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[edit] Fixed some minor details (which were actually major timeline mistakes). Hope nobody noticed. If you did...they're fixed. Enjoy!
I had last seen my brother David on my sixteenth birthday. He had taken me out for lunch, on him.
"So where do you want to eat, Les?"
I thought for a moment. "Tibby's."
David smiled. "Some things never change, huh?"
My brother was always good at striking up a conversation. "You sell for The World still, right?"
"Yeah," I replied. "Distribution center's pretty close to the lodging house. It makes sense."
David frowned. "You're still living at the lodging house. I assume, then, that you haven't gone home yet."
"No."
"Les, you have a home of your own, and a mother who loves you." I shifted uncomfortably in my chair as I stared at the table. "She doesn't know what happened to you, or where you are. Go home."
I looked up at him. "I am home."
"Well...don't you miss her?"
"I guess so." David had no idea how much I missed our mother.
"Then stop being so ungrateful and go back home. You're just a kid. You don't know what you're getting yourself into."
I shot David a look that Sarah would scold me for. "You don't understand at all. You think I'm so poor and starving. Well, I'm not. I have friends, and money, and I eat twice a day. You know what it's like to be free like that, and don't you dare deny it. As long as I'm still young I'm going to enjoy it."
"I can't continue to lie to our mother, Lester, and you know that."
"I don't care. You do whatever the hell you please—
"Watch your language!"
"--and I'll do the same. If you tell her where I am, I'll just go somewhere else."
I stood up from my chair and took one last sip of water before pulling my cap on. "I'll see you around."
I had walked a few steps when I heard him speak. "Happy Birthday, Les," he choked out quietly. I gritted my teeth and left the restaurant.
That was in October of 1904. Three months is a long time to go without seeing your brother, especially when you live in the same city, just miles away from each other. I knew David understood me, though, because January came and went, and I'd still seen no sign of my mother.
Sometimes I used to think of the way that things were when I was younger. I suppose everything seems so perfect when you're ten, but this really was perfect. I remember having a million friends, and Jack Kelly was a second brother to me. Well, I guess he still is, seeing as he married my sister. But he took her away. He took everyone away when he left.
Things sort of fell apart with Jack gone. Once proud and defiant, the newsies in Manhattan were dirty and poor, just like they started out as.
I must have been pretty deep in thought, because Johnny smacked me upside the head. "Les!"
Reality snapped back. I was on a street corner. I couldn't feel my ears. My fingers were turning purple and I could see my breath. Unusually cold weather we were having for February.
"Ow, hey! What do you want?"
"What the hell is wrong with you this morning?" Johnny raised an eyebrow. "You been thinkin' again?"
I rubbed the back of my head and scowled. "I'm always thinkin'."
Johnny rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well cut the stupid thinkin' and sell your damn papers. Looks like you got what, thirty there? You've sold five friggin' papes in two hours. Now I don't know about you, but I kinda like to eat, and the only way I eat is if I sell papers." He turned away from me and thrust one of his into the air. "PRISONER FLEES FROM COURT, STILL AT LARGE!...Thanks ma'am. ARMED AND DANGEROUS!"
I smiled. Leave it to Johnny to keep me in line.
Then I saw him. He looked the same as when he'd left, but older now. His eye looked tired and his hair was dirty, but he was still the same. Same eye patch, same Kid Blink. But Blink wasn't a kid anymore. He sat on the ground against the building across the street from me. A young girl whom I guessed to be maybe four or five stood next to him. She was tiny and blonde. I recognized her clothes. They were too big for her. They were his. She was his.
But why would he just be sitting around like that?
He's homeless. I bit my lip. He was still looking at me. "Les," he mouthed.
I shoved my papers into Johnny's arms and started to cross the street.
