Martie and Ben jumped off of the trolley. It kept moving, unaware that it
had just lost two non-paying customers. In front of them was a nice house,
converted into a lodging house.
"Welcome to the Battery." Ben opened the door and Martie stepped
inside. There were two girls sitting on the steps, smoking. One of them
stood up and walked over. Ben said, "Heya Blaze."
"Hey, Ben." Blaze turned around. "Sling! Get over here, you're bein'
rude!" She tucked a piece of her long blond hair behind her ear. The
other girl slowly walked over.
Sling peered at Martie. She had steely gray eyes that were very
authoritative. "Who's dis?"
Ben laughed and said, "You are being rude today, aren't you? This is
Martie. She's here to talk to T."
"Oh!" Slingshot smiled, and her entire expression changed. "Sorry, I
t'ought you was somebody else!"
Blaze started up the stairs. "I'se pretty sure dat he's up here, wit' Smalls."
Martie followed Ben up to the attic, where several newsies were sitting
around and talking. In the far left corner, a small girl was telling a
joke. The boy next to her laughed at her antics. He was very pale, almost
ghostly. His hair was close to white and thin. He looked up at the new
arrivals, and Martie was surprised to see that his eyes were jet
black. His gaze locked onto her, and he jumped to his feet. "Are you Martie?"
She nodded and Ben led her over. The boy, T she assumed, was not much
taller than she was, but something about the way he held himself, his
posture, made him seem like he was.
"Sit down. I have a long story." He smiled, and Martie decided that she
trusted him. She sat, as did Ben, Slingshot, Blaze and Smalls.
T cleared his throat and began.


"I'm not from around here. I'm actually from Kenmore, up near Niagara
Falls. I was down here in Manhattan looking for a friend. I didn't find
him when I was supposed to meet him, but I did meet this really cool girl,
Anita. We started talking, and she was telling me about these great
Americans she had met when she came here, to America. After a while, I
realized that I needed to leave and get a few hours travel in. See,
Kenmore is about 40 hours from Manhattan, if you don't walk the whole way...
"So, I left the restaurant where we had been talking and I thought I saw
my friend. I went over to get him, but I was wrong, it wasn't him at
all. So, I turned around, hoped nobody saw that, and started walking. All
a sudden, I heard somebody scream, and I looked into the alleyway I had
just passed. Anita was there, but she was unconscious. There were about 4
girls standing over her, and one guy. They looked tough, and one girl had a
mean-looking knife on her belt. I knew that I couldn't take them by
myself, so I followed them. Up through the Bronx, and past Chester. Then
we hit the Battery, and I hit a barrel. It was dark, OK? So I ran in
here. The only name i could remember her saying was Martie, so I asked.
"Ben here stepped forward and said, 'I knew one, once. I don't know if
it's the same girl, or if she's still there, but I knew a Martie O'Graidy
in Manhattan 2 years ago.'
"Of course, we had to take the chance, and luckily, Ben was right. So,
now we gotta make a plan."

Martie nodded and exhaled. She was so tired... Ben knew her better than
she thought and he could almost hear what she was thinking. "Do you need
some time before we go?"
"Uh, yeah. Yeah, that'd be good."
Small stood up and said, "You can use my bunk if you wanna lay down."
"Oh, t'anks, but dat's a'right..."
"Hey, I don' take 'no' for an answer. Come one!" Smalls jumped down the
stairs into the girl's bunkroom, her thick hair flying out behind her.
Martie turned to Ben. "C'mon. You got a lot of explainin' to do, and not
much time to do it..."