Well, thanks to my wonderful reviewers, I have received the answer to my last poll! The results are...(drum roll, please!)...E! I like stoplights! The only problem is...that doesn't help me any. Yay! So I have decided that every so often, as in every five chapters, I will put another poll...if this story takes that much longer, anyways. Moving on......There has been an amazing new happening in which whoever owns the Newsies has mysteriously disappeared and there was a legal document found that named me as the sole heir of all Newsie material in case that whoever owned them first died or went missing. Yay! Go me! Unfortunately, the persons who kidnapped the original owners had realized that they had just given me full reign over any upcoming projects, panicked, and returned the original owners. Thus, I no longer own anything pertaining to the original Newsies.




~**~


Race strolled along the fence line, hawking his headlines, while Sidetracked worked diligently, trying to dislodge one of the wide boards. They both new that the front gates would be watched, and the side gates watched even closer, but if they went in the back....

Wiping the sweat of her forehead, she pulled the old nail out. She dropped the screw driver she had been using, and ever so slowly, pulled the board out of it's place, so that it swung on it's last nail like a hinge. Smiling, she stepped out from behind the row of bushes, grown to make the fence look better, and picked up her five papers. Race had told her that he'd but her lunch, and she'd buy her dinner, so that she could start out with just a few. She took ten, and, with Race's help, had sold half of them on the way to the tracks.

She got close to him and whispered "We're in." Race smiled, and they both began edging their way back to the large bush. Once there, they quit calling headlines, and Sidetracked stepped behind it. With out even looking back, Race sidestepped behind it as well. They tossed down their papes and snuck in.

While Race checked the line-up and times, Sidetracked tried to sneak around to where she kept her few things, in the kitchen of the bar, in a closet next to the pantry. She knew that Millie would be working today, but sometimes her sister, Maggie, would show up, on the pretense of helping. All Maggie really did was spread hurtful gossip, probably making most of it up. Millie, on the other hand, was so nice and sweet. Sidetracked knew that if it was just her in there, that she'd be able to get her stuff and get out, no problem.

Creeping up to the window, next to the door, Sidetracked cleared a small circle. She could see Millie stirring a large pot of something, and the currently empty chair in the corner that Maggie would use. She smiled. Today might just be lucky. If she was able to get back to Race without incident, she might even bet on the horses herself.

Smiling happily, she went to the door and knocked, as the kitchen girls usually kept it locked, just in case. There was a burglar last month again, and they finally figured out that it was the same people, and they kept sneaking in the back, while the girls were in the front. They were arrested, but no one wanted to take any more chances.

Millie left her pot and opened the door. Her eyes lit up when she saw Sidetracked and reached to give the girl a hug. "Becky! I heard about what you said to Mr. Arnold. I was so proud. I've wanted to do it for years, but I just *couldn't* say things like that to him. I wouldn't know what to do afterwards, either. Where *are* you going to live, Beck?"

"I'm gonna be a newsie now...wait a minute, what *did* you hear about me getting fired?"

"Maggie told me that she'd heard that you called him a fat, old, cow and then you ran out. She said that you even...well, she said that you said a bad word." Millie finished the last bit in a whisper.

"Yeah, I cussed, but I didn't call him anything...at least I don't think I did. All I did was refuse to call the bulls on some poor newsie who was taking a nap on some of the seats. He fired me...said if either one of us ever showed up here again, he'd have us both arrested."

Millie grew horrified. "Oh, Becky! Why have you come back? You'll be caught for sure."

"I just want me stuff. Don't worry. We'll be in and out."

"We?"

"Yeah. Me and Racetrack. He's the newsie I told you about. He's waiting by the back fence." Sidetracked began to move towards her closet, Millie moving with her. Opening the door, Sidetracked swept all of her few things into a small pile, grabbing her brown leather satchel last. As Millie watched, now back at the stove stirring her beginning-to-burn vegetable soup that would be her family's dinner, Sidetracked shoved everything in.

As she stood up and gave the closet a once-over to make sure she hadn't left anything, the door to the main room swung open, and they could her Maggie's high, obnoxious voice wafting through. Millie's eyebrows shot up, and Sidetracked bolted towards the door. Halfway there, Maggie began to walk in. Millie stepped in front of her, waving some rags. "Maggs, would you do me a huge favor and wipe of some of the tables? I have to stir this soup for another ten minutes, without stopping, or else it'll be ruined."

"Well, I suppose, but wait till you hear what I heard on the way here this morning. You remember that boy that Becky was having an affair with, the one that got thrown out? Well, he was here this morning, and he actually had the gall to place a bet on the horses. It wouldn't be a problem, you know, soak a few bucks out of him, then call the bulls, but he hit the jackpot! He bet on that horse that belongs to those people who live on that hill back that way, that was named after Becky, and it won! It's never won before and..." Maggie continued on as Millie walked her out the door, keeping herself between Maggie and Sidetracked.

As soon as the door was shut, Millie caught a "Thanks, Mill. See you soon." From Sidetracked as she rushed off to find out what happened to Race.


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Spot awoke to the same clangs and bangs he had been woken up by the day before. Getting up slowly, painfully mindful of his wounds, he began to unwrap the bandages. It was as slow and painful as getting out of bed was. He got the ones off his shoulder, but couldn't reach around to his back. He made his way around to the window and yelled out of it. "Savannah? Hey, Savannah, I need... I...um, I can't do this." Spot found it incredibly hard to actually ask for help.

"What do you need?" She asked, appearing in the barn doors.

"The bandages need changing, and I...umm..."Spot trailed off.

"Oh, all right. I'll be right there." Savannah went back into the barn and came out, sans milk buckets and work gloves. A few seconds later, she came through Spot's bedroom door, drying her freshly washed hands on a clean towel. Without even talking, she undid the old bandages, and tied on new ones. The old ones were wrapped in a little ball, and thrown away. "There you go. All finished."

"Good. I want something to eat now, if you could show me where I could get something." Spot 'Brooklyn' Conlon was beginning to get some of his old swaggar back. Savannah didn't like it.

"You know perfectly well where the kitchen is. Go get something yourself." She turned on her heel and halfway ran back to the barn. Spot frowned. 'What the hell was her problem?' He thought, as he put his shirt back on and made his way down the steps.

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I would have listed the reviewers, but ff.net was still on it's upgrade/offline thing when I got this one written up. I was on some sort of...I dunno... Writing Kick, I guess you could call it. I got one chapter of this, two of twisting time (Go read that, if you haven't already. I love it!), and most of a chapter for The Prophesey. (Read that as well....I have been working on it for a while now...last summer, to be specific.) This week's pointless survey:

What's the most asinine thing we could possible do today?

Please write your answer in your review!!! (The best one will be used in another story of mine...probably as a funny something in one of my co-written stories! (Check out my little bio-thingy to get the pen names for those three!)