"Freckles…"
"Oh Freckles darling…" Three ragged boys took turns shouting up at the open second floor window of a shabby apartment building. If you looked closely you could see
just the toes of a pair of beat-up boots in the lower corner as if someone was using the sill as a footrest.
"I know you can hear us." The boots vanished as their owner quickly yanked them from sight.
"Freckles! Freckles! Come outside would you?" Still no answer came from the window.
"Leenie! Don't make me use your full name." No face emerged as the boy had probably expected.
"OK then, I will." He took as deep breath, ready to go through with his threat. "EVELEEN ISAD-" A teenage girl materialized in the window with a scowl on her face
and hands defiantly gripping the peeling wooden sill.
"SHUSH!" She shouted down to the blond ragamuffin who loved to push her buttons. He in turn, stopped announcing her entire name to the entire neighborhood,
but not before grinning wickedly up at her. "I could smack that grin off of your face."
"Aww, you love me doll." He kept grinning as her scowl deepened. "Why won't you come out with us, come down here would you?" The other two boys nodded in agreement.
"I have a reputation to uphold, you scoundrel. I also have other things to do besides wander the streets; I was trying to write a story." With that, his expression
turned from mocking to intrigued. "But I suppose you don't want to hear it." She turned her back to the trio and started to walk away.
"Leenie! I was just kidding, what's it about?" He seemed to plead with her.
"The usual, adventures and things." She sounded disinterested. The blond boy turned to the others, one was wearing a peculiar cowboy hat, the other was diminutive,
his raven black hair slicked to his head. The cowboy smirked.
"Freckles, can we hear one?" The short boy questioned loudly.
"I suppose." She answered off-handedly. "If you want to climb all the way up."
But the brash blond had already grabbed the lowest rung of the rickety fire escape and was hoisting himself up. It was the girl's turn to grin. "You are ridiculous, you
know that don't you?" She smirked as they made their way up the rusty structure, heavy boots clanking on the metal. Her hair was collected in a long, tight braid but
her thin hair came loose and wispy flyaways surrounded her face. She pulled a small leather notebook out of a pocket in her apron, stained with jams, doughs, crèmes
and most of all flour. She looked up to find all three staring at her; the most rambunctious was already lifting his leg as if to climb in the window.
"Slow down there Conlon." She teased. "You know the rules."
"Just trying my luck there Freckles." He smirked and sat down on the landing with Jack on the first step and Racetrack leaning on the railing a bit farther down.
She threw open the window sash as far as it would go and climbed over to still on the wide sill with her scuffed boots dangling, she flicked through multiple pages until
she opened the notebook wide to a page of her slanted, cursive handwriting.
"Night had just fallen over the desert…" She began to spin her tale, her heavily speckled face growing more animated with every twist and turn.
The three boys intently listened in awe and for a few minutes forgot that their fingers were permanently stained with ink, that they had barely twenty cents between
them or that not one of them had eaten that day. Her tales of adventure, pirates, vast oceans, sprawling deserts and brave cowboys transported them from the dank,
disgusting streets of the slums to far off lands.
A slip of a girl who worked at a bakery with wispy hair, millions of freckles and an untamable imagination had even Spot Conlon forgetting they were only street rats for
a few glorious moments.