Author's Note: This story has been brewing in my mind for quite some time now, although the actual writing has only been going on for a few months. Hopefully you enjoy this little brain child of mine! Quick updates...can't be promised, but I'm determined to continue this story!
Disclaimer: Disney has their newsies and I have mine.
Angelique Bauer had always been fascinated by fairytales. Since she was a small child she would sit on her father's knee, listening to tale after tale that was read to her from an old and dusty tome her parents had brought with them from Germany. Sure, the Grimm Brothers and their stories were ever present, but those weren't the stories that Angelique—known commonly as Angel—pored over during most of her spare time. No, the stories that kept Angel enticed were the ones with damsels in distress, brave princes that saved them, and the majestic steeds that aided in these heroic and romantic rescues. These were the stories that Angel wanted her life to mirror. These were the stories that her life would never mirror.
Naïve though she might have been, Angel knew that certain circumstances stood in the way of her fairytale ending: rates of poverty, lack of any suitable princes, and hardly any dashing steeds—for the only horses in New York were just as worn out as their owners slaving away in the factories and on the streets. But these circumstances couldn't keep Angel from wishing or hoping.
It was obvious that Angel's life was anything but fairytale-esque, but there was a reason her favorite story was about Aschenputtel, the young girl who went from cleaning fireplaces to marrying a prince. Of course, Angel didn't have an evil step-mother, and there were no evil step-sisters running around, but she could easily omit those details from her own fairytale. She just knew that someday she would be lifted from the ashes, or rather the ink, and marry her prince charming, who would sweep her off her feet and carry her into the distance. And that would be that. They'd live happily ever after.
When this fantasy came to Jack Kelly's attention, he merely scoffed. "Angel, come on, I'm one for dreaming, but this?" He lazily thumbed through the pages of the book that Angel had brought to the lodging house one evening, hoping to allow the boys a further look into her life, offering them something that they could share, some sort of commonality. She was sick of hearing about what food was at Tibby's or what dress Medda had worn earlier that week. She was annoyed with the various bodily noises the boys not only naturally made but also purposely forced themselves to create in competitions of supposed manliness.
Angel pouted her bottom lip slightly. "What's wrong with wanting a charming prince to sweep me off my feet?" she questioned, snatching the book from Jack's hands and holding it tightly against her chest.
"The fact that there are no princes in New York," Racetrack crowed as he whipped past the two, late for an evening of horse races. "Gotta fly!" he informed the entirety of the common room before yanking the heavy wooden door open, allowing it to slam as he disappeared.
Kloppman ran a hand through his ever thinning hair, letting out a sigh. Curfew was in less than an hour, but Kloppman had always been lenient with the lodging house occupants. Race could take care of himself, and he was courteous enough not to make too much noise when he got back in the wee hours of the morning from Sheepsehead, so Kloppman let the young newsboy sneak in the backdoor so long as he promised to lock it.
As well as turning a blind eye on Racetrack's blatant curfew breakage, Kloppman allowed for girls to come inside the building. He was firm about them staying in the common area, where he could watch exactly what activities the boys and girls got up to, but not allowing them into the house altogether, Kloppman reasoned, was a bit extreme. Wasn't it safer to have children converse indoors than outside on the dark Manhattan streets and alleyways?
The caretaker cleared his throat, wrapping lightly on his desk to gain the attention of those in the surrounding area. "Lights out in half an hour. Angel; you'd best be getting on home now," he told her, a kind smile flitting over his lips before he headed into his back room to ready himself for bed.
Angel sighed dramatically when Jack scoffed at her, replying with a role of her eyes. "I'll see you in the morning, Cowboy," she said in parting, her shoes clipping as she crossed the floor and heaved the door open. She stood on the stoop for just a moment, glancing up at the crescent moon. It was a clear night, and a warm breeze was blowing. Perfect weather for taking a stroll, which was just what Angel planned to do. She wasn't adverse to returning home, but why rush back to a cramped space shared with five other people when she could indulge in the personal space of empty streets?
"Papa?" Angel questioned when she slipped through the door of the Bauer's one room apartment. "Mama?" There was movement behind the thin sheet Angel and her sisters had hung up so that there was some semblance of a kitchen and a sleeping space.
"Angelique?" her mother called out, lifting the sheet and walking over to the door, checking the locking mechanism meticulously. She cupped Angel's face in her hands, sweeping a lock of blonde hair behind Angel's ear, smiling down into her daughter's bright blue eyes. "They've been waiting for you."
Angel bit her lip, an embarrassed blush rising to her cheeks. "I'm sorry, Mama. I was with the boys and—"
Her mother shook her head. "I understand, Angelique. You have your life and your friends. You're good to stay with us." Although family was extremely important to the Bauers, Angel's parents knew all too well how many children up and left their families in an attempt to find a better life. "Now," her mother began again, tapping the binding of the book that Angel still clutched, "Let's get the young ones to bed, shall we?"
Angel nodded and the two women joined the rest of the family, ready to swap bedtime stories.
.
Mallory Solera was dancing the night away. Her feet were quick from years of dodging between carriages and running from policemen, and her body was ablaze with the adrenaline that a beautiful night could fill ones soul with. Dancing was a passion, but the true love of Mallory's life was song. Singing came to her as naturally as breathing, and she was thus aptly nicknamed Bird.
Alone on a street in the Bronx, Bird let her voice soar and her feet move her along wherever they felt like going. It was a nightly ritual that she make her way around the borough, enraging those who wished to sleep by belting out her favorite tunes. She had never chosen the life of a newsgirl on purpose, but the freedom it allowed her was worth every day of standing in the boiling sun and the blistering cold just to earn a penny for a paper.
But Bird earned more than a penny for each paper she sold. For, since she began selling, she positioned herself on a well-known and highly frequented street, not just shouting the headlines, but singing them with the voice of a cherub. Her powerful alto would carry down not only the street she was on, but on several of the surrounding alleyways and avenues as well, drawing pedestrians from all around. Luckily for the rest of the newsies of the Bronx, this extra cash allowed for Bird to sell fewer papers and fewer editions, enjoying the slightly rich life she had by taking a break here and there to play messenger for Yankee, her baseball obsessed borough leader.
She knew that her lack of enthusiasm for selling papers was idiotic. She should have been selling as many papers as she could as many times a day as possible, but she wasn't in it for the money. She just enjoyed the idea that for those times she was hawking the headlines it was as though she were standing on a stage, bright lights blinding her, the audience applauding her and demanding more.
Performing was Bird's passion, and sometimes she would forego selling papers altogether and merely sing on the streets. She was a newsgirl by trade, and a singer at heart.
There was a yell from a window high up on the building on Bird's right, and she clamped her mouth shut, through she could not keep from bowing sarcastically and humming. She understood that the working class had to be up early, for she was part of that demographic, but she had trouble keeping her volume down when she was lost in song.
When Bird finally reached her destination she let out a sigh and sat down on the front steps of the Bronx Working Girls home. She moaned slightly at the everyday realization that she was going to have to actually keep her mouth shut for an extended period of time. Each night it was minutely upsetting that she was going to have to lay down in bed, pull the covers to her chin, and stay perfectly still and subdued until morning when the nuns who watched over the place let the girls loose.
She removed her cap and ran a hand through her knotted hair, lifting her eyes to the clear sky. The stars twinkled, winking down at her, almost promising that one day she would be among them. Not in the sky, but on the stage; she was going to be a star.
There was a creak behind her as the door to the brick building opened, and Bird leaned her head backwards so that she was viewing Nora upside down. "Yes, Nor?" Bird asked, licking her lips and knowing exactly what the matron was going to say.
Nora Berg, the impossibly young matron of the girls home, smiled slyly down at the newsgirl. "Curfew is in ten minutes, Bird. You know what to do."
Bird pursed her lips. "…fifteen minutes?" she pleaded.
Nora took a deep breath. "…fifteen minutes," she conceded. "I don't quite know what those extra five minutes will get you." Nora, too, glanced up at the sky. "You know, you can see the stars just fine from a window as well."
Bird let out a small laugh. "It's just not the same."
With a nod, Nora stepped back inside, leaving Bird with the stars.
.
"Scruff! Come on!" Cooper Torok whined, walking sideways in an attempt to watch where he was going while at the same time make sure his Cairn Terrier didn't dart down an alleyway after a rat. Scruff had been Coop's constant companion since his father had first announced they were departing Romania for New York.
Coop let out a slight groan when the stocky canine lifted his leg on a fruit cart. "I don't have time for this," he grumbled when Scruff finished up his business and took five minutes to sniff a puddle of something that was five feet down the road from the fruit cart. "Tata doesn't like to be kept waiting," Coop reminded Scruff, using the Romanian word for 'father.'
Coop's father also did not like the fact that the family was now in New York. After losing the family fortune in a deal gone bad, Mr. Torok was forced to flee Romania, taking his family with him. Coop, his mother, and Shep, Cooper's younger brother. Despite the family's downfall being Mr. Torok's own fault, his disgust for the working class prevailed. This was clear every evening when Coop returned home from selling papers on the street and his father blatantly looked down his nose at the one person in the family attempting to keep it afloat.
Reaching the shabby apartment building that had replaced the Torok mansion, Coop scooped up Scruff and ascended the stairs, taking them two at a time. He knew he was only rushing towards watered down soup and disappointment, but he couldn't help hoping that today would be different than the last.
Wrapping his fingers around the rusted doorknob of the three-room apartment—incredible for a family with hardly any monetary means—Coop let himself inside, bending down to release Scruff onto the creaking wooden floor. "Tata? Mama?" he called.
Mrs. Torok straightened from the partially-working stovetop, wiping her hands on her grungy apron. "Dragul meu, my dear," she replied, smiling and holding her hands up so that she could cup her son's cheeks. "Your father is…" She glanced through the open door to the room on the left. She took a deep breath and her smile tightened before she leaned forward, kissing Coop's forehead and smoothing back his hair.
Coop nodded, stepping away from his mother and carefully making his way to the room that his father had taken over, despite the already small amount of space. Coop knocked on the doorframe, as no door was present, and glanced around. Although the room was small, Mr. Torok had been able to squeeze in a rug, an armchair, and a nightstand—all family heirlooms that he had been able to smuggle away from the authorities. "Tata?" Coop barely whispered.
His father snapped the newspaper he had been reading down enough to stare at his eldest son. "Fiu," he curtly forced through his lips.
Coop took a deep breath, cautiously stepping over the threshold and digging deep into his pocket. "I made more than yesterday, tata," Coop said, smiling nervously as he removed the coins, holding them out for his father.
Mr. Torok pursed his lips, his eyes scanning the smattering of coins that Coop held cupped in his palm. They flicked from Coop's hand, up to his face, and then back to his paper. He made a miniscule grunt, then flicked his toe towards the door, a subtle way of informing Coop that the conversation was over.
Cooper gulped, breathing deeply through his nose as he continued to stare at the father he could never make happy. With a minute bow, Coop took his leave, returning to the kitchen area and flopping down heavily on one of the kitchen stools.
.
Redmer Flynn raised his glass, foam sloshing over the lip and onto the already stained flooring of Jewel Lepinski's brothel. The bottom floor doubled as a gambling hall for those who would rather not consort with or pay for the more feminine aspects of Jewel's establishment, but the upper floors were ripe with those willing to shell out the proper dollar amount. "To Spot Conlon," Red shouted, his voice carrying over the card tables. "To Spot Conlon!" came the echoed reply of every newsboy in the vicinity. There was no purpose to the toast, just blatant flattery for the Broklyn leader, but Red had learned from a young age that buttering people up was the best way to get what you wanted in life.
Jewel let out a soft laugh before beckoning for Red to get down from his perch on the bar. "I don't need no dirty shoes muddying up my polished establishment," she informed him, gesturing for the bar tender to wipe away whatever filth Red's boots had left on the bar top.
"I'm sincerely sorry, Miss Jewel," Red apologized, offering up a wink as well. He braced himself before stepping forward and dropping down to the dusty floor. "It won't happen again, ma'am." He spun lithely on his heel, slipping between tables until he reached the one with the Brooklyn boys.
Plopping heavingly into the only unoccupied seat at the table, Red glanced around at who could be considered Jewel's regulars—Mutt, Andy, Coach, Trout, Blue, and, of course, Spot Conlon. Spot, unlike the others, typically sat in silence, drinking his beer and simply listening, while Red drove the conversation forward, although the counversation could be more aptly described as vulgar suggestions.
Red leaned back in his chair, taking a swig of beer and letting out a satisfied 'Ahh.' Glancing up, Red grinned. "Who's putting out for a romp tonight, boys?" he inquired, wiggling his eyebrows as he stared around the table.
Blue let out a snort. "If I had anything left to spend, that's where it'd be going," he lamented.
Red licked his lips. "How about that new girl—what's her name?" He snapped his fingers in thought before Andy supplied it to him. "Hardy! Yeah, that's it. Hardy. Why not go for her? Call it, uh…initiation!" Red chuckled, rubbing his hands together as the rest of the boys joined in, guffawing at the idea.
Andy's brow furrowed slightly, but he said nothing. He was more prone to gambling than whoring, and he didn't take lightly to Red objectifying the few newsgirls they had around the lodge. The rest of the young men exchanged banter, and Spot looked on, smirking to himself as if he had already thought of initiating Hardy in such a way.
"I'll tell you what," Red carried on. "If none of you boys go for it, then I will!" he boasted, standing up and jabbing himself in the chest with his thumb for emphasis. He grinned again, his lips peeling back slowly to reveal his wolf-like teeth. And that's just what Red liked to consider himself: a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Red enjoyed blending in and attacking when the time was right, and after years of honing this skill, he knew exactly when the time was right during nearly every situation. It was his over abundance of confidence that usually did him in. He would get cocky, overstep his boundaries, and find himself on the out.
"I'll tell you what," Red said again, for he much enjoyed telling people what, "The upside to paying for one of Jewel's dames is that you're guaranteed. No need to run around and court and beg. You just dump your coins and you're set."
Some of the boys nodded their heads in agreement. Andy rolled his eyes, sipping from his beer while Spot continued to deadpan. Red finally sat down, placing his right foot on his left knee before downing the rest of his drink and letting out another satisfied 'Ahh.' "Which, if you'se don't mind, is exactly what I'm going to do now," he informed the table before sticking out his tongue and receiving a raucous round of catcalls as he ascended the stairs.
.
Luiza Chmielewski plucked the cigarette from between her lips, twirling it around her fingers as she exhaled the smoke from her lungs into the thick night air. Lying on her back on top of the Brooklyn Lodging House, she could pretend she was back in Queens. The stars all looked the same from this angle.
The light scuff of a boot heel broke her reverie. She tilted her head to the side, cocking an eyebrow before sitting up, resting her elbows on her knees and nodding at the approaching newsboy. He plopped down next to her, accepting the cigarette from her outstretched arm. Taking a short drag before he spoke, the newsboy glanced her over. "How's Brooklyn treating you?" he asked, a slight rasp evident in the words he spoke.
Luiza, better known as Hardy Gorski-having traded in her long Polish surname for a shorter, easier to pronounce one-relaxed back into her previous position. "It's better than the mill work back in Queens," she deftly lied. She reached out for her cigarette, only to find her friend had smoked the rest of it. A small grin flit across her face. "You owe me, Woody."
"Andy," Andrew Breslin corrected Hardy for what seemed to him as the millionth time since that morning when Hardy had roused Andy from his slumber. He had slept through the typical morning bustle, what with holding such late nights at the craps tables, and had Hardy not caught his snoring on her way out, he would have missed the morning edition. However, the lack of a few quarters seemed as though it would have been worth it to avoid the embarrassing situation that resulted in the unfortunate nickname.
"You're back early," Hardy observed, tugging at a loose shoestring. "Run out of money and thought you'd try the new girl?" She shot Andy a look through her thick eyelashes, watching his reaction.
Andy nearly choked on his own spit at what Hardy said. "You know, I feel like you'll fit in real well here," he informed her, recalling Red Flynn's words from earlier that night. Andy licked his lips, took a deep breath, and ran a hand through his hair. "But, the answer to your question is yes and no." He smiled, the moonlight illuminating his face. "Yes, I ran out of money." He rolled his eyes and imitated rolling dice. "But no, I didn't come back early to get first crack at you. I'll leave that for the others. There's at least three at Jewel's alone that are gunning for you." He glanced her up and down. "Just as warning."
Hardy pursed her lips in thought. Vixen, the leader of Queens and the owner of Hardy's loyalty, had told her specifically that she had to do whatever it took to get around Brooklyn. Vixen had emphasized the "whatever" part quite clearly, laying out that Hardy had been chosen to spy on Brooklyn not only because of her smarts but because of her feminine features. "You're not the most beautiful, Hardy; but you're least likely to fuck this up." Hardy shook her head at the memory and let out a small sigh. "I can handle it," she grit out between her teeth.
"I'm sure you can," Andy yawned, reclining onto his back, crossing his arms and placing his cap over his eyes.
Hardy snorted. "You're missing the point," she informed him dryly, uselessly gesturing towards the sky.
Andy let out a laugh. "Oh, right. The stars." He shrugged his shoulders.
"Yes," Hardy responded. "The stars." She pursed her lips slightly, trying to keep her cool. She needed alone time to keep sane, to meditate and find some sort of balance in her life. Quiet, contemplative star-gazing to plan her next move. But Andy had been kind and welcoming, giving her a tour of Spot Conlon's territory, and she didn't want to bite his head off for nothing.
The smell of sulfur pricked at her nose. Andy had lit another cigarette. Hardy propped herself on her elbows, blinking over at Andy. His cap was still resting over his eyes, and Hardy took the opportunity to snatch the smoke from his hand. Besides a low groan, there was no protest, and Hardy decided that Andy's presence was not as annoying as she had previously diagnosed it to be.
Author's Note: Thanks for reading, sorry if it's a bit longwinded, the rest of the chapters should focus on one character at a time!