Disclaimer: Newsies stuff belongs to Disney (like it actually belongs to me; I'm just a fan), everything else belongs to me, yadda yadda yadda. Enjoy!
I'll Be Home for Christmas
By Athena
The city was crystallized that morning, enveloped in sleek black ice. Everyone in New York was buddle up at home, perhaps contentedly seated by the fire or stove and appreciating the uncommon silence of the city. The ordinarily bustling streets were void of noise and motion, giving the city a quiet beauty that no one dared to disturb. The only girl out that evening knew very well not to spoil the moment with any ungraceful movements or obnoxiously loud clamor. She moved noiselessly down the streets, through rat-infested alleys and past huge, posh townhouses. When she finally reached her destination, the abandoned Central Park (even the bums of the city had chosen to gather in alleys, huddled around flaming piles of scrap wood and paper), she drew a deep breath of the frozen air and quickened her pace. She had been waiting for this moment for the passed week, until the pond was empty and safe to skate on.
Midnight was unable to remove her grin as she sat on the frigid bench and donned her ancient ice skates. She recalled years ago when the lake near her house would freeze over for the entire winter, which was far harsher and longer in Maine, and when she would totter out to the center of the ice to practice various jumps and spins. The mornings had been nearly silent then as well, the only noises invading her dreamlike concentration were those of the occasional deer or her grandmother (who shout that she had better come in right then, missing, or her breakfast would be colder than the freshly-fallen snow).
She took her first confident step onto the ice and found it perfectly firm, even after being trampled on by a hundred skaters the previous afternoon. "Perfect," she murmured happily and smiled as she began to stroke around the pond with grace and speed.
Little tunes played through her head as though she were a ballerina in a child's jewelry box. She whirled and leapt to these sounds, sliding smoothing over the ice on her poor blades. She was not just another newsgirl any longer, not just Midnight, the girl from Maine who appeared on the fire escape of the Manhattan Lodging House one evening, not just a nobody without a future. She was pure ice and wind
Soon her cheeks were stained red from the icy air and her lips were beginning to chap, so Midnight sighed and completed one final loop jump before exiting the ice. She adored mornings such as these, before even the sun had risen, when the ever-rushing world stood still for one blessed moment. The newsgirl drew a deep breath and began her hike to the Lodging House where the others were, no doubt, being yelled at by Kloppman for sleeping far too late.
Midnight was whistling a chipper tune when she entered the building and automatically shook the swiftly melting snow off of her tattered boots at the mat that Kloppman had placed at the door earlier that month. As she had guessed, she heard her friends mumbling and unwillingly rising out of bed.
"Those kids, sleeping their lives away…"a familiar mutter wafted to the girl and a minute later the elderly man appeared behind his counter. He caught sight of Midnight and, eyebrows raising slightly, he greeted, "Well, morning, Midnight. Where've you been?"
She displayed her skates as an answer and grinned, her cheeks still rosy from her morning activity. "I got to bed early last night so I could get up before everyone else and not be asleep while sleeping my papes. Is everyone awake?"
"They'd better bem" he replied and began to survey his books with extreme solemnity. The girl only chuckled in response as she dashed up the stairs, the din of her friends increasing with each step she took.
"Wheah's me cigar?!" Racetrack's voice could be heard quite clearly over the other boys'. "Snipeshootah!"
"You're dead, Pocket!" Aussie shouted at the giggling girl and suddenly the sound of rushing footsteps echoed throughout the second floor. Pocket, who could not control her laughter, shrieked, "Aussie and Mu-ush, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! Ya want Mush ta come in heah and kiss ya right now, Aussie? Or do ya wanna wait until ya both can have a romantic moment alone, and den ya can swap smoochies? Say, Aus, when's da weddin'? Can I be a bridesmaid?" The was a loud thud and Pocket's high-pitched giggling immediately followed. "All right, all right! I'll shut up!"
Midnight sighed and entered the girls' bunkroom where Aussie was helping a breathless pocket to her feet. Twink and Tornado were just exiting the bathroom and chatting casually about plans for that evening. Ivy was quietly brushing her hair in the far corner of the room. Painter, Cricket, and Violent were deeply involved in conversation and occasionally fell into a fit of delighted laughter. Shadow's voice called from the washroom, imploring, "Say, anybody will' ta spot me two bits tahday?" and Sabrina, still yawning, replied, "Yeah, I can. I had a good day yesterday."
Violet turned to see Midnight leaning against the doorway and smiling at the usual sights and sounds of the morning. "Hey, did you get up early this morning?"
"Yeah, Central Park was so quiet and peaceful, and the ice was perfect," she replied with a wistful grin at the memory. "I just couldn't waste a morning like that, you know?"
"But aren't you exhausted?" Sabrina wanted to know.
"And cold?" added Aussie, who shivered at the mere thought of the icy weather. "Blimey, it must be twenty below in the sun, which isn't even up yet."
Midnight merely shrugged as she answered, "Aw, this weather's nothing. I challenge anyone here to spend one winter in Maine. You'd get used to this real fast."
Aussie shuddered violently as she fought the urge to dive beneath her pathetic blanket and not face the world until spring. "I miss the good ol' heat of Australia. Aw…the beaches, the sunshine…"
"I'd rather have the nice winter," sighed Midnight and had to giggle when Aussie cast the girl a befuddled, disgusted stare.
"No offense but you've got a few roos loose in the top paddock." At the sight of everyone's confused countenances, she explained, "She's absolutely deranged, geez, I thought you'd at least get that one."
"Bundle up, guys," Violet ordered as she pulled on a threadbare wool hate. "It's cold out there. No groaning, Aus."
"A girl nevah gets pneumonia when she needs it. Blast."
*****
Midnight thoroughly enjoyed the city at Christmas time. She could not stroll down a random street without catching sight of at least one holiday decoration sparkling in a huge shop window that was as slick as a sheet of perfect ice. Her mouth watered at the gingerbread houses and chocolate pastries that sat jauntily in the baker's window. Those of the upper class sauntered from shop to shop with butlers, who carried armloads of professionally wrapped presents, at their heels. Even the frigid winter air did not seem biting, only mischievously friendly.
"Extra!" the auburn-haired newsgirl shouted and waved a paper high above her head. "Christmas celebrations at Saint Patrick's go array, hundreds of lives at stake! Fire at the famous church!" She, of course, failed to mention that the fires were merely the hundreds of lit candles on huge decorated trees. As a husband and wife strolled over to purchase a paper, Midnight adopted her most charming expression. "Buy a pape, sir?"
"Yes," the man replied shortly and handed over a cent. He snatched the paper out of Midnight's grasp and marched off before she could even thank him; of course, after his rude behavior, she did not believe him to be derserving of thanks even if he did pay her.
Her spirits still high, she began to sing cheerfully. "We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas—" She smiled in surprise when her song was interrupted by a joining voice.
"And a happy Hanukkah!" Roxy sang and strolled over to Midnight.
"Hanukkah? I thought it was supposed to be 'New Year'," the Manhattan newsgirl replied thoughtfully.
"Oh, I know. I just wanted to make sure I have a happy holiday season, too. No one ever sings Hanukkah carols, so I thought I'd add one in there."
Midnight shook her head as though in sadness but chuckled warmly. "Roxy, you're too much. What are you doing in Manhattan, anyway? Did you suddenly decide that the Manhattan newsgirls are the best and now you're moving out of Brooklyn?"
"Never," Roxy replied, adopting a severely affronted expression, and smiled. "I'm actually buying presents for the Brooklyn newsies. If I tried to buy anything in Brooklyn, everyone would know the minute I paid for them, so here I am. I don't know how I'll ever hide anything, but it's worth a try. And I'm going to buy something for my aunt, but she lives in Boston, so I don't have to worry about her knowing beforehand."
"It must be nice to have your aunt, huh? Even if you don't get to see her much?" Midnight inquired softly. Unwillingly, she slowly began to recall her own family—her grandmother, who had been soft-spoken but firm when the need arose, and who had understood everything; her father, who had made a thousand promised and had been unable to fulfill any of them. The streets of New York seemed to vanish and Midnight drowned in memories that had been formerly tucked away in the safety of her distant memory…
***
Midnight, a seven year-old called Jill Schwartz then, tugged at her lacey collar which, at the moment, was viciously strangling her and cutting savagely at her throat. This was the dress she usually never even glanced at, the outfit reserved for the most solemn occasions. She despised the dress that morning when she had been forced to retrieve it from her closet and iron the pathetically wrinkled garment.
"…poor dear," an unfamiliar relative sighed to Jill's father. "Of course, she did lead a full, wonderful life. It must be awful to loose your mother only a few years after your wife."
Jill did not hear her father's response. She pressed her fingers to her temples and furrowed her forehead as she tried in vain to recall seven years ago, back to that wintry February. Her grandmother, in the middle of making a multitude of baked goods (Jill could still taste the piping hot cookies, the apple pies made with freshly picked apples and spiced with cinnamon, and the cranberry tarts that were Jill's favorites), had once reluctantly told Jill the story of her birth and, consequently, her mother's death. It had happened during a snowstorm, while the wind howled like a wolf at the front door and while snow piled up a foot every hour. Thus, when Jill's mother went into labor they didn't even bother to run for the doctor. While Jill had been a healthy baby, her mother had not made it through labor with such luck. She had lost a great deal of both strength and blood, though did not seem to care. She had simply asked to hold her daughter, her first and only child, and died an hour later with Jill still placed carefully in her arms.
As the seven year-old returned to reality and fought back a painful lump in her throat, she wished that she could remember at least a tiny bit of what her mother had been like. There were no pictured placed around the house, save one family portrait taken when Margaret—Jill's mother—had been twelve. She looked a little like Grandma, Jill reminded herself without the need to add that she, on the other hand, did not resemble her grandmother in the slightest. Gazing up at her father, she saw for the hundredth time how alike their blue-green eyes and auburn hair were in vibrancy, although somehow her father's eyes seemed different. At seven years-old, she had not been able to specify what that difference was. But then, she had always tried to avoid such a topic.
A few strange relatives from distant cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Richmond, and Chicago had traveled to Jill's home that day to pay their respects to her departed grandmother. Every so often an aunt or second-cousin would place a gentle hand on the girl's shoulder and smile sympathetically at her. "Poor dear," they would sigh pitifully. "How are you, Jill?"
"All right," Jill would murmur uncertainly and wish that she could simply slip on her skates and rush out to the frozen pond.
"How do you feel about moving to New York, darling?" one particularly loquacious third-cousin asked, throwing the girl out of her thoughts. "What?" Jill demanded.
A veil of confusion enveloped the unfamiliar woman's face. "New York City, Jill, where your Uncle Louis lives. You're going—" But before she could finish, Jill had bolted over to her father who was mid-conversation with an elderly relative.
"Dad, Dad." Jill tugged at his sleeve with uncommon impatience and anxiety. "Is it true?"
"Is what true?" he questioned, voice tensed. He cast an apologetic glance at the relative and shrugged embarrassedly, and then returned his irritated attention to his daughter.
"Am I going to live in New York City?" she demanded with eyes as wide as soup tureens. She gripped her father's sleeve tightly, as though somehow that would persuade him to keep his daughter by his side.
Two weeks later, a dazed Jill found herself alone on a speeding train bound for a foreign city where an unknown uncle lived. A quiet, controlled ache that she dared not to recognize began to manifest itself deep in her heart.
Uncle Louis, a large, balding man who rarely spoke and found it hard to convey his emotions, had not been all that terrible to live with, actually. Jill came to like him and felt that he enjoyed her company as well. But it was not long before he died of a heart attack and Jill was once again alone. She had prayed that her father, who had traveled around the East Coat while looking for work (or at least that was what Jill supposed he was doing; she could not see any other reason for his departure), would return to her, that he simply had to return now that there was no one left to take care of her. At night she would kneel beside her bedside and pray: Please, God, just let him come back for me and I'll be good for the rest of my life.
He never even sent word regarding the situation. By then Jill had joined the newsies and began to join her new life as Midnight, the girl who had appeared out of the night and sold papers with a friendly, easy-going grin. Yet Midnight's prayers did not change. At night she would offer up her wishes to God and wondered if she would wake to her father's apologetic smile the next morning.
***
"…say, Midnight, are you okay?" Roxy's gentle voice interjected into the auburn-haired girl's painful memories. Midnight felt he Brooklyn girl's hand rest on her shoulder and her usual friendly smile uncurled into a concerned frown.
"Um, yeah, fine, why?" she asked and forced a grin on her lips. A contrived laugh issued from behind clenched teeth. She realized that Roxy was not fully convinced so, nervously brushing a lock of hair out of her face, she muttered swiftly, "Gosh, Roxy, it's getting late."
"Yeah…I should be heading back to Brooklyn now," she murmured, a note of worry still evident in her voice. "I guess I'll see you later, Midnight. Merry Christmas."
"Happy Hanukkah!" Midnight called to the retreating figure of the girl as she trekked through a sea of New Yorkers, all of whom seemed to be carrying large packages and laughing gleefully with loved ones. Sighing deeply, she head a newspaper high at arm's length above her head and shouted without emotion, "Fire in Saint Patrick's Cathedral! City in shock!"
*****
"…and on page seven deah's an article about a dog wid six legs. Six. Geez, and I t'ought Brooklyn was da only place ya'd find da weird stuff," Racetrack mumbled in surprise as he skimmed through the afternoon paper.
Pocket nodded in agreement and then shrugged. "Well, what can ya expect from people who drag deir knuckles?" She had been grinning proudly at her joke, but instantly adopted an extremely solemn expression when she recalled just who was the famed leader of the Brooklyn newsies. "Jus' don't tell Spot I said dat, all right?" she pleaded in deperation.
Chuckling lightly, Midnight and Bumlets agreed. "Don't worry, 'Ket, we'll shut up about it," the girl assured the former pickpocket.
"Yeah, why would we waste such great backmail now instead of waitin' for a beddah time?" Bumlets added and beamed playfully.
"Like lunchtime," Midnight piped up.
Nothing enthusiastically, the newsboy continued, "Yeah, and especially aftah dat delicious breakfast of stale bread and coffee, I'm in da mood for a sarsaparilla and a sausage and maybe a roast beef sandwich and aftah dat I could really go for a—"
"Ya got one stomach or maybe t'ree?" Racetrack asked in mock curiosity. "'Cause I'm t'inking dat would make a pretty good headline: Boy is Medical Wondah. Doctahs in shock. Full story on page five."
"That outta get some attention," Midnight agreed. "Although I think you might have some competition from newsies using the story about the dog with six legs." She sighed and folded the paper she had been glancing at. "Well, I'll see you guys later."
"Lookin' for a sellin' partnah tahday?" Bumlets inquired with as much casualness as he could muster.
Midnight grinned and stood on the toes of her tattered boots to place a gentle kiss on his forehead. "Not today—after selling I'm going to do some Christmas business," she replied with a playful smile as though she had related the vague details of a bit of mischief. "I'll meet you back at Tibby's for dinner."
As she strolled off she heard Racetrack shout at her back: "Remembah, Midnight, me favorite colah's green and my suspendahs are gettin' awful old!"
Although the newsgirl shook her head and laughed at Racetrack's ever-so-subtle hint, she found herself concerned more with thoughts of her friends than with the headlines of the afternoon. She absently exchanged papers for coins as she considered the gifts she hoped to get for her friends—although she wasn't sure how she would manage to procure them. Maybe a new pack of cards for Race; his deck is getting old, she pondered. Ivy could use a new hair ribbon, and I could try to find a pair of new shoelaces for Mush (even though he really could use new shoes). Bumlets's smiling image flashed before her eyes, but this only served to make t he girl more pensive. She and Bumlets had been shyly romantic for the passed few months; a quick kiss on the cheek and holding hands during the walk home from a show at Irving Hall were the most they had experienced. Even so, Midnight could not quell the tremors that rushed up and down her spine when he cast her a brilliant smile across the bunkroom.
The voice of a customer interjected into her thoughts and brought a crimson blush of to the newsgirl's cheeks. "One paper, if you please."
"Certainly, she replied and fumbled for a paper. Embarrassed that she had been caught daydreaming (and finding herself fortunate that anyone had even noticed her despite her unusual silence), she mumbled, "Great article on page nine about a dog with—" She was never able to finish her comment for at that moment she glanced up from her papers and into eyes she recognized both a long time ago and the mirror that morning.
"Da…Dad…" she murmured as she studied the depths of the blue-green eyes, the strength of the chin and the beauty of the carved cheekbones. His clothing was a little more tattered than she had remembered it, but she attributed it to the face that he had undoubtedly been working hard. He heart leapt into her throat and pounded so madly that she imagined it could be heard by the Bronx newsies.
He blinked once before his jaw fell half open. "Jill?" he asked in amazement. The sound of her name rolling off of his tongue was glorious. "Is that really you, honey?"
She nodded as a wide smile suffused across her face. "Yeah, it's me."
"How are you? What are you doing here?" He placed a hand on her shoulder. Midnight wished for a firm embrace but settled for this subtle show of affection. "I thought you were staying with your Uncle Louis."
She called the stoic balding man with a distant fondness. "No, not anymore. He died a little while ago. I'm a newsie now." She displayed her papers. "It's a good way to make a living." She did not want to talk about herself. She wanted to hear everything about her father—what he had done, what he was doing, what his plans were. "When did you get to New York?"
"Oh, about a week ago." He bit at the corner of his lower lip and raised his eyes to the sky—a habit that Midnight herself possessed when she was considering something other than what she was talking about. He glanced at the giant clock above the doors of a nearby bank and, turning back to Midnight, grinned pleasantly. "What's say I take I you out for dinner? It's getting late and I bet you haven't had anything yet."
She shook her head, then nodded, confused about the proper gesture to make in response. "That sounds great, Dad."
"Come on, then. I know a great spot. We can fill each other in on what's been happening over hot chocolates—you still like hot chocolate, right? You used to love it." He offered his arm and guided her down the sidewalk as though he were escorting a debutante to a Christmas ball.
Midnight found it difficult to answer the simple question. She could only nod and listen to his cheerful rambling as she walked with her father down the sidewalk.
*****
The hot chocolate was rich and thick, warming Midnight to her toes that had curled like cashews in the cold. She sipped delicately at the steaming liquid, half due to the heat and half because she wanted this dinner to last as long as possible. "So, you've been traveling?"
Midnight's father nodded and took a large bite of his roast beef sandwich. "Yep. I tell you, the winters in Florida are like nothing else. Nothing like Maine. Orange trees growing all over—you can just step outside and pick your breakfast. You'd love it there. And the trains take you all the way out west now. Can you believe that? You can see the plains and the mountains, listen to the coyotes, smell that ocean."
"There's an ocean on this side of the country, too," Midnight reminded him gently.
"Sure, sure, but the Pacific is clean and pure. It's nothing like being at the habors here." He sighed and leaned back in his chair. Sensing a lull in the conversation, Midnight gathered her courage and was about to speak when a buxom waitress approached the table.
"More coffee, Mike?" she asked with a smile.
He raised his mug. "Why not?" Once the waitress had refilled his cup and left, Midnight's father began to speak. "So Jill, how do you like New York? Quite the city, huh?"
"Oh, it's great. It's very different from home"—she furrowed her forehead for a second, realizing that she had not referred to Maine as home in quite a long time—"but I like it. The newsies are all great. It's almost like having a real family, which is a lot more than I can say for a lot of street kids; and we make good money. And there aren't just New York kids, either. My best friend, Cricket, is from England."
Mike chuckled warmly. "Close, personal friends with the Queen, is she?"
"Well, she'd say so. But most of us wouldn't let her get away with it."
"It sounds like you've got a good group of friends here."
Midnight nodded and took another sip of hot chocolate as though to prepare her for what she wanted to ask. "Yeah, I really do. I'm lucky." She drew a quiet, short breath and studied her drink as she murmured, "So what are you doing in the city, Dad?"
Her father looked at his sandwich, rather than at his daughter, and swallowed the last bite. "Delicious," he remarked and smiled contentedly. Midnight was about to repeat her inquiry when he rested his eyes on her once again. "What am I doing here? Oh, I had heard about this job in a factory—not your everyday factory worker job, mind you, but something better than that. I don't have a place yet; right now I'm staying with friends. I'd have asked you back there but…" he trailed off as though he either thought the rest inconsequential or did not know how to finish.
She chewed her sandwich thoughtfully. "So…you're planning to stay here? For a while, right?"
His cheerful grin slid slightly and he coughed, cursing the intense heat of his coffee. "Sure, sure. If the job works out, of course. It won't be forever, unless it gets better and, well, you never know how those things go. But it sounds to me like it's a great job, so who knows?"
Midnight stared into the creamy brown liquid chocolate and wished that it was a crystal ball. She silently wished that her father would find success and happiness in this prospective job. The possibility of the future warmed her like the rich drink she clutched in her slightly trembling hands.
To be continued…please review!