I don't usually write notes to reviewers or disclaimers on my chapters but
I feel the need to spotlight my best reviewer and one of my best friends,
and definitely my best cousin, Glimmer. I would like the readers to know
that she toots my horn way to much, and really I'm not that amazing. She
writes fantabulous fics too, but her shorts are my favorite, so go read her
stuff before I soak ya. I would also like to thank everyone else: Kaylee,
Sparkle (another of my best budz) , and Keza. Anyway. Here we go.
~Skittles~
hl
The long summer days of that July were some of the hottest I could remember, which wasn't much, considering I could remember very little. Still, you could practically see the sun beating the energy out of the people around me who were walking like wet rags. This was horrible not only because it felt about sixty-thousand degrees, but it was humid. Right around July 15th or 16th, it became unbearable. And not only because of the heat.
Dutchy and I had been having a bad day selling. Jump was complaining constantly about the heat, and although her withered and sweaty appearance sold us a few extra papes that day, we were selling horribly.
"Curse the headlines." I muttered as a young couple walked by me, glancing over, shrugging and walking away.
"Hey." Dutchy tried to conjure up some enthusiasm as he chided me. "You know what Jacky-boy says--"
"Headlines don't sells papes!! NEWSIES sells papes!" Jump interrupted, quoting the famous line.
"Yes, well, honey, these two newsies don't seem to be charmed today. Hello Dutchy."
I grabbed Jump's hand at the unfamiliar voice and spun around. To my surprise, a woman dressed in a raggedy dress and holding a very small child by the hand was smiling behind us, talking to Jump.
"Who-" I started, but Dutchy cut my off.
"Mrs. O'Dell!" Dutchy exclaimed. "You're not supposed." I sent Dutchy a look, one of my "Okay, I'm completely confused, someone, enlighten me!" looks. He responded with a "Scrambling for excuses" look so I felt a twinge of suspicion.. What was he hiding? Mrs. O'Dell continued.
"Dutchy, lad, I wanted to come and thank ye. Ye've done a very good service to us, ye have, and I wanted you to know that. what?" Dutchy had been nodding at her furiously. If he was trying to hide something from me, he was doing a terribly botched up job of it.
"Um, uh." Dutchy faltered.
I feigned a politely confused stature and said, "Yes, do tell us. What Dutchy? What are you trying to hide?" I inquired, loosing my fake politeness, and replacing it with the anger of a lied to friend.
"Nothing." Dutchy murmured. Mrs. O'Dell looked confused.
"I'm sorry," I said to the tiny wisp of a woman, and looking in her dancing green eyes. "Dutchy never told me he knew you. who are you exactly?"
But Mrs. O'Dell had seemed to get the hints Dutchy had been floundering with, and I could tell she didn't give me a straight answer. "Oh, I had been a friend of his mother's! 'Twas a fine friendship and I had just recognized her handsome boy, all grown up." She seemed to have forgotten what she said about thanking Dutchy. "I'll just be going now." She smiled at Dutchy and hurried away down the street. Dutchy breathed an audible sigh of relief. I turned on him.
"What was that all about? Who was she? How do you know her, really? What was she thanking you for?"
"Well, gee, Miss, ya don't hafta get all suspicious on me. was just a friend of me mother, nothing more, and I'd visited her yesterday while you was takin ya nap. 'S nothing at all." Too bad she said she just recognized you, I thought. But I gave up, and looked around me. The sun was setting and there were only a few people on the streets. I still had a handful of unsold newspapers, but no one was buying in this weather, we barely had the energy to breathe.
"Curse the heat."
"Now dat's something' ya can curse." Dutchy grumbled. We headed back to the distribution offices to sell back our papers to the distributor. I hated doing that, it was so embarrassing.
"Miss, I's hungry!" Jump whined at us.
"We'll take ya ta Tibby's, sweety." I said, tiredly. Couldn't we just eat something at the lodging house that night? I was so tired.. But for Jump, I could never seem to make myself just take the easy way out, so we marched on back out of the square towards the tiny little restaurant.
As we passed the lodging house, Dutchy stopped. I wouldn't have noticed that he stopped, but he had let go of Jump's other hand and she yanked on me.
"What?" I asked irritably. The sun was sinking further into the west, and I wanted to get to Tibby's and back before long. "Wait here a minute, Miss." He sprinted into the lodging house. A couple minutes later, Mush, looking like he had no idea where he was going, wandered out of the door. When he saw us, he jogged over. The back of his shirt was all sweat, and I could tell he had been sleeping, because he had that dazed look about him.
"Heya Miss, I's supposed ta take ya ta Tibby's. Dutchy said he's feeling a little under the weather." I sighed. Didn't he just sprint into the lodging house? Looked fine to me..
"Alright. He's being so weird today anyway." I said. Mush, Jump, and I headed out to Tibby's.
When we came back to the lodging house, the common room was strangely quiet. Even Racetrack had set down his cards in the oppressive heat that was covering us and suffocating us like a blanket drawn over the head. A few newsies were talking lazily, but most were staring, or dozing off. Some had their shirts off and wrapped around their foreheads while they sat writing or reading, or whatever they needed to do. The kids were complaining, they were thirsty, they were hot, they couldn't move right, and they were sweaty..
"Shuddup you boys, or I'll soak ya so ya blood cools ya off, ya want that?" Racetrack snapped in frusturation. Blink groaned.
"Race. Don't tawk loud like that, ya heatin up the air." Jack said. He had untied his red bandana and was using it to wipe his forehead. His cowboy hat was in is other hand, absentmindedly being waved, and hitting Mush, who had gone over to share the Cowboy's breeze, on the head at every flap.
Their lethargy was contagious, and even Jump was dozing in her seat. I didn't worry that I didn't see Dutchy; I assumed he was up in the bunkroom. If he was really sick. I thought briefly about how he could have disappeared again, but thinking was giving me a headache, and when you're in a heat induced stupor, it hurts to worry. The sun set suddenly, as it does in summer, and Mush turned on the oil lamp. There was a collective groan, and he didn't say a word as he turned it off. We'd be talking by the moonlight tonight, not willing to make it any hotter in the room. Mush got up and herded the kids upstairs, where they each soaked a hat or a shirt in cold water to sleep with. Jump had fallen asleep on my lap. My legs were burning with her body heat, and I felt like I'd die from overheating if I didn't move, so I carried her gently to Mrs. Larson's room, where she was sitting, sipping water and fanning herself.
"Tuckered out already, is she?" She said softly. I nodded. It was early for the kids to be all asleep, but I was glad because I felt fatigued too. I grabbed the old hat Dutchy had given Jump and walked up the stairs to wet it. I sponged a little of its blessed coolness onto my face as I walked down the stairs.
Thoughts of how the streets were less crowded today than I had ever seen drifted through my weary brain, and I felt a little worry worm its way in through the cracks of fatigue. If we kept having days like this, when no one was selling well because no customers wanted to be outside at all, it would put all of us in a pinch. I'd noticed that night that the prices at Tibby's had gone up a couple of cents. It's barely anything to the usual customer, but when you're earning about twenty cents a day, then spending most of it on food, a few cents can mean no food. Living as a newsie had taught me a bit of essential arithmetic. If I bought 50 papes, it's 30 cents. If I sold all of them, I made a profit of 20 cents. Then if I bought a sandwich and a drink at Tibby's that's 12 cents. So I made a profit of eight cents that day. On days like this, when I can only sell thirty of my fifty papes, I can sell my extra twenty back to the paper and I get the twelve cents I paid for them, then I make no profit and still have to buy dinner. And lunch. And at the end of each week, I have to pay five cents to live in the lodging house. I knew this, and I hoped to God that the weather would cool off, or I'd be sleeping on the streets. Back where I must have started.
I was musing on this thought walking down the stairs when I bumped into something that yelped.
"Miss, ya scared me!"
"Dutchy? I thought you were upstairs?" I had never looked though.. I had gone into the washroom which was on the other side of the hallway.
"Upstairs?"
"Mush told me you were feeling sick and I assumed you had gone up to bed!"
"What? I ain't sick. I told him ta tell ya I had ta go out and do something!"
"You did?" We walked into the common room where several newsies that were still conscious had looked up. Dutchy and I were easily the loudest thing in the lodging house at the moment.
"Mush! Why didn't you just tell me what Dutchy said?"
Mush, looking like a puppy with his tail between his legs, wandered up uncomfortably. "Well, Miss, ya kinda went ta pieces when he wasn't heah last time, so I figured it'd be bettah if ya didn't hafta worry."
"Oh.. You're probably right." I sighed. What was the deal lately? It was taking up all my energy just trying not to be befuddled by Dutchy's actions lately. "I am going to bed, it's been a long, stinky, sweaty day." Mush shrugged and turned to walk back to the common room. I was unwilling to think about anything, so I started to just walk away instead of talk to Dutchy like we usually did, but he caught my arm. I turned around looking frustrated, but Dutchy just hugged me.
"Night Miss."
"Night Dutchy."
I trudged to the room, and fell almost immediately asleep to the sound of Mrs. Larson's rocking chair. Then I woke up into the still harsh heat of the night. It must have been a couple hours later, but I had had a nightmare that had something to do with running, and heat searing my skin, and I had no sense of time. I was bathed in sweat and decided that no one would mind if I went to cool myself off at the pump upstairs in the washroom. As I was quietly creeping out of my room, I noticed Jack sleeping in a chair. He usually refused to go to sleep until all the others were in bed, and then he would lumber off to his bunk. I'd never woken in the middle of the night like this before, so I didn't know if he fell asleep there often, but he looked uncomfortable so I went to wake him up.
"Jack. Jack. Wake up and go to bed." I whispered, gently shaking his shoulders. He snorted, and jerked awake.
"I'll soak ya, I'll soak ya I will!" He yelled, rather groggily. I jumped and heard something plunk on the other side of the room. He was alert in a second with his finger up to his lips in that universal gesture to remain silent. For a few moments, there was silence, and then we heard a stair creak. And another. Creak, creak, crack, squeak.. Someone was walking down the steps. From our position at the back of the common room, we couldn't see the stairs. All we could see was the five or so feet of open space from the bottom of the stairs to the front door. Quick as a flash, someone who was all elbows, knees and straight, ear-length blonde hair pulled a key out from under his shirt, unlocked the door, and slipped into the night. I recognized him and elbowed Jack, mouthing his name: Dutchy. Jack and I waited until my best friend's footsteps faded into the distance, and I burst.
"Where is he going so late?"
"Don't know, but we're gonna find out." He ran up the stairs two at a time, and came silently down with a dark newsie I knew as Stealth. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and tan skin, looking like an Indian. I had never heard him speak, but I had seen him talking with Jack occasionally before disappearing.
"Stealth, we saw Dutchy leaving here 'bout two minutes ago, headin' east. He shouldn't be too far away; Is gon ask ya ta follow 'im."
The newsie didn't ask questions, just nodded and left like a flash through the door Dutchy left open, sprinting silently down the street in his bare feet. I found this odd. It seemed to me that bare feet would slap and make even more noise, but as hard as I listened, I could hear nothing.
"Why doesn't he wear shoes?" I asked Jack, who was looking out the window to the street.
"I guess it makes him silent. Have ya ever watched him run? He's low to the ground, and his knees is all bent up. He looks like a wolf. And 'is feet are calloused. he probably don't even feel the sting of the street hittin his feet."
The sound of Jack's steady voice was soothing my spinning brain. I felt my eyes fluttering, and I let a huge yawn escape. Jack smiled at me.
"Go back to bed, Miss. Ain't nothing ya can do."
I gratefully retreated to my bed, with the thought that all of this confusion would be settled in the morning. "I love mornings." I said quietly to myself as I lowered myself onto my mattress. I slipped into a comfortable sleep and dreamt about running all over Manhattan, low and silent like a wolf, following a scent and a glimpse of blue eyes and yellow hair.
The long summer days of that July were some of the hottest I could remember, which wasn't much, considering I could remember very little. Still, you could practically see the sun beating the energy out of the people around me who were walking like wet rags. This was horrible not only because it felt about sixty-thousand degrees, but it was humid. Right around July 15th or 16th, it became unbearable. And not only because of the heat.
Dutchy and I had been having a bad day selling. Jump was complaining constantly about the heat, and although her withered and sweaty appearance sold us a few extra papes that day, we were selling horribly.
"Curse the headlines." I muttered as a young couple walked by me, glancing over, shrugging and walking away.
"Hey." Dutchy tried to conjure up some enthusiasm as he chided me. "You know what Jacky-boy says--"
"Headlines don't sells papes!! NEWSIES sells papes!" Jump interrupted, quoting the famous line.
"Yes, well, honey, these two newsies don't seem to be charmed today. Hello Dutchy."
I grabbed Jump's hand at the unfamiliar voice and spun around. To my surprise, a woman dressed in a raggedy dress and holding a very small child by the hand was smiling behind us, talking to Jump.
"Who-" I started, but Dutchy cut my off.
"Mrs. O'Dell!" Dutchy exclaimed. "You're not supposed." I sent Dutchy a look, one of my "Okay, I'm completely confused, someone, enlighten me!" looks. He responded with a "Scrambling for excuses" look so I felt a twinge of suspicion.. What was he hiding? Mrs. O'Dell continued.
"Dutchy, lad, I wanted to come and thank ye. Ye've done a very good service to us, ye have, and I wanted you to know that. what?" Dutchy had been nodding at her furiously. If he was trying to hide something from me, he was doing a terribly botched up job of it.
"Um, uh." Dutchy faltered.
I feigned a politely confused stature and said, "Yes, do tell us. What Dutchy? What are you trying to hide?" I inquired, loosing my fake politeness, and replacing it with the anger of a lied to friend.
"Nothing." Dutchy murmured. Mrs. O'Dell looked confused.
"I'm sorry," I said to the tiny wisp of a woman, and looking in her dancing green eyes. "Dutchy never told me he knew you. who are you exactly?"
But Mrs. O'Dell had seemed to get the hints Dutchy had been floundering with, and I could tell she didn't give me a straight answer. "Oh, I had been a friend of his mother's! 'Twas a fine friendship and I had just recognized her handsome boy, all grown up." She seemed to have forgotten what she said about thanking Dutchy. "I'll just be going now." She smiled at Dutchy and hurried away down the street. Dutchy breathed an audible sigh of relief. I turned on him.
"What was that all about? Who was she? How do you know her, really? What was she thanking you for?"
"Well, gee, Miss, ya don't hafta get all suspicious on me. was just a friend of me mother, nothing more, and I'd visited her yesterday while you was takin ya nap. 'S nothing at all." Too bad she said she just recognized you, I thought. But I gave up, and looked around me. The sun was setting and there were only a few people on the streets. I still had a handful of unsold newspapers, but no one was buying in this weather, we barely had the energy to breathe.
"Curse the heat."
"Now dat's something' ya can curse." Dutchy grumbled. We headed back to the distribution offices to sell back our papers to the distributor. I hated doing that, it was so embarrassing.
"Miss, I's hungry!" Jump whined at us.
"We'll take ya ta Tibby's, sweety." I said, tiredly. Couldn't we just eat something at the lodging house that night? I was so tired.. But for Jump, I could never seem to make myself just take the easy way out, so we marched on back out of the square towards the tiny little restaurant.
As we passed the lodging house, Dutchy stopped. I wouldn't have noticed that he stopped, but he had let go of Jump's other hand and she yanked on me.
"What?" I asked irritably. The sun was sinking further into the west, and I wanted to get to Tibby's and back before long. "Wait here a minute, Miss." He sprinted into the lodging house. A couple minutes later, Mush, looking like he had no idea where he was going, wandered out of the door. When he saw us, he jogged over. The back of his shirt was all sweat, and I could tell he had been sleeping, because he had that dazed look about him.
"Heya Miss, I's supposed ta take ya ta Tibby's. Dutchy said he's feeling a little under the weather." I sighed. Didn't he just sprint into the lodging house? Looked fine to me..
"Alright. He's being so weird today anyway." I said. Mush, Jump, and I headed out to Tibby's.
When we came back to the lodging house, the common room was strangely quiet. Even Racetrack had set down his cards in the oppressive heat that was covering us and suffocating us like a blanket drawn over the head. A few newsies were talking lazily, but most were staring, or dozing off. Some had their shirts off and wrapped around their foreheads while they sat writing or reading, or whatever they needed to do. The kids were complaining, they were thirsty, they were hot, they couldn't move right, and they were sweaty..
"Shuddup you boys, or I'll soak ya so ya blood cools ya off, ya want that?" Racetrack snapped in frusturation. Blink groaned.
"Race. Don't tawk loud like that, ya heatin up the air." Jack said. He had untied his red bandana and was using it to wipe his forehead. His cowboy hat was in is other hand, absentmindedly being waved, and hitting Mush, who had gone over to share the Cowboy's breeze, on the head at every flap.
Their lethargy was contagious, and even Jump was dozing in her seat. I didn't worry that I didn't see Dutchy; I assumed he was up in the bunkroom. If he was really sick. I thought briefly about how he could have disappeared again, but thinking was giving me a headache, and when you're in a heat induced stupor, it hurts to worry. The sun set suddenly, as it does in summer, and Mush turned on the oil lamp. There was a collective groan, and he didn't say a word as he turned it off. We'd be talking by the moonlight tonight, not willing to make it any hotter in the room. Mush got up and herded the kids upstairs, where they each soaked a hat or a shirt in cold water to sleep with. Jump had fallen asleep on my lap. My legs were burning with her body heat, and I felt like I'd die from overheating if I didn't move, so I carried her gently to Mrs. Larson's room, where she was sitting, sipping water and fanning herself.
"Tuckered out already, is she?" She said softly. I nodded. It was early for the kids to be all asleep, but I was glad because I felt fatigued too. I grabbed the old hat Dutchy had given Jump and walked up the stairs to wet it. I sponged a little of its blessed coolness onto my face as I walked down the stairs.
Thoughts of how the streets were less crowded today than I had ever seen drifted through my weary brain, and I felt a little worry worm its way in through the cracks of fatigue. If we kept having days like this, when no one was selling well because no customers wanted to be outside at all, it would put all of us in a pinch. I'd noticed that night that the prices at Tibby's had gone up a couple of cents. It's barely anything to the usual customer, but when you're earning about twenty cents a day, then spending most of it on food, a few cents can mean no food. Living as a newsie had taught me a bit of essential arithmetic. If I bought 50 papes, it's 30 cents. If I sold all of them, I made a profit of 20 cents. Then if I bought a sandwich and a drink at Tibby's that's 12 cents. So I made a profit of eight cents that day. On days like this, when I can only sell thirty of my fifty papes, I can sell my extra twenty back to the paper and I get the twelve cents I paid for them, then I make no profit and still have to buy dinner. And lunch. And at the end of each week, I have to pay five cents to live in the lodging house. I knew this, and I hoped to God that the weather would cool off, or I'd be sleeping on the streets. Back where I must have started.
I was musing on this thought walking down the stairs when I bumped into something that yelped.
"Miss, ya scared me!"
"Dutchy? I thought you were upstairs?" I had never looked though.. I had gone into the washroom which was on the other side of the hallway.
"Upstairs?"
"Mush told me you were feeling sick and I assumed you had gone up to bed!"
"What? I ain't sick. I told him ta tell ya I had ta go out and do something!"
"You did?" We walked into the common room where several newsies that were still conscious had looked up. Dutchy and I were easily the loudest thing in the lodging house at the moment.
"Mush! Why didn't you just tell me what Dutchy said?"
Mush, looking like a puppy with his tail between his legs, wandered up uncomfortably. "Well, Miss, ya kinda went ta pieces when he wasn't heah last time, so I figured it'd be bettah if ya didn't hafta worry."
"Oh.. You're probably right." I sighed. What was the deal lately? It was taking up all my energy just trying not to be befuddled by Dutchy's actions lately. "I am going to bed, it's been a long, stinky, sweaty day." Mush shrugged and turned to walk back to the common room. I was unwilling to think about anything, so I started to just walk away instead of talk to Dutchy like we usually did, but he caught my arm. I turned around looking frustrated, but Dutchy just hugged me.
"Night Miss."
"Night Dutchy."
I trudged to the room, and fell almost immediately asleep to the sound of Mrs. Larson's rocking chair. Then I woke up into the still harsh heat of the night. It must have been a couple hours later, but I had had a nightmare that had something to do with running, and heat searing my skin, and I had no sense of time. I was bathed in sweat and decided that no one would mind if I went to cool myself off at the pump upstairs in the washroom. As I was quietly creeping out of my room, I noticed Jack sleeping in a chair. He usually refused to go to sleep until all the others were in bed, and then he would lumber off to his bunk. I'd never woken in the middle of the night like this before, so I didn't know if he fell asleep there often, but he looked uncomfortable so I went to wake him up.
"Jack. Jack. Wake up and go to bed." I whispered, gently shaking his shoulders. He snorted, and jerked awake.
"I'll soak ya, I'll soak ya I will!" He yelled, rather groggily. I jumped and heard something plunk on the other side of the room. He was alert in a second with his finger up to his lips in that universal gesture to remain silent. For a few moments, there was silence, and then we heard a stair creak. And another. Creak, creak, crack, squeak.. Someone was walking down the steps. From our position at the back of the common room, we couldn't see the stairs. All we could see was the five or so feet of open space from the bottom of the stairs to the front door. Quick as a flash, someone who was all elbows, knees and straight, ear-length blonde hair pulled a key out from under his shirt, unlocked the door, and slipped into the night. I recognized him and elbowed Jack, mouthing his name: Dutchy. Jack and I waited until my best friend's footsteps faded into the distance, and I burst.
"Where is he going so late?"
"Don't know, but we're gonna find out." He ran up the stairs two at a time, and came silently down with a dark newsie I knew as Stealth. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and tan skin, looking like an Indian. I had never heard him speak, but I had seen him talking with Jack occasionally before disappearing.
"Stealth, we saw Dutchy leaving here 'bout two minutes ago, headin' east. He shouldn't be too far away; Is gon ask ya ta follow 'im."
The newsie didn't ask questions, just nodded and left like a flash through the door Dutchy left open, sprinting silently down the street in his bare feet. I found this odd. It seemed to me that bare feet would slap and make even more noise, but as hard as I listened, I could hear nothing.
"Why doesn't he wear shoes?" I asked Jack, who was looking out the window to the street.
"I guess it makes him silent. Have ya ever watched him run? He's low to the ground, and his knees is all bent up. He looks like a wolf. And 'is feet are calloused. he probably don't even feel the sting of the street hittin his feet."
The sound of Jack's steady voice was soothing my spinning brain. I felt my eyes fluttering, and I let a huge yawn escape. Jack smiled at me.
"Go back to bed, Miss. Ain't nothing ya can do."
I gratefully retreated to my bed, with the thought that all of this confusion would be settled in the morning. "I love mornings." I said quietly to myself as I lowered myself onto my mattress. I slipped into a comfortable sleep and dreamt about running all over Manhattan, low and silent like a wolf, following a scent and a glimpse of blue eyes and yellow hair.