Wow, I'm updating pretty quickly! Not too many people to thank, save Lady Rach (thanks for reviewing!) Keep the reviews coming!


"Can I see your eye?" I was ten.

David put a scolding hand on my shoulder. "Les, that's rude."

Blink smiled. "Sure, kid." He lifted his patch. My eyes widened in surprise. I was looking at the strangest eye I'd ever seen. It was blue, but light and milky.

"So you're just blind. Your eye's still there. You just can't see out of it."

Blink lowered the patch and gave me a one-eyed wink.

Kid Blink had always been kind to me. He seemed intimidating at first, and frankly, he probably was to everybody else. But not to me. It broke my heart to see him poor. That's why I had to go to him.

I stood looking down at him. The girl looked up at me with big, curious eyes. Blink spoke. "You're Les Jacobs, aren't you," he said. It was more of a statement than a question. "Davey's little brother."

"Yeah, I am." He stood up. The girl grasped his hand with both of hers. "How long have you been—"

"Three years," he replied. He looked down at his daughter. "Her name's Rosemary. I loved her mother. She died."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Blink lifted Rosemary and put her on his hip. "So what did you want?"

I reached into my pocket. "I figured you could use some help," I said as I pulled out a few pennies. I held them in my open palm. "I don't have too much, but even so--"

"I don't want your charity, Les."

"No, but you need it." I still held my offering in front of him. He sighed and took the money.

He then raised his eyebrow. "Les, your fingers are blue."

Sure enough, they were. "Oh, horse shit..." My head snapped up at the realization that I'd just sworn in front of a child. "I'm sorry, I donno where that came from."

Blink smiled. "It's all right. Go home and take care of that." He paused. "And thanks."


"Of all the idiots in the world who get frostbite, it just had to be you, didn't it?"

"Shut up, Slye."

Johnny grabbed my hand and stuck it in a bucket of near-boiling water. Pain shot up my fingers. "Jesus Christ!"

He laughed. "You wuss. You gonna leave it in there, or do I need to help you?" He gave me a toothy, mocking grin.

I glared at Johnny and he removed his hand from the bucket. "I don't get it," I said. Johnny wiped his hand on his shirt. My fingers felt all tingly, and they were burning. "It's February. It's not supposed to be that cold out. And why didn't your fingers get all blue and frozen?"

"Because I'm not an idiot and I kept my hands in my pockets this morning.

I rolled my eyes. "Touché," I mocked. "I bet I'm not the only one with frostbite."

As it turns out, I was the only one. Boy, did I feel stupid. At least it gave me an excuse not to play poker that night.

My hands were bandaged and stuck in somebody's mittens. Johnny said there would be blisters. And man, I sure did love blisters. Except for the fact that I didn't. There was a dull throbbing of pain in my fingers and I growled with discomfort.

I stayed in bed for the rest of the day. My stomach was making noises; I hadn't eaten since the half of a roll from Johnny that morning, and I probably wouldn't eat anything else until breakfast the next day.

It wasn't until I began to smell cigarette smoke and heard the sound of a poker game starting that I got up and left the bunkroom. I had grabbed my coat and pulled it on. Buttoning the damn thing as I walked outside came with a considerable amount of difficulty, seeing as I couldn't use my fingers.

"You want some help?" I looked up. She was beautiful, as far as beautiful could go when you're poor.

Her hair was a very pretty red color, although it was messy and needed some soap. I must have been staring at her, because she uncomfortably asked, "Um...hello?"

"Oh." I snapped out of it. "Sorry. Um...yeah. I could use some help." She smiled slightly and began to fasten the buttons on my coat.

"Frostbite, huh?" she asked. I nodded. "I got frostbite once, when I was younger." She held up her hand. The skin on her fingers was slightly wrinkled and looked tight. "Hurts like hell, don't it?"

"Yeah, it does," I replied. "I'm Les Jacobs."

She smiled. "Poppy Parkview. I'm Six's cousin." She thought for a moment. "Say, aren't you Davey Jacobs' brother? Davey Jacobs the strike leader?"

I frowned a bit. "I wouldn't exactly call him a strike leader. But yeah, I'm his brother."

"A really swell thing those guys did. Really swell. Six joined the strike, even though he wasn't even a newsie yet. He really looked up to them; to Jack Kelly and Davey Jacobs."

"So did I."

Cowboy, they called him cowboy...sixty-forty, I forget the whole thing...if we don't sell papes then nobody sells papes...just a bunch of angry kids with no money...

"Say, whatever happened to your brother anyways? He still in New York? He's gotta be what, twenty-three now?"

For someone so shy-looking, Poppy sure had a lot to ask. "David's twenty-two. He's going to be a newspaper reporter. At least, that's what he wants to do. He just got out of the university. I haven't seen him in months."

"That's too bad," said Poppy. "I don't have any brothers or sisters, but I get to see Six every day. He's kinda like a brother to me, except we're not as much related. I sell papers in Brooklyn for the New York Sun. They have more girls in Brooklyn than they do in Manhattan." She really enjoyed talking, but I didn't mind that much. I wasn't too much of a talker anymore. "Probably because they were all melting over that Spot Conlon boy. But he died, what would it be, two years ago? Yeah, two years. So I guess all the girls just didn't want to leave."

"Yeah, I heard about that. That was too bad." Spot Conlon had been found beaten to death for the mere coins in his pocket. Jack and Sarah came back from New Mexico for his funeral. That was the last time I had seen either of them.

"Yeah. Six was pretty broken up about it. He didn't talk to anybody for a few days. After all, Six had been a newsie in Brooklyn since he was just nine years old. I think he came to Manhattan to sell The World because Brooklyn had too many painful memories."

I nodded. "That would make sense." Had I left home because of my father's death? I didn't know.

It was nice to have Poppy talk to me. She always had something to say, so it was never awkward because I didn't talk very much. As she talked, I smiled. I even laughed once or twice.

"Hey Les?"

"Yeah Poppy?"

"You wanna maybe take a walk?"

I smiled. "Yeah. Yeah I do."