A/N: I'M BACK! I made a deal with... well myself, that I would updated after I got 3 reviews so AngryPrincess13, koodles4you, and BlackWiltedRose THANK YOU! It made my day... Maybe even my week. It definitely rocked my socks to know you liked it. Anywho.. There is a bit of Dutch in this chapter but I wrote it so that you can still understand what they say because they respond to one another in English and.. well.. you'll see. You will understand. I promise. And everything written in italics are Rayanne's thoughts... Yeah she talks to herself. So what?

Building Bridges

Everyone in the restaurant was silent and all attention was on the two girls standing by the door. Both had the same expression on their faces, absolute shock. Slowly a figure stood from a table and made his way to the girls. He stopped next to the two and looked from one to other in awe. After a few seconds of this he stood next to the other girl and faced Rayanne.

"I'se don' know who ya are, miss. But you'se looks an awful lot like me sistah 'ere." He was tall and lean with blonde hair. He stuck his hand out to Rayanne, "Da names Dutchy. My sistah, who is mute fo' da time bein', is Sparks. An' you are?"

Rayanne composed herself and placed her hand in his softly. "I'm Rayanne Winters. This is William." She waved her hand behind her to indicate who she was referring to. "Are Dutchy and Sparks your real names?"

Sparks stepped forward to look at her more closely. "No. Dey's our newsie names. We don' go by our real ones." Rayanne nodded and cast her curious eyes to Dutchy.

"How did you get your name?" Dutchy smiled at her and motioned for her to follow him and led them to a booth. By now the newsies had averted their attention back to whatever they were doing but still whispered amongst themselves about this new girl that looked like one of their only two girl newsies.

"Sparks an' I are Dutch. Our parents came down 'ere when we'se was youngah." He explained. Rayanne's eyes lit up, "Do you speak Dutch?" Sparks responded for him.

"O' coise we do. Why'se you askin'?" She looked skeptical and Rayanne, still smiling turned to her. "Ik heb 5 jaar in Nederland gewoont."

Dutchy looked surprised, as did Sparks though both of them smiled through their shock. "Five yeahs? I'se lived dere fo' 'bout six an' Sparks fo' four." Rayanne smiled brighter.

"How old are you?"

"I'se 16 an' Dutch is 18." Rayanne swallowed.

"I am six-."

A bell rang throughout the restaurant indicating that the door had opened. Rayanne watched as a young man walked in being greeted by everyone in the restaurant. He seemed to be tall and had a cowboy hat and red bandana on. Rayanne had seen that face before, she just knew it.
He was followed by someone significantly shorter who wore red suspenders and had a cane and slingshot with him. Both seemed to be very well known among the boys, and Sparks.

'Where have I seen him before? I know I have. Was it in Virginia? Or maybe New Jersey when father had that conference? No, that can't be it. WHERE?'

"Is you okay, miss?" Rayanne had been so deep in thought she hadn't even noticed that the two boys were now in front of her and Dutchy was trying to introduce them.

"Yes, I'm quite alright. I'm sorry. You are?" The boy in the cowboy hat smiled at her and brought his hand up to his chest.

"I'm Jack Kelly, and dis 'ere," He pointed to the shorter one, "Is Spot Conlon." He continued to talk but Rayanne was too shocked to hear anything else he had to say. She just sat there with her eyes glued to Jack and her mouth slightly ajar.

'Jack Kelly... The scrawny little kid on the corner who I used to buy papers from? It can't be him... Can it?'

A/N again

I'm not so sure where I want the story to go for the rest but I do have a general idea for the 'love interest/controversy' but I'm open to ideas if anyone has some they would like to see here.

I would also like to apologize if these chapters are worded oddly in these first chapters, I wrote these on a 3 hour flight to Chicago so I might have zoned out at some point or another.