Huzzah! Finally, another chapter! -hides from the incoming volley of objects thrown at me- *ahem* sorry for the wait. Busy busy things. But now, the summer is here!...Not sure what that will do to my update speed. :P

Anywho, enjoy!


Chapter 12 - Small Matters

"Hey!"

I jolted awake to find Sparrow's freckled face peering at me, her hands on her hips. I flattened myself against the cot. Hadn't this already happened? Oh, yeah, it had. On my first day in Brooklyn.

"Good morning?"

Sparrow snorted. "Morning? More like 'Good Afternoon' Arty. Youse been sleepin' da whole morning." She continued to observe me critically as I gazed around the room. Whoever else had been sleeping here had already gone, leaving behind rumpled and messy beds. I blinked blearily back up at Sparrow.

"Is this a bad thing?" I drawled.

"Yes," she snapped. "Everyone's gathering down at Tibby's again. We have ta get dere soon, or else Lark-"

"Sparrow! Artemis! Get yoahselves down to Tibby's, now!" Lark yelled from outside the kitchen.

"Or else Lark'll yell at us," Sparrow finished dryly. I grinned and rolled out of bed to get dressed. Sometimes it was still hard to believe that the two of them were twins.

At the diner everyone was already crowded around a group of tables where Jack was sitting. They were all buzzing and hopping around, trying to look at something on the table. I walked in to hear Spot's, "Where's me picture? Where's me picture?" I rolled my eyes and walked over to a table. Propping my head on my hand, I watched the chaos around the middle table and yawned. I need more sleep.

"Will you quite thinking' 'bout yoahself?" Jack told Spot. I grinned as Spot kept standing there at Jack's shoulder, looking up and down the pape. Wonder how many newsies can read what's not on the headlines. Hmm.

Pilot plopped himself down across from me. He looked tired.

"Late night?" I smirked. He just nodded and ordered some food. I looked around for Sparks. Since I didn't see her anywhere in the restaurant (and therefore couldn't hurt me for saying this), I leaned in to say to Pilot, "Hey, when Sparks comes in, ask her to sit next to you." Pilot looked confused. Boys!

"Ah, why?" he asked, giving me a bleary-eyed look. Insert roll of the eyes here.

"Because," I said patiently, "It would make her happy. Plus, then I can talk to her easier if I can see her face. Okay?" Pilot just continued to give me a confused look until Sparks walked in. Just like a gentleman, he held the chair next to him out for her. Sparks blushed - awww, how cute! - before sitting down with a murmured "Thank you." When she looked at me I winked.

Turning my head back to the conversation, the boys were going on about what they'd get if they were famous.

"A porcelain tub wit' boilin' water," Spot said. A what what now?

"A Saturday night with da mayor's daughter," Kid Blink hooted. The boys laughed. There was a lot of noise, laughter and shouting for a minute before Jack piped up.

"So let's have some ideas," he said as they all crowded around the main table again. Someone passed a copy of the pape they had been looking at. I was drinking my water when I saw the picture and nearly snorted it out of my nose.

They all looked so confused. You could see it in the expressions on their faces. Half of them weren't even looking at the camera, and the ones that were looked like they barely had any idea that they were being photographed. Jack was the only one actually looking at the camera, while David looked like he was hopping around on one foot in pain. Spot was looking at the camera with a "what now?" expression on his face. I snickered and passed it over to Pirate, who had a similar reaction.

"So we should do something' dat's so big dat all of the other papers are gonna feel stupid if dey try an' ignore us," Jack was saying. Uh oh…Why do I have a bad feeling about this? The other boys chorused their agreement. "Like a rally, a newsie rally. With all the kids from all ovah New York. We'll make it da biggest, loudest, noisiest blow out dis town's evah seen."

"We'll send a message to the big boys," David said, grinning. Eur…and if they send you a message? Eh. Must be my paranoia speaking again. There was some more chatter before Spot piped up.

"I'll fight to that," Spot said. Merrr…..Can I just be in charge of pick pocketing and leaving? Although, a rally could be fun. A bunch of people, all in one place, making a bunch of noise. The possibilities…like getting stepped on? Nah. The possibilities of food, however, were probably good.

"To our man Denton!" the newsies toasted. I took the opportunity to zone out and think back to last night. Specifically, to my dream from last night. Weird little buggers.

Dream start

It had always been my weird talent to get lost in the few blocks I was allowed to wander on my own. It would probably always be my weird talent to get lost. Although, when you're a seven-year-old kid, and all you want is for it to be day and not night, and you're looking for your mother, the streets of Brooklyn are scary.

Every time I got lost, I always managed to find Snatch or Sharp to lead me back home. They were usually together, and Snatch was always nice enough to lead me home while Sharp and the other boy waited for him. But that night, for some reason, I couldn't find them. I saw them once, but they were too far away and had disappeared by the time I reached the alley they went into. Still, I walked in, sure that I could find them if I just kept walking.

Soon enough it was dark, dark enough that the street lamps were lit, and dark enough that the streets were full of dark faces. I cried quietly to myself as I kept walking, totally and completely lost. I kept looking down the alleys, hoping to find Snatch. Over to my right, someone - or something - moved between the boxes.

It was the third boy, the one with the brownish hair and staring eyes. He appeared to take no notice of the street, focusing on something else.

Desperate and tired of being alone, I ran over to him. He was smaller than Snatch, and smaller than Sharp, but he was still bigger than me. Upon reaching him I grabbed the edge of his shirt.

"Hey!" he yelled, turning around with one hand raised. I flinched but kept holding on to the end of his shirt. "Oh, it's youse." He stood there and looked at me. With his back to the street lights, his face was in shadow. All I could make out was that the edges of his hair were light brown and he had an angled face. For a seven- or eight-year-old, he stood very straight. He took in my appearance much the same way, I suppose - pale blue dress with now dirtied edges, hair falling around my shoulders, and reddened eyes.

He sighed. "Can't you find Snatch?"

I shook my head from side to side, sniffling.

"Sharp?"

Again, more head shaking and sniffles.

He sighed. "Alright, I'll take ya home. C'mon. And here, stop cryin'." He handed me an old and worn handkerchief. I took it and blew my nose, holding it in my right hand as I continued to maintain my death grip on his shirt with my left. After a few steps of walking like this, he turned around and I nearly crashed into him.

"Look, I can't walk like dis if you keep holdin' on like dat," he said. Easily and carefully, he pulled his shirt out and took my hand in his. "Here. Now stick close." I gawped at him as we walked along in silence. Not quite as tightly, but still firmly, my hand stayed in his all the way back to my home.

In front of the bakery, the boy kept holding my hand for a minute as he stared at the lights on in the little apartment above. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth was a thin line. I got nervous, and fidgeted. Easily he let go of my hand and kept staring.

"What's your name?" I asked, finally finding my voice. He turned his head to look at me for a minute. It was easy to see that the streets had made him harder than any other child. It was visible with Snatch and Sharp, too, but even more so with this boy. The streets had not been kind.

Then he gave a small smile. You couldn't really call it a smirk, but it wasn't a happy smile either.

"You can call me…"

I stared at my plate of food, frowning. Why could I not remember that darn boy's name? I could remember the other two, I could remember the rest of that night. Why was this one little detail so elusive? The devil is most certainly in the details.

"Oi, Arty!" Pirate said, jerking me out of my reverie. "Brooklyn's goin' back soon. Didn't you hear?"

"Eurm, what now?" I blinked at him. Pirate rolled his eyes.

"Since it's gonna take a while to let everyone know 'bout da rally, we're goin' back to Brooklyn," Pirate said.

"Okay." Quickly, we all finished our food and headed out the door. Just as I started to walk outside, I reached around my throat. My hand froze, and Pirate nearly let go of the door on me.

"Artemis! What in the heck are you doin'?" he snapped. I looked at him blankly.

"My necklace is missing."

"No it's not, it's around yoah neck right dere. I can see the string," Pirate said, pointing.

"No, no no! Not this thing!" I said, yanking at the string with the little wooden cross. As important as Brett's carving was to me, I wouldn't be freaking out like this, probably. "My necklace that has the locket on it! Where the hell did it go?" I spun around and dashed to the table where we had been eating. Searching all of the plates, napkins, floor and chairs turned up nothing. No silver locket. Where else had I gone with it? It had stayed on through the fight yesterday. Then we had eaten, after which I had gone to the alley where Lark told me…

"The lodge house!" I yelled before dashing out the door and past Pirate, who had come back into the restaurant. I ignored his muffled protest and slammed the door open. Running through the hot midday sun, I sprinted past the group of newsies headed for the same direction. The whole time my eyes were pinned to the ground, looking for something shiny. Several boys - and probably some girls, too - yelled at me as I barged through the group. I looked up just in time to yank the door open to the lodge house and spring into the tiny kitchen, out of breath.

Inside the kitchen all the cots had disappeared, revealing what a small space we had occupied the previous night. Three people were in there. All of them appeared to be a little bit younger than me. One was a boy who leaned against the wall opposite me, his black hair flopping into his face. The other two were girls, one standing in the middle of the room, her brown hair tied back in a messy bun. She was glaring at the last girl, who leaned against the counter, hazel eyes lazily trained on what I was looking for: my locket.

"Hey!" I gasped out. "That's mine. Give it back." The three of them started, and the girl who held my necklace slipped it easily into her pocket before flipping her blond hair over her shoulder. She looked at me, glaring slightly.

"An' who are you?" she demanded, hands on her hips.

"You just took my necklace. Can I have it back, please?" I tried to be polite, but my nerves were quickly becoming strained. The other two watched, eyes flicking back and forth between us.

"Prove dat it's yours," she taunted. She stuck her tongue out at me. Really, the girl couldn't be more than fourteen or fifteen.

"I don't think dat's a good thing to say," the other girl started nervously. "Maybe you should-"

"Aw, be quiet!" the little thief said, always watching me with a cocky air. "I'se does what I'se wants ta!"

"What are you, thirteen?" I snapped. My breath was back, my patience was gone, and I was really getting tempted to just knock the kid out and take back what was mine. And possibly a few coins, too, just so she'd get the message.

"I'm fifteen ya bummer," she said, glaring even more.

"Great. Well, thirteen, fifteen, I don't really care. Now will you just give me back my necklace?" I growled at her.

"What are ya talkin' about?" She said, shrugging with her hands in the air. "I don't got nothin' of yours." The two kids were still watching, the girl nervously, the boy looking like he was bored. They were pissing me off too, not helping me and just standing there watching.

"Ya know," the boy started in a lazy voice.

"Shaddup Smokes! I don't want ta hear nothin' from youse!" the girl yelled at him. My fingers started tapping against my sides, and I almost reached for a blade.

"If Smokes is tellin' youse somethin' dat you don't wanna hear, it must be somethin' important," Spot's voice drawled behind me. I whipped around to see him standing there, arms crossed, a lazy look on his face. How did he always sneak up on me like that? I moved into the room a step and Spot filled the gap in the door. "So what'd you do, Swiper?"

The girl stared at Spot, wide eyed and white faced. At the mention of her name, she reddened slightly before staring at the floor.

"I asked ya a question, Swipes, an' I expect an answer," Spot continued calmly. The other girl and Smokes fidgeted.

"She-" the other girl started.

"I didn't do nothin'!" Swiper yelled, glaring at Spot. Smokes continued to lazily watch her. Man, whatever this kid was made out of, it had to be tougher than steel.

"Ribbon, Smokes, maybe youse want ta leave foah a minute so I can talk with Swiper?" Spot said it like a suggestion, but there was no question that they would do what he said. His blue-grey eyes flashed once and the two were scooting out the door as fast as they could. Spot lazily took out his cane, spun it around once, and then tapped in lightly on the floor. When he holstered it and looked back at Swiper, his gaze was anything but friendly.

I opened my mouth to tell Spot what she had done, but he cut me off.

"Don't say anything, Artemis," he said, steel and ice laced through his voice. "I want ta see if Swipes heah has the guts to lie ta me again." His eyes narrowed slightly in the other newsie's direction.

"Honest, Spot," Swiper said in a terse tone, "I didn't take anythin' from her."

"Then youse took something of hers," Spot replied, catching onto her word play. Swiper reddened again and looked away.

"Maybe," she said carefully. "I dunno who's it is."

"Well maybe you should show me," Spot suggested. "Seein' as how you did take somethin'." Swiper winced as she realized what she had said.

"It's nuthin' special," she muttered, pulling the locket out of her pocket. She twirled it around by the chain. Then she started to pull it open. "I haven't even looked insi-"

"Don't you dare try and open it," I yelled at her. Swiper's hazel eyes looked up in surprise, her fingers still at the edge of the locket. "Try an' open it, and I'll make you regret the day you learned to steal." I hissed the angry words at her while starting to reach behind for the knife I kept tucked at the waistband of the back of my pants.

Spot's hand lightly rested on my wrist, stopping me. "She's not worth it," he said quietly. Out of the corner of my eye, I think I saw a hurt look cross the other girl's face. If Spot noticed, he didn't care. Looking back up at Swiper, Spot said, "Swiper, I've told youse multiple times before not ta mess with Brooklyn."

Swiper's eyes got huge then. "She's Brooklyn?" she gasped. "I thought she was one o' Cowboy's goils." Spot just gave her a level gaze. She muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "well shit" and tossed the necklace at me. I caught it, briefly checked the inside, and clasped it around my neck. Taking a chance, Swiper made a dash for the door. Grabbing her arm, Spot pulled her roughly to a stop.

"Yoah little tempah tantrums are ceasing to amuse me, Swiper," Spot said in a deadly calm voice. Swiper couldn't face Spot's angry gaze, instead staring at the floor. The poor girl looked like she wanted to disappear. "I might just have to pay a visit to Bullet an' tell him what you've been up to." Swiper looked up at Spot, horrified.

"No, don't do that!" she pleaded.

"Then you had better disappear from my sight foah a while. Do you understand me?" Spot asked. Swiper bit her lip and looked like she was tempted to start crying. Spot gave her arm a brief shake. "I said, do you understand me?" Swiper nodded. Spot let go of her arm and she took off running.

"Well," I started. Spot looked at me. "That was…pleasant."

Spot snorted. "She's from Harlem. Bullet's her leader. An' she's his goil." I whistled as we walked out of the house and back onto the streets, headed for Brooklyn.

"Still…wasn't that a little bit, I dunno, harsh?" I asked, looking sideways at Spot. He had that cold look in his eyes again.

"Swiper's had her warnings," he said. "If she can't remember, then I'll just have ta let Bullet know." I shook my head.

"No, I mean…," I hesitated. How to put this politely and not get my ass kicked again? "I mean…you know she likes you, right?" Spot stopped at stared at me for a second before bursting out into laughter.

"What?" I asked. "Was that really so funny?"

"Artemis, dat's old news," Spot said, serious again, although I could still see the smirk around his mouth. "Really old news."

"So then she told you?"

"'Bout three years ago."

"Huh. Well, you could still be nicer about it," I grumbled. "Girls don't really like to have their feelings laughed at, y'know. For someone who is famous for having so many girls, I would have thought that you'd know this by now." Spot gave me one of his warning looks.

"Artemis, I'm da leader of Brooklyn first and foremost," he told me.

"So then all the girls are just a distraction or something?" I asked. We were starting to walk across the bridge now. And why was this aggravating me so much?

"Maybe," Spot said, shrugging. "Some of them were." He said it easily, like it was the most common thing in the world. Well, it probably was for him anyway.

By now the end of the Brooklyn bridge was in sight. That's when I remembered that Ben would have a job for me. A very nice and distracting job that would require my full attention and anything less than that would land me in another orphanage. Goody!

"Hey, uh, Spot? I'm gonna go see my brother," I said, pointing in the direction opposite the lodge house and the docks. He nodded. "Alright, see everyone later then."

I scampered off, deep in thought. Obviously, winning Spot over was proving to be a challenged, but not extremely hard. I was pretty sure he didn't hate my guts, anyway. And I was still here as a Brooklynite, so that was a good thing. Of course, this is looking at things in a pessimistic way. The optimist would say that Spot had completely accepted me as a newsie and was even slightly interested in me. Hmm, maybe that was the realist talking. The optimist would probably say he was flirting with me once in a while. *Snort.* Yeah. Riiiight. Well, making him actually fall for me (or should I say "fall in love with me"?) was clearly going to take the whole summer. And for what? Could I honestly say that I would be happy being "Spot's girl" when the only reason I was "Spot's girl" was because of a stupid bet? I might be called "Artemis," but I do think about them before throwing myself into one. Usually. How could this kind of a relationship last?

Let's not go there right now.

Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, I smacked my hand to my forehead - and winced as I hit a bruise - as I remembered: Ben doesn't work today!

Arrrrgh! Well, back to the lodging house.


My, my. What a temper Artemis has. Such a diplomat. ;) Reactions? Remember, 10+ reviews gets two chapters in one day the following week! Also, who actually knows the whole Greek myths involving Artemis? I'm curious. Oh, and feel free to harass me and remind me to update faster. :P I could probably use it.

Eavis: I finally have a new chapter up! :D Thank you for always reviewing (and reminding me that I need to update when I review your fic). May I have some of your skills, please?

Dreamless-Mermaid: I'm glad you're liking the fic and that the pace is working out well. I'm trying to make it realistic. Please keep reading and reviewing!

RandomRite: Glad the scene went well. I did my best!

elleestJenn: There is a scene much like the kitchen scene coming up! Look forward to it!

LucyOfNarnia: Thanks hun! Glad you're enjoying yourself! :)

Pyra Sanad: I know, I am evil. ;) But, new chappie is up! And I am working on the next! Oh, and hello to you, new reader!

news to the maxx: Hello new reader! Please keep reading and enjoying the fic! I try my best so that people will like reviewing, but it goes as it goes. -sigh- Maybe people will be nice and review this chapter?...

Thank you to everyone who added this story to your alerts! Please say hi sometime in a review! (hint hint)

Love,

Saya