Disclaimer: And yet again, I am forced to rub it in my own face that I do not own Newsies.
So technically, it's been five days since I last posted. The 22 to the 27th. But it's really only been the 27th for an hour and 28 minutes, so let's just say it took me four days to post, meaning that I have (basically) achieved my goal. Woooooo.
Now. This chapter occurs before the last chapter. It's a flashback, hence the centered and bolded word below that happens to read "Flashback." It explains what happens before Jack and the others find out they don't have enough money. It's also in a different point of view. Sorry if it's a bit confusing. And on with the newsies.
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Flashback
"Whadda ya mean ya don't gots any more!?" he yelled.
"I mean we'se outta papes, kid! It happens! Get here earlier next time!" Weasel's replacement was a bit nicer, but not my much.
Racetrack Higgins opened his mouth to scream, "So print more!" back at the man, but the window was shut in his face.
Practically steaming with anger, Racetrack trudged down the steps and through the black gates. Today wasn't his day.
In the line for the morning edition (He had actually been able to buy papes that time), Jack told all of the guys that the newsies would be counting the money that night. So Racetrack started his day out with a huge burden over his shoulders.
The weather was bitter, so customers were hard to come by. When a potential buyer did happen to walk by, they would angrily wave Race away, trying to get to their destination without freezing first. Discouraged and cold, it took the boy until 15 minutes after six to sell most of his morning papes. Now he had to go and do it all over again.
Or at least that's what he planned on doing. But afternoon edition papers went on sale at 3:30; nearly three hours ago. Racetrack hurried back to the circulation desk and got on the end of the line. At least it was short. Five people stood in line before him. He kept moving up until he was standing in front of the desk. Just as Racetrack opened his mouth to buy his papers, the man behind the counter told him that the boy before him had bought the last few papers.
Race was furious. It was just his luck, too.
On his way out of the distribution grounds, Racetrack fished around in his pocket for his cigar. Then, putting it up to his lips, he lit a match and touched it to the end. That was just about the only thing that could calm his temper after having a stand-off with someone.
At least he got to go back to the lodging house and get out of the cold for a while, he thought. Still, he felt guilty. This was his last chance to earn money to put towards the lodging house. He felt like he was letting his friends down. But there really was nothing he could do.
Pushing the door to the lodging house open, Race discovered that it wasn't much warmer inside than it was outside. There wasn't a fire in the fireplace, which meant Kloppman wasn't there. Racetrack kept his jacket and hole-filled gloves on as he collapsed backwards onto the couch.
No one else was around. They wouldn't be, he decided. Everyone was still out selling the afternoon edition. Hewould be too, if he had just gotten there in time... Racetrack took another puff on his cigar to flush out the sudden surge of aggravation.
He shivered, wondering why it was so cold inside. Race sat up straight and peered around the lobby, looking for the source of the draft. The door was shut all the way, and so were the windows by the fireplace. Then he noticed that the small window off to the right of Kloppman's desk was cracked open a bit; not enough to be realized upon first glance, but enough to make the entire room freezing.
Race heaved himself up from the couch and crossed the room. He arrived at the window and pushed down on it will all his might, but it felt like it was frozen in that position. Finally, it shut with a loud bangthat echoed throughout the lobby.
It would be a while before the lodging house started to warm up. Racetrack turned towards the couch again, blowing hot air into his hands and then rubbing them together.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed something sitting on Kloppman's desk. The small metal box with all their savings was perched on top of a large pile of paperwork.
Racetrack started walking again, side-glancing at the box as he passed. He went back to his spot on the couch and tried to relax, but he couldn't. The thought of the box with all their money in it was taunting him. He glanced at it once again, wondering when the rest of the guys (and Silver and Ella) would be getting back. Then they could count it.
Race wanted—no, needed—to know how much money was in that box. The very room he was sitting in depended on it. Whose stupid idea was it to wait until the last night to count it, anyway? He wondered.
Oh. Right. Mine.
Racetrack hesitantly stood up from the couch again and advanced towards the box, staring at it all the while. He got to Kloppman's desk and slowly reached for the box. His hands hovered over it for a second as if the metal would burn him if he touched it.
He suddenly picked it up, examining every side closely. Then Race shook the box. The change in it rattled, but not loosely. There wasn't much spare room in there. It sounded like a lot of money, but how could he be sure?
Race took the box back to the couch with him and placed it on the beaten-up coffee table in front of him. He took a seat and stared at it curiously, as if he was waiting for it to do something. But for the ten minutes that Racetrack gawked at the box, it didn't do anything special. It just sat where he left it.
He reached for his cigar in the ashtray, but thought better of it and just left it there to burn out. Not even a cigar could calm his nerves this time. The anticipation was killing him.
Race took his pocket watch out of his jacket and stared at it. Ten minutes to seven. The guys didn't usually get back until around eight. "Dat's over an hour from now!" Racetrack mumbled aloud to himself. He sighed and put his watch back in his pocket.
With one more glance at the box, he made his decision. He pulled it towards him and fumbled with the clasp in front until the top sprang open. It looked like a lot of money, too. But then again, Race had never seen what was supposed to be 120 dollars. How was he supposed to know what it looked like? Racetrack took a deep breath and began counting the money. Despite his brain's aching desire to know how much was in the box, Race counted the money slowly and carefully. He placed each coin in a pile on the coffee table, keeping track by saying the number out loud.
Finally, the boy put down the last coin and ended with the number "$103.90."
"103?" Race muttered. "Dat can't be right..." He refused to accept the fact that even after months of hard work, they could still fall short of money. As panic started to rise up in his throat, Racetrack silenced it by telling himself that he had just miscounted.
After adding up the money a second time, Race realized that he was right; he did miscount. But only by two cents, and that wasn't the mistake that Racetrack was looking for. His total this time came to $103.92; those two cents wouldn't make a difference. Even after everyone put in their profits from today, it still wouldn't make a difference.
Suddenly, he wished that he hadn't counted the money. Race couldn't sit around and let the newsies add up their savings when he himself already knew the outcome. He couldn't watch his friends be disappointed the same way he had been.
Most of all, Racetrack couldn't watch his friends leave the lodging house for good. Race had come here when he was only 7 years old. Aside from Jack, Snoddy, Specs and Skittery (Who had already lived there when he arrived), Race had watched every single one of the newsies come to the lodging house. He had seen them turn it into their home, just like he had done.
Racetrack decided that he wasn't going to stick around and watch them leave it behind. After putting the money back in the box and the box back on Kloppman's desk, Race went up to the bunk room to get his stuff together.
He hurriedly stuffed all his clothes into his old knapsack. Race had made it out of some rope and a brown burlap sack before he ran away from home. He had kept it under his bunk all these years incase, God forbid, he had to pack up his things and leave again.
The last thing he grabbed out of his now-empty bedside drawer was his cigar money. The 75 cents that he was saving up to spend on a few top-of-the-line cigars. Recently, he was planning on giving it to the lodging house fund instead, but Race decided that he might as well just take it since they were losing the lodging house either way.
Throwing his bag over his shoulder, Racetrack headed for Brooklyn. On his way out of Manhattan, he avoided passing the places where he knew his friends would be selling.
As it got later and later, the air continued to get colder. Race reached the Brooklyn Lodging house around 9:30 and knocked on the door.
Racetrack and Spot Conlon hadn't always been on good terms. Before the strike in 1899, the two boys had difficulty getting along. Both were willful and sharp-tongued, so they didn't mix well together. However, during the strike they both shared a common goal, and they both needed the other side to achieve it. The two weren't the best of friends now, but they could stand each other.
Race gave in 5 cents in exchange for one of the last bunks in the lodging house, and he had gotten there just in time. Guttersnipes were pouring in from all over Brooklyn, claiming that a pretty nasty storm was coming their way. They would settle for a spot on the floor so long as it meant a roof over their heads.
The storm didn't come that night, but the clouds looked heavy and ominous from the next morning into the afternoon. Still, Race didn't feel like sticking around too long. He picked up and left before evening rolled around.
It was even colder than the day before and Racetrack had no idea where he was headed. He wandered around Brooklyn for a while without a destination in mind and, as always, his feet led him straight to Sheepshead Bay.
There couldn't have been more than 50 people there. No one besides himself and other gambling addicts would be crazy enough to watch horses race on a day like today. But since Race figured there really wasn't anything better to do, he might as well place a bet.
He wandered up to the betting desk and was greeted by a short, heavy man with a thick gray mustache. His brown woolen scarf was wrapped tightly around him, making it seem like he had even less of a neck than usual. The cold made his nose and cheeks bright red.
Racetrack recognized him by face since he was always working there, and vise versa since Race was always placing bets. But neither knew each other by name.
"Which one's it gonna be today?" the man asked.
Racetrack peered past him at the large chalkboard on the wall of the booth. He scanned the names. His favorite horse was racing today. Racetrack usually bet on a brown horse named, "Lightning Comet;" his favorite because he always lived up to his name.
But today Race had a gut feeling that he should go with another horse... He scanned the names written out in white chalk. The name "Blizzard" caught his eye.
There had never been a race that he could remember where Blizzard had won. And Racetrack came here all the time. But looking up at the darkening sky, the name seemed appropriate. Instinct nagged him to go for it.
Race took out 50 cents from his pocket; way more than he ever spent betting on horses at one time. At this point, though, he really didn't care. They had lost the lodging house, so what did it matter? "50 on Blizzard," Race decided.
The man behind the window stared at Racetrack for a second before he started to chuckle. He pushed Race's 50 cents back through the space underneath the bars. "I suggest ya rethink yer decision."
Racetrack shrugged. "I'se still bettin' on Blizzard," he said again.
The man sighed. "Look, kid... Da odds are forty-four to one. It'll be a near miracle if dat horse wins."
"The odds aren't dat bad," Race replied. He'd seen worse.
"Dat's cause barely anyone's heah today. I can assure ya, if dere were three hundred people over dere in dose stands," the stout man pointed to the empty benches surrounding the track, "it would be two hundred ninety-nine to one. I'se tryin' to do ya a favor."
Race picked up his money and stared at it in the palm of his hand. Maybe he should just go with Lightning Comet. He had won a few dollars off the horse before. Maybe it would happen again.
"Hurry it up, kid. Da race is gonna start soon."
He looked down at the track where the horses were beginning to line up behind their starting gates. Out of habit, his eyes immediately found his favorite horse. Then they drifted to the white horse standing at the next gate over.
"50 on Blizzard," Race said, sliding the money across the desk again. Hands in his pockets, he walked away before the man could try to change his mind again. Race sat down in the stands as soon as the shot was fired to start the race.
The horses took off. At first it was hard to tell who was in the lead; all the horses were in a large cluster as they started off. Soon, though, the faster horses took the lead and the slower ones fell behind. Blizzard was one of the horses running towards the back.
Racetrack groaned and let his head fall forward against the rail in front of him. "I shoulda jus' listened to dat guy," he muttered. He stayed like that for the rest of the race, looking down at the concrete ground and wishing he had remembered to take his cigar from the ashtray.
Had he been looking at the track, instead, Race would have seen that in the last 40 seconds, Blizzard had started to pick up speed. The white horse was darting between other horses, making its way to the front.
A bell sounded, meaning that one of them had crossed the finish line. Race didn't bother raising his head to see which one.
"First place: Blizzard!"
Racetrack's head snapped up. He stared in amazement as the white horse slowed to a stop, followed directly by Lightning Comet.
"I... I won?" Race sounded more astonished than excited. He turned his head and gaped in the direction of the betting stand. His brain kicked into gear and he tried to do the math in his head. What did that man say the odds were? Forty four to one?That would mean that I won...
Twenty-two dollars.
He absolutely couldn't believe it. All these years of betting at Sheepshead Bay, and Racetrack had never even won more than 3 dollars at a time. Twenty two was just incredible. He could do a million and one things with twenty two dollars. All the possibilities started to run through his head. I could buy a permanent box heah, or... or a hundred cigars, or a new pocket watch...Or...
Or I could save the lodging house. The idea hit him like a ton of bricks. Maybe it ain't too late.
Racetrack scrambled out of his seat towards the betting stand. The snow started to fall just as he was about to collect his money.
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So is Bartlett gonna except the money? What do you guys think?
Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed last chapter. I hope you all got the private messages I sent. If not, you have permission to soak me. (Oh, and some of you hit the nail right on the head with what was happening with Race... I'm proud of you guys :D.)
Now, I was planning on finishing the last chapter to this story by tonight. Unfortunately, though, I have grown immune to the magic of caffeine. Two cups of coffee. And you know what? Absolutely nothing. I'm exhausted. Tomorrow is homecoming for my school, so I've got a parade and a game (12 hours of non-stop bandgeekness) all day. If it gets rained out, I'll try to write as much as I can. If not, the updates may be a little slow. Sorry :(
Thanks for reading!
