Ratings: PG just in case….
Warnings: This is just a prologue to the actual story and the newsies aren't featured here at all….
Summary: When Aisling is forced from her homeland, she must learn to cope with the changes that come with it.
Disclaimer: Any character featured in the movie, obviously belong to Disney. Shamrock and all other people belong to me and I would appreciate being asked if wanting to use any of my characters.
Shamrock Trinity
Potatoes to Papes
By Shamrock O'Malley
~ Prologue ~
I ran to the back of the ship to see my country of birth disappear but I couldn't. The tears streaming down my face blurred my vision. All I could see was a green smudge of land getting smaller, and smaller until it was gone. The hurt of leaving the only place I knew was all the sharper knowing that my parents and younger sister would still get to live there. My two brothers and I were being sent to America. The Golden Country, Land of Opportunity.
I knew it was for our safety that Liam, Seamus and I were leaving Castletown Berehaven, the little fishing town on the western edge of County Cork, Ireland. But even so, only my younger brother, Seamus, looked forward to the adventure ahead of us. That is what Da called it, an adventure. For me it was a forced journey into the abyss.
Not by choice did Liam and I leave. If anyone was to blame, it was England. Several years earlier a bill was introduced in the House of Lords called the Home Rule Bill, which would have allowed Ireland to at least have their own parliament but it was struck down. There was more and more talk of a revolution. One of the final factors in deciding that we were to emigrate was Da found out Liam, my older brother, was involved with the local Irish Republican Brotherhood.
It was that and the fact that the farming and fishing wasn't enough to get by on any more. Our family had always been fishers. From when I was barely old enough to walk I had been swimming and mending nets. On the rare occasion had gone out to sea with Da to fish. My family's life thrived on the sea but late that spring the fish seemed to disappear. Da couldn't pay the rent and taxes anymore and feed a family of six. He traded our three cattle for three steerage class tickets to New York City.
I looked down at the water. I felt it calling me to jump in, to swim back to Ireland. The knots in my stomach tightened more and more as the distance from Bantry Bay increased. I let out a strangled sob. Please don't make me leave. I'll never be happy again. Don't take me away from all that I know.
A person had taken up a place quite near where I was standing. I looked over at him and gasped. The boy was muscular with brown eyes placed too far apart and a little pug nose. He was not a tall lad but an inner strength made him appear bigger than he seemed. I had known the boy my whole life. "Mother, Mary of God. Colin Dunne! Back from the grave. 'Tis a miracle indeed." I shook my head, believing my eyes were playing tricks. "Clare and Paddy found your boat upturned near the shore…you are a ghost, here to taunt me for leaving."
"Stop your sputtering Aisling, as you can see I am not drowned. I ran away." He said in his deep, musical voice. "As if I could drown. Are I not the only person able to out swim you?" His dark, curly hair hung in his eyes; he didn't bother shaking it away. He saw I didn't believe him and reached out a hand and took my own in it. "My hand is as real as the rest of me little one." He was the same age as Liam, 17, and had been in the IRB also. "No more tears for the island that has been so cruel to her people." He wiped my tear stained cheeks with his thumb.
I knew I must have looked much like a fool, my mouth hanging open in shock. "Does Liam know you're okay, have you seen him yet?" I asked gaining my composure once again.
"Liam helped me run away and tip the boat over. He got me my ticket. Oh Aisling, we're going to America!" His obvious excitement made me want to turn away. The news of Liam helping him fake his own death took me by surprise too. Liam was the one person I had trusted to never deceive me and yet I had known nothing about this plan.
"I have to go," I said wanting to confront my older brother, "You will write your mother and tell her you are all right won't you? She was so heartbroken…" I trailed off, his funeral still sharp in my mind.
"I will, once we are in New York. There is to be a bit of a gathering tonight, you'll go won't you? There is to be dancing." Colin knew that I loved to dance, but I had already vowed to myself that my dancing days were over. I wouldn't dance again until I was back in Ireland. I shook my head 'no' and walked back to our room looking for Liam, instead finding Seamus. I avoided him when I could because ever since he knew we were actually going to America he couldn't stop talking about finally being a real American.
"Howdy." He said in what was an attempt to sound American. Only fourteen, he already was five inches taller than myself standing at 5'6". His messy brown hair looked as if he'd never combed it and gave him a ragtag look that made him so endearing to our mother.
I glared at him but said nothing in return. I looked to the ceiling of our cramped cabin and said, "Dear Lord, tell Seamus that until he speaks in the lovely accent that you have bestowed on him, I shall not be speaking to him."
"I was just practicing. I don't want to seem like a foreigner." He pouted.
"Jesus, Mary, and Holy St. Joseph, Seamus! Do not hide who you are. You will look like the even bigger eejit to them if you try to blend in. Especially with that accent." I just didn't see what the big deal was. We were Irish, not American and there was no shame in it.
"You couldn't do any better, miss high and mighty," he mumbled. I had obviously touched a nerve. I bit back a retort and instead asked him where his brother might be. Seamus, still seething, just shrugged his shoulders. It made me feel guilty to know that I had hurt him but I was in need of finding Liam so didn't stay to console him.
I found Liam ten minutes later; sitting on the stairs that led to the deck. As soon as he saw me he stood up. When I was near enough, he grabbed my arm and directed me to a large room. There were tables and chairs set up like a small pub. Sitting me down he sat across from me. "We need to talk." He had purposely set this up so that we would talk on his terms. "Colin said that he talked to you. No one from Castletown was supposed to know he was on the ship except me." I was ready to interject but he held up his hand, "Colin thinks that he can trust you to not squeal on him. You haven't told anyone that he was on the boat right? Aisling, you haven't, have you?" He repeated when I didn't answer right away.
"I have been so busy looking for you that I haven't had the time. I was going to tell Seamus but he made me so angry. Do you know that he is practicing the American way of speaking? Besides the only other people on this ship from our small town are the Lynchs and the Murphy children. Both Anna and Danny are working as servants to first class people and why would I talk to the Lynchs? They are not a happy bunch of people. Now so," I said my voice darkening in accusation. "Why did you deceive me about Colin's death? How often have you lied to me Liam? I thought that of all the people I knew, the person that I could trust the most was you. I thought you were my friend as well as my brother." My voice rose until I was yelling at him. He replied in a low soft voice.
"Aisling, I do not lie to you. Who was the only one who knew that I was in the IRB? You were. But I know you too well. I couldn't tell you Colin was not dead. You are still a child-"
"I am only one year behind you! You talk as if I am nine, like Fiona." I interjected not letting him off the hook so easily.
Liam looked at me with his sapphire blue eyes. "My dear, YOUNGER sister. Sometimes it seems you act more the child than Fiona. Look at what you did to your hair...." I turned away ashamed.
When I had first heard that we were leaving for America I had taken my mother's shears and had gone to my favorite part of Bantry Bay. Standing with my feet in the water I had taken my curly red hair that had hung nearly to my waist and had cut it. I hacked away at my hair while sobs racked my chest. Later that night Liam found me still standing in the water, the clippings long washed out to sea. Mum had tried to even it out a bit but in the end my hair took on a layered appearance, the longest pieces just below my shoulders.
"You still lied to me Liam O'Maonlai. About Colin, you did." I said not giving up.
"I never once said Colin was dead. Not once. You heard it from Claire. I looked sad because I was. I felt bad for his mother. Mrs. Dunne told me, barely being able to choke out the words, that Colin had always thought of me as a true friend. When she said that to me, I wanted to tell her everything. Do you know how guilty I have felt helping him? But he's my best friend and he'd do the same for either one of us. Now let us drop the subject."
I gave into his wishes, as I always did. He'd looked pained as he recalled that day and I knew that he still felt the guilt he spoke of. I turned the subject to what was most prominent in my mind, "Are you going to miss Ireland at all?"
Liam ruffled my curls and gave me a sad smile. "Of coarse I am going to miss Ireland but we'll go back. We'll go back when the country belongs to the Irish again. Then we won't have to worry about taxes and landlords and the English. The land will be ours."
"What if England never gives Ireland back? What if we stay under British rule forever? I don't want to go to America!" That was as close as I got to telling Liam how afraid I was of going to New York but he knew.
"You fear nothing, my dear. Your big, strong, handsome, charming, witty-"
"All right already. I get the point." I said laughing. "Just . . . New York is so big. I will know almost no one. You make friends so easily......." I couldn't finish the sentence for fear of crying.
Liam gave me a hug and went off to find Colin. I watched him head up to the deck and sighed, "Liam O'Maonlai you are the only friend I have now. Please don't forget me in this new country."