misprint *~* Awww, do you realize that in your last review was the birth of "jeex"? How fun! LOL. Racey doesn't die… at least not yet. I haven't actually figured out where I'm going with this. At all. When you read Charlie's part… I don't even know where that came from. I wasn't planning for the guy that comes in to be there at all. I just wrote it down and then I was like… HEY! That could work! …I love being weird.
rumor *~* No smacking Boots! I heart Boots. He has a square head. ^_^ Hoo ha! He really does, it makes Kimi and I laugh. Kimi draws newsies all over my French book and Boots has a square head. HAHA! Thanks for the review. :D
Crunch *~* Thanks so much!!!! Yeah, poor liddle newsies… **Mondie hugs all newsies that are down on their luck** Out-of-the-blue Question: WHY isn't "newsies" in my spell-checker dictionary? It definitely SHOULD be… I think I must go have a talk with the compie people over at Microsoft.
Shortie *~* YAY FOR RENT/NEWSIES FANS! So many of us… it's wonderful! I'm just sticking with the "Will I?" song for all the chappies, don't ask me why cuz it's gonna get all redundant but I really don't mind. It makes ME happy, at least. Heh! Yay for "Santa Fe"! I read a really good newsies fanfic that tied the songs together… if you wrote that, slap me upside the head and color me stupid, because I can't remember right now who wrote it but it was so good… Hmmm. Ah well. If you *didn't* write it, you should read it. Ha!
Keza: Queen of Procrastination *~* Don't worry, I enjoy restating the plot as well. And poor starving Boots… poor can't-sell-worth-crap Skitts… poor beat up Charlie… or as I call him, Chahlie… poor freezing Racey… Yeah, usually I'm not a Jackie Boy fan (well, I love Jack as much as I love any other newsie ((except Snipes and Jake, who I hate)), but he's not on my top list like, say, MUSH) and so I wouldn't have Manhattan falling to pieces without him. But I wanted to this time. Yeah. Thanks for the compliments!
kimimay85 *~* YAY FOR HOME IMPROVEMENT! YAY FOR JTT! YAY FOR CRUISING WEARING BAND GEAR! … ::ahem:: Never mind. Don't you always want a Snickers bar? Sick, guess what? I definitely have an ecology paper (five pages) due Tuesday. I haven't even started… and I work tomorrow and Monday… HEH… oh well, it's Mr. Rollins. I'm not that concerned. I definitely wrote Aladdin in this chappy! My favey-davey Refuge child!! WOOHOO! LOL.
Raider *~* It's supposed to be sad!! LOL! I'm on this "must-write-depressing-stories" kick right now. Which explains the lacking of writing "Untouchables". That's too happy of a story for me to write right now. Yeah, I don't make sense… whatever. Thanks!
Will I?
by Mondie
Chapter 2
Will I lose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?
When Skittery awoke early the next morning, it was to the clomping of a horse's hooves. He opened an eye and watched the beautiful mare, brown with streaks of white, pulling past with a heavy cart. The man driving the cart seemed annoyed as he chirped to her to hurry up.
Skittery understood the horse's ideas more. He felt lazy, too. The ground beneath his body was like ice, and his thin clothes, ideal for summer selling, hadn't helped much during the cold night. He wished he had had enough money to get a bunk in the Lodging House. Feeling sluggish, he moaned as he got to his feet. His eyelids felt heavy, and he forced himself to jump up and down a few times, to get his blood pumping through his veins. Dirt and dust clung to his face even more than usual, and he found that his palms had crescent-shaped marks in them from his fingernails, signaling that he'd been clenching his fists in his sleep.
Stumbling slightly, he yawned as he headed for the distribution center. As long as the city was awake (and therefore him as well), he figured he should at least get a jump on everyone else and get a good place in line for his papers. He scowled as he wiped at his face after catching a glimpse of himself in a shop window.
Dere'd betteh be a good headline ta-day…
Thoughts of better days filled his head as he passed the Lodging House. As he passed the alley next to it, he heard soft groans. He knew that there was no reason to go and provoke a drunk who'd probably gotten into a bar fight with another dumbass, so he hurried past without even looking in.
Will I lose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?
Boots let out a heavy sigh as he shifted on the paper-thin mattress. "Cheese it!" growled a boy of fifteen, large with dark eyes and named Spritz, who was sharing the bunk. A small boy, no older than six, named Aladdin, was curled up at the foot of their same bed.
Boots had never been in the Refuge before; in some ways, he was glad it wasn't as horrible as Jack had pretended in his late-night scary stories. But in other ways, it was worse than Jack's horror tales.
Jack wasn't black.
The door to the small chamber burst open, and in strutted Mr. Snyder. Instantly the room came alive, as thirty bodies jumped from beds, standing stock-still at attention. Spritz nearly elbowed Boots out of the way, but didn't apologize. "Mornin', Mr. Snydeh," he said in a mock-serious tone. Mr. Snyder glared at him, but could find nothing wrong with the older boy to criticize. He let his fear-inducing eyes roam to Boots, who avoided his eyes by keeping his chin lowered.
"Look at me, boy!" Snyder growled. Boots looked up.
"Just what I thought. Worthless street rat! You're coming with me."
Boots opened his mouth to protest, but realized it was futile. Snyder abandoned his inspection of the other boys, who breathed sighs of relief, and strode purposefully from the room. Boots moved out of line and morosely followed him.
"See ya latah," Spritz laughed, and Boots looked back at him to stare daggers as the larger boy continued to shout at him, calling racial slurs. Knowing full well there was nothing else he could do, he lowered his head and followed Snyder from the room.
Will I lose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?
Charlie felt the groans escaping his lips, but that was about all he could feel. His whole body felt numb as he lay on the ground of the alley. He felt a familiar sensation in his throat, and before he could stop himself, he vomited up another mouthful of blood. His front was already soaked with crimson. His sleeve was soaked as well, but that was from a scratch which had bled for most of the night until the bitter air had made it freeze.
Charlie looked down at his leg, and the sight made him gasp for breath. He forced his eyes upward again, and away from the broken leg. The bone had pierced the skin, and his pants leg was too a bloody mess.
It hadn't all been from Oscar Delancey, of course.
He closed his eyes against the acrid memory of the previous night, when he'd been yelling for help. He was well-aware of the fact that the lodging house was a mere twenty feet away, and thought if he shouted enough, someone would help him to his feet. He'd only been scratched then, and woozy. He knew that if he got to the lodging house and slept the night away, he'd be all right.
Unfortunately, it wasn't Mush, or Blink, or Race, or California who came to see the origin of the shouts. It was Pirate.
Pirate was the feared leader of Harlem. He wasn't quite as infamous as Spot Conlon, the leader of Brooklyn, but he wasn't someone a newsie wanted to run into, either.
Distressing, too, was the fact that Charlie was certain that the only reason Pirate was in Manhattan was to take over. Everyone knew that he had hated Jack Kelly, but the fact that Jack and Spot were friends had kept Pirate from challenging him earlier. Now that Jack was gone, the leadership position was up in the air, and Pirate was most likely excited beyond belief to get a crack at it. Manhattan was an ideal spot. The heart of New York City.
Pirate had laughed to see Charlie there. Most everyone knew Charlie was Queens' runner, because he'd run to nearly every borough of the city at some point or the other. It was too humiliating to let Pirate see him hurt like this, because everyone thought of Queens as a bit of a joke, anyhow.
Pirate seemed to decide it would be too nice to let someone just wallow in misery, and instead decided to kick Charlie when he was down.
Literally.
Charlie wondered how things were going in the lodging house. What if Pirate had taken over after he'd left Charlie in the alley?
Charlie felt the blood rising in his throat again.
Will I lose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?
Racetrack trembled. His fingers were like ice, but he was feeling better than the previous day. He had been so ill that he'd been completely oblivious to everything that had occurred in the past twenty-four hours, and now he opened his eyes and searched the bunkroom. It was still too early for Kloppman to wake everyone up, and most every other newsie was sleeping soundly in his bunk. Race smiled weakly as he looked at his friends. Blink, snoring up a storm. Mush, cradling his blanket and wearing an idiotic grin. Bumlets, thrashing about his bed as he often did in his pre-dawn dreams. And Skittery, his legs dangling out in the aisle.
Racetrack realized that this last perception was wrong. It wasn't Skittery's lean legs jutting out from the bedframe.
Oh, God! he thought, sitting up to get a better look. He felt a sorrow lower in his stomach and had to gently make himself lie back down, but knew it wasn't all from the fact he was still ill. He knew that person. And his presence in the lodging house was not a good sign.
There was a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and before he could blink, Terrain stood beside him. The burly seventeen-year old raised an eyebrow. "Ya feelin' betteh?" he asked.
Race ignored the question. "Wha' in hell is Pirate heah for?" he hissed.
Terrain shook his head. "Ya don' wanna know, Race."
"Ah, shit," Race said softly. Then he felt the coldness come again, and, shivering, drew his sheets up to his chin. "Shit…"