You know how J M Barrie said something about the creation of fairies? "When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they wall went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies."

A broken heart was much the same. A broken heart, contrary to popular opinion, never broke in half. It shattered, like glass, and all the pieces were spread throughout Time, waiting to be reassembled so that the bearer would be able to love again.

That's why Christina ran away from home. Her life was a mess, but she left mostly because of a broken heart. She was trying to find the pieces.

Naturally, the food she had packed in one large basket ran out, and so did the water. Then the money ran out, and so Christina walked. She walked all the way from where she had used to live, Queens, to Manhattan. It wasn't at all that far, actually, in comparison to some other journeys, but to Christina, who had never left Queens, it was to the other side of the world.

She sat down on a street corner. Christina hadn't eaten for days. She'd lost track of exactly how long, but she knew it had been a long time since she'd eaten.

The thing you have to understand about Christina is that she was a good person. She was good, but she was hard to understand, and she knew it. She sort of expected everyone to understand her, and her expectations always fell short of the outcome. She was very moody sometimes, or silly, or often immature before suddenly switching to being the motherly figure. This didn't make her in any way abnormal or strange. There were many girls like this in New York, but Christina was particularly hard to understand.

She had a secret.

Everyone does, of course, and I'm sure many people have, had, or will have a secret similar to Christina's, but at the time it felt to her as if she was all alone in the world.

But as she was about to find out, she wasn't.

"Miss?" A small shadow, belonging either to a dwarf with the voice of a small child, or to an actual small child, had fallen across the sidewalk in front of her.

Christina looked up. Blocking the light ebbing from the behind the June clouds stood a small boy, nearly ten years old by her estimation. "Yes?" She responded very politely. She was sure she looked very strange, after so long on the streets, but she could be polite anyway. It was in her breeding.

"Buy a pape?" The boy held one out. It appeared to be his last one.

"I'm sorry," she said, genuinely apologizing. "I'm afraid I have no money."

"How come?" the hand holding the paper dropped to his side, and the boy looked curious.

Christina remembered a time when she was such an age, and just as curious. It had earned her many punishments, but she was determined that this boy not be punished for his curiosity, especially not with her silence.

"I ran away from home, little boy," Christina said, getting up. "And I'm out of food and money."

The boy looked thoughtful. "Wait here," He ordered imperiously, then added, "Please," And he scurried off around the corner.

Christina watched him go for a moment, before leaning against the building behind her. She was sure she must look a sight, all mangy and dirty, not at all like someone descended from Russian royalty.

"Miss!" The boy was back, running at top speed towards her. Behind him, two tall boys were coming a little less hurriedly towards her.

Christina took an instinctive step back. She needn't have, because these boys were none other than David Jacobs and Jack Kelly, and the boy was Les Jacobs, and they weren't going to hurt her. She, however, didn't know this and so reacted to strangers as would any well-bred girl alone on the streets of New York.

She tried to run.

"Please, lady!" Les stepped in front of her, and Christina was unwilling to shove him to the ground and risk injuring him in her hurry to escape. "We ain't gon' hurt you!"

"Aren't going to," Christina corrected, turning to face the oncoming threat, who had arrived to stand at a safe distance.

"Les says you're a run away." The boy with the bandana said. Christina considered this, then decided that everyone must refer to him as the boy with the bandana or the boy with the cowboy hat. So instead, from the way he carried himself, Christina deduced he must be the older and more mature of these two boys, and so she decided to call him in her mind, the leader.

Christina nodded mutely.

"What from?" the other boy said. He had curly hair and a blue shirt with a brown vest. Christina accurately deduced that he was Les' older brother.

"It isn't any of your business," Christina said primly. "If you'll excuse me," she tried to sidestep Les, but was stopped.

"'E a'so says you'se is outta money," the leader shoved his hands in his pockets.

Christina sighed and turned back to the two older boys. "What do you want?"

"We wanna help," Les piped up. Christina was sure he was lying. It was something she'd grown up knowing. Nobody just wanted to help, they all needed something in return.

"Da newsies a'ways helps run'ways an' street brats," Jack shrugged. "Ya wan' da help o' not?"

Christina was confused. Part of her confusion may have been due to the fact that there were too many apostrophes in his sentences, but mostly Christina didn't understand how people who had so much could be so selfish and how street rats, who had so little, could be so selfless.

But Christina shoved this matter to the back of her mind. "Yes, please," she nodded.

"Den, c'mon," the leader beckoned.

"Jack," the other boy put a hand out to stop him. "Can I," he looked at Christina for a moment, who glared back. Then he looked back to Jack, "talk to you for a second?"

As David and Jack moved out of hearing distance, Les tugged on Christina's skirt. "Don't worry," Les told Christina. "Jack'll still take you."

"Take me where?" Christina demanded. She clutched her nearly-empty basket to her chest.

"To the other newsies," Les said matter-of-factly, as if Christina should've known this. "The 'Hattan Lodging House."

"Where's that?"

So, what I plan on doing is every chapter, is at the end I'll have a question, and you all answer it in a review, then I'll post my answer in the beginning of the next chapter.

Example: If you had two hours to kill, what would you do?

The format of your answer: If I had two hours to kill, I would . . . .

I'll tell you my answer next chapter!

Read and review! It makes me happy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Newsies.