Prologue
"Hey d'ere Ice Princess!" Jack Kelly called out crudely to the tall silver blonde haired girl as she fixed an icy stare on her face and looked past him. A tall muscular boy, that Cherish only knew as Jake, with a worried look on his face slapped Jack in the stomach slightly then tipped his hat in the half-gypsy's direction.
Cherish's cold gaze fell away and she nodded calmly at Jake, then turned and headed off to sell her papes. Cherish didn't like the outrageous boisterous bunch of Newsies that were always down at the distribution centre. They were crude and rather un-educated.
Ohhh they could read. That was necessary for when you had to call out a headline, but that was about the depth of their intelligence. They hooted and made intelligible sounds, like animals do when they communicate. They never just stopped to absorb the moment. To sit quietly and listen to the birds... or even the busy street noise, they always seemed to be competing with it.
Well all of them but Jake. He was different. Every morning he stood around his friends quitely. He asked for his papers quietly, and he continued on his way quietly. And he was wonderful well mannered. And he stood up for her.
From her very first meeting with the newsies he had stuck up for her. She had been racked with nerves. She had never worked before. Ohh it wasn't because she was lazy, she wanted to work, but up until a month before her sister Marea (Pronounced Mare Like the horse A like the a.) had refused to let her.
But everything had changed last month when Marea had gotten married. Bill was alright... he did drink an awful lot... but Marea was in love with him, and he was a hard worker. Bill had demanded that Marea stay home, to do all the housewifely things that had been previously left up to her. Cherish had to become the bread winner. Her and Bill.
The newsies had tried to make mindless chit chat with her when she had first entered the distribution centre. She hadn't the slightest idea how to talk to the boys and she had taken to standing in a tight lipped silence glaring distantly, so by the time she had come around to meeting the news girl who she would have felt more comfortable around, she was a nervous wreak.
She didn't say a word to anyone that day, despite attempts from many of the newsies. Then the day after and the day after and the week following and the week after that, until she had spent a month without a word to anyone but the world employee's behind the counter.
That's why she had the nick name Ice Princess. One of the Newsies, the one they called Snoddy had made a rather embarrassing suggestion, and her fierce Gypsy/Northern Italian temper flared and she had treated him to the most withering of stares and had flicked her hair and said, "It would be a cold day in hell before I ever had anything to do with you!" Then walked off head held high.
The next day the Ice Queen rumours had started, then the cocky Italian looking one, Racetrack... had said full of mocking, "She ain't hardly old enough ta be a queen, just a princess. An Ice princess." Then she had her nickname. The name the newsies used to taunt her daily. All of them bar Jake.
Cherish closed her eyes a moment fighting back the tears. She had tried not to let them get to her, but she couldn't help it. Dashing her hands quickly over her blue eyes Cherish lifted her chin and a pape and started to hawk the headlines in that days papes.