In 1899 the newsboys of New York went on strike against Joseph Pulitzer. What those boys did gave people all over the city hope and courage, including the girls of New York who were banned from selling newspapers. After they had seen what these boys had done, it had given them courage, and finally, they stood up for themselves.

"Time to put on the disguise." I said as I put on the few articles of boy clothing that I owned. Everything was baggy enough to hide my lack of girlish figure. The last item was a hat. I didn't wear the hat to cover handfuls of hair. I learned long ago to keep my hair as short as I could, because you never know when a swift wind will knock your hat straight off and reveal your secret. I wore the hat to hide the horrible hack job I did cutting my own hair off. I looked in the mirror and sighed. I may not have been an attractive looking fellow, but at lease I looked somewhat like a boy. It would just have to do. I made my way down the creaky stairs of my old apartment building and out the door.

"Stop pushing!"
"Ow, that's my toe!"
"Cut it out!" The three guys in front of me were acting like children, mostly because they were children.
"HEY, hey, hey! Break it up!" That was Jack Kelly, leader of Manhattan newsboys. Everyone respected him in one way or another.
There was a commotion coming from just outside the front gates. I ran towards the crowd to see what the problem was.

"I'm sorry miss but you aren't allowed in there." A stout man with glasses was trying to redirect a young woman.
"I just want to sell newspapers. I don't see what the problem is." The redhead replied, trying to get around the man.
" Everyone knows girls aren't aloud to sell."
" Why not?!?"
" Cause those are just the rules. I'm sorry but you aren't aloud, now please leave." The red head spit on the shoes of the man and stormed away.
"That's the fourth one this week." I heard Jack Kelly say. I shook my head. This city was such a disgrace when it came to equality. I turned around and went back into line.
My selling day was slow. I managed to sell 20 of the 25 I bought. At the end of the day, I returned to the distribution center to get my money back on the ones I didn't sell. On my way back to my hole in the wall, I saw the girl from earlier that day sitting on the side of the street. I was tempted to just walk away, but what she did intrigued me so much I had to go talk to her. I slowly approached the girl.
"Excuse me, miss?" The redhead looked up, but said nothing.
"Hi, I'm Amanda. I saw you at the distribution center earlier. You put on quite a show." She waited for a reaction from the girl. It came a second later.
"If you liked that performance, wait till you see tomorrows." She smiled. I sat down beside her.
"I can't wait. Just be careful. If you turn into a problem, they will arrest you." She smirked.
" They have to catch me first." We both giggled.
"Can I ask you something personal?"
"Sure."

"Why don't you just hide the fact that you're a girl and sell papers that way. Some people get away with it." She shook her head.
"I shouldn't have to. I should have the same rites as those boys." I felt a bit embarrassed and ashamed that I had hid myself, but shook my head, silently agreeing with her.
"Well I have to get home, so I guess I'll see you tomorrow." I stood up and started to walk away.
"And hey, by the way, My names Robyn." I nodded and kept going.

The next day, while in line for my papers, I heard someone shouting outside the distribution center. I walked over the crowd that was beginning to form and saw a familiar face. It was the Robyn girl that I had met the day before. What I saw shocked me. Robyn had a sign that read: Pulitzer is a sexist bastard. There were many gasps around the crowd as Robyn started chanting this while the stout man from the day before was trying to get the sign away from her. Pulitzer would not like this. It wouldn't be long before someone from the distribution center came out to teach her a lesson. Second after I thought about who would be sent to deal with this problem, the Delancy brothers came out and basically pulled Robyn out of the crowd and behind the distribution center. By the time the crowd cleared enough for me to follow Robyn, the Delancy brothers were on their way back, without Robyn. I knew that whatever happened couldn't be good.
When I got to the back of the distribution center, Robyn was just getting up. She had a black eye and a bloody lip.
"Are you alright?" I think I may have startled her, she jumped when she heard my voice.
"Oh, yea. It's just a bloody lip. I'll be all right. What are you doing back here?" She said as she straightened out her clothes.
"I saw them take you back here and I just wanted to make sure you weren't dead or anything. Your lucky that all they gave you was a bloody lip and black eye. They have been known to do much worse."
"Luck has nothing to do with it. They were only assigned to scare me." She sounded so sure of herself, which confused me.
"If you knew they were going to do this, then why did you go ahead and put on that little show out front."
"Look, lets not get to deep into this. It's just something I felt like I had to do. I mean, no one else is saying what they want about this damn situation, so I thought I'd put my two cents in." I dropped the subject.
" Well I have to get back and get my papers, will you be alright?" I asked
"Yea, I'll be fine." I nodded and started to walk away.
"So, hey, do you mind if I crash at your place tonight? I'd feel safer sleeping somewhere with a lock on the door." I turned around. In her state I didn't want her staying on the street at night, she was slowly becoming public enemy number one.
"Sure, although the lock isn't much good. It pops off a lot. Just meet me here around 7." Robyn just laughed, I thought she was a bit insane. I went off and got my papers. I ended up selling one more than the day before. By the time I made it back to the distribution center, it was near 7 and Robyn was no where in site. I sat down right in front of the center to wait for Robyn. Ten minutes later she showed up. The black eye from earlier had gotten a little worse, but other than that, she looked the same way she did earlier, a bit startled and shaky.
"Hey, I wasn't to sure you were gonna show." I shrugged my shoulders.
"I didn't want you to be spending the night on the streets, especially after this morning. Lets go, it's this way." So we walked, silently, to my place. When we got there, she stood in the doorway.
"You can come in, you know." I sat on the floor, against on of the walls. I didn't have very much, I didn't even have furniture.
"Are you sure? I feel like if I sneeze, this whole place is going to fall down." She slowly came in. I chuckled.
"I know it's not much, but it's a place with a roof and heat, sometimes." Robyn sat beside me.
"How do you afford it though. I mean, living off of the newspapers may pay some, but I know it doesn't pay enough to afford this place, even though it's falling apart."
"My uncle pays for part of it."
"Does he live here?" I shook my head.
"He moved to New Jersey about a year ago. He tried to get me to go with him, but eventually he said I could stay here, as long as I followed his rules."
"What are his rules?"

"I have to work, I have to save my money as much as I can, so I can afford the other half of this place, and I have to call him once a month to let him know I'm still alive and living here. In return, he sends the landlord enough to cover what I can't of the rent."
"Nice deal. Wish I had an uncle like that."
"Yeah. Anyway, there are some blankets and an extra pillow in the closet. You can sleep on the mattress in the other room, I'll take the floor."
"Thanks." I went and fixed up my little floor area to sleep on. I was about to go to bed.
"What are you doing?" Robyn came in the room.
"I was about to go to bed." She just tsk tsk'd me and pulled out a bottle of vodka.
"What is that?" I asked, knowing perfectly well what it was.
"Just something to warm us up for then night."
"And where did you get it? No, wait, I don't wanna know." Robyn smirked. She sat down beside me, took a drink from the bottle and passed it to me. I smelled it and sighed before taking a drink from it. The taste made my face scrunch up and it left a burning sensation in my throat. Robyn laughed.
"That effect will go away after awhile. That's when you know your drunk." I laughed and passed her the bottle. We sat there, drinking and talking for about an hour. I was starting to pass out, and just started to stare at my shoes when I got an idea. With my speech slurred, I tried to say what if we did what Jack Kelly did. But, of course, that's not how it came out.
"What if we did Jack Kelly?" Robyn started to laugh, and, once I realized what I said, I did to.
"No no no, that's not what I meant. I meant, what if we did what Jack Kelly did, with the strike." I managed to say, in between giggles. Robyn just sighed.
"Keep dreaming kid, good night." With that, Robyn crawled onto the mattress and I laid on the floor. The moment my head hit the pillow, I was out. However, what I said had gotten Robyn to thinking.
The next morning, Robyn was up before I was, and I was usually up pretty earlier. Before I knew it, I heard a voice trying to wake me up.
"Hey, wake up, I figured it out. Hey, Amanda, wake up!" I slowly opened my eyes and saw an enthusiastic look on her face.
"What do you want? It's to early to be up." I pulled the blanket over my head.
"Ah, suck it up. I said I figured it out, now get up!" I just made a noise and tried to bury my head into my pillow even more. Robyn wouldn't stand for this, she had something to say and wanted someone to listen to her. She got a good grip on my blanket and pulled it straight off.
"OH jeez!" I said in cold shock.
"Up please!" Robyn said, sounding all cheerful. I slowly sat up, trying to get my blanket back from her.
"Fine, I'm up, now what did you figure out?" I said with a yawn.
"Last night you suggested that we do what Jack Kelly did. Well I figured out a way we could. I'm not sure it will work, but it's worth a shot, right?" Still half a sleep and semi-confused I just gave her a blank look.
"Ok, I'll put this into easy words for you. We gather all New York girls that want to sell. We gather all newsboys that will join us. We go on a massive strike to make Pulitzer let us sell newspapers."
"But, we can't go on strike if we aren't suppose to be selling. Pulitzer won't care." Robyn just started shaking her head.
"No, see, all we have to do is get under his skin. C'mon, I mean if Jack Kelly can change things around here, why can't we, right?" I shook my head.
"Cause we are women with no power that aren't wanted to do this job." I said with a yawn and started crawling into my bed where Robyn placed the blanket. Haha, I thought, I get my blanket back. Robyn just tapped my back.
"That's the spirit! Now I figure it will take a while to organize and to find all the girls out there and it will take forever to get the boys to see our side, but at least we have a head quarters. I'm gonna go out now, I'll be at the distribution center around 7 again, bye!" With that she ran out of the apartment. Ha, I get to go back to sleep. Wait.did she say.
"What do you mean we have a head quarters?" I heard her laugh in the hallway. Man, I just got sucked into this. Hmm.sleep.I enjoyed sleep, but I knew I had to get up anyways, so ten minutes later I awoke with a jump, and almost fell off my mattress. My head was spinning and I knew that if I ate anything, it would just come back up, so I slowly just washed up, put on all my newsie clothing, and made my way to the distribution center.
Thanks to my lovely hangover, the day seemed to go on forever. I had to many things to think about and to many questions for Robyn, and I wouldn't see her till 7 that night. What was I suppose to do with all my questions till then?
The morning seemed to go on forever. It was a really windy day and about half a dozen times I had to chase down my papers that the wind would blow away. No one was really buying, so I only managed to sell half of the papers that I could catch. Lunch came and lunch went and for the 7th time that day, I had to chase down my papers. I caught most of them but there was one that just wouldn't let me catch it. Just when I thought I had lost it, I saw a tall blond girl come out of nowhere and snatch it from the wind.
"Hey, excuse me miss, may I have my paper?" I shouted as I ran towards her. She looked at me.
"I'll sell it to ya for a penny." I couldn't believe it, she was trying to sell me my own paper.
"Or, you could just give it back to me. See, the wind blew it away before I could catch it and I was just about to get it back before you caught it." She gave me a 'I-don't-think-so' look.
"The only way I'm going to give this to you is if you pay for it." She stood her ground.
"But I already paid for it once, at the distribution center. Please just give me my paper." I was exhausted from chasing it down.
"No. If it was yours, you should have taken better care of it and not let the wind blow it away. Now it's mine, I gotta make a living somehow, sorry."
"Why don't you just go to the distribution center and buy your own papers to sell?"
"Because they won't sell papers to me. If you hadn't noticed, I'm a girl." She said really smart-ass like. Just then, a light bulb went on in my head.
"Hey, you're a girl." She just gave me a blank look.
"Yes, yes I am, ok then." She started to walk away.
"No, wait. I mean, my friend and I came up with an idea and I think you could help." I proceeded to tell her about Robyn's idea. She seemed to have a confused look on her face for most of it.
"So, what do you think? Are you interested in helping us out?"
" I dunno. It seems kinda far-fetched, no offense. But how are you going to get Pulitzer to even care? It would take a miracle for all that to work." I understood her doubt. I felt the same way.
"Look, I know it seems kinda out their, but just come and talk to my friend Robyn. You don't have to definitely agree to help us. Just come and see for yourself what were trying to do and if you still have your doubts, you can leave any time. By the way, my name's Amanda." I stuck out my hand to shake hers.
"I'm Nicole. Ok, I'll go check it out, but I'm still not giving you your paper back." I chuckled and then sighed. There goes one paper. So we walked to the distribution center and I saw Robyn standing there, talking to two other girls.
"Hey, you're here early." I said to Robyn.
"Yeah, well I found these two girls and told them about our idea. They liked it, so we walked here. This is Dainti and Onyx. They're from Brooklyn. Who did you find?"
"Oh, this is Nicole." We all shook hands.
"I'm from Manhattan." Nicole replied.
"Well, since this wind isn't letting up, why don't we all head back to my place so we can talk about this strike thing." They all agreed and we all started to head back to my apartment. The only ones who really talked the whole way there were Robyn and I. I hoped that everyone would get more talkative when we reached my apartment.
We reached my apartment and got the three girls settled. In silence, we sat for a few minutes, until someone broke the silence.
" Ok, so now were here, what's this whole girls strike thing about?" Dainti asked, kinda annoyed. Robyn looked and me and gave me a 'well-go- ahead-and-tell-them' look.
"Ok, well we were thinking about how unfair it was that the women of this city were being discriminated against by the distribution centers. So we decided that we would personally do something about it." The girls just gave me a hopeless look.
"I know it sounds impossible. I even have doubts about it, but then I remembered the strike that happened a while ago, with Jack Kelly and the newsboys and how they forced Pulitzer to change his mind about raising the prices of the papers. So, if Jack Kelly could do that, then why can't we?"

"It's simple, this is a different situation. First off, we're girls. No one is gonna care what 5 girls think or do. I bet we're all in the refuge by the end of the first day." Onyx stated.
"Well we won't be just 5 girls once we find more of them. I know that there are a lot of them out there, we just have to find them. Pulitzer may not care right now what we think or do, so we have to make him care. We have to come up with ways to show him that we aren't going anywhere and that we have what it takes to win this fight." Robyn inputted.
"Right. So to start this, what we have to do is find other girls around New York that want to sell newspapers. We have to find them and convince them that this cause is worth while and worth fighting for. Since there are five of us, I say each one goes to a different borough and finds as many girls as we can. We can meet back here at the end of each day, and decided where to go from there."
"Whoa, hold on there. I don't even know if I think this is a cause worth fighting for. I mean, think about it. Once we do get Pulitzer's attention, it could be worse than right now. I mean, he'll send people after us to silence us. We don't know how to fight, we don't have the muscle." Nicole interjected. Robyn stood up.
"How could you not realized that this is worth fighting for. We are fighting for equality here. If we don't stand up for the women of this city, no one else will." Nicole stood up and was face to face with Robyn while Onyx, Dainti and I just sat there and watched.
"If we stand up, they will knock us down. Once we show them we aren't going away, they will silence us by any means possible and I don't know about you but I don't have a death wish. * sigh* Look, all I'm asking for is for you to give me a reason to stay and fight." Nicole said that and sat back down. We all sat in silence, wondering what to say, wondering who will say it.
"You want a reason. Here's a reason. Look five years into the future where you will be expected to marry someone and stay home to raise his children while he is at work making the money. You're sitting in your room, silently crying to yourself because you're not happy. On the surface maybe, but deep down inside you're not happy. You feel restricted to a simple life. You're looking at your daughter while she sleeps, thinking wow; she is going to be smart and important to society. But wait, how will she be important to society if the only thing she will be raised to do, is become a housewife. We aren't just doing this for us; we are doing this for the future of this city. You help us now and it can help that little girl in the future." I looked at Nicole and saw that I had struck a chord. I silently patted myself on the pack, while I took a deep breath. The mood in the room took a drastic turn from doubt to sadness because we all knew what I had said was right. The only thing that girls were molded to do was keep a house and raise children.
"Alright, so I'm convinced, lets get working on a plan or something." Dainti stated. Onyx nodded and looked over at Nicole. All eyes seemed to be on her.
"So what do you say Nicole?" I asked. She looked at me.
"I'm in. But are you ready to give that speech again, because I guarantee that there will more girls who feel like me and are gonna need convincing. How many times are you prepared to do that. How many times are you prepared to take the leader role?"
"As many times as I have to." I stated. At that moment there was a understanding that went through the whole room. The five of us were in this till the end, whenever that would be.
"Well alright then. Let's get to work. Now, I know there are five of us, but I think we should send two to the Bronx and three to Harlem. Then the two that went to the Bronx can go to Brooklyn, the other three can go to Queens and then we do Manhattan together. I think that's the safest for us all." Robyn had a good point. We agreed that Dainti, Robyn and Nicole would go to Harlem and Queens and Onyx and I would go to the Bronx and then Brooklyn. I let the four of them stay the night at my place, so we could all get an early start. The next day we all woke up and basically said our good byes while making our way to our certain districts.

Rose Sweet Anne - Brooklyn Fantasy - Bronx Dainti - Manhattan CC RESULTS Nightingale - Queens

Gypsy- find her in Harlem

Onyx- Brooklyn

Doll Face- Brooklyn

Sparrow -Manhattan

Sneaks- Brooklyn

Rain McGowan- Bronx

Nike - Harlem

Linly "Pinch" Silverio - Brooklyn