Part 2
The lobby room was only about half full at that time of night. It was amazing how few boys actually noticed Jill and Snitch enter the Lodging House. A few looked up from whatever they happened to be doing with appraising eyes, and then went back to their tasks. A few in the back though, called out greetings to Snitch.
"Ehy Snitch!" The somewhat short Italian boy in the back called out. Sitting next to him was a taller boy with dirty blond hair and a patch over his left eye, and on the Italian's other side was a smaller black boy. Snitch led her through the small crowd to his friends.
"Fellas, this is Jill. She needs some help getting home," Snitch said, introducing her and explaining her problem. She received scattered hellos. "Jill, dis is Racetrack, Kid Blink, and Boots." He pointed in turn to the Italian, patch-boy, and the Negro.
"Hi," Jill said, felling rather awkward. She always had trouble when she was introduced to people. Damn her shyness!
Racetrack looked up from the cards he was shuffling. "Do you know how ta play?" he asked.
"Play what?" Jill was confused, and praying he didn't say poker. She had not the slightest idea how to play poker.
"Pokah."(1)
Jill winced. "Shit," she muttered. A little louder, she continued, "No, I don't know how to play poker. You know how to play Spit?" She ignored the looks from the boys. They seemed a bit unnerved to hear her talk like that, but if the date on that paper was true… She stopped her thoughts from going there.
Race looked at her curiously. "Spit? Nevah hoid o' that one." Jill grinned.
"If I may?" She held out her hand for Race's cards. "Now," she began as she shuffled, "I don't claim to be an expert, but I've played my fair share of games. First, this is a two person game." The others, who had been watching rather intently, backed up a bit to give Jill and Racetrack room.
"Now, you split the deck." She appropriately dealt out half of the deck to her opponent and half to herself on a small coffee table. "Lay out your cards in five piles in a Solitaire layout, like this." Race copied what Jill did, wondering where this was going.
"Okay, here comes the somewhat confusing part. At the same time, you and I are going to set down one card each from the 'Spit pile' in our hands. The point of this game is to get rid of all your cards. Cards can be set down in numerical order, and Aces connect Kings and Twos. You can't set down doubles, as in no identical cards on top of each other. As soon as your five piles run out, slap your hand down on the lesser pile and pick it up. That'll be your hand for the next round. Also, we'll be playing one handed. Does all that make sense?"
Racetrack seemed to be thinking about it. After a few moments he nodded. "Makes sense ta me," he said. Jill grinned.
"Ready…set…Spit!" The two flipped over their cards and the game began. It was only a few minutes before both ran out of cards to play; though there were still cards in their hands.
"Now what?" asked Race.
"Now, we Spit again." And they did. Several times, before Jill won the round.
They were just setting up for the next round when a very familiar voice somewhere behind Jill said, "Ey you. Ey you with the face."(2)
Jill whipped around, searching the small crowd that had gathered. It couldn't be… Why would she be here? Not that Jill objected, but why? Then she spotted them.
Entering the lobby were four figures, two male, two female. The males were both young men in their teens, one dressed in dark grays with a red bandanna around his neck and dirty blond hair, the other in green and brown with a cap covering his curly brown hair. It was the two young women, however, who caught Jill's stare.
Neither was dressed appropriately for the time period, both in blue jeans and T-shirts. The taller blond carried a book bag while the slightly shorter strawberry-blond(3) carried nothing, but walked with a bit of a hobble.
Jill was in shock. They were here? If that was true, then who else had been brought along for the ride? After a few moments, she broke out of her shock.
"Ey you!" she called out. Jill smiled to see the blond's head whip around, trying to find the source. Finally, the two new girls spotted her. Jill grinned cockily and waved with a wink. The two girls' eyes went wide and they rushed to make their way through the crowd to her.
"Jill! Luna! I can't believe you guys are here too!" Jill said. Race, Snitch, Boots, and Kid Blink looked at her oddly when she said her own name. The strawberry-blond practically threw herself at Jill.
"Hi Lunar," Jill greeted in an almost exasperated tone, though she was smiling fondly at the girl. The tall blond was a bit more reserved in her greeting.
"Hi Jill."
"Hi Jill"
The two girls giggled a bit, and hugged as old friends do. Jill1 grinned at Jill2. "You let me hug you, I see," she said. Jill2 just shrugged.
"What can I say? It's not every day something like this happens." Just then the tall blond boy they had walked in with sauntered over.
"You ladies happen ta know each oddah?" he asked. His accent, Jill1 noticed, was not as pronounced at Racetrack's, but was still noticeable.
Jill1 grinned. "Of course we do. Jill and Luna are two of my best friends." The other boy who had walked in with them looked up in confusion.
"Luna? I t'ought you'se said yoah name was Katie," he said in a soft voice.
Luna, or Katie, or whatever you wanted to call her, spoke up. "It is, but Jilly and I met at work, where we have to use nicknames. Mine's Luna, hers is Artemis." The boy nodded in understanding.
"Me name's Mush," he said, "and that's Jack Kelly over theah." He indicated the blond cowboy. "We'se calls him Cowboy sometimes." Jill1 noticed Luna's eyes light up at the word "cowboy." Her friend, being a horseback-riding instructor at their Girl Scout camp, had always had a penchant for cowboys and horses. If the two happened to come in the same package, all the better. She smiled at Mush.
"I'm Jill, in case you haven't noticed." The other boys laughed slightly. The conversation was about to continue when Racetrack spoke up.
"Ehy, Jill, can we finish this?"
"Oh, right!" Jill1 scrambled back to her seat as Jill2 and Luna leaned over her shoulder. Jill1 and Race began dealing out the cards for their second round.
"Whatcha playin'?" Two very different voices sounded in unison. Jill2 looked at Mush, finding it odd that they would have the same train of thought.
"Spit." That was not only the answer but the cue to start as well.
*********
Snitch was having a most interesting time watching the girl he had found play cards with Racetrack. One of the few odd things about it, though, was the fact that her two friends, Luna and Jill, seemed to be thinking nothing of the fact that she was playing cards like that. Also, the two new girls seemed to be dressed in strange clothing as well, nothing like a proper lady would wear. It baffled Snitch to think that women would wear clothing like that. Maybe, his befuddled mind offered, it was custom where they came from, though the last he had heard, fashions hadn't changed that much from New York to Pittsburgh.
Either way, it seemed like his Jill was almost beating Race at a card game. This was phenomenal news to the newsboys, though it could have just been that Race was new to the game and hadn't figured out how to rig it yet.
Scratch that, it seemed that Jill had won. Good for her, he thought. Someone needed to show that Italian his place. The girls, as the rest of the introductions were being made, were getting ready to teach Race a new card game.
"Okay," his Jill said, "first you need to deal out all of the cards in the deck evenly to all of the players. This one can have quite a few players, though we'll stick with this for now because we're teaching and not really playing yet." The cards were dealt accordingly, and Race moved to take a look at his hand, but the other Jill stopped him.
"Not allowed to look," she said. Race sighed, probably thinking about how hard this game would be to rig. Snitch's Jill continued her explanation.
"How about this time we just start playing and I'll tell you the rules as we encounter them, seeing as how we're not really playing yet." Then she smiled, and Snitch couldn't help but wonder about her. His attention was diverted, however, when Itey walked through the door. With a girl on his arm.
"Ehy, Itey!", "Who's dis?", and "Finally got yoself a goil, eh?" came from around the room. Jill, Jill, and Luna looked up from the table curiously. The Jill, his Jill's eye went wide and her mouth went slack.
"IVY?" she practically yelled across the room.
I am absolutely horrible at poker. I have not the slightest idea of how to play. ^_^;; The whole "Ey you. Ey you with the face" thing is something my friends and I do. We talk in these really weird voices and it's really rather funny. She claims she's a strawberry-blond, but my dad calls her a redhead. I tend to agree, at least in the winter. ^_^;;; You know I love you hon!A/N: Well, here's chapter two. Much kudos to Ivy for helping me work this schtuff out. I'm leaving for Chicago with my marching band on Thursday and I wanted to get this posted before we left. Yes, I will be calling Luna Luna and I'm not yet sure how to distinguish between the two Jills. Yes, one is me and one is one of my best friends. We don't look anything alike. Things to look forward to: finding out who exactly Ivy is, and maybe a sneak peak at happenings in Brooklyn. Not quite sure yet.
Disclaimer: Do you really think I own these boys? 'Cause if I did, you wouldn't be allowed to see them. ^_^; I do, however, own one of the Jills. The other girls belong to themselves.
Shout Outs:
Jaede Loriele Conlon: Well, here's what's gonna happen, and I hope you're not angry! I've never had someone threaten to be angry if I don't update. ^_^;; No, I don't play soccer, I swim, but I have friends who play soccer so I know what to equate the size of my swim bag to. So, since I've updated, now you can review! ^_^
Lil Rain Angel: Of course your review wasn't meaningless! And there will be plenty more Snitch to come, trust me. ^_~
Gambler: Thanks! ^_^
Sami: Yes, soccer bags are freakin' huge…so are swim bags. ^_^;; And you nearly used one of my favorite phrases, "frickin' huge." My friend Jill always laughs when I say that. I'm not sure why. ^_^
