I was running from the police, who caught me snatching an apple from a vendor, when I ran into a boy. The two of us tumbled for a few seconds while his friends laughed at us, and then lay on our backs for a few more. He stood up first and offered me his hand, which I grasped immediately. The police turned the corner, saw us standing there, and came after me again, blowing their whistles the whole time.
"Da bulls! Beat it!"
The boy and his friends ran into a maze of alleys and dragged me with them. I was confused, scared, and soon, very, very lost. We turned left and right, went straight for a few blocks, and turned again and again.
"We lost 'em"
The boy and his three friends looked the same as I did: dirty, torn clothes; filthy from head to toe, and bent over panting, trying to catch their breath. One of them looked slightly different than the others; he carried himself differently-like an authority figure would- and carried a gold-tipped cane with him. He introduced himself first.
"Name's Conlon. Spot Conlon. What's yours?"
I stared at him silently, willing the words to come out of my mouth but being unable to make them. He stood as a king would when expecting an answer from one of his loyal subjects- tall and firm.
"Youse got a name?"
I nodded eagerly and an idea popped into my head. All four boys looked at me like I was crazy when I bent over to write in the dirt. I carefully spelled out the letters C-L-A-R-A and pointed at them when I was done.
"Clara. Youse dumb?"
My smile dropped quickly at his words, but I nodded anyway. The dark-haired boy, the one I ran into, gave me a reassuring smile and introduced himself as Dice. He introduced the other two boys as Pin-Head and Slick, with Pin-Head being the smaller one.
"Youse gotta place ta live?"
Yep! I live in this magnificent palace with my large family and have tons of fancy dresses to choose from each day!
My thoughts may have been a little sarcastic, but still. Do you think kids that have a home would look like they slept in the streets? I know that's what I looked like so I don't know why they even bothered to ask if I had a home.
I gave cane boy a look that he understood immediately. In return, he gave me a short glare that could have nearly frozen the gates of hell.
Dice spoke up saying, "She could stay whit' us."
It seemed that Spot listened to Dice because, within the next few minutes, I was being lead to the Brooklyn Lodging House.
W
I settled in quickly, a lot faster than I was expecting, and got used to all of the boys in the same house. Some of them made fun of me for being a mute but most of them left me alone. It wasn't that I was unwelcome, I was just more of a loner, I guess. Dice was my only true friend there. He would meet me outside of the factory that I worked at and we would go grab something to eat. We would talk of the old days, when we both had families, and of our future plans. Well, he did the talking; I just listened. So many times I wished I could tell him how I felt, how I grew up, what I wanted out of life. I couldn't though. I was cursed to be silent since my birth and to the day I die.
I think he tried to understand what life was like for me, but he couldn't. He was a natural talker- he would talk of anything under the sun and beyond. He just couldn't understand how I could be content with my life that I lived in silence. He wasn't that kind of person.
I lived with the Brooklyn newsies for about a month before they introduced me to the Manhattan newsies. They were nice people, they weren't as rough and tough as the Brooklyn newsies, but they were okay. Their leader was Jack 'Cowboy' Kelly, also known as Francis Sullivan. At times he could be a brazen young man, but was mostly kind and caring. His newsies were his family; something you didn't see much in Brooklyn. Sure we watched each other's backs, but we weren't like a family. We left that for the Manhattan dwellers.
Sometimes I felt more comfortable with Manhattan than I did with Brooklyn. They were more accepting and there were only one or two that enjoyed picking on me. It felt nice to pretend to have a family again. Still, I always felt that the only true family I would ever have was when I had Elizabeth.
Being left out of a lot of games and activities was not one of my favorite things about being mute, but it did give me chances to be alone. I also learned how to listen. You may think I would have learned that earlier but I never really had to fend for myself before. I never had to be overly aware of my surroundings; I was always protected.
However, in Brooklyn, when you're a fifteen, almost sixteen, year old girl, you have to be very careful. Especially when you can't call out for help, even though you probably wouldn't have received it if you did call out.
S
One fall day I went to go to work, a factory located in the heart of Brooklyn, and it started out like days normally do. I went in, nodded hello to my fellow workers, grabbed a raggedy old apron, and started working. My job was to clean the machines… while they were going. It may seem illegal and dangerous to you, and it probably was, but that was the way a lot of kids made money then. We just did it and hoped we wouldn't get anything caught in them.
All of us pulled our hair back if it was long enough, and most of us took of his or her apron to work. I tossed my apron on the floor beneath a window that showed us the busy Brooklyn streets. The machines were going pretty fast and you had to be quick to pull stuff out, or else risk getting caught up in them. Hands darted in and out of the big machines, cleaning them from time to time. Occasionally I could hear the wailing of another child, an unfortunate soul who had gotten a limb stuck. Sad to say, this was a daily occurrence.
I listened to the girl next to me talk about her family and how they were so poor that even her two-year-old brothers were working. I nodded and grimaced at the appropriate times, but mostly concentrated on my work. Not paying attention can get you in trouble, as the young girl next to me soon learned.
I had heard about how disgusting and gruesome it was to watch someone's limbs getting caught in one of the machines, but I had never really understood all the talk until then. The poor girl stuck her hand in to pull something out and didn't snatch her hand back fast enough. Her screams were heard throughout the factory and everyone nearby was splattered with her blood. Her arm was pulled clean off, leaving a bloody mess of a shoulder behind. I pulled her out of the machine with the help of some other children and watched helplessly as she collapsed on the floor in pain. I heard the crunching of her bones as the machine processed them and nearly threw up on the floor, while she continued her heart-wrenching screams.
I couldn't look at her arm or the machine even though I knew I had to stop the bleeding from her shoulder, so I placed my hands on her mutilated flesh and pressed down. Her screams increased in volume and I had to fight the urge to pull away. Everyone around us stood silently, waiting for someone to tell them what to do and watching the girl's pain with empty gazes. This is what factory work had done to many of the children there; made them emotionless soldiers with extreme battle scars. This was a whole new war. It was fought by children and ordered by business men and was being fought in our home country.
The children around us were told to retrieve her arm from the machine, since it had caused a jam somewhere, and the girl was taken away after receiving a thorough lashing. I snuck out, being unable to stay in the factory any longer.
Since then, I've had nightmares of that day. I'll never forget the petrified look on her face as her arm was torn off or how her screams of anguish echoed throughout the building.
This is different than I normally do my stories so I would really like to know what you think. Thanks if you already reviewed!
