Disclaimer: I disclaim.
PROLOGUE:
The year's 1899, and I'm one of the many poor, homeless 'children' on the street. Life wasn't always that way for me though. It wasn't a picnic, mind you, but I wasn't living in an old abandoned building with between six to twelve udder kids: my supposed 'friends'.
I'm a flash-man, well flash-woman, the slang term for pick-pocket. I'm the bestt since the Artful Dodger, and since he's just a fictional character I'm greater than anybody further back than that.
My companions call me Elusive, and sometimes Hawkeyes and Juniper call me 'Little Cat' when they're proud of me. Gyn calls me 'Kitten' to spite me. Lightning can call me whatever he wants 'cause hey, I ain't no way I'se be getting' in his way. My birth name, though, is Kelly Theresa Burke. My father came over here from Ireland several years ago. My family's nobility, believe it or not, but it's not like that helps me here.
My parents died (I'll spare you the gory details for now) so I decided that I would come here to Manhattan and live with my older half- sister Brigid. Or Hawkeyes, as she's known on the street. She and Juniper- he's her boy, I'd guess you'd say- kinda rule our group of ragged teens and children. I walked all the way to Manhattan from Boston. It's amazing how far you can walk without getting tired when you're running from something- even if the something you're running from is buried six feet under.
Anyway so I guess that that's just insane blabber to your ears, so I'll try to stay to the point. My Da was married to 'Eyes' Ma when he decided to sleep around. He met my mother and Badda Bing, Badda Boom here's a little bastard child to have fun with. He felt like scum so he dumped 'Eyes and her mother and married me Mum (I'm so sure that made everyone feel soo much better). Me Da was abusive- mainly to me Mum. When they died I was in a big hurry to get outta there. I never met 'Eyes before that but I figured with my father's practically unearthly emerald eyes that I happened to inherit, that she probably inherited them too. She didn't so that plan failed but luckily I ran into Juniper, who happened to sleep with my sister often enough so that he could see the family resemblance and brought me to her.
Juniper taught me how to pick pockets (for that I am indebted to him foreva) and he says that I'm even better than he is. I tell him that it's because I'm practically half his size but he don't pay any attention to me. He says I'm being modest- can you believe that! Me, modest. Yeah, right. I don' have nutin' ta be modest about.
The gang- Hawkeyes, Juniper, Gyn, Lightning, Forgotten, Orb and Slipknot- are like family. You know the ones that you love, not because you choosta at first, but because you hafta. Later it turns ta love. They take care of me, and I take care of them- except Gyn who for all I care can die tonight and I won't bother to mourn. It's awful, I know, but you're not the one that has to live with the guy. Juniper'll take in a couple kids a night but we're the regulars and that pretty much how it stays. Everyone else has somethin' to go to, I guess.
They all come from messed up family lives like me an' 'Eyes. Forgotten was abandoned in an apartment when she was born then she was taken in by this cranky ol' woman who abused her- your classic Cinderella story. She don't talk much, but when she does it's somethin' you should listen to.
Orb and Slipknot are cousins who used to live in a two bedroom apartment along with their grandparents, parents, twelve siblings, tow aunts, two uncles and five other cousins. They got kicked outta there as soon as they could work and keep themselves healthy. Didn't work out the way they planned, though, but Juniper found 'em just like he found me and 'Eyes found him. Slip's a pickpocket by day and a cage fighter in one of the underground clubs by night. Sometimes he comes 'home' so beaten up it takes me, Hawkeyes and Orb until dawn to patch him up. Orb and Hawkeyes are 'employed' together. The kind of employment that involves sellin' yourself on the street corner. They say they do it cause they don't have a poker face- they couldn't steal if their lives depended on it, that all it would take is one look and everyone would know who stole that woman's money or that mans watch or that child's lollypop. 'Eyes is lyin' about that- anyone who keeps things as much of a secret as 'Eyes does should be able to keep it hidden that she took a couple measly cents, but you can really read Orb like a book. That's gonna hurt her one day in the life she chose, an' it's gonna hurt her little goil, Starr, bad too.
Light'nin', well, he's just strange. You'se gotta be careful about what you say around him cause he'll take anything to heart and before you know it he'll be beatin' the crud outta you then the next moment he's calm an' relaxed. The first week I was here I learned that the hard way. Gyn still hasn't learned it and Ligh'nin' bests him five days a week. He fights for the same reason that Forgotten don't speak and I don' talk 'bout nuddin important. We'se all keepin secrets- from each udder and from the world.
Gyn (if there was a way I could roll my eyes an' you could see me on paper.) he's all talk. He's got a bad attitude just cause he chooses to and he don't care 'bout anyone else. He's just an asshole an' he thinks wid his 'family jewels' more'n any boy I ever met.
We'se a ragged bunch- Juniper bein' the oldest at twenty-three and Ebony bein' the youngest at three months. We all fill in ragged space in between- Slipknot an' Lightening are twenty, Hawkeyes at nineteen an' a half, Orb at eighteen, Gyn at seventeen and me at sixteen an' a half. God only knows how ol' Forgotten is but we assume it's somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, maybe more or maybe less. She's one of those people who at a passin' glance you would say's young but when ya look her in the face it seems she's lived a thousand years.
We lives down the street a-ways from the World Building (a far aways, cause we'se near the outskirts of town), if you call sleeping on a couple a dirty blankets an' sitting on boxes an' broken footstools around a table nearly a foot shorter than its original height 'livin'.
I talks a lot to somehow get to the point I wanna make without really makin' it. I've learned to sum it up quick livin' with me companions, so what I'm really getting at could be that life just sucks for me an' my 'family'. So that's it all simple-like and stuff.
And so I lived some meaningless sorta existence wanderin' the streets of New York. An' then I met the newsies. But we'se not there yet.
PROLOGUE:
The year's 1899, and I'm one of the many poor, homeless 'children' on the street. Life wasn't always that way for me though. It wasn't a picnic, mind you, but I wasn't living in an old abandoned building with between six to twelve udder kids: my supposed 'friends'.
I'm a flash-man, well flash-woman, the slang term for pick-pocket. I'm the bestt since the Artful Dodger, and since he's just a fictional character I'm greater than anybody further back than that.
My companions call me Elusive, and sometimes Hawkeyes and Juniper call me 'Little Cat' when they're proud of me. Gyn calls me 'Kitten' to spite me. Lightning can call me whatever he wants 'cause hey, I ain't no way I'se be getting' in his way. My birth name, though, is Kelly Theresa Burke. My father came over here from Ireland several years ago. My family's nobility, believe it or not, but it's not like that helps me here.
My parents died (I'll spare you the gory details for now) so I decided that I would come here to Manhattan and live with my older half- sister Brigid. Or Hawkeyes, as she's known on the street. She and Juniper- he's her boy, I'd guess you'd say- kinda rule our group of ragged teens and children. I walked all the way to Manhattan from Boston. It's amazing how far you can walk without getting tired when you're running from something- even if the something you're running from is buried six feet under.
Anyway so I guess that that's just insane blabber to your ears, so I'll try to stay to the point. My Da was married to 'Eyes' Ma when he decided to sleep around. He met my mother and Badda Bing, Badda Boom here's a little bastard child to have fun with. He felt like scum so he dumped 'Eyes and her mother and married me Mum (I'm so sure that made everyone feel soo much better). Me Da was abusive- mainly to me Mum. When they died I was in a big hurry to get outta there. I never met 'Eyes before that but I figured with my father's practically unearthly emerald eyes that I happened to inherit, that she probably inherited them too. She didn't so that plan failed but luckily I ran into Juniper, who happened to sleep with my sister often enough so that he could see the family resemblance and brought me to her.
Juniper taught me how to pick pockets (for that I am indebted to him foreva) and he says that I'm even better than he is. I tell him that it's because I'm practically half his size but he don't pay any attention to me. He says I'm being modest- can you believe that! Me, modest. Yeah, right. I don' have nutin' ta be modest about.
The gang- Hawkeyes, Juniper, Gyn, Lightning, Forgotten, Orb and Slipknot- are like family. You know the ones that you love, not because you choosta at first, but because you hafta. Later it turns ta love. They take care of me, and I take care of them- except Gyn who for all I care can die tonight and I won't bother to mourn. It's awful, I know, but you're not the one that has to live with the guy. Juniper'll take in a couple kids a night but we're the regulars and that pretty much how it stays. Everyone else has somethin' to go to, I guess.
They all come from messed up family lives like me an' 'Eyes. Forgotten was abandoned in an apartment when she was born then she was taken in by this cranky ol' woman who abused her- your classic Cinderella story. She don't talk much, but when she does it's somethin' you should listen to.
Orb and Slipknot are cousins who used to live in a two bedroom apartment along with their grandparents, parents, twelve siblings, tow aunts, two uncles and five other cousins. They got kicked outta there as soon as they could work and keep themselves healthy. Didn't work out the way they planned, though, but Juniper found 'em just like he found me and 'Eyes found him. Slip's a pickpocket by day and a cage fighter in one of the underground clubs by night. Sometimes he comes 'home' so beaten up it takes me, Hawkeyes and Orb until dawn to patch him up. Orb and Hawkeyes are 'employed' together. The kind of employment that involves sellin' yourself on the street corner. They say they do it cause they don't have a poker face- they couldn't steal if their lives depended on it, that all it would take is one look and everyone would know who stole that woman's money or that mans watch or that child's lollypop. 'Eyes is lyin' about that- anyone who keeps things as much of a secret as 'Eyes does should be able to keep it hidden that she took a couple measly cents, but you can really read Orb like a book. That's gonna hurt her one day in the life she chose, an' it's gonna hurt her little goil, Starr, bad too.
Light'nin', well, he's just strange. You'se gotta be careful about what you say around him cause he'll take anything to heart and before you know it he'll be beatin' the crud outta you then the next moment he's calm an' relaxed. The first week I was here I learned that the hard way. Gyn still hasn't learned it and Ligh'nin' bests him five days a week. He fights for the same reason that Forgotten don't speak and I don' talk 'bout nuddin important. We'se all keepin secrets- from each udder and from the world.
Gyn (if there was a way I could roll my eyes an' you could see me on paper.) he's all talk. He's got a bad attitude just cause he chooses to and he don't care 'bout anyone else. He's just an asshole an' he thinks wid his 'family jewels' more'n any boy I ever met.
We'se a ragged bunch- Juniper bein' the oldest at twenty-three and Ebony bein' the youngest at three months. We all fill in ragged space in between- Slipknot an' Lightening are twenty, Hawkeyes at nineteen an' a half, Orb at eighteen, Gyn at seventeen and me at sixteen an' a half. God only knows how ol' Forgotten is but we assume it's somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, maybe more or maybe less. She's one of those people who at a passin' glance you would say's young but when ya look her in the face it seems she's lived a thousand years.
We lives down the street a-ways from the World Building (a far aways, cause we'se near the outskirts of town), if you call sleeping on a couple a dirty blankets an' sitting on boxes an' broken footstools around a table nearly a foot shorter than its original height 'livin'.
I talks a lot to somehow get to the point I wanna make without really makin' it. I've learned to sum it up quick livin' with me companions, so what I'm really getting at could be that life just sucks for me an' my 'family'. So that's it all simple-like and stuff.
And so I lived some meaningless sorta existence wanderin' the streets of New York. An' then I met the newsies. But we'se not there yet.