Happy Monday, everyone! (Ugh, Monday.)
Review Responses:
AndrewKeenanBolgerFan: YAY! Everything's gotta have a coffee shop AU of some kind, right? So Jojo gets one. They and Buttons need to be in this more, but for a while I have them both hanging in the background. At some point Jojo will get a part in the plot. Some day.
JustVildaPotter: (Chapter 16) Yay! You're still reading this! Now I get to give you a really long review response! Yep, I think that chapter was one of my longer ones. Action scenes are fun to write. Glad you liked that scene, and the carriage thing. (Chapter 17) *bows* Thank you, thank you very much. It is my job to make people feel bad for characters, after all. (Chapter 18) Albert has a selective set of talents. He's gifted in weird ways. Yes, it was so satisfying, and then I went and ruined the night for everyone. Thank you! (Chapter 19) 11 is very good, considering I as the author who knows all the references got 16. Good job! More Buttons, Jojo, Elmer, and Henry is something we could all use. Thanks again!
Chapter 20- Les
Thursday, September 16, 1999, 10:45 a.m.
Les could not believe he had gotten David to do this for him. Perhaps it was because of the guy, Jack Kelly, that his brother had befriended. David had taken to being called "Davey", the nickname Jack had given him, so it seemed he would do anything that boy said he should. Or maybe it was Sarah who had convinced him to help out Les. Whatever the reason, Les had managed to get his older brother to sneak him into the high school. Rather than escaping his own school for a second time, Les had faked a fever, waited for his mom to go to work, and escaped the apartment instead. Before their fourth class, Jack and Davey had met Les at a side door.
"If anyone asks, you're fourteen," Jack instructed as they walked to the class, which Davey had said had something to do with newspapers. Les hadn't really been listening, other than when Jack had something to say to him. When they were halfway there, Jack noticed a red haired girl across the hall, so he abandoned the Jacobs brothers to go talk to her.
At the edge of the crowd filling the inside of the classroom, Les spotted Blink and Tommy Boy, the two friends he'd made yesterday. Les hovered with Davey for a moment, observing the conversation.
"You guys hear all them sirens las' night?" A boy holding a cigarette asked. "I was tryin' ta sleep, an' there they was, screechin'."
"Sirens is like lullabies ta me," Mush said.
"Because you's insane," Blink reasoned.
"No, because it means a better headline fer all a' us."
"So ya spend all yer free time thinkin' 'bout school?" The first boy shook his head and chewed on his cigarette. "Yer boyfriend's right, you've lost your marbles."
"This pape's all I got."
Stepping into the classroom as the bell rang, Davey waved to the others. "Morning everybody. Sorry I'm late. I had to look after something for my mom." He pulled Les into the room by the wrist. Les wriggled out of the grip, offended at being referred to as a "something".
"Hey, it's da Shortstop!" Tommy Boy called. Les went to sit by him, and they high-fived.
The cigarette boy smirked at Davey. "Oh, youse got a mother? I was gonna get me one."
"Whadja do wit the one ya had?" A short, brown-skinned boy sitting on a desk asked with a small laugh.
"He traded 'er for a pack a' cigarettes," someone with a shaved head joked.
Cigarette Boy protested, "Hey, they was Coronas!" Whatever that meant.
"We have a father, too," Les offered.
Without giving him a second look, Cigarette Boy spoke to Les like he was another teenager. "Ain't you the hoi palloi." Les was beginning to think he needed to learn a second language so he could understand this guy.
"A mudda and a fadda!" The kid with the shaved head looked impressed. Les wanted to be glad for that, but he wasn't sure what the person had just said.
"So Shortstop, ya go ta school here now or what?" Tommy Boy asked Les. "Ya some kind a' child genius or somethin'?"
"Nope, snuck in again."
"Ya fake bein' sick?" Blink correctly guessed.
"Uh-huh. What's all this talk about a headline in here?"
"School newspaper. We're newsies," Mush told him, looking down upon Les like he still disapproved of the boy being there.
"I could be your headline, if you need one," Les gave Mush a winning smile.
"Honestly, it'd still be better than yesterday's."
Two tall boys- one of which looked so old he probably should have been considered an adult- entered the office. The younger of the two walked to the chalkboard and began writing something.
"Here we go," sighed the short, dark-haired guy who had made fun of Cigarette Boy.
When the writer stepped away from the blackboard, a ginger guy walked up to read the headline aloud. "'New Newsie Price, Six Dollars per Hundred'?" He took a step back, appalled.
"What the hell?" Mush jumped up.
Davey looked skeptical. "Is that news?"
"It is to me!" exclaimed another guy. Les recognized him as one of the dancers from yesterday.
His best friend- or girlfriend, possibly, Les didn't know- shook her head, causing her long ponytail to swing back and forth. "That's jacked up."
The short-haired girl standing next to her furrowed her brow. "They can't seriously 'spect us ta pay an entire dollar more."
"It's only a dollar, Smalls," Davey told the girl. Silence followed his words. "I don't see what the big deal is."
Overdramatically, Smalls sighed. "No offense, Davey, I know yer new an' everythin', but ya ain't got no idea how much a dollar is ta most a' us."
Davey simply stared at her. It looked to Les like he was mentally correcting Smalls' grammar.
"You're right, he doesn't get it," said Les in a helpful tone.
Smalls focused on the floor, concentrating and tapping a finger to her lips. "I dunno how ta explain it." Then she turned to the ponytail girl. "Sniper?"
Sniper shrugged. "If he don't understand, he don't understand."
A blonde boy with forearm crutches got up from his chair and came forward. "Put it this way, Davey. If this was... I dunno, eighteen ninety-nine, an' this was our job-" he gestured to the rest of the class- "we'd all be sleepin' on the streets."
Smalls pointed at him, affirming the example. "Yes, exactly. Thank you, Crutchie."
Another person, wearing a shirt with the logo of some sort of cafe on it shook their head. "No way. A kid like you'd already be sleepin' on the streets."
Crutchie turned to face them, his expression completely serious. "In a worse neighborhood."
No one could argue with that statement.
Jack walked casually into the classroom, acting as if he were not incredibly late. "What're you guys all waitin' around 'ere for? Let's get ta work."
Smalls and Crutchie were the first to accost him.
"Jack, get a load a' this." Crutchie pointed to what was written on the chalkboard.
As Jack read the information, Smalls muttered, "Like Pulitzer don't got enough money already."
A grown man shoved the trio apart as he entered the room. He was holding a baseball bat, which he smacked against a table, yelling, "Papes for the newsies!" Les jumped a little at the noise. "Line up, kids!"
The short boy with dark hair had joined the steadily growing crowd of newsies wanting Jack's thoughts on the new headline. "Are ya seein' this?" He demanded, pulling on Jack's sleeve like a toddler.
"Relax, Romeo," Jack shoved him away. "It's gotta be a gag." Sauntering up to the table that was dented from many a baseball bat impact, Jack grinned at the teacher. "Good joke, Weasel. Really had the fellas goin'." He slapped a five dollar bill on the table. "I'll take a hundred."
Weasel jerked a thumb at the chalkboard. "A hundred'll cost ya six."
Jack scoffed. "I ain't payin' no six."
"Then make room for someone who will."
Sliding his money back into his pocket, Jack backed away. "Alright." Still facing Weasel, he stepped toward the door. "Me an' the fellas'll take a hike ova' to da next school. Different school, different pape. Different price."
"Uh, Jack?" A Black boy with round glasses stood up. "We're students, not employees. We can't jus' leave."
Jack cursed. After the fact, Davey clapped his palms over Les' ears. Les batted his brother's hands away, watching Jack stare Weasel down. "Why's the price all jacked up?"
"Budget cuts, why d'you think?" The man answered. "Pulitzer's raised the price for all you little journalists around the city. Now are ya gonna pay up or what?"
Looking frustrated, Jack crossed the room. He pulled a chair out from under a desk and sat on it the wrong way, resting his arms atop the back of it. "C'mere, guys."
The murmuring began before the crowd had fully formed around Jack and his chair. Most of the guys tried to push their way to the front; everyone wanted to be the first to interrogate their leader. Meanwhile, the teenager looked like his brain had been fried. He was already overwhelmed by the news of the new price, and here came an onslaught of questions directed towards him.
"They can't jus' raise the price like that, can they?" Sniper's best friend called.
"Well, Finch-" Jack started, but Cigarette Boy cut him off.
"Why not?" He wondered in response to Finch's question. "School board controls everythin'. It's their pape."
Jack nodded. "Race has a point."
Crutchie sighed. "It's their world."
Another boy with brown skin shoved his way to the front. "Ain't we got no rights?"
Jack looked surprised to see this guy talking to him "Henry-"
"Maybe we should just pay the new price," interrupted yet another guy. His accent was different from the others'.
"Ya can stop wit that idea righ' now, Elmer. No one's payin' no new nothin'."
"You got an idea?" Tommy Boy asked.
"Wouldja keep yer shirt on? Lemme think this through."
This request went unheard as the crowd of newsies jostled closer to their leader. Jack looked ready to bolt out of the room.
Jumping up and down at the very back of the mob, Les yelled, "Stop crowding him!" But no one listened to him either, so he pushed his way through the mass of teenagers and raised his voice even more. "LET THE MAN, WORK IT OUT!"
Immediately, the newsies fell silent and parted, making way for Les to approach Jack. Some even went so far as to scamper halfway across the room to avoid his wrath. After a minute of quiet, the young boy asked gently, "Hey Jack, you still thinkin'?"
"Sure he is," Race leaned against the computer behind Jack. "Can'tcha smell da smoke?"
"Hey..." Jack drew out the word. He motioned for his classmates to gather around him again. They did so, but more slowly this time, leaving about a foot of space between themselves and the area Jack and Les filled. "Alright, here's the deal. Obviously, we ain't gonna pay this new price. An' if we don' pay, da students here don't get their news."
"So?" asked the ginger boy. "No one reads our pape anyway."
"Shut up, Albert. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? So, we stop writin, an' everybody starts missin' our pape."
"And?"
"An' we don't do anythin' 'til they put the price back where it belongs."
"You mean like a strike?" Davey commented offhandedly.
"Yeah!" Jack jumped up. "Ya heard Davey, we's on strike!"
"Hold on, I didn't say that-"
"We shut down this pape like them bus drivers shut down transportation fer three weeks!"
"Great idea, Jack," Sniper complimented, but there was an edge to her words. "It'll be jus' like the bus strike."
"That's what I'm sayin'."
"We can get Oscar an' Morris ta beat us up an' everythin'," Finch added to Sniper's point. "C'mon. Half them strikers is laid up with broke bones."
"Cops been goin' after 'em lately," Tommy Boy confirmed.
"Cops ain't gonna care 'bout a bunch a' kids. Right, Davey?"
Until this point, Les' older brother had been making his way toward the door. Now, he turned around. "Leave me out of this."
"Leave ya outta this?" Smalls echoed. "Davey, this was your idea."
"No. It wasn't."
"Did he or did he not jus' suggest that we strike?"
"He did," said Les.
"I was joking. It was a joke, that you are all taking way too seriously."
"Too seriously? We's tryin' ta make a difference here. If anyone's too serious here, it's you."
"Really? Because I see a bunch of kids in front of me who can't accept the world being hard on them one freaking time."
You could have heard a pin drop in the emptiness that followed Davey's words. Smalls' mouth was open wide, and Les worried a bug was going to fly into it if she didn't close it soon. She was able to get out a few words as a response to Davey, but her voice had gone all high-pitched and squeaky.
"Cap, ya wanna take this?"
"Yeah," Jack stepped forward, slapped his hand down on another desk as he approached Davey. "Ya think da rest of us is here on playtime?" He growled, "Is that what ya think? Jus' yesterday ya were questionin' us havin' ta pay, an' now this?"
"Yup," was Les' older brother's shocking nonchalant reaction.
Jack's jaw tensed for a minute; he must have been gritting his teeth. Then he pointed toward the door. "Get out."
Davey held up his hands. "I was leaving anyway." He began to do so, but turned back around. "Look, Jack, I'm not saying this 'strike' is a bad idea. I'm saying you should revisit it when you have something real to protest." Once again, Davey went on his way, stopping again when he remembered his little brother. "Come on, Les," he ordered.
"Uh..." Les stood and faced Davey, hesitant to comply.
Jack nodded at him. "Go wit yer brother, kid."
Not wanting to argue with Captain Jack, Les headed towards Davey. "Sorry," he told the other newsies, following his older brother from the room. Most likely, he was going to be sent back home to continue faking sick. Or worse, he would be forced to actually go to school. Les had been wrong. Davey wouldn't do anything Jack said.
I gotcha there, didn't I? We don't get to have a strike just yet, that would be too easy. (I split the scene up because the chapter was getting too long, and there was something new I had yet to include. You'll see.)
If you don't yet know, I have a Newsies one-shot collection that's now up, called Here's the Headline. The holiday one-shots are going to be posted to that shortly, so please check it out.
This will be the only chapter I post today, due to it being the beginning of finals this week. (AHHHHHH)
See you, and if you wouldn't mind reviewing, that would make my day!