Disclaimer: I don't own Newsies. I don't own Skittery, I don't own Tumbler. I don't own Mush, Jack or Snipeshooter. I don't own old ladies and I don't own rain. I don't own bridges and I don't own home. I don't own anything but the plot.
A/N: I wrote this a long time ago and I published it once, but then took it down. But it's back up and now! Please read it all the way to the new ending, and I hope you all like it.
(And, I would love a review. Even if it's just to say you hate it, I need some feedback please!)
"You cryin' Skittery?" Mush asks.
I don't move. Maybe if I ignore him he'll go away.
"You cryin' Skittery? Huh?" The jerk keeps talking.
"Leave me alone," My voice cracks. I hate that it does, but it does.
"Why you cryin'?"
"Leave me alone!"
The tears are hot and wet on my face. My throat burns and I want to scream as loud as I can.
"Why you cryin'?" He asks softly. He's trying to be nice, I know. He thinks people want to be bothered when they cry. He spends too much time with his girlfriends. "Why you cryin'?"
"Tumbler!" I yell.
He jerks back. He knew Tumbler was sick but he had gone selling this morning so he wasn't there when it happened. He wasn't there when he died. He liked the kid, I know. I shoulda broke it nicer but he deserved it. The little jerk just don't know when to shut up.
"He's gone," I whisper, "Now leave me in peace,"
Mush finally slinks away.
I let my head slump down and let the anger tear through my body. That stupid kid had to go get himself sick. He was a good kid, too. He didn't complain as much as the other boys his age. He could hold his own, you know?
I had watched him go pale and limp. His little chest stopped heaving up and down and the sweat stopped trickling down his face.
I hadn't cried then.
I just wrapped the little kid up in my blanket and held him until the doctor got there. They took him away from me and said they'd let us know where they buried him. It didn't seem right to watch him leave with those people. He was good with strangers, but he didn't like being alone with them. I was so stupid at that moment, I called them back and gave them my stupid walking stick because he'd always wanted it. I actually thought he'd feel better if he had it when he left.
I'm an idiot.
Why do I care so much? I've seen lots of little kids die, my own brother included. He was only six when he died, he and my mother and father all in one long terrible week. No one knew how I managed to live through the sickness but I did. I did and I moved on. That's what you do. That's what every stupid person in the world does. I survived, and I made a life for myself as a newsboy at the age of thirteen.
Then that little kid stumbled down in front of me and skinned his knee.
It was right here, where I'm sitting now. In front of the butchers and across from the flower shop.
He was sitting there, holding his knee and letting the shiny tears fill his brown eyes and sniffling. This old lady was right there watching. She had on one of those big hats puffed-up woman like to wear, and she carried an umbrella and a heavy purse. The package she was holding smelled real nice and warm, like cinnamon or ginger cookies. You know what that stupid old woman did? She shoved the kid out of her way with her umbrella.
Like he was a dog.
I bet she's someone's grandma, too. I bet she lets her clean little grandchildren climb onto her lap and eat cookies and drink tea. But not this kid. This kid she just shoved into the gutter.
When I helped the kid up, and he grinned this crooked grin at me behind all his tears and I saw something in him that reminded me of my own little brother. He said he didn't know where his father was but his 'mum' was drunk and he didn't want to be with her anymore, so he had run away. He was so funny when he said it, too. All smiles, all British. It was a big, grand game to him.
So I kept him.
Like a little pet or something.
I didn't keep him with me all the time or anything, I'm not some pervert who fell for a little a kid. I just wanted to make sure this kid made it. It was late fall that day he fell in front of me, and winter was coming on hard. I didn't want to see his starved body in some alley. He was so little, I was sure he wouldn't make it, so I took him back to the Lodging House with me. I sold with him for a long while. He was good for business. His cute little face got all the ladies stopping and buying a paper with their nickels, and dimes and not caring when Tumbler said he didn't have change.
Boy, that kid knew how to work the fact he was small.
I could hear myself crying. I must look real strange. A boy of eighteen, perched on a curb in Little Italy, crying his stupid eyes out. The butcher is eyeing me carefully but I think he recognizes me because he doesn't chase me off.
I see shoes and I glare up at whoever it is.
It's Jack.
"Mush said ya was here," Jack says trying to hand me his lit cigarette. I shove it away, Tumbler kept telling me he didn't want me to smoke. Didn't want me to drink. "Come on Skittery, ya need to get inside."
"No I don't, I'm fine. Leave me alone. I told Mush to leave me alone, he shouldn'ta gone off and told you where I was,"
"He waited 'till Kloppman started asking about you. Come on, it's gettin' dark, and it looks like it's gonna rain."
I stare at him. I hadn't realized it was so late. I feel like it had just happened.
"Leave me alone,"
Jack looks me over for a while more.
"Alright," He says turning away. He's not like Mush, he can take a hint.
I keep sitting. It's getting real cold. I hug myself and just keep crying.
I'm broken.
I'm broken and I won't ever stop. I'll keep sitting and crying until I die of thirst or something. Even if it does start raining I'll keep my mouth shut. I won't let even a single stupid drip of water into my mouth. That way I'll die that much sooner, that much quicker.
I don't know how long passes, but when I feel someone's hand on my shoulder I realize it's dark and starting to mist.
The hand belongs to the butcher's wife.
She has to be a billion years old, but she kneels down next to me and asks if the 'little child' is alright.
I want to slap her wrinkled face. He milky eyes stare into mine and she just asks like she has some right to know about Tumbler. She was one of those ladies that loved him so much, would give him a dime and let him skip out on change.
"He's fine," I say glaring at her ugly face. She's sprouting long dark whiskers on her bone colored chin. "He got sick, he died, they buried him and he's fine."
I start crying again. I hate how much I'm crying. It's like I'm nine years old.
Tumbler didn't even make it to nine years old, you know?
At least if I cry a lot, I'll die of thirst that much quicker.
I feel the old woman's bony hands on my arms. I look into her dim eyes and see them filled with tears.
"My youngest died when he was ten, and my son Oliver took it the hardest. He took his own life because of the grief." She whispers, "Don't do anything like that, son."
Son. I hate when people call me 'son'. Only two people ever had the right to call me son and both of them are long dead.
Like Tumbler.
I hadn't even thought of taking my own life until the old lady said not to. I start thinking it over then. Why not? I could be with Tumbler, and my parents, and my little brother. The old lady rubs my back a little then goes inside.
Sometimes it makes me glad that people have this need to compare everything around them with their life and then have to share it with you. Have to teach you some great awe-inspiring lesson they dug from their minds.
I stand and head for the Brooklyn Bridge, silently thanking the old lady for mentioning suicide. The whole walk my mind is filled one thought, I'm going home.
I lean over the railing and watch the swirling East River. I start to wonder what would kill me first, the impact of the water, or drowning after? I hope hitting the water, because I've always been afraid of drowning, feeling the water fill your lungs. Defeated by something like that.
I climb up so I'm perched on the rail and stare down into the water.
The bar is slick and my shoes slip a little, but I stand up.
The mist is hitting me sharp in the face, pushing me back. Like little knives telling me to stay here. I'm not going to.
I'm going home.
I close my eyes and let the wind shove at my face one last time.
"Skittery?"
I flinch. I turn around I see him. Tumbler. He's standing back a few feet but I can see a shadow that I know is him. It has to be him.
"Tumbler?"I croak, my voice thin, "Is... Is that you, kid?"
"No, it's Snipeshooter."
I blink back my tears and squat on the rail, trying to squint through the mist. It is Snipeshooter. He's too tall to be Tumbler. Why did I think it was Tumbler? I'm so stupid. What did I think? He'd come back from the dead?
Snipeshooter is looking at me hard now. I can't tell if he knows what I was doing or not.
I hop down off the rail, back to the bridge. Shame is slamming it's fist into my face. I almost did it, too. I almost jumped.
I almost killed myself.
Snipeshooter smiles a little; nervous, and cautious. "Let's go home," He says. I start to tell Snipeshooter to go without me, but he steps toward me, squinting hard. "We could all go around and talk about him, huh?" He says, "We could maybe all talk about Tumbler? Like a funeral."
I feel the stupid tears in my throat but I hold them down.
He had called the Lodging House 'home'. Why? He'd never called it that before, had he?
Maybe he had. Maybe they all called it home, except for me. I've been pushing the newsies away hard enough that it hasn't been home for me. The newsies hadn't been family. Except for Tumbler.
Tumbler had been the only one I let it, but that didn't mean the other's didn't care. Maybe I don't have to die just to live. Maybe home will always be right here.
With my family.
"Yeah, Snipes. I'd like that." I tell him, "Let's go home." I like the taste of the words, so I say it one more time:
"Let's go home."
A/N: Spare a review?