed in the middle of a small town. The locals peered out from where they had just stopped sweeping their doorsteps, or chatting with their neighbors to stare at the newcomers. Most of them wore heavy furs with broaches, and all had fair skin and blonde, red hair. The steady clip-clopping of a horse caused the boys to turn and see a majestic, smooth-furred white stallion with an old man layered in grey and white perched upon the beast's back. Two more horses followed with a tall, hawk-faced person with long blonde hair and sharp, keen-piercing eyes and a beaten-up, scruffy man with tangled brown hair and a cloak clasped with a leaf broach. Crutchie, Jack and Colin stared as the three people stopped by them, looking down. One of the men muttered something about 'hobbits'. The bearded man gazed at the boys, a spark in his eye. He extended a hand to Colin.
"I knew Id see you again, young master Colin," he said kindly. "Can you and your friends walk alongside us until we reach Edoras? It seems we have much to discuss."
Jack and Crutchie exchanged glances.
"'Scuse me, sir," Crutchie asked. "But who are you?"
"That," Gandalf the Wizard (for it was he) proclaimed, "Is a question for another time, another place. Now come along."