SPOT

I had always known I was avoided a little bit by the other newsies for being from Brooklyn, especially Jackie boy, but being snubbed because of it hurt. I laughed a little, leaning on the iron railing atop the fire escape. Someday, when the strike was over and I could afford more marbles, Jackie boy was gonna get one right 'tween the eyes. Then would he insult Brooklyn?

I stared out into the ink-black night sky, scattered with diamond stars. They were hard to see from all the 'Hattan haze. In Brooklyn, when you laid on the wet sand with the tide pounding behind you, you could see as clearly as if you were an angel in heaven.

So Brooklyn had its faults. I still loved it. But stupid Pulitzer had to raise the price of the papes, and Jackie boy convinced his newsies to strike. He'd sent Boots and Walking Mouth over to the Piers and told me about it. I'd saved 'Hattan's butts more than once. As my reward, I couldn't head back to Brooklyn until the strike was over.

It could go on for weeks. Months. Years. Brooklyn was just too far away to walk back and forth every single lousy day, and who knew when I would see the Piers again?

I choked and turned away from the railing to face a girl. Great. This was not what I needed. Girls seemed to love me and I didn't want to deal with more moony eyes. "What are ya doin' out here?" I said, sounding more hostile than I'd meant to. Then I saw her face.

Whoa.

She was tall and slender while being two or three inches shorter than me. The golden hair that tumbled down her slim shoulders was lit from behind by the lights of the mansion; it looked like a crown. Her eyes, blue-gray like the Atlantic Ocean that surrounded the Piers in Brooklyn, were blazing with happiness.

She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my entire life. And that was saying a lot. She looked like a queen.

Her scarlet lips tugged at a smile. "Jack told me you were out here. I've always wanted to talk to you."

"Really?" I said, my mood changing like lightning at the mention of Jackie boy's name. I scowled. "Ya knows who I am?"

"Spot Conlon?" She crossed and stood next to me on the fire escape. She was dressed rather unorthodoxly, in a white shirtwaist and a scandalously short red knee-length skirt. "King of Brooklyn?"

I nodded. What was wrong with me? Why was I talking to her? She was just another girl who adored me- there were hundreds. Especially after word of Brooklyn showing up and saving 'Hattan thanks to the great judgement of yours truly- "Never fear, Brooklyn's here!" I'd said. Every girl in the city had headed to the Piers. I'd had to break out the cane. Apparently that made them even more goo-goo eyed. Brooklyn had had a field day

"And you are?" I said.

She spit in her hand and held it out. I grinned, spit in my own hand, and shook her outstretched hand. Her touch was soft, light, feathery. "Grace Johnson. But call me Gracie. That's what my friends all do."

"So what's a nice goil like ya doin' at Kloppman's?" I asked, trying for polite conversation instead of busting out the slingshot.

"Oh, I'm a newsie." Gracie stared morosely into the distance.

"Ya don't sound too excited about that."

Gracie laughed. It was short, and sounded a little rusty, as if she hadn't had cause to laugh in a long time. "Well. My family all died, and I heard this was the easiest way to make a living. So here I am. I never really wanted to work in Manhattan. All these boys, just interested in-" She blushed. "I've always wanted to sell in- in Brooklyn, actually."

I was thrilled. Somebody else who loved Brooklyn besides us newsies! "Will you, then? Brooklyn's pretty great."

"I'd love to." Gracie paused. "If you'll have me. If I'm not too much trouble. If this strike ever ends. If all the boys there are different-"

"You're no trouble at all, we really need ya, and all the kids are real nice," I said immediately. "You're gonna love Brooklyn. But it'll be hard, ya know. It's tough enough for us boys, but you're a goil. I don't know. If ya really want to, ya'll make it.

Gracie looked at me- a good, hard look. "You really love it, don't you?"

"Best place on earth," I answered, smiling at the mention of it.

"What's so great about it?"

I was lost in a dream world. "It's just papes and sun and sky and water. Especially water, everywhere. And goils. They make great goils in Brooklyn. And ya can be whoever ya want, as long as ya want, and nobody will stop ya, and, and. . . . There's no greater sound than a marble hittin' a glass bottle, and that's all ya hear in Brooklyn. Or the way your blood drips on the cobblestones for the foist time. . . ."

I was gone, floating above the clouds. Brooklyn was the tough borough for a reason. We trained newsies from a young age how to soak a scab, and soak 'em good. When you were an orphan in a scary, dangerous part of New York where you could get killed if you weren't careful... well. We had to be tough, or else we'd be dead. All the other boroughs looked up to us. They saw us as an unstoppable army. Reinforcements. We made or broke the strike.

Gracie gave me another grin. I came crashing down from my Brooklyn fantasies and into the real world. "Wanna know why I love Brooklyn?"

I indulged in a smile. The first in a long time. "Sure."

"My great-grandparents came over here from England, past Ellis Island. They had second thoughts about America when my great-grandmother got mugged five minutes into their new lives. Then they looked into the horizon-"

At my confused look, she clarified. "The place where sea meets sky. It was purple and gold and orange and blue. All the colors bled together. Then they saw the Piers and the rest of Brooklyn, and then they had hope. They knew living with anything that beautiful was worth everything they had suffered."

"Wow," I said. "That's. . . different."

She gave a rueful smile. "Sorry. I get a little wrapped up in stories. History is just so fascinating to me. If it weren't for me being a woman, I'd love to be an archaeologist." The smile turned bitter. "At least I'll get to tell stories to my kids. If I have any."

"Pretty goil like ya'll have no trouble. You've probably got Mush and Blink's pants in a knot already. Ya'll have a million kids." I waved away her worries, then realized what I'd just said. "I mean- uh-"

"No, it's okay," Gracie said, stifling a genuine smile this time. "Oh, and one other thing. I was hoping you'd give me a newsie name. Since I'll be working for you, and all."

"Ellis, then," I replied with a little smirk.

"What?"

My smirk crawled up the side of my face. I couldn't help it. "Ya said your great-grandma got mugged near Ellis Island. Ellis, then."

Gracie blinked. "Wait. You mean Ellis?" She smirked too. "Never mind. Just call me Ellis Then."

"Done," I grinned arrogantly. "But just me. Any of them try to call ya Ellis Then- I soak 'em. You're Ellis to them."

"What about Mush and Blink?" asked Ellis Then innocently.

We shared a laugh and kept talking.

POV- ELLIS THEN

I still couldn't believe my luck.

Not only did I get to sell in my favorite borough, the kick-butt one, I had befriended its leader and he had given me my newsie name. Poor Spot. He really did need a friend. I was more than willing to fill that slot.

He had to be the most attractive boy I'd ever seen. Mush and Jack were pretty cute, but Spot was in a class all his own. That blonde-brown hair of his, and his permanent pout. What really killed me was his eyes: shining a silvery color somewhere between blue and green, sharp as a knife's edge against his dirty tanned face.

Spot Conlon was just so intimidating. Yet he had felt intimidated by me. Yes, I had seen it. I'd have to be blind to miss the jaw drop, the way his incredible eyes stretched wide, the look of disbelief.

I'd never felt so blessed in my entire life.

Smugly, I rolled over in bed and went to sleep, where, unsurprisingly, I dreamed of Brooklyn.