She was lost, in more ways than one, and not just a little bit frightened. To her, the world was full of the rough, angry people she'd spent her whole life surrounded by, and a change of scenery wasn't going to make the people any less likely to strike her, or curse at her. Thus far, in fact, that had proven itself to be true, as she dodged around carriages, and ducked under heavy loads carried by workmen, hurrying as quickly as she could. She needed to put distance between herself and the place she called home. The girls her mother worked with would be waking now, the owner stumbling downstairs, barkeep unlocking the doors, and putting down chairs. The Dove would be starting to pull itself together for another night slinging drinks, loud music, and loose women, and it wouldn't take them very long to notice Nancy's little girl was missing.
Of course she was missing. They'd buried her mother the day before, some of the other sobbing, not really because they missed Nancy, who was loud and often off her head, and prone to butting into things when she had no reason to be there, but because her dying reminded them how easy it would be for them to die as well. All it took was a bit too much morphine, locked alone in her room. How sad that no one had cared enough to check on her until her daughter did. They didn't have daughters to bother. If they died alone in their rooms, it could be days before Andy got annoyed with waiting for their rent, and went to find them, already hard and cold on the floor. That's what those girls were crying for, and while she was only 12, she knew it. That was life. Shedding tears for anyone else was pointless.
Trusting someone else, having faith in someone else, believing in the good in people, those were foreign ideas to her. There was nothing good in the world, only hardness, and hardship, and those above you trying to use you, push you down, and you, scrambling to stay afloat, using the ones below you to keep you up. There was no such thing as kindness without someone expecting something in return, and that was why she was running.
Andy, the owner of the Dancing Dove, the placed she called home, had paid for her mother to be buried, allowed her to stay in the room she and her mother had shared, and hadn't demanded anything in return- yet. But he was going to, and she knew it, and she knew what he'd want, besides. So she ran. That wasn't what she wanted for her life. And when her mother was off the laudanum for long enough, that wasn't what Nancy wanted for her daughter either. But Nancy's intentions were never strong enough for her to turn her own life around, selfishly drowning her own conflicts and pain in the drugs that dulled her enough to keep working, keep moving forward, keep making enough to pay the rent, and sometimes enough to properly feed her child, often forgotten about, left outside to fend for herself while she plied her trade in the bar.
She had grown up on the streets. She wasn't the only child of the employees of the Dove, there was a small pack of them, all ages, and as fluid as the group could be, people leaving, people dying, they looked after each other as best they could, generally moving as a group through the streets of their neighborhood.
But this wasn't their neighborhood, and she didn't have the protection of the others anymore, although she was the oldest of them by now. She had been the oldest of them. She'd left them behind as the older ones always did, running before they could be trapped there, before they gave up hope of something better than the pit they'd been born into.
The problem, of course, was that she was lost, outside of the streets she'd grown up on, the ones she knew. She wanted it that way, the further she got from the Dove, the safer she was, but at the same time, it terrified her. She had no idea where she was going, a handful of coins to her name, no skills other than wiping down tables and dodging grabbing hands. She knew she wasn't the only one who had made their way in this direction, and part of her foolishly hoped that she'd encounter someone she knew, but even she understood how unlikely that was. The best she could hope for was running into someone who might be willing to help her before she spent a night sleeping on a bench, or in a doorway somewhere. She could certainly manage it, she had done much of that in her life when her mother locked the door to their little room, but it was something she wanted to avoid, if possible.
She was starting to give up hope that she might find something, a place to call home, at least for a moment, someplace warm, and safe, when she saw a pack of girls, huddled together, entering a building with a bright sign, painted with gold letters. She couldn't read it, had no idea what it said, but the girls didn't look related, or nicely dressed enough for it to be a school. She paused, ducking herself into an alley, and watched as several other girls made their way inside. She finally plucked up the nerve to go to the up the steps to the door, sticking her head inside, and wincing a bit. It was nice, clean, warm, inviting, the kind of lobby she had never really encountered. An older woman behind a counter looked up when she stuck her head in, and arched an eyebrow, calling out to her. "New girl, eh? If you're done selling for the day, this is where the girls lay their heads."
She frowned, moving a bit further into the room, ignoring the girls lounging around the lobby who had now fallen silent, watching. "Sellin' what?"
The woman blinked, a frown crossing her face, and several of the girls giggled. She blushed at her ignorance, unsure if that should somehow have been obvious.
"Newspapers. This is the Newsgirls Lodging House, after all." The woman tutted a bit, and made her way around the counter. "You're not a newsie then, I take it?"
"Dunno. How do you become a newsie?" Pulling the small bag that contained everything she owned up higher on her shoulder, she gave the other, still giggling, girls a wary look. One of them, a redhead who looked younger than she was, hopped off the bottom step she'd been sitting on, stretching a bit before answering.
"You lose all your senses, for starters, 'cause no one wants to be a newsie unless it's the only thing left. Then it's just a matter of buyin' papes from the distribution center, and sellin' 'em. Cost two to a penny, and you sell 'em a penny a pape. Double what you spent if you sell 'em all, save half for the next day, and spend the rest on food, and this dump." Her brown eyes twinkled, and she had a charming grin, the kind that exuded confidence.
"That's all it takes?" She frowned, chewing on her lower lip, her fingers twisting the strap of her bag between her fingers, nervously.
"That's all it takes. I could show you, in the mornin', if you wanted." The redhead shrugged, and then held out a hand. "Name's Rosie."
"Mandy." She shook the other girl's hand, and gave her a tight smile, although she didn't trust this at all. She somehow sensed the redhead knew it, too.
"Well, just pay up with Mrs. Newman, if you want in. I can show you around here." Rosie shrugged, as though it didn't matter to her, either way.
Glancing around, she tried to come to a snap decision. This place didn't look horrible, and she could probably afford a night or two on her own. It was the last thing Andy would expect her to do, and she didn't have to stay there forever, just for long enough to catch her breath and save a bit of money, maybe. Then she could really get out of this place, this city, find someplace better.
She nodded, managing a smile. "Alright. I could do that."
The redhead grinned. "Get movin', then. Time's a-wastin."
~~~
The years passed, so quickly. All of her intentions of leaving had, of course, come to naught. She was still there, five years later, still selling newspapers, still caught up in the petty squabbles and infighting, so much more obvious in the girls than they were in the boys.
More or less all of the girls who had been there when she first arrived were gone, grown up, moved on, married, or in Rosie's case, in jail. She had been a good friend, Rosie, taught her things like picking locks and pickpocketing, and Rosie had been very good at all of it, but not good enough to not get caught. Her brother had managed to escape when he got locked up, but not Rosie, and her last interactions with the current leader of the newsboys had been such that Frank- now called Jack Kelly- hadn't even bothered to get his sister out. None of them had bothered, actually. She only had a year or so left, anyway.
She missed her friend, but there were other people, and other things to do. Selling papers, dealing with this whole new Union thing, other groups of newsies pushing in on their selling territories, the fighting that was impossible to avoid in a group of children like they were, children, and children on the edge of no longer being children. She was stuck in the middle of it now, and any thought of leaving them had long since vanished. This was her home, now. This was her family.