[the story of misprint]
[by mondie]
[written on: march 20, 2003]
[disclaimer: disney owns: racetrack, jack, spot, skittery, mush, and kloppman. mondie owns: catherine and marble. misprint owns: misprint. some details {descriptions, perhaps some other things embedded in my subconscious that really belong to misprint but i've credited them to myself based on the fact that I only know them subconsciously and not consciously} provided by misprint. plot is mondie's.]
[summary: one-shot happy bday fic for my best ff.net friend, my moral support, the reviewer i trust most in the world. fluffy. storytelling!racetrack. ^^]
The red curls were performing a magic trick, hasty tendrils rushing to escape their restrictive bow as they plastered themselves to the pretty girl's face. Sweat, the sweet reward of dusty August's sunshine, mixed upon her pale brow with a streak of dirt. Freckles, emboldened by the sunlight, saluted merrily across her slight, upturned nose. Yet for all her glorious and understated beauty, the street child was remarkably grotesque-looking, as she lifted a warning fist into the air and shook it angrily in the face of an Italian youth.
"Why can't I be a newsie?" she shrieked, her usual Irish accent lose in a flurry of the furious shouting.
The boy eyed her warily. Sighing with a depth to rival the deepest of wells, he slowly took the cigar from between his innocently pink lips and said delicately, with the air of one who has explained a theory many times before, "Because. You're a girl."
"So I am!" she said angrily, stamping one toughened, bootless foot on the hot cobblestones. The action didn't even bring a wince to her face; she'd developed calluses where smooth skin had resided years before. "There have been girl newsies before, Racetrack Higgins! There are girl newsies in Queens, in the Bowery! Even Harlem has a girl newsie, and everyone knows that Harlem isn't any place for a girl."
"How many times do I have to tell you, Catherine?" he asked, exasperated. His wide eyes narrowed in annoyance at her constant badgering. "We haven't had girl newsies in Manhattan in five months." Catherine had only come to Manhattan two weeks before, and already she was driving Racetrack crazy with her constant anger and reproach.
"It's unfair," she sniffed. "And what's so special about five months ago, anyway?"
For a brief second, Racetrack's face glowed with an irrepressible smile; he hastily tried to calm it down. He reached out and caught the sleeve of a passing newsboy. "Say, Marble," he greeted the boy, whose blue eyes darted from Racetrack to Catherine and back again. "Do you remember Misprint?"
Marble immediately relaxed, and a snort of laughter escaped his lips. "Who could forget Misprint?" he chuckled, and it seemed there was an incredible inside joke between the two boys, who, simply by looking at each other, fell into loud, raucous laughter which was untamable for several minutes. Catherine was growing more and more agitated with each passing second, and shifted her weight angrily from foot to foot.
"Tell her the story of Misprint, Race," Marble laughed, clutching his side in pain. The giant smile, missing only a few teeth, still covered his face.
Racetrack
made himself recover from the laughing fit, and straightened up, clearing his
throat. "About a year ago," he began, formality setting in with the topic of
Misprint, "there was a girl named Misprint…
She was a pretty girl. Mostly by way of
her personality, because she didn't look like any pretty girl I've ever seen,
and yet she was so gorgeous once you got to know her that you just knew, somehow, that you had to be with her
forever. She had spent some time selling over in Brooklyn, but got sick of Spot
and his attitude. You know how Spot is. Anyhow, she'd lost her hair from
ringworm, and her first night in Manhattan, she wore a pair of pants and a
loose shirt, walked right into the Newsboys Lodging House, signed in, and
shared a bunk with Skittery. None of us had ever run into a girl like her, so we all just figured she was a fellow,
like she was pretending to be, and let it go at that. But, boy, did we ever get
a surprise the next day, when we were all cleaning up in the morning! We all
thought that the new kid was really sort of strange, because he wouldn't even
take off his shirt to sponge off yesterday's sweat or anything. Then, as we all
were going down to the distribution center, Skittery pulled aside Jack and Mush
(and I just happened to be within hearing distance) and told them that this new
boy had tried to kiss him three different times during the night. Jack pointed
out that Skittery does wear pink
underclothing and perhaps this sent a signal to the new boy, but sensible,
thoughtful Mush volunteered to talk to the new boy and explain to him that
Skittery wasn't like that.
The new boy was shocked when Mush approached him. He claimed he hadn't meant anything, didn't even know he'd tried to kiss Skittery until Mush had told him. Mush reported this back to Skittery and Jack (I just happened to be behind them once again—and you thought that luck was only in poker!), and that was that—for about three more weeks. Then one day, I decided to ask him why he never took off his shirt or anything. Calmly, the boy told me that he wasn't a boy at all, but a girl!
None of us knew what to do after she made that statement. We all just stared at her for a long while, then finally Jack, in this really croaky voice, asked why she hadn't told us she was a girl at any point in time prior to this. Misprint, being Misprint, merely shrugged and said that no one had asked.
Jack made sure to tell Kloppman, who insisted that no girls were allowed in his boys-only lodging house, so Misprint was out on the streets. But she really didn't seem to mind. In fact, she was even more cheerful after a night sleeping in an alley than she had been in a bunk. Every morning, she'd be first in line at the distribution office, always with a giant smile and a genial greeting when we got there.
That's when I first fell in love with her—when she smiled at me that first day after she'd been evicted, waving a cinnamon bun at me that she'd stolen from a bakery right under the baker's nose. Beautiful girl, that Misprint.
She was a good seller, too. Jack hated that. Misprint could outsell him, the almighty leader of the newsies, in half the time. She knew just how to work people—just the way to beg with her eyes, just the way to bring up racking coughs that shivered through her entire body. Jack began to really, really hate Misprint—not only because she was a better newsie, but because she'd, as he saw it, humiliated him in his own lodging house by parading about without his permission. So as most of the other boys and I began falling deeper into an infatuation with this strange, nearly-bald girl, Jack began to plot her exile.
It happened five months ago. Her hair had grown out some, though it was still patchy, and when I caught sight of her, I couldn't help but see how much her beauty had grown in this short amount of time. She was still cheerful, always smiling, always waving to me. Sometimes we'd end up at the same place for a meal, and she'd always insist on buying my lunch, on account of the fact that I always wasted my own money gambling. But Jack was in complete agony. He was so angry with all of us newsies befriending her that he called upon Spot Conlon, the one person he knew would back him up, since Spot had the same contempt for my gorgeous girl. The two of them swooped down on her one day, while the rest of us were having a celebration at Irving Hall. Jack told us smugly later of the act, how he and Spot had cornered Misprint and all the horrible things they'd done to her. I went out looking for her that night—I never sleep much, anyhow—but couldn't find her anywhere.
It was then that Jack made his announcement—no more girl newsies in Manhattan. I think Spot convinced him of this point, but I don't really know. I just know that Misprint hasn't been seen in Manhattan since, and that no girls have been allowed to sell either.
"…And that's the story of Misprint, and why there are no girl newsies in Manhattan." Racetrack came out of his trance-like state and beamed, the thought of Misprint bringing an unhidden smile to his face. He looked about himself. Only Marble stood listening still, a similar look of enchantment and rapture on his face. "Where's Catherine?" Racetrack asked, a bit hurt that she had left sometime during the course of his storytelling.
Marble shrugged, running a hand over his extremely short, bristly black hair. "She left. Mumbling something about soaking Jack."
Racetrack laughed aloud. "She's starting to remind me of someone I used to know, five months ago."
Marble smirked. "Oh, really?" he questioned, and Racetrack suddenly noticed how incredibly small and frail his friend was.
"Really," he answered, snaking an arm around Marble's thin shoulders. "A girl who never played by the rules."
"Never," Marble agreed, wrapping his arm around Race's waist comfortably, the elegance and unexpected aspect of a sunshine-bathed spring rain noticeable in his stance.
"Especially rules made by Jack Kelly," Racetrack continued, smiling down into Marble's big eyes. The boy always seemed a bit stand-offish, and it wasn't usual for him to show such affection, even toward Misprint.
Marble nodded. "Especially not Jack's rules."
Race looked around quickly, to make sure that no one was looking at the duo, and then pulled Marble into a shadowed doorstep. Hasty kisses pressed the two newsies together, until Race finally stepped away. Marble's facade had been pushed aside hastily, completely. "You think Jack's ever gonna realize that you're tricking him again?"
Misprint shrugged, her female voice escaping her now-usual, deeper, manufactured male voice in this semi-secluded spot. "It's been three months since I've come back, hasn't it?" Her trademark smirk, so like Racetrack's, jumped onto her face as she pulled him back into the sunlight of the street.
Racetrack smiled as they walked amiably together. …I'm going to be with her forever.
[end scene.]
[mondie huggles fluffy ending]
[ps - now i must correct my disclaimer. see, now you realize that marble -is- misprint. so i guess in a roundabout way, either misprint or i own marble. not sure who exactly, but whatever. perhaps misprint owns the traits, and i own the concept.]
[marble's name came from that lovely quote a la racetrack: "c'mon. it's a rigged deck. they got all the marbles, okay?" i didn't think that the name "deck" had nearly as much flair as "marble". also, marble starts with an 'm', like 'misprint'. ah, literary clues. i must be a genius or something!]
[happy 15th birthday misprint! i'll luffle you forever!]