"This is kind of getting tiring," Sophia said. "Maybe we should take a snack break."
Roxie nodded and continued to sketch the young versions of herself and her cousin, while Sophia got up and got a bowl of chips and salsa.
"Okay, while you eat your snack, I'm gonna explain a few things here," Roxie said. "The musical skips over some things that you'll probably need to know in the book."
Sophia ate a chip and motioned for her to continue.
"Okay, so we're about to skip nine years in time before we come in again. You and Uncle Phineas leave the inn and barely manage to escape to Paris, where you hide in a convent for most of those nine years. They only let you in because it happens to be the same convent where Doofenshmirtz's son works...actually in the novel, it may be his brother, but I digress. So you and your dad hide in the convent, and they train you to become a nun, but you decide you'd rather get married and have babies at some point, so you eventually leave."
Sophia giggled. "I'd be a horrible nun. You know, the whole Jewish thing."
Roxie laughed, too. "Also, the Thenardiers somehow lose their inn, and go to Paris and thieve for a living. Cute little Roxie? Not so cute anymore. And the kid we're gonna meet in a second, which is Benji, is my brother in the book but not in the musical. That's why I wanted to make him Gavroche, so that you would remember that. Also we apparently have three other siblings that nobody ever talks about."
"Aw, man, now there'll be something I have to read," Sophia moaned.
"You're a step ahead just by including me. The movie with Liam Neeson doesn't even have Eponine in it."
At the top of a new page, she wrote in her best cursive.
1832, A Random Street in Paris
The passage of time had not helped out the poor of France at all, and the beggars of Paris were no better off than the beggars of Montreuil-sur-Mer. They sat, huddled in corners, calling desperately for someone to help them out of their lot.
"Look down and see the beggars at your feet
Look down and show some mercy if you can
Look down and see
The sweepings of the street
Look down, look down,
Upon your fellow man!"
Running among them was a cheerful young boy, snatching whatever he could from passers-by. He was a dreamy sort, and enjoyed speaking to the various vermin that inhabited the city as a form of entertainment. He called himself Benji, and though he knew that he must have had parents at some point, they were gone now, and he had to fend for himself.
He skipped over to a pigeon, letting it hop onto his finger, and introduced himself.
"How do you do? My name's Benji.
These are my people, here's my patch."
He gestured to the poor behind him, then shrugged at the pigeon.
"Not much to look at, nothing posh
Nothing that you'd call up to scratch."
Benji continued his way down the street, explaining to the pigeon how he lived.
"This is my school, my high society
Here in the slums of Saint Michele
We live on crumbs of humble piety
Tough on the teeth, but what the hell!"
The pigeon almost seemed to laugh, and Benji gave it an indignant look.
"Think you're poor?
Think you're free?
Follow me! Follow me!"
Benji ran into the main square, where many more beggars were gathered, trying to gather a piece of bread to feed their starving families.
"Look down and show some mercy if you can
Look down, look down, upon your fellow man!"
With delight, he noticed the revolutionaries coming down the street, giving handbills of their plans to overtake Paris to rich and poor alike. They were quite young; they studied at the university, and they were led by two very passionate young men.
The main leader of the group was named Michael, and he had dark curly hair and skin, and almond-shaped brown eyes. In Benji's opinion, he looked like an Oriental. But he valiantly pled for his cause, which Benji supposed was the most important thing.
His second-in-command was sort of flighty but walked proudly with his best friend, calling to the people to get them to join in the cause. He was called Cameron, and Benji liked him the best out of all the revolutionaries. Cameron always had a nickel to spare for him.
"Where are the leaders of the land? Where are the swells who run this show?" Michael called rhetorically, trying to rile up the people in the square.
Cameron pulled a bourgeois-looking older woman over to the group of students, and showed her the beggars. "Only one man - and that's Lamarque - speaks for the people here below."
The poor were very glad to see them, and egged them on, for they knew that the students wanted to help them.
"See our children fed!"
"Help us in our shame!
"Something for a crust of bread, in Holy Jesus' name!"
They began to join in a chorus, grabbing onto the students.
"In the Lord's Holy name.
In his name, in his name, in his name..."
Cameron was still trying to convince the bourgeoisie. "Lamarque is ill and fading fast! Won't last the week out, so they say."
"With all the anger in the land, how long before the judgement day?" Michael asked the group of beggars. "Before we cut the fat ones down to size? Before the barricades arise?"
The pigeon appeared to have finished hearing about the upcoming revolution, so Benji showed it one of his least favorite people, so that it wouldn't get hurt.
"Watch out for old Thénardier
All of his family's on the make
Once ran a hash-house down the way
Bit of a swine and no mistake."
He pointed at the gang of motley thieves that Ferb Thenardier kept as his henchmen.
"He's got a gang
The bleeding layabout
Even his daughter does her share..."
Unable to see the girl he'd just mentioned in the dark corner, he at last spotted her as she swiftly ran past, her green pigtails bobbing up and down as she went, and mentioned her to the pigeon.
"That's Roxie, she knows her way about
Only a kid, but hard to scare."
Benji shrugged and took the pigeon back to his little lean-to down the street.
"Do we care?
Not a cuss
Long live us.
Long live us!"
Around him, the beggars moaned in grief.
"Look down and show some mercy if you can
Look down, look down upon your fellow man!"
A/N: I hesitated to write this for a while...I couldn't figure out how I was going to get Benji to relay all this information without breaking the fourth wall. Then I realized...he can have a pet! I decided a pigeon would be cuter than any other kind of vermin, so I went with it.
I'm pretty much done with Act 1...I just have to add the Roxie and Sophia bits. Let me tell you, One Day More was really, really hard. But I did it.
I hope I'm not confusing you all too much with the POV switching. It's going to get worse as time goes on, unfortunately. But I really don't like stating exactly whose POV it is in the chapter...to me it just feels weird. It's an unnecessary interruption. I feel like the style I'm writing this in is similar to L.M. Montgomery's (writer of Anne of Green Gables)...I reread Anne of Ingleside last week and it made me feel better about the POV switching, because she does it a lot, too.