Disclaimer: As ever, most of these characters don't belong to me. They belong to Disney and the wonderful person with the original idea for the musical, Newsies. (I wish they belonged to me! BWAHAHA! MINE, ALL MINE! ^,^)
Chapter Two: "And all because of me."- - - - -
"Are you Dallas?" the brunette asked timidly. Honey smiled politely at the stranger.
"No, I'm Honey. Dallas is only here Wednesday through Saturday. Maybe I can help you?"
"The name's Bookie, Spot Conlan's secretary." Bookie's eyes darted nervously around the room, taking in the sights of costumes both flashy and tattered. "Spot sent me to pay Dallas for her… services… last night."
Honey blushed faintly. "I can give her the money for you, if you'd like. She usually stops by on Sunday nights, so she'd get it tonight. Unless you'd prefer to wait and deliver it yourself." A look of profound curiosity crossed the blonde's face. "Does he… pay you for… 'services'?"
"Yeh, I-" It suddenly occurred to Bookie what she meant by services. "No!" She blushed bright red right to the roots of her hair. "No! I'm his secretary… friend… but… NO!" Honey laughed at the sight of the scrawny girl's ears turning red. She sobered, though, when Bookie's face fell and a shadow crept into her eyes. "Spot wouldn't ever think of me that way."
Honey stood and laid a hand on Bookie's arm. "If you don't have a lot to do today, you're welcome to wait here for Dallas." She grinned as Bookie looked uncertainly behind her. Taking Bookie's hand, she said, "Come on. I've got a lot of work to do and I could really use some help. I'll even pay you!"
Bookie looked at Honey, startled. I could actually make some money of my own? So far in life, Bookie had always depended on the charity of others to help her along. In exchange for running favors for Spot and occasionally keeping tabs on some of his and the other newsies' wagers, she was allowed to stay in a small room of her own (a closet is all it really was, but Bookie liked to think of it as a kind of apartment) in the lodging house. The prospect of doing anything to make her less dependant on the charity of the newsies cheered her, and she readily accepted.
Honey led Bookie up a narrow staircase, into the more home-like upper-level of Medda's place. The blonde changed into work clothes, and together they mixed the dough for sugar cookies. Honey's cheerful chatter soon drew Bookie out of her shyness of strangers, and the girls took delight in the fact that they were the same age.
"You're 16?" Honey stared at her new friend, mouth hanging slightly open. She drew herself up to her own full five feet and five inches. "You're awfully short for your age. Oh! I'm sorry! I shouldn't have said that."
"It's OK, I know I'm short. Me mum was short too." Bookie grinned at Honey to show she harbored no hurt feeling. Then she braced her hands on her hip and stood as straight as she could, still barely breaking five feet. "Besides, I may be short an' scrawny, but I'm real strong!"
While the dough cooled in the icebox, they began to give Medda's apartment a thorough cleaning. Bookie took care of all the dirty jobs Honey was reluctant to do, like cleaning the small but filthy windows and sweeping and scrubbing the much-neglected fireplace. Bookie didn't even seem to notice the dust in her hair or the soot smudged over her skin that only accentuated her paleness. To Honey's surprise, Bookie really was as strong as she claimed to me, which she proved by climbing the front of Medda's old oak bookcase, a box of books tucked under one arm. Honey was also surprised to find, after she came back from putting the cookies in the oven, that Bookie had alphabetized Medda's sparse collection of books.
She found the girl tucked away in the far corner of the room under the window, head bent over a copy of Sophocles' Antigone. Honey crept closer, planning on scaring Bookie, and discovered the girl was fast asleep. She smiled and gently removed the book from Bookie's hands, then went downstairs to organize the dressing room.
- - - - -
"Hey, doll. Where's Medda?" Honey looked up from the rusty old costume trunk and grinned at the leader of the Manhattan newsies.
"Hello, Jack. Medda's doing a run-through on stage." Honey craned her neck to see around the boy. "…Didn't you bring Les?"
"Yeh, he's outside wid his bruddah. They's trying to sell a few last papes." Just as Jack finished speaking, David and Les appeared behind him.
Honey grinned. "Great! Hello there, Les. How're you doing today? Are you excited about being on stage?" Honey asked as she circled Les. That sailor costume isn't going to be big enough for him, she thought, noticing the length of the small boy's legs. We're going to have to let it out a bit.
"I'm great! Who're you?"
Honey and the older newsies laughed at Les' straightforwardness. "This here's Honey," Jack told the boy. "She's kinda Medda's assistant. Her secretary, like."
At the word "secretary," Honey's head snapped up from her inspection of Les. Oh, no!, she thought. I forgot about Bookie! She smiled at the boys, nervously tugging at the end of one of her braids. "I need to adjust Les' costume a little, and I could really use someone to move a couple of boxes around in here. Will one of you help me?"
"I'm at yah soivice, milady," Jack said, bowing. Honey laughed.
"Wonderful. In that case, David, will you do me a favor?" She waited until the tall, brunette boy nodded before continuing. "Would you please just run up to Medda's apartment and wake Bookie? She fell asleep and I forgot to wake her. And ask her to bring the cookies down." She grinned at Les, who's face lit up at the mention of cookies.
"Sure, Honey. But… who's Bookie?" David asked, setting a firm hand on Les' shoulder. The younger boy had turned around, looking for stairs, eager for the much-sought-after cookies.
"Oh, you haven't met her?" Honey looked faintly surprised. But surely the two most important newsies in Manhattan have met Spot's secretary? They go over to Brooklyn enough… Oh well. "She's 'Spot's secretary,' as she says. Be careful with her though, I think she's kind of shy." Honey smiled as she pointed out the shadowed staircase to David. "The stairs are over there." David nodded and headed for the staircase.
"I didn't know ol' Spot had a secretary. He's sure livin' the fancy life, ain't he?" David heard Jack's comment to Honey as he ascended the staircase, but Honey's reply was to soft for him to hear. He pushed open the heavy door that marked the end of the stairway and the beginning of Medda's living quarters and looked around.
He spotted what he thought was a human being huddled in the far corner of the room under one of the few windows. Tip-toeing closer, he saw that the shape was, in fact, a girl. She was filthy with dust and soot, and had fallen asleep directly after a vigorous house-cleaning he judged by the mess of rags thrown in a pile next to her. He took in her slight form, guessing her to be about Les' age. A pale hand rested on a book bound in rotting cardboard, and he knelt next to her to see its title. Smiling, he touched her shoulder gently.
Her eyes flew open and she lurched backward, banging her head on the windowsill. David put his hands up to show he meant to harm.
"Hi, Bookie. It's ok, really. My name's David, Honey sent me up here to wake you up." Bookie's eyes flew frantically around the room, looking for an escape, but she froze as David picked up the book she'd been reading.
"Antigone?" David looked at her, meeting her frightened gaze. He grinned. "Did ya finish it? Or did ya fall asleep in the middle?"
When Bookie spoke, her voice was faint, barely above a whisper. "I must've fallen asleep… But I've read it before." She still looks scared to death, David thought, but at least she's talking to me. I wonder why Honey used the word "shy." I woulda said sumthin' more like, "terrified of people."
"I think it's funny how she hangs herself by her underwear at the end," David said, standing and moving towards the bookshelf.
"Really? I think it's tragic." David looked at the girl, startled, expecting neither the contradiction nor her firm tone of voice. "It's sad, heart-wrenching really. I mean, the woman felt she was going to die anyway, it was inevitable, so she decided to take the matters into her own hands. If she had to die, she thought, it would be by her own hand, and not because some bloody man willed it." She removed the book from where he'd put it on the case and moved it down a shelf and to the right. "And this goes here."
David stared at her, struck speechless by her transformation. It was then he noticed that her hair wasn't black but brown under the soot and dirt. Her skin was pale, but dotted with freckles, and her eyes blazed a startling green. She shrunk back, noticing his speculation. "What?" Once again she looked defensive, scared.
"…How old are you?" David asked, taking a step towards her. He looked down at her. She's not any taller than Les.
"I'm 16, for your information," she said, bristling. She slipped out of the corner he'd backed her into, and David was rather surprised at her dexterity. "Now, may I inquire as to who exactly you are, Mr. David?"
David shook his head, still trying to process this new information. There's no way she can be the same age as me! She's tiny. He looked at Bookie appraisingly. And she doesn't sound like a newsie at all when she talks like that. And where did she get a copy of Antigone on the streets? Only then did it occur to him that, perhaps, Bookie wasn't a newsie or a "street rat" at all. He realized he didn't really know anything about the girl.
She interrupted his thoughts by picking up the plate of cookies on the counter. "Or don't tell me."
"I'm sorry," he laughed. "I guess I got lost in my head. I'm David."
"Yeah, I got that part," Bookie smiled wryly. "That's your name, but who are you?"
"Oh…" David hesitated, trying to think of what to say. He'd thought the newsies strike had spread his name all over… Wasn't she in Brooklyn that day?, he wondered. "I guess I'm kinda Jack Kelly's second-in-command. … Les is my little brother. He's here to be a kinda prop, I guess, for Medda tonight."
"…Is Jack here?" Bookie asked, eyes lighting up.
"Yeah…" For some reason beyond David's comprehension, something cold and hard settled in his chest at the light in Bookie's eyes at the mention of Jack's name. He turned to follow her down the darkened stairwell, wondering what on earth was wrong with him.
- - - - -
(A/N: There! Chapter two, all done for ya! …Wow, this did not go at all how I expected it! The second half kinda decided it didn't want to br written as planned. This is just peachy, I have little to no idea where this is going. DARN YOU, BOOKIE, AND YOUR WILLFULLNESS!!! .
Just a word: The title is a quote from Sophocles' Antigone.
Special thanks to:
Nym, my anony-moose gremlin, who promises to keep reviewing. This update is just for her. ^,^
Ari, who is my partner-in-crime. Doll, I demand that I kidnap you and we have a Newsies marathon over Spring Break! .
Snyder's of Handover snack company, without whom I wouldn't've had my Honey Mustard & Onion pretzel nibblers, and this fic would have never gotten finished. ^,~)