May 13th, 1894
Clara's chance to visit the Refuge came two weeks later when her mother needed to venture into Manhattan for some fabric shopping. They took a carriage across the bridge to the garment district, then stopped for lunch along the way back in one of the many small local parks before starting the walk back towards home, past the infamous "orphanage". Clara paused on the sidewalk to take in the sight of the old foreboding building. Its façade was ramshackle at best, gloomy at worst, and a wrought iron picket fence bordered the short distance from the road to the front door. Who could imagine what the conditions inside were really like? Tales from Bly's Fourteen Days in a Madhouse flashed through her mind. Her blood boiled to think that it might be anything like that and that she could do nothing to change it.
Mrs. Lemay tapped on her daughter's shoulder to get her attention and bent to whisper in her ear, "Don't point or make yourself obvious. Do you see the ill-tempered man with the bowler standing on the front stoop?"
"Yes," Clara whispered back, "Is that Mr. Snyder?"
Mrs. Lemay nodded but said no more as a carriage pulled up on the road beside them. It had scarcely stopped before the door swung open and out stepped a tall redheaded man with a mustache and a pair of round glasses perched on his nose. He tipped his hat to the two ladies and quickly crossed the distance to the gate with a few confident and purposeful strides. He gave it a loud clanging knock that sent the doors rattling and Snyder hurried to unlock it. Clara strained to hear their conversation.
"Good afternoon! You must be Mr. Snyder, head of this establishment they call the Refuge if I'm not mistaken?" The redheaded man asked. He vigorously shook Snyder's hand and continued blustering along before the other man could even answer his question. "My name is Theodore Roosevelt. I'm the New York City Police Commissioner and I have an appointment with you to go over…."
The City Police Commissioner?Clara stood a little taller when she heard that. Here was someone who could make a change! But why was he here? A million questions flew through her head about the operations of this now even-more-suspect than before institution. If only she could talk to him!
Mrs. Lemay started to pull Clara away and she reluctantly followed her mother for a few steps, craning her neck over her shoulder to continue eavesdropping on the conversation.
That was when she saw him. A young boy, only about her age, was half dangling out a broken window on the second story, staring intently at the distracted Mr. Snyder. He disappeared for a second back into the room, then returned, holding a bundle of dingy grey cloth. He tossed it out the window, and Clara realized that they were bedsheets, tied together at the ends and affixed to the frame of a bunk bed.
He was trying to escape.
And, Snyder would catch him if he wasn't distracted.
Clara took one last look at the boy, feet dangling off the ledge. He held a finger to his mouth, realizing he'd been noticed. Shhhhhh. Clara gave him a quick wave and mouthed a short instruction. "Go."
She broke away from her mother to run to the two bickering men, hoping he would understand what she was trying to do. "Excuse me! Excuse me!" She called, "Mr. Roosevelt? Sir!"
They looked up at her curiously. Surely, she made an odd sight: a child with a mother running along and begging for an audience to talk about the orphanage; however, it was the attention she needed – attention drawn away from the escaping boy. "I'd like to talk to you about the orphanage I work at!" She called cheerily.
"Mr. Snyder is this one of your wards?" Roosevelt asked Snyder, and Clara resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the annoying habit adults had of talking over her head as if she weren't standing right there.
"No, Sir, my mother is right there," Clara corrected, pointing in the direction of Mrs. Lemay who was now hurrying to catch up with her daughter. "We just came to Manhattan for the day. We work at Graham Windham Orphanage in Brooklyn, but we've never had the Police Commissioner come to talk about the children there. I wanted to ask-"
"Clara!" Her mother's voice interrupted Clara as she caught up to her. "I'm sorry sirs, she should know better than to speak out of turn."
Clara shook her mother off and pressed on, "Is this supposed to be a jail? These children might be my classmates, not criminals!"
The reactions of both men could have been amusing if Clara weren't so focused on making a scene. Mr. Snyder's face flushed with anger and he stammered out a request to Mrs. Lemay to "please get your daughter under control." Roosevelt, on the other hand, was laughing. Clara took a step back in confusion, debating whether it was a condescending or amused laugh. It was hardly the reaction she expected, and if she had time, she might even be angry about it, but for now, a reaction, any reaction, was all she needed. Her mother pulled gently at her arm to take her away but she stood stock still, staring at the men – through the men – waiting.
The boy reached the end of his rope jumped the last six feet to the ground and took off like a shot. He ran to the carriage and clambered onto the back rack where he disappeared. He was safe. But her work here was not done. She still needed answers.
"So?"
Finally, Roosevelt responded, bending down slightly to talk down at her. "I appreciate your curiosity! We're on a tight schedule and my other meetings of the day will be annoyed if I don't make them."
Clara's face fell partially in disappointment and partially in annoyance. Roosevelt fished in his pockets and pulled out a small business card, then held it out to her as if he was bestowing upon her some great boon. "If you're ever in the neighborhood again, I'd be happy to talk with you again, little lady," he said. He turned to his carriage man and instructed him to come back in an hour, before turning abruptly on his heel and making his way for the front door of the Refuge. The vehicle clattered off down the cobblestone street, carrying its hidden cargo with it and Clara couldn't resist a self-satisfied smile.
"Now," Snyder huffed, all but pushing them off the sidewalk as he shut and locked the gate behind them, "If you'll excuse us." He led Roosevelt into the building and slammed the door shut, leaving Clara and her mother standing alone in the street.
Clara fiddled with the card for a minute before slipping it into the pocket of her skirt. She felt her mother's steely glare on the back of her neck and looked up with a winning smile. "I think that went well!" she said cheerfully.
Her mother's glare melted away as she gave her an amused and long-suffering sigh. "Alright, Clara. Let's go home."
Niner, who stood hid several yards away behind a large food cart, was silently losing his mind. He'd taken to loitering around the Refuge in the past days despite all his better judgment telling him to avoid the place like the plague, but he couldn't help but wander there between rounds, anxious over losing Jack and powerless to do anything to rescue him. He would never forget the way Crutchie stumbled across the square to him through the midday crowd – rushing to pull his bad leg as fast as his arms and his crutch could carry him, frantic and halfway to tears to break the news. He'd done his best to console the younger Newsie, all the while mentally cursing Jack's stupid altruism and his carelessness for his part in instigating the stunt. And so, he stood there, expecting nothing, but unable to force himself to move on either.
He witnessed the proceedings across the street when the carriage pulled up, when the girl had started yelling, and when Jack had tumbled from the second story window on a rope of sheets. Did she know what she was doing? Would she be alright? She must know what a risk she took by interfering with Snyder's plans, by accusing him of his crimes before an authority, and that took guts, even with a mother hovering just behind her. He couldn't help, or speak with her, or do much of anything for fear of exposing himself or Jack, now safely hidden away, but it took every ounce of his willpower to stay safe and hidden and quiet instead of rushing into the fray.
When the argument abruptly ended, he found himself sprinting after the carriage in a wild attempt to keep up with it through the crowded New York streets. He finally caught up to it at the next street corner, just in time to see Jack dropping off the bottom carriage where he clung to roll away from the wheels on the street before it could begin to move again.
Jack laid for a moment next to the curb – filthy, exhausted, and caught up in the exhilaration of the moment. He was free.
He turned his eyes to the sky, tears of overwhelming relief welling up at finally being able to live under it again. A shadow blocked the sky, and when Jack looked over his shoulder, there was Niner, all but tackling him in a hug before helping him to his feet and dragging him back home to the Lodging house, all the while berating him for doing such a stupid thing in the first place and shouting exuberantly about his great prison break. Jack could only laugh. Supported by his older friend, they made their way back downtown together.
Once back to the Lodging house, Jack got washed up and Niner forced him to lay down and get some rest before reluctantly heading back out to unload the rest of his morning papers. The nap was nice, Jack had to admit, but despite Niner's protests that he needed time to recover, Jack couldn't stand to sit in the empty bunkroom of the Lodging house any longer (it was too much like the… no he would not going to think about that) and by noon he was dressed and making his way back to Newspaper Row and the distribution center.
He figured Niner would have told the others that he was back, but when he arrived, Niner hadn't returned from his route and the others all froze as if they'd seen a ghost. All except Crutchie. As soon as he saw the familiar figure of his lost friend across the floor, he all but threw himself off the stack of papers at his friend. For a split second, all Jack's worries melted away as he was caught up in the joy of the moment. The others jumped to action a second later and soon he was swarmed by his friends, his brothers, welcoming him home and vying for the story of his escape.
Jack gasped for breath, somewhere between a laugh and a sob and a shout of excitement as relief crashed over him in waves. He could hardly believe his escape plan had worked. His second escape plan. He'd put up such a fight when they first tried to drag him away that they'd skipped throwing him into the main big bunkroom and threw him straight into solitary - he shuddered and pushed the memory away. It took several days to work down his anxiety to the point of boredom and another day for his restless energy to finally remember an old story and formulate a plan. Then it was a matter of waiting for the right opportunity, and he couldn't believe it had actually worked.
But here he was, surrounded by the other Newsies: Crutchie's wide smile and Finch's exuberant yelling and Race's friendly rough-housing, pulling him back to the present moment and reminding him that he was safe and free and found by his family after being lost for so long. Jack smiled. Someone handed him a satchel as they lined up for their papers, and as he felt the familiar texture of the burlap bag and the heavy load of the afternoon papes, he felt the burden of the last week lift from his shoulders slightly.
By that afternoon, the word that someone had escaped from the Refuge had started to make its way around the city through the network of street kids spreading the story by word of mouth. Though the Newsies of the various papers and neighborhoods normally existed in a friendly sort of rivalry, competing for turf and customers, they all ultimately looked out for each other and spread more news than just the daily headlines. Whether it was gossip, rumor, a warning, or an exaggeration, the neighborhood was always glad to have something new to talk about, and soon enough the story of Jack Kelly's daring jailbreak on the back of Roosevelt's carriage had propelled him to near-fame among the working kids of the city. But it didn't matter, not to him.
He was safe, and free and his friends
And that was enough for him.
A/N: And here's the thrilling conclusion of this Refuge arc! I had a lot of fun writing this chapter – it was one of the inspirations for this story, where I had the idea of Clara being there for Jack's escape and built the rest of the plot around this. I'd like to give a special shoutout to DisneyFan10 for predicting this in advance! I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Thanks as always for reading! :)