It all happened in a flash, Mush recalled. He was sitting in the old shoe factory, lying next to the little girl while she slept. Another flash – a month had gone by. He was still remembering it, the Delancies beating him to the ground, Kid saving the day. He squirmed in his sleep, regretting how he had taken off the eye patch. That thing still bothered him, especially when he saw the image of Kid flattened against the wall – another flash, and he was back in his bunk at the lodging house.
Everybody was giving him looks as they passed by. He wondered if Kid had told them about the incident, even though he was told not tell. He slowly jumped off his bed and found his suspenders in the dust.
"Hey, Mush." Racetrack said, patting him on the back. "Where you been?"
"I met a girl." Mush lied. He looked around – Kid wasn't there. How had things changed since he'd been gone? Was it possible he still had feelings for the boy, or maybe that was just nerves? He wished he could tell the newsies the truth, but that wasn't going to happen. He was already scared enough of Kid. He didn't want the little girl in danger, anyways. Although there wasn't really anything they could do to her – nothing was impossible.
Skittery asked him the same question in the washroom. Mush had to lie, again, the words hard on his tongue, for he had lied for what seemed like forever.
"I had to make sure this girl was OK. She needed me."
"I hear you!" Skittery winked (making Mush feel more uncomfortable than he already was) and went off to get dressed.
Mush suddenly became dizzy, blinded by the sight of Kid Blink walking in. He looked uncomfortable that Mush was back, sadly enough. They caught each other's eye. The one with the eye patch glowered while the other smiled. He hadn't seen Kid in a long time, even though he had been so horribly mean. But then Kid snapped and the both of them frowned. Mush flinched a little as Kid disappeared into a stall to change privately, pushing Bumlets out of the way and slamming the door behind him.
Mush trembled, wondering if he had done something wrong. Maybe he hadn't been comfortable with him not liking girls…of course he wasn't. That's why he had called him a fairy.
"You OK?" Snoddy asked, cranking the faucet, noticing how Mush was swaying on the spot.
"Yeah." Another lie. He hated it.
He swung around without looking and reached across the walkway, grabbing Kid's hand. He had really meant to grab the towel, but Kid thought different. They both pulled back, but reached for it again. After a few seconds, Kid stepped forward, pushing Mush into the counter with a bang. Then he stormed out, leaving the others with confused faces. Except for one.
"Everything alright here?" Jack Kelly asked.
Mush was breathing hard, his head still spinning. He wanted to crumple to the ground, or at least to move. Paralyzed and embarrassed, he felt the burn of the newsies' stare upon him. So, silently, he slowly sulked off and went to get dressed. He noticed Kid had forgotten his cap on the way out.
At breakfast, things were worse. Kid avoided him in the line for food and took more than he should have. Mush hadn't seen quality food since he left. He could get used to that, he thought. There, with the girl, he felt accepted. Here – he wasn't here. Even the newsies who didn't know a thing about the incident knew something was up.
Some of them parted to make way for something; some of them were pushed to the side. Kid seemed surprised to see the path lead straight to Mush, who knelt to the ground.
"Help!"
Mush knew that voice. It was sweet, small, and scared, the voice of the girl and when he heard it he remembered. She ran forward and clutched his leg, sobbing, burying her face in his shorts. Picking her up, he noticed Kid standing at the lamppost, watching them.
"It's the Bulls, the Bulls, you gotta help – please, Mush! They came and sent the dogs through the factory – I'm sorry, they scared me…"
He let her dry her tears on his shoulder, rubbing her back. A bit embarrassed, he caught her words (it was kind of hard to understand her, for she couldn't pronounce half of the vowels correctly) and whispered to her, "I'm here now…it's fine, you're fine, everything's gonna be OK…"
Kid scoffed, and even from across the street the girl heard him. She made Mush put her down and take her over there – well, really she grabbed his hand and pulled him over. She stopped crying as she yelled at Kid:
"You liar! Grafter! Look what you've done to Mush!" She attempted to kick dust at him, but it only reached his shoes.
"What'd I do?" Kid asked, scowling, not at the girl but at Mush, still avoiding eye contact.
"Scabber! You know what you did! Don't lie!"
Mush calmed her down, yet again taking her small body in his arms. "Shhh. Cheese it, he ain't done nothin' to you."
"He called you a fairy. That's not very nice!"
Kid heard that, Mush could tell. He tried not to panic. "This is something between me and him."
"You told her." Kid stepped forward, shoving Mush back, ignoring the newsies who began to swarm. "I told you not to tell!"
Mush retaliated and they were at it for a bit, until they heard crying. They looked down, and the little girl was on her side. Somehow, one of them had knocked the little girl onto the pavement. She had scraped her knee, and was terrified of Mush's sudden burst of anger. He kneeled down, kissed the scrapes and assured her that he was fine.
The Delancies approached, and Oscar bent down to Mush's level. Right into his ear, he whispered sinisterly: "Ain't you gonna kiss your boyfriend, orphan?"
The little girl lunged toward him, somewhat jokingly and some not. Kid stepped forward and said quietly: "I think we need to finish this inside."
Hearing this, Mush kissed the girl's forehead and handed her over to Bumlets, who put her on his shoulders and walked with the others to the World. Oscar and Morris still taunted the two newsies as they walked back with the lodging house. They ignored them and flew down the street, both of them nervous. Mush tried to guess what Kid would do to him – maybe tell him he was worthless and disgusting again, or soaked to the ground until he was nothing but a twisted mess on the floor. He was used to the words though. He had a whole month to himself to get used to them. He still had feelings for Kid, but nothing was worth feeling like that, not even all the lies in the world.
Once they were alone in the silence of the dormitory, Kid went to the water bin and cranked the faucet, splashing water on his face. Mush watched him do so. It was oddly quiet, and too calm. Leaning over the sink, not drying his face, Kid shuddered out:
"Who's the girl?"
"I don't think she's got a name. I found her in Bottle Alley. She was all alone. An orphan, just like us."
"So all those girls you met – you meant her, didn't you?"
"Right."
"You lied."
"Well, you lie all the time."
Kid glowered at him, the tension growing like a barrier between them. "And you told her about that day in the alley."
"Yeah. She won't tell, though. She's a good kid."
"Well, see, Mush, I can't trust you know more. So how do I know you ain't gonna put it in the papes or anything?"
Mush was getting dizzy again. He sat down on a crate and took his time to answer. "I ain't gonna, because I ain't got the money. She's the only one I told. C'mon. She knows she can't tell."
"This isn't your own little world, here. You can't be like this."
"Be like what?"
"A fairy." Kid walked towards him, his heart pounding.
Mush bent a little to see his eyes. The eye patch slipped a little. Why, he wondered, what was so bad about him that he couldn't look him in the eye?
"Quit callin' me a fairy. I don't like it any more than you like bein' called a crip."
"You don't know anything about me."
"Oh, yeah?" Mush stood up, his own anger growing now. "You seem to know an awful lot about me. I ain't the liar here."
Kid laughed a little. He let the silence hang a little bit, and still looking down he whispered:
"I know more about ya than I should."
Mush watched as he started to leave. That was the breaking point for him. He was actually leaving? The memories came flooding back – he was worthless, alone forever. Had Kid said anything else, he would have just kept it in, like he always had done. But this was different. He was furious.
In a rage, he ran forward and grabbed Kid by the collar of his vest, pulled him back. "That ain't fair!"
"Alright." The boy turned and looked at the ceiling now, trying to forget how close they were. "Listen-"
"No, you listen this time!" Mush literally threw him against the wall. "You're a liar! You lied about everything! You said we were best friends – what happened to that? 'We gotta stick together'? Bastard!"
Kid was frozen now, a face of panic upon as Mush screamed;
"You told everybody about me getting hit with that ladder, and I didn't! Why can't you see that I'm the right man here? You're a bigger liar than Cowboy!" He pounded his fist against the counter, vibrating the mirror, and then against the windowpane. "12 years we been living here, and YOU carried a bigger lie than I ever did! What is so wrong about me being me? TELL ME THAT! What is it?"
Kid started to move, but was pinned again. "OK, alright I get it!"
"NO YOU DON'T!" Mush took his face between forefinger and thumb, jerking his face face up. "Look at me! LOOK AT ME! All these signs over here, they say 'speak the truth', that's all we could ever read, ever, SPEAK THE TRUTH, why don't we ever do that! Don't you think some people like the truth?" With his free hand, he reached forward and ripped the eye patch from Kid's head. For a moment it was silent, and he was calm, free, staring into that perfect green eye instead of a scar.
That was the breaking point. Kid tackled him, rolling around the floor. They went at it, cursing each other with every foul word that came to mind. Every punch, every kick, they meant it.
They were pulled off of each other by the man who lived downstairs. Kid took the eye patch back, but it was ripped in half. Kloppman didn't move kick enough to stop Mush from spitting on the so-called "cripple", disgracing him.
"QUIT IT!" The old man yelled. And all was silent. That was the first time they'd heard him yell. "You boys OK up here?" Kloppman asked, seeing Mush sprawled out on the floor, his face red and glowering.
Neither of them answered.
"Now, boys, I been like a grandpa to youse. I give you the food on your plate, a roof over your head, and I raised you boys better than this. Now what's goin' on here?"
"He took my money." Kid lied.
Mush didn't say anything. When he was questioned, he handed over a quarter and walked out again. Feeling tears at his eyes, he let them come. And they kept on coming. All the way to the gate.
After buying his papers, he went out to the square. Everybody had taken the little girl under their wing, although she wasn't staying: Racetrack had already taught her how to play cards, and Les had given her one of his swords. Right now she was standing on the statue base, Bumlets leaning against it under her. She was laughing at the faces he was making to entertain the other little ones, and playing with his hair.
When Mush walked up, she ran to the other side and hugged him around the neck. She noticed the tears and wiped them off with her tiny hand.
"What happened?"
"It ain't gonna work out." His voice cracked.
"Did you fight?"
Mush took the marble she was holding and spun it in his palm. "We fought. We ain't ever gonna work it out…too many lies."
"Lies are bad." She took the marble back and explained how it was a gift from Bumlets.
"I guess you're getting used to this."
"Yeah! Well, I'm gonna get a job at the sweatshop, but I like it here. That fella with the hair, he told the guy with the glasses – the blonde one – how much we looked alike and then him and me went to sell papers. He said people pay more for papers if you got a sick a little sister."
Mush smiled. She was cute, and Dutchy did look like her. They must've been a good team. If only he had a selling partner. "But ain't that lying?"
"What, me and him, being a family? Nah, that ain't lying, that's just improving the truth. It's different. I like here. Everybody a family."
He looked around. She was right. There was Blanket, Les, Skittery and Bumlets fencing, and Racetrack playing cards with some others. You could feel the electricity, you just knew that they were all brothers, not by blood but by life.
"Without the truth, nobody knows nothing. Lies are something that only tears each other apart, y'know? The truth is what holds this family together. Youse only lie because you have to, to make living easy, right?"
Mush smiled at her, and wondered how she could be so little and know so much. Then they hugged and she went back over to her 'brother', who greeted her by spinning her over his head. Mush looked around. There was Dutchy, Tumbler, and the girl playing together. Almost everybody was watching, including Sarah Jacobs. She had stopped by on the way to sell her doilies, and was smiling at the children, contently thinking of having a little Cowboy running around someday. Jack, who was holding her, looked intent on the same thought, only having a little Sarah.
The only thing missing was Kid Blink. But he was the naïve one now, Mush thought. He knew what promise he had to make to himself. It would be hard, but life was hard, wasn't it? His crush and him, he didn't know what was going to happen, but that was the promise. It was his now. No more lies. That was his motto for the day, telling it to everyone who bought a paper as they walked away:
Speak the truth.