Can I just... Thank you people for reading and reviewing this? Because I freaking appreciate it. Thank you, thank you all so much!

Review Responses:

JustVildaPotter: (Chapter 8) Indeed, most of them have met! Yeah, there's a lot of characters with a lot of names. I'm only just getting the hang of remembering who's who. (Chapter 9) It's our girl Katherine! Let's go! Jack's conversations with her are so fun to write. Thanks for saying that! (Chapter 10) Glad you like reading about the characters just hanging out, because I'm going to include quite a few chapters like that throughout this story. Hooray, you're caught up! Welcome!

AndrewKeenanBolgerFan: THANK YOU! Smalls' personality is life. We love Smalls. She's glorious. Thank you, I love hearing that!

Katrina Miller (Guest): You have become aware of this story's existence! Thanks! When am I updating next? Right about now.

So, for the one-shot thing: I got two votes for the Newsies watching Rudolph, and one for the leg lamp. So I'm going to write them both, in that order, at some point this month.

Chapter time!

Chapter 11- Les

Wednesday, September 15, 1999, 1:50 p.m.

Les Jacobs was unbearably bored. Big surprise, fifth grade in Lower Manhattan was no different from fifth grade in any other part of New York City, including the private school he had previously attended. The girls acted too mature; the boys acted like idiots. The classes were easy. Hardly different from fourth grade material, except the books they were assigned to read got maybe a teensy bit harder than they were before. Boring.

Les leaned onto the fence that surrounded the courtyard in front of his elementary school. He looked out at the busy streets and sidewalks he was currently being kept from. What did a boy have to do for a little adventure? Wondering when recess was going to end, Les lightly tapped his head against the chain links. "Bored." Tap. "Bored." Tap. "Bored!" Tap tap tap.

"What are you doing?" A girl stood there, staring at him as she held a basketball.

"I'm bored," answered Les.

"No, really?" The girl dropped the ball to the ground and stood beside Les. "Can I join you?"

"Uh, sure." Les proceeded to show her how to tap her head against the fence without causing herself an injury. "You'll want to be careful of you hair, though," he warned. "It could get caught."

The girl's hair, a deep brown tinged with a golden yellow color on the edges, was done up in about a million long braids running across the top of her head. They reached all the way down to the middle of her back, which Les thought was longer than any other girls in the grade. Her hair color perfectly complimented her dark brown skin. Les' own hair was cut in a short mess of light brown curls that could never decide what to do with themselves. And his skin was pale, a reflection of how much time he had spent indoors over the summer, because neither of his older siblings had wanted to go out and experience the joys of sunlight. His life was boring. Just like this school.

The girl asked, "What's a new kid like you doin' out here all by himself?"

Les shrugged. "You've seen movies, haven't you? New kids don't have friends."

She rocked back and forth between the fence and the space around it. "Maybe not at first. But it always works out by the end of the movie. After they do somethin' extraordinary."

Les mimicked her rocking movements. "Sucks to be me, then. There's nothing extraordinary for me to do."

His companion tapped her chin with a finger, looking deep in thought. "You prob'ly have to be in high school."

"Hmm," Les thought about this. "High school, you say? Uh, what's-your-name-"

"Sally."

"Sally, do you wanna break out of here with me?"

"What?" Sally laughed.

"See, my older brother goes to the high school a few blocks down the street. He's there as we speak. So I was thinking, if we can get out of here and go there instead, something extraordinary has to happen. Good plan, right?"

Sally gave him a strange look. "You're one weird new kid." She let go of the fence and picked up her basketball. "I should get back to my game."

Les watched her jog back to her friends. So that was going to be his reputation now. The "weird new kid". He sighed defeatedly, then looked back out at the world beyond the fence, contemplating his plan. Next, he glanced around the courtyard. All the teachers had their backs turned. The front gate was mere feet away. It would be so easy to make a break for it. So, so easy. And also not boring. There was only an hour left of the day, so he wouldn't miss much. He might get in trouble for his escapade, but only if he got caught. Besides, they didn't give fifth graders detention.

If none of the other students saw him leave, the teachers might not notice either. He was the new kid. People didn't care about the new kid if he was weird and boring. Les did not want to be weird and boring. He wanted to be noticed. By everyone, but particularly by girls. Like Sally. Okay, he wanted to be noticed by Sally. And he had to do something before she went around telling everyone that he was crazy. If she did that, he would become an outcast.

To prevent this fate, he would have to become extraordinary, Sally's word. At this very moment, Les was plotting his escape. He was going to do this. He needed to prove a point. That was that. No more waiting. Les had to go for it. Now or never.

He took one more scan of his surroundings, tiptoed over to the gate like a cartoon spy, pushed it open as noiselessly as possible, and bolted down the street.

He vaguely knew where he was going and how to get there. For all Les knew, a teacher could be right on his heels, waiting to pop up at the right moment and haul him back to school. Les was not about to go down without a fight. Without looking back, he let his legs carry him down the sidewalk, heart pounding, sneaker soles colliding with the pavement. When he had to cross to the next block, he would slow his pace and fade in with the crowd, picking the momentum back up upon reaching the other side of the street. He didn't stop until he reached Roosevelt High School. For a moment, Les stood, panting in front of the school. Then, his adrenaline still active, he slipped around the side of the building. Somewhere, there had to be a door propped open.

As suspected, he found a side door in the back corner being propped open by a rock. It was situated right next to a pair of giant dumpsters, which told Les that this door was not often used. He pulled open the door, ready to rush inside the school and begin his search for David. Instead, he froze when he found two boys directly inside the entryway.

They appeared to be hugging, except for the fact that their lips were glued together. Les had never seen anything like this. This kind of physical contact with others simply didn't happen among fifth graders, what with cooties and all that going around. Intrigued, Les remained silent, studying the two boys. The shorter of the two- not by much, mind- was blonde and had light skin with a slight tan. He had his back turned and was unable to see anything behind him. Therefore, he did not know of Les' presence.

The other boy, barely an inch taller, had black hair and a naturally tan complexion, sort of a beige color. To Les, he appeared to be standing at the perfect angle to see anybody who might be standing in the doorway, but maybe the other boy's face was in the way, because he didn't notice Les either. Remaining fascinated by the display of affection- he had never even seen his parents kiss like that- Les leaned back against the door. A second later, he toppled backwards as someone from outside swung it open. In his shock, Les let out a high-pitched shriek. As gravity pulled him down, he saw the two boys inside the building pull apart.

A third boy stared down at Les, his dark eyebrows raised in concern. He set down the cardboard box he had in his arms before holding out a hand, which Les used to pull himself up.

"Alright?"

"Yeah," Les replied.

The boy nodded in confirmation, then rounded on the other two. He crossed his tan arms and looked at them like a disapproving mother. The two shorter boys seemed to shrink against the bricks on the outside of the building.

"I didn't see the kid, okay?" The dark-haired one protested. "I would've stopped everythin' right away if I had."

"Uh-huh."

"Chill, Tommy," said the blonde boy. "All we did was kiss."

"Yer definition of a kiss is much more extreme than others', Mushy."

The boy who hadn't seen Les grinned at his boyfriend. "It certainly is."

"Mushy", the other one, blushed. "Be quiet, Louis. We can't talk about it in front a' the kid."

"It's okay," Les told the tallest of the trio, the guy called Tommy. "They were wearing clothes. I wasn't scarred for life or anything."

Mushy turned strawberry red. "Ya need help wit that box, Tommy Boy? I'll help you." He grabbed the cardboard box from the ground and disappeared into the school.

Tommy Boy called after him, "Ya were s'posed ta be helpin' me anyway!"

Louis rubbed his neck. "Yeah, sorry 'bout that. We got preoccupied."

Tommy Boy sighed. "I know, Blink."

Blink, the boy formerly known as Louis, waited for his pal to say something more. "Ya gonna lecture me or what?"

"What if someone otha' than this kid had found da two a' youse? What if da Delanceys found ya an' I didn't get back here in time? You know you an' Mush can't get 'em ta back off on yer own."

"I can fight. A couple a' bad eyes don't mean I can't fend fer myself."

"Jus' be smarter next time, alright?"

"Yeah, whateva'." Blink turned to Les. "So who're you?"

"I'm Les. My brother, David, goes here."

Tommy Boy nodded. "Da new guy."

Blink asked, "What brings the new guy's lil' brother here at such an inconvenient time?"

Les shrugged. "I was bored."

"We're unloadin' some boxes fer Miss Medda right now. Wanna help us?"

"Sure."

Tommy Boy walked toward the parking lot, gesturing for Les to follow. The boy clearly didn't talk much aside from being forced to lecture his friends, so Les stayed quiet as they took boxes from the trunk of an unusually shiny car and carried them into the building. Meanwhile, Blink waited by the door, to hold it open for the pair of them. Les wondered why the older guy wasn't carrying boxes and making him, the child, hold the door instead.

He got an answer after they had delivered the last round of boxes to the doorway. Les was looking through one of them as he and Blink waited for Tommy Boy to come back from locking the teacher's car. The box he had chosen was full of multiple different versions of a script for a play.

"Do you act?" Les asked, flipping through one of the scripts. He grabbed a second one and tossed it to Blink. The older boy flipped through the pages without really looking at them. "If you're planning on trying out for this play, you can get a head start now."

Blink rolled the script into a cylinder. "Actually," he said, avoiding Les' eyes. "I don' act that much. I move sets and things instead. I can't, uh, see very well." He smoothed out the script, tossed it back toward the box. It missed the inside by a few inches, landing off to the side on the concrete.

"So you're blind?" asked Les, clapping his hand over his mouth a moment later when he realized how rude that had sounded.

Blink shrugged in an oddly comforting sort of way, his awkwardness having vanished with Les' unfiltered response. "Basically. I mean, I still got a bit a' peripheral vision, an' my right eye's a bit better than my right, but yeah. I can barely see."

"That can't be fun."

Blink shook his head as Tommy Boy returned. Each of the older boys picked up one of the remaining boxes and made their way inside, Les following behind. As they reached the end of the hallway that- Les had concluded by observing his surroundings- led into a theater, Mush appeared. His face was still tinged with pink.

Taking the box from his boyfriend's hands, he told the others, "You're almost late. Medda was startin' ta wonder where ya ran off to." At this, Tommy Boy rolled his eyes; obviously, so Mush could see. "Yeah, yeah, I know I abandoned youse. But that kid-" Mush noticed Les remained with the group- "What's he still doin' here?"

Blink shrugged. "He's helpin' us."

"He's like seven years old."

"Actually, I'm ten," Les piped up, planting his hands on his hips. "Almost."

"Either way, you don't belong here. This is a high school."

"Really? I couldn't tell."

Grinning at the sarcasm, Blink remarked, "He seems like a highschooler ta me, Mushy."

"But he isn't s'posed ta be here."

"He said his brother's that Davey guy. There's nothin' wrong with him waitin' around for an hour."

"That's..." Mush sighed. "True. Okay, kid. You're gonna have ta stay back here for a bit."

"So you don't get in trouble for harboring a fugitive," Les earned himself a surprised look from Mush with the use of those two big words. "And I'm guessing you'll want me to keep quiet about the kissing as well."

Visibly trying to hide the fact that he'd started blushing again, Mush shoved open a nearby door. In the process, he dropped the box, which Tommy Boy was quick to catch before it spilled everywhere.

"Get in there, kid," Mush ordered, pointing into the empty dressing room.

Les obliged. "See ya, 'Mushy'."

The door slammed in his face.

And that, my friends, is how you get a kid who should be in fifth grade into a story about high schoolers. You make him run away from school, that's how.

This chapter basically wraps up our introduction to the newsies (except the ones from Brooklyn), so we'll start getting into the actual plot/strike stuff.

Before I go, I want to talk about something I included in this chapter. To start things off, Blush (Mush/Blink) is an adorable ship. And second, because Kid Blink doesn't wear an eyepatch in the Broadway show, I decided to give him a condition called macular degeneration, which as I described in the chapter, causes a decrease of central vision (vision in the middle of the eye). With this condition, Blink can be considered "legally blind", even though one wouldn't know it from his outward appearance.

That was a lot of talking, I just wanted to explain that further than I did in the chapter.

Farewell until next time, which may not be for a while, because my high school swim season is FINALLY going to start this week. Woohoo!