Chapter 16
WE spent most of the night finishing our costumes and rolled into bed around midnight. The guys were already asleep. Someone gently pushing my shoulder awakened me in the morning. "No Mel. I'm not getting up." There was quiet laughter and then I was dragged out of bed and onto the floor. "Mel this is getting ridiculous…oh Bumlets. Hey."
He pulled me to my feet and led me to the roof. The sky was just beginning to pale with sunlight. He sat down facing the sunrise. "What's going on?" I asked. However, he didn't answer. I was forced to join him on the concrete. "Well?"
"Isn't it pretty?" he asked grinning mischievously.
"Ummm." I decided not to point out that the smog was slightly distorting the view and hoping that this wasn't supposed to be romantic. Well, I guess if you discounted everything wrong with it, it could be cute.
Bumlets gave me a sideways glance. "You aren't still mad at me, are you?"
"In the dawn light, everything is forgiven," I said, giving him a quick hug which he returned quickly.
"Good," he answered, "because I didn't do anything wrong anyway." He laughed and put his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. WE continued to watch the sunrise.
"Today the factory workers are going to strike."
He looked at me in surprise. "Today? Like we did? That's pretty good. They needed to do it soon because no one should have to deal with those violations of basic human decency."
"Denton wrote an article to help the girls gain confidence that someone cared."
"That's funny because I didn't know you could write an expose without going undercover." I tried tp picture Denton undercover as a factory girl. It didn't work. Bumlets gave me a funny look. "What's that noise?" He pointed towards the main square where I heard what he was talking about. Loud shouting was faintly audible.
"THE STRIKE!!!!" I yelled and pulled Bumlets to his feet. "We have to go wake up everybody else!" I jogged down the stairs.
"You're really excited about this aren't you?" Bumlets called after me struggling to keep up.
I flew down the rest of the stairs and yelled back, "Of course! We're making history!"
"Okay," he panted.
Once inside, I scrambled around waking everyone up. "Guys! Get up! The STRIKE!!!"
Mel shot up straight in bed. "At the factory?"
"No. They're at the main square." Mel rushed to get dressed and hit Amanda on the way. Bumlets was pushing newsies out of their beds. "Guys! We gotta show our support!" In less than ten minutes everyone was up and about and running towards the square.
The square was pandemonium. Loud shouts combined with the noisy march of the protesters to equal one confused din. WE were astonished by the amount of girls walking up and down the streets. Lily and Sniffles led the pack. We started cheering in support and the it added to the confusion. It couldn't have been mistaken for anything but support however.
"But they need a chant," Amanda yelled above the noise into my ear. She pulled me into a side alley. "come up with some ideas and quickly."
I looked at her in shock. "I don't think on demand!"
"They're not gonna be heard when its all a mass of confusion. No one's gonna take them seriously."
"Well when you're right, you're right."
"I know." She smiled and struck a pose.
I started thinking. "2, 4, 6, we don't want to integrate" wasn't gonna work. All those cheerleader cheers sounded stupid here at the turn of the century. I was at a loss and Amanda was staring at me expectantly. "Equal rights for improved lives" was okay but it was missing all the suffering the girls went through. And it needed to be short and to the point.
"Robyn, hurry up! They're losing momentum out there."
"I'm thinking! As soon as I come up with it, it's gonna be spectacular." She groaned.
A couple of minutes later a light bulb appeared over my head. "I got one. But it's kinda long. It goes like this-" I whispered it into her ear.
"Works for me we'll just split them into two groups and have our way with it. Let's go." WE raced out of the alley and towards Lily and Sniffles. They looked disheartened.
"Guys, it isn't working. No one's paying attention to us!" They looked like they were about to cry.
Amanda put her arms around their shoulders and said, "You need a chant! Every successful thing through out history has a chant…I think. Anyway, Robyn came up with one-"
"But it's stupid," I interjected.
"No it's not. You need more confidence. What we need to do is separate them into two groups. You and I take the lead of one. Robyn and Lily will take the other. We'll say the first two lines. They'll say the second. That way it will be clear and audible." It took us five minutes to organize especially with all the noise.
It became silent as the word passed around about what we were going to do. Then Sniffles, Amanda and those close to her screamed the first two lines, "Hey girls we're on a mission! We're gonna improve disgusting conditions!"
It was our turn. Lily and me screamed the next two lines. "They aren't satisfactory at inner city factories!"
Slowly word got around and the chant was loud and clear. People began to stop their activities on nearby streets and it gave the girls hope. Big smiles appeared all around.
The strike continued for most of the afternoon before a representative appeared to talk to Lily and Sniffles. They were led away by a bunch of men in fancy suits and we knew that their plea had been heard.
We had dinner at Tibby's and we didn't have to pay because the restaurant paid for it. I love a good philanthropist. We were rowdy, all excited about the first day of the strike and how quickly it was going. I was sitting at a table with Bumlets, Amanda, Melanie, and Jack. Jack and Amanda weren't talking to each other but were alternately staring at each other. I whispered to Mel, "We gotta fix that issue. Who gets to talk to Jack?"
"No one," she replied. Oh so now she using my methods, not fair.
Bumlets grabbed my arm. "What are you whispering about?"
Quickly I came up with an answer. "Mel never got to see the Brooklyn Bridge. She wants to go yell off it or something."
"That's easily solvable. We'll take her up there tonight. We gotta pick up Spot anyway."
"Bad idea." I shook my head.
"No Jack's plans are always a good idea." Bumlets smiled knowingly.
"Jack's plans! Look what he did to Amanda?" That kinda pissed me off.
He was confused, but I couldn't explain because just then Sniffles and Lily burst in the door.
They each fell into a seat, their faces flushed with happiness. Everybody clustered around them asking them what happened. Lily gestured for quiet and Sniffles raised her arms in an expansive gesture. The room was silent when she proclaimed, "We formed a union." Lily started laughing. The rest of us looked around at each other confused. She continued, "We formed a union because on the way in they started hassling us. They're really scared about unions. So we formed one and got-" she paused for emphasis, but Lily finished, "Exactly what we wanted!" The place erupted in cheers. Sniffles gestured for quiet again and Lily continued, "We'll celebrate by combining a factory girls party with Medda's tenth anniversary party tomorrow."
Someone whistled and yelled, "Girls? I'm definitely coming." There was a huge amount of laughter.
Lily finished with, "You guys can go back to eating now." The waiter brought the two girls each a hot dog. They squished into our table and separated the girls from the boys. Sniffles did a stage whisper, "We need to practice you guys, when can we do it?"
"All tomorrow," I replied.
"And tonight," added Mel looking at me.
"No. Tonight we're going to the bridge." A smile lit Mel's face.
WE spent most of the night finishing our costumes and rolled into bed around midnight. The guys were already asleep. Someone gently pushing my shoulder awakened me in the morning. "No Mel. I'm not getting up." There was quiet laughter and then I was dragged out of bed and onto the floor. "Mel this is getting ridiculous…oh Bumlets. Hey."
He pulled me to my feet and led me to the roof. The sky was just beginning to pale with sunlight. He sat down facing the sunrise. "What's going on?" I asked. However, he didn't answer. I was forced to join him on the concrete. "Well?"
"Isn't it pretty?" he asked grinning mischievously.
"Ummm." I decided not to point out that the smog was slightly distorting the view and hoping that this wasn't supposed to be romantic. Well, I guess if you discounted everything wrong with it, it could be cute.
Bumlets gave me a sideways glance. "You aren't still mad at me, are you?"
"In the dawn light, everything is forgiven," I said, giving him a quick hug which he returned quickly.
"Good," he answered, "because I didn't do anything wrong anyway." He laughed and put his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. WE continued to watch the sunrise.
"Today the factory workers are going to strike."
He looked at me in surprise. "Today? Like we did? That's pretty good. They needed to do it soon because no one should have to deal with those violations of basic human decency."
"Denton wrote an article to help the girls gain confidence that someone cared."
"That's funny because I didn't know you could write an expose without going undercover." I tried tp picture Denton undercover as a factory girl. It didn't work. Bumlets gave me a funny look. "What's that noise?" He pointed towards the main square where I heard what he was talking about. Loud shouting was faintly audible.
"THE STRIKE!!!!" I yelled and pulled Bumlets to his feet. "We have to go wake up everybody else!" I jogged down the stairs.
"You're really excited about this aren't you?" Bumlets called after me struggling to keep up.
I flew down the rest of the stairs and yelled back, "Of course! We're making history!"
"Okay," he panted.
Once inside, I scrambled around waking everyone up. "Guys! Get up! The STRIKE!!!"
Mel shot up straight in bed. "At the factory?"
"No. They're at the main square." Mel rushed to get dressed and hit Amanda on the way. Bumlets was pushing newsies out of their beds. "Guys! We gotta show our support!" In less than ten minutes everyone was up and about and running towards the square.
The square was pandemonium. Loud shouts combined with the noisy march of the protesters to equal one confused din. WE were astonished by the amount of girls walking up and down the streets. Lily and Sniffles led the pack. We started cheering in support and the it added to the confusion. It couldn't have been mistaken for anything but support however.
"But they need a chant," Amanda yelled above the noise into my ear. She pulled me into a side alley. "come up with some ideas and quickly."
I looked at her in shock. "I don't think on demand!"
"They're not gonna be heard when its all a mass of confusion. No one's gonna take them seriously."
"Well when you're right, you're right."
"I know." She smiled and struck a pose.
I started thinking. "2, 4, 6, we don't want to integrate" wasn't gonna work. All those cheerleader cheers sounded stupid here at the turn of the century. I was at a loss and Amanda was staring at me expectantly. "Equal rights for improved lives" was okay but it was missing all the suffering the girls went through. And it needed to be short and to the point.
"Robyn, hurry up! They're losing momentum out there."
"I'm thinking! As soon as I come up with it, it's gonna be spectacular." She groaned.
A couple of minutes later a light bulb appeared over my head. "I got one. But it's kinda long. It goes like this-" I whispered it into her ear.
"Works for me we'll just split them into two groups and have our way with it. Let's go." WE raced out of the alley and towards Lily and Sniffles. They looked disheartened.
"Guys, it isn't working. No one's paying attention to us!" They looked like they were about to cry.
Amanda put her arms around their shoulders and said, "You need a chant! Every successful thing through out history has a chant…I think. Anyway, Robyn came up with one-"
"But it's stupid," I interjected.
"No it's not. You need more confidence. What we need to do is separate them into two groups. You and I take the lead of one. Robyn and Lily will take the other. We'll say the first two lines. They'll say the second. That way it will be clear and audible." It took us five minutes to organize especially with all the noise.
It became silent as the word passed around about what we were going to do. Then Sniffles, Amanda and those close to her screamed the first two lines, "Hey girls we're on a mission! We're gonna improve disgusting conditions!"
It was our turn. Lily and me screamed the next two lines. "They aren't satisfactory at inner city factories!"
Slowly word got around and the chant was loud and clear. People began to stop their activities on nearby streets and it gave the girls hope. Big smiles appeared all around.
The strike continued for most of the afternoon before a representative appeared to talk to Lily and Sniffles. They were led away by a bunch of men in fancy suits and we knew that their plea had been heard.
We had dinner at Tibby's and we didn't have to pay because the restaurant paid for it. I love a good philanthropist. We were rowdy, all excited about the first day of the strike and how quickly it was going. I was sitting at a table with Bumlets, Amanda, Melanie, and Jack. Jack and Amanda weren't talking to each other but were alternately staring at each other. I whispered to Mel, "We gotta fix that issue. Who gets to talk to Jack?"
"No one," she replied. Oh so now she using my methods, not fair.
Bumlets grabbed my arm. "What are you whispering about?"
Quickly I came up with an answer. "Mel never got to see the Brooklyn Bridge. She wants to go yell off it or something."
"That's easily solvable. We'll take her up there tonight. We gotta pick up Spot anyway."
"Bad idea." I shook my head.
"No Jack's plans are always a good idea." Bumlets smiled knowingly.
"Jack's plans! Look what he did to Amanda?" That kinda pissed me off.
He was confused, but I couldn't explain because just then Sniffles and Lily burst in the door.
They each fell into a seat, their faces flushed with happiness. Everybody clustered around them asking them what happened. Lily gestured for quiet and Sniffles raised her arms in an expansive gesture. The room was silent when she proclaimed, "We formed a union." Lily started laughing. The rest of us looked around at each other confused. She continued, "We formed a union because on the way in they started hassling us. They're really scared about unions. So we formed one and got-" she paused for emphasis, but Lily finished, "Exactly what we wanted!" The place erupted in cheers. Sniffles gestured for quiet again and Lily continued, "We'll celebrate by combining a factory girls party with Medda's tenth anniversary party tomorrow."
Someone whistled and yelled, "Girls? I'm definitely coming." There was a huge amount of laughter.
Lily finished with, "You guys can go back to eating now." The waiter brought the two girls each a hot dog. They squished into our table and separated the girls from the boys. Sniffles did a stage whisper, "We need to practice you guys, when can we do it?"
"All tomorrow," I replied.
"And tonight," added Mel looking at me.
"No. Tonight we're going to the bridge." A smile lit Mel's face.