She was no ingénue. Having done this same routine nightly for months at a time, she thought she had done with stage fright. But of course she knew it wasn't really stage fright she was feeling per se. Only the fear that when she stepped onto that stage from the wings, only silence would greet her as her friends realized who she really was and their good feelings toward her changed forever to those of disgust. But in the end, there was really nothing for it, was there? She couldn't very well walk out on the only steady source of income she had. Behind her rouged and powdered cheeks and carefully engineered smile, she thought fleetingly before making her entrance from the wings that perhaps the elaborate costume would be enough to throw them off. Perhaps they wouldn't recognize their old friend Niner clad in satin and bows with ridiculously curled hair and a painted face. But even her last ditch optimism couldn't convince her that could be true. She had fallen for this gang of boys for their sharpness, their wit; they wouldn't be fooled by the bells and whistles of the stage.

And then it was too late, the intro bars started playing and Katie made her entrance onto the stage at Irving Hall just has she had done for countless nights before, her smile playful as she slunk her way to center stage, forgetting the boys, forgetting her plight, and just performing effortlessly, as all truly good performers do, not thinking of the future but only of the present. Where her feet should be on that downbeat and how to flick her hair in the most alluring fashion before she began to sing, her voice full and throaty.

She had been wrong about the silence, and had she been thinking clearly beforehand, she would have realized the impossibility that an entire hall full of rowdy boys (of which only forty at most were her acquaintances) would have recognized her on stage and fallen silent immediately. She had arrived at the bridge, the point in the song when she stopped singing to do some flirtatious dancing and listen to Hal, the trumpet player, blare some suggestive sounding lines, when she heard (or fancied she heard) a distinctly familiar hoot from the audience followed by a chorus of well-known shouts. Perhaps Medda had been right in what she said about Jack Kelly being a true leader of the boys. With renewed confidence and vigor, Katie attacked the rest of the song, singing with more pleasure than she had felt in ages.

Medda, watching from the wings, shook her head and thought, almost maliciously, but more begrudgingly, "Well, if the girl hasn't found herself in trouble by now, with a smile like that it shouldn't be long."

She finished her number and two encores to tremendous applause from the audience, and finally exited the stage only to find a fair crowd of faces awaiting her in the wings. The first face she saw was Blink's, on which she couldn't find any outright signs of anger, although his confusion was plain. She hugged him tightly, and he said, shaking his head, "You pick up odd jobs like pennies Niner."

Racetrack nudged between their embrace and half-whispered, "Say Katie, you workin' on a undercovah story? You know, da scandals of vaudeville?"

She chuckled, a bit overwhelmed by her friends' lack of yelling and strong language. "No Race, no undercover here. Medda prefers to air our dirty laundry out in the open." A comment for which she received a sound thwack on the shoulder from one of Medda's oversized feathered fans.

She felt a smaller newsie tugging at her skirt, and looked down to see Rat, poking confusedly at her strategically torn stockings. "Hey, hey!," he said, obviously feeling he had something important to contribute. "How come you can fix every piece of clothes I got so that none 'a the wind gets in 'em at all, but you still got all these holes down here?" Katie laughed out loud along with several of the older boys.

"Well Rat, maybe if you took better care of your own things, I'd have more time to look after mine." She tousled his hair affectionately, and his answering scowl showed a half-smile as well.

"Well well well. If it isn't my little star of the stage." Jack Kelly swaggered to the front of the crowd of well-wishers, and Katie surprisingly didn't have to fight back the urge to slug him. "Good show."

"Thanks."

"Well, ya know if you want I can get rid of all these mugs back here an' we can head over to your dressing room…?" He winked at her, but she got the feeling it was more jokingly said than anything. When she didn't respond to his baiting, he was surprised. "What, no bitter retort? No slap in the face? You're gettin' soft Niner."

She sighed at him and cocked her head to one side. "No, not tonight I don't think."

"Hey look Niner," said Blink, "we're all headin' over to Tibby's for some eats. We'd love to treat our favorite star, not to mention our favorite newspaper reporter, if you'd come along."

Katie smiled at him, relieved that her profession as vaudeville entertainer seemed to be a non-issue with the boys. Whatever they thought about it, they didn't seem eager to take her to task for her lies. Not only had her story been printed, her friends seemed to be taking her deception in stride, which was none too surprising, considering that many of the newsies had pasts that they didn't share with their fellow street urchins, either from shame or fear. No one really knew what was behind Kid Blink's eye patch or why Mush slept with a pair of brass knuckles under his pillow. Jack Kelly had been right when he said that everyone had secrets, and perhaps no group had more than the newsboys of New York.

"Yeah sure, I'd love to come. Just give me some time to get out of these clothes and take off all this make-up."

"Nah, leave it on," said Mush, slinging his arm over her shoulder. "It's nice to see you lookin' like a real girl for a bit Niner."

"Are you joking? I can't leave the theater dressed like this! Everyone on the street will think I'm – " she stopped, suddenly embarrassed by what she was about to say. "Everyone will think I'm – well, they'll think I'm a –a loose woman." She lowered her voice for the last part, and Racetrack laughed heartily.

"Yeah, but you're our loose woman Niner."

"And besides," chimed in Jack Kelly, "who's gonna mess with you with the newsies around?"

She smiled. "Alright. Let me get my coat."

She ran back to her dressing room and rummaged through the pile of clothing she'd left out on the couch in search of her coat. Taking into account the revolving door of visitors that always seemed to find their way back to her dressing room, she wasn't surprised to hear the door open and close again shortly after she had entered.

"I told ya they'd take it alright, didn't I?" Jack drawled as he took a few steps into the room.

"Yeah, yeah you did," she answered not turning around. "You did say that. Look, I'm just going to be a second, I just have to find my – "

"You did real good tonight though." He cut her off midway through her thought.

"Yeah, you said that already." She smiled, stopping her search and turning to face him.

"Well," he paused to blow a puff of cigarette smoke pensively out his nose, "I mean it."

Not entirely sure why she was doing it, what possessed her, she stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on the cheek. He turned his head at just the wrong moment (or perhaps it was at just the right one?) and kissed her deeply, pulling her to him with one arm slung tightly around her waist.

Stepping back, she looked at him steadily. "I should get my coat." Grabbing the garment from the couch and moving toward the door, she motioned for Jack to follow her.

"I'll be right out."

She shrugged and smiled, tucking a stray curl behind her ear as she exited the dressing room.