Forget Sugar, She's All Sugar

Clara smiled as she stepped off of the boat and onto American soil for the first time. She looked up at her older sister and grabbed her hand, she may have only been five but she understood what America stood for and she knew that she and her sister were going to have a better life now that they were the United States. Her sister Anna smiled back and squeezed her hand before stepping off in the direction of downtown; she knew that life would be hard, she wasn't as naïve as Clara, but she had to believe that they would make it. She quickly located where most of the Italian immigrants gathered during the days and started asking around about jobs.

Unfortunately she was quickly disheartened, it would seem as though the big city didn't have enough jobs to go around and immigrants were the last to be hired and the first to be fired. Most people gave Anna similar advice, ditch her sister and move on; it was easier to move around when you were alone and it would be easier to attract suitors if she didn't have a sister holding her back. She was horrified that people could suggest abandoning family members so easily but at the same time she worried that she wouldn't be able to provide for Clara. Finally she came across someone with the perfect solution for her problem, she would leave her sister with the newsies.

Apparently most of the young immigrants who either didn't have family or needed extra money would become a newsie, it was a good enough job and they all looked out for each other. The kind man who suggested that Clara become a newsie gave Anna directions to the lodging house; he said that the best way to help Clara was to leave her on the steps of the lodging house and to simply walk away without any explanation at all. When he saw Anna's horror struck expression he was quick to explain that the newsies would be more likely to accept her if it looked like her one and only family member had abandoned her. At first Anna had been furious and stormed away, dragging her sister away from a group of young girls that she had been playing ball with nearby without thinking. It wasn't until Clara's indignant cries finally reached her ears that Anna realized what she was doing, she looked at her sister and decided that there was no way she could abandon the cute little girl. Clara had dark red hair and big green eyes that sparkled with innocence that only came from an untainted youth, the freckles spattered across her nose only served to enhance her cuteness and Anna had no doubt that if the little girl wasn't watched someone would try to take advantage of her innocence.

However as the day dragged on and no other options could be found Anna realized that she didn't have any other options, and so as fate would have it the setting sun found the two of the sisters standing outside of the Manhattan newsie lodging house.

"Anna, what are we doing here, are we staying here for the night?"

The innocent tone in Clara's voice was almost enough to break Anna's stony resolve, however she held strong determined to give her sister the best life possible.

"Yeah Clara, now I need you to stay here. A kind man mentioned a job opening up around here, I'm gonna check it out, I promise I'll be back soon."

Clara nodded, not realizing that her sister was lying to her and so Anna walked away knowing that she would probably never see her sister again, she was only able to hold her tears in until she turned the corner before she broke down into uncontrollable sobbing. Clara on the other hand happily sat down on the stairs and started to day dream about what her new life would be like. She was so caught up in her fantasies that she didn't realize that the hours were passing by until suddenly she found someone shaking her shoulder rather roughly. She looked up expecting to see her older sister and was startled when instead of Anna she found a boy with a cowboy hat standing before her on the steps.

"Hey girl what are you doing here, are you waiting for someone or what?"

"I'm fine; I'm just waiting for my sister. She said that she was going to go look into a job and that she would be back soon. She's been gone for a few hours so she must have been hired."

She obviously trusted her sister to follow through with her promise, but the boy knew better. This girl had been left to fend for herself, he looked back behind him where a few of the other local newsies were standing and subtly nodded down to before gesturing to the lodging house. She would never survive on her own so they were going to take her in and teach her their ways.

"I'm sure, but why don't you wait inside its getting cold out here and we wouldn't want you to catch a cold. My names Jack Kelly but you can call me Cowboy, what's your name kid?"

"I'm Clara, and I guess it'd be okay if I went inside, but only until Anna shows up, then I'll have to go."

The newsies took Clara inside and introduced themselves to her. She quickly bonded with Racetrack seeing as he was only a year older than her, that night he shared his bed with her and the next morning he was the one who finally broke the news to her that her sister wasn't coming back. However Clara was a stubborn girl and it took a while for her to accept that she had been abandoned.

"Look Clara, I hate to say it but I don't think that your sisters coming back."

The boys were all waiting for her to break down sobbing but instead they were surprised when she immediately jumped to her sister's defense.

"You're wrong! She probably just didn't want to walk back here in the dark, she'll be back soon, you'll see!"

It took an entire day for them to convince her that she had been abandoned and when she finally realized she had been left to fend for herself she barely cried. It wasn't until that night when she thought that everyone was asleep to let her emotions loose, she made sure to muffle her sobs so that she didn't bother any of the boys but she couldn't control her quaking and soon Racetrack woke up to the entire bed shaking. He rolled over and instantly realized that Clara wasn't as untouched as she had first seemed.

"Hey now, no need to go crying ova somthin that's already done, tell ya what, why don't we give ya a newsie name, it'll be ta start of ya new life here."

Clara looked him in the eye to make sure he was being serious before nodding. When he asked her what she wanted to be called she just shrugged.

"Okay, since ya don't have no ideas how about Spice, cause you's has a sassy personality and ya 'air is so red."

She smiled through her tears and nodded again before hugging him and going to be. And so Clara Zappa the young innocent immigrant from Sicily died and Spice the fiery new newsie was born.

Hey so I just saw the Newsies for the first time and I fell in love with it. Tell me what you thought of the first chapter, I'm not good at writing in a New York accent so you'll have to forgive me. Other than that I would love feedback, thanks for reading.

PLEASE REVIEW!

-Ambercat999