Title: Story Seldom Told
Author: Reesie (e-mail: moxyreesie@hotmail.com)
Rated: PG, for now.
Summary: This is the story of Duds, an unlikely heroine. It's pretty much standard Newsies fanfic now, but I hope it'll go somewhere a bit different than usual.
Notes: Anything in italics is something Anne (Duds) is thinking to herself, or a memory of hers. I hope it's not too confusing.
Disclaimer: Duds, Ida, Mary and Lisa are all my original characters; Bolt and Slingshot are not mine but are used with permission by their creators; all other characters are from the film "Newsies" and belong to Disney. The title and summary of my story comes from the song "The Boxer," by Simon & Garfunkel. It is the theme song to this fic.
Thanks: Thanks to Bolt and Sling, for lending me their characters, and everybody else who has allowed me free range with their characters. They'll all be popping up sooner or later! :)
Anne Johnson stood in front of the doorway to the Manhattan Newsboys' Lodging House, clutching the handle of her small, worn-out handbag apprehensively. This is it, she thought to herself. My new home.
She lingered outside a moment longer, trying hard to muster up enough courage to step inside the foreign building. It was getting late, and she knew that it wasn't very safe to be standing outside like she was—of course, safe was always a relative word for girls in New York City, no matter what time of day—but the thought of being robbed by some creep seemed more than welcome to her than the task set forth.
Drawing in a shaky breath, the sixteen-year-old stepped forward and thrust the door to the Lodging House open. The faint sound of laughter and argument from upstairs flooded her ears as she clutched the door handle hesitantly.
"Um, hello?" She called out softly.
"Oh, 'ello dear," an old, friendly-looking man greeted her from behind the front desk. He held a newspaper in one hand and adjusted his glasses with the other. "Close the door, willya? You're letting the heat in." He rubbed some perspiration off his forehead with his sleeve as if proving a point.
"Sorry, sir." Anne closed the door and went back to clutching her handbag.
"Well, come in, come in. Don't be shy. We don't get many girls here, but there are a few. The boys are more than happy to welcome you." He grinned at her before opening up the black book on his desk. "You can sign in here."
She approached the book and held the pen awkwardly. "I'm not used to using these, Mr…"
"Kloppman, dear. Just Kloppman. Don't worry 'bout being neat, just scrawl your initials on the line." She did so, and reached into her pocket for her money.
"I only have two bits. Is that enough?" The dingy-haired brunette bit her lip as the old man laughed.
"It's more than enough, dear. We're not running the Waverly hotel here." He said, not un-kindly. "The fee is only five cents a night, but I'll let you stay for free this once. You'll need those bits for papes tomorrow, you know."
"Thank you." She smiled and placed her money back into her pocket. "Should I just head upstairs?"
"Yep. One of the boys will tell you where to go. Remember, rise-'n-shine is six o'clock, so don't be staying up to all hours of the night like some of them kids do."
Anne thanked him one more time and headed up the stairs. Feeling a little more at ease to the situation, she stepped boldly inside.
There were boys everywhere. Some were sleeping, but most were up and about--playing cards, mending clothes, smoking cigars and cigarettes, the whole bit. Anne spotted a couple of girls among the pack as well. She could feel the uncertainty coming back in waves, and gripped the nearest bedpost to keep from fleeing in a panic.
"Hey, Jack! Look't what we got here," a short, dark-haired boy playing cards with some other boys was the first to see her.
"What is it, Race?" A taller, sandy-haired boy answered distractedly. He was concentrating hard on mending a tear in his shirt.
"I dunno. Looks like a dud, but you tell me." Race motioned to Anne with a cock of the head.
The boy called Jack looked up and finally noticed her. "What? Oh. Oh! I see it now. Come over here, Duds." He yelled out. The room quieted down as Anne made her way over, head down and blushing furiously.
"My name's Anne." She murmured.
"Sure, kid. Welcome to the Manhattan Lodging House, home of the best newsies in New York." This was answered by several hoots of agreement. He grinned and continued. "I'se called Jack Kelly around these parts. That guy over there with the ace up his sleeve is Racetrack—"
"Only figuratively speaking about the ace, might I add." Racetrack said for the benefit of the two other boys playing cards with him.
"Those two schmucks are Mush and Kid Blink; the guy sleeping on the bunk above them is Skittery; then there's Snipeshooter, Slingshot, Bumlets…" And he continued the introductions until Anne was dizzy with confusing and mostly odd nicknames. When he was done, he slapped his hand on her shoulder and shouted, "everybody, this is Duds."
A chorus of half-hearted "hellos" and "welcomes" arose from around the room. Anne smiled but did manage a soft "Actually, my name is Anne" that no one heard before being interrupted by Jack again. It was beginning to dawn on her that Jack must be the leader of this newsies operation, and she thought again about how she wished she could leave…but where would I go?
"Hey Slingshot, get over here." Jack hollered over to a tall, brown-haired girl who seemed to be busy fixing, appropriately enough, a busted slingshot.
"Hold your damn horses, Cowboy." She hollered back. "I got better things to do than answer to your every whim. Jeez." Despite the irritated words, though, she did get up and saunter her way over to Jack and Anne.
"So whaddaya want, Kelly?" The girl spoke to Jack, still sounding annoyed.
"I want you to help Duds here get settled into her bunk."
Slingshot looked at Anne as if it was the first time she had noticed her. "For crikes' sake. Why do I have to have Duds Duty?"
" 'Duds Duty.' That's real nice, Sling." Jack said sarcastically. "Could you just do it? Please?"
Slingshot sighed. "Fine. C'mon." She motioned for Anne to follow her, which she did. She led her into a smaller, less occupied room with a door that said "Girls Only."
"This is where we sleep, okay? Grab a bunk and settle in." Slingshot gestured around her and then bowed. "So this concludes our tour, Miss Duds. If you have any questions, don't ask me." She left, slightly slamming the door behind her.
Anne looked around, wide-eyed. The soft sound of someone giggling made her flush a deep red. She hated the sound of being laughed at, and no matter how often it happened to her in her life, she could never get used to it.
"Oh! I'm not laughing at you," the giggler said quickly, as if reading her mind. "It's just your expression. You looked so confused!" The short, brown-haired girl smiled and held out her hand to Anne, who shook it meekly. "I'm Bolt, by the way. I take it your name is Duds?"
Anne thought it would be useless to tell her otherwise. She was Duds to everyone else in the Lodging House; she might as well accept it. "Yeah, I guess I am."
"Well, welcome. Oh, and don't mind Slingshot's grouchiness, she's not usually that bad. Her slingshot broke today and she's more attached to it than she'll let on." Anne noticed that Bolt was carrying a small red notebook in her left hand.
"What's that?" She asked. Bolt looked confused for a minute, and then laughed.
"Oh! It's my notebook. I write in it." She looked around the room for a second, making sure no one else was listening and then leaned in close. "I plan on becoming a writer some day," she whispered. Anne nodded, a small smile forming on her lips as she recalled her old friend Mary, from the Young Girls' Home Orphanage.
***
Anne was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for dinner that night. She was crying; was it because she was cutting onions, or was it because she was missing lessons? She was used to not attending lessons; Sister Mary Rose had informed the headmaster of the orphanage that Anne would never be able to read or write, that she was "too stupid" and "too lazy" to learn how. (Or was it that Sister Mary Rose didn't understand why, when Anne tried to write out the alphabet on the blackboard, the letters appeared to be…backwards?) And so Anne was dismissed and shuttled to the kitchen for most of the day, while all the other girls went to their lessons.
Anne chopped, and cried, and suddenly heard the sound of someone knocking. She wiped her eyes quickly and opened the door.
In rushed a laughing girl and her two wary companions. "Quick! Close the door, Annie!" The laughing one said, followed by a "shh!" from the others. Anne shut the door and looked at her friends with surprise.
"What are you doing here!? You guys could get into real bad trouble!" Anne scolded, but beneath the words held a tone of delight.
"We didn't feel like looking at that old bat's big fat face all day," Ida (the one who had been laughing before) made a face like Sister Mary Rose's, then continued. "Sooo, we decided to come visit you."
Mary, a short blonde-haired girl with pretty hazel eyes and a perpetual look of sarcastic bemusement, placed an arm around Anne's shoulders. "Against our better judgment, I suppose, but we couldn't resist."
The third girl, a tall, big-boned brunette named Lisa, picked up a few carrot and celery slices and handed some to Ida. "Plus, Ida was hungry." She said, teasingly. Ida munched on the veggies happily.
"Help yourselves!" Anne offered the girls some more, and even ate a few pieces herself. She was honored to have the Three Musketeers, as the other girls in the Young Girls' Home called Mary, Ida and Lisa, risking being caught just to visit her. She pushed away the thought that they were probably there because they wanted food, and were just using the shy kitchen girl as a way to get some, because the thought was unpleasant and she hoped the Three Musketeers were her friends, even if she wasn't one of them.
"But, Ida, Headmaster Lawson is gonna find out you weren't at lessons today," Anne bit her lip, concerned for the smallish brunette, glancing over the fading bruises that already were covering Ida's bare legs.
"Eh. I'm gonna get in trouble for something along the line, anyway. I'm about due for a thrashing." Ida shrugged. The girl was always getting whipped for something, this was true. Mr. Lawson hated the Three Musketeers, particularly Ida, and never let a chance to punish her slip by. Anne felt sorry for Ida, but at the same time—and for this, she was ashamed—was glad she wasn't her.
"All right, I think it's time to get back to our room, and let poor Anne get back to work," Lisa said apologetically.
"Thanks, Anne! We'll see you tonight!" Ida called out, heading out the door. Lisa quickly followed, but Mary stayed behind.
"One day, Annie, we're going to get you out of this," she squeezed Anne's hand, and looked out the window. "You shouldn't be cooped up here in this damn kitchen. You're better than this, do you know that?" She looked at Anne's face, hard. "You don't know that. Well, you are."
"No, I'm not. You're the one that's better…better than this run-down girls' home, better than Sister Mary Rose. You're going places. You deserve to. Mary, you're gonna be a famous writer for the New York World someday. I just know it." Anne couldn't believe she had said all that, but at once she felt it was the absolute truth. "Why don't you get yourself out of here?"
Mary sighed. "I can't. I've got to stay here and look after…well, you know." Anne did know. Mary's best friend was Ida. She couldn't leave her for Mr. Lawson to slowly destroy. It must be nice to have friends you're willing to sacrifice for, Anne thought silently.
"Anne Johnson, we're going to get you out of this kitchen. I swear we will. Just you wait."
***
To be continued.
Please review! :)