Royal awoke to Kloppman's hand, pushing persistently against her shoulder. She opened her eyes, squinting slightly with morning fatigue.

"Royal…royal c'mon. I wake the boys in less then ten minutes…royal!" he gave her one final jab before letting her be.

"I'm up, I'm up."

He nodded and made his way back down stairs to his own bedroom.

Royal reached wearily for her stockings and yanked them up her legs. She slipped on her dress, buttoning it clumsily and reached under the bed for her shoes and bundle. Blindly sticking her hand inside her bag, she fumbled about, searching for her hairbrush and washcloth.

She tip toed to the washroom, once again having to dodge discarded clothes and pillows that had dropped off their respective beds during the night.

Royal stared at her reflection in the mirror of the washroom; her pale skin illuminated by her dark hair, a soft layering of freckles, dotting her nose and cheeks.

She began to brush her hair in long gentle strokes, gathering the locks that framed her face in a small half ponytail and tying them off with a ribbon. She looked contently in the mirror once more and began to wash her face.

In the other room she could hear Kloppman yelling for the newsies to wake up and start 'carryin the banner'. Soon enough the tired boys, lumbered into the washroom; some still in their long johns, some partly dressed.

"G'morning" a weary mush muttered to her as he began to wash his face in the sink beside her.

"Good morning mush," royal replied as chirpily as possible.

Mush was only wearing trousers though he had his suspenders pulled up over his bear shoulders, magnify his muscled chest.

"How is me sellin' partner today?" Skittery asked, coming up behind her and resting his elbow on her shoulder.

"Tired,"

Skittery gave a short laugh, "aw you'll get used ta it,"

"I still haven't," mush added in, rubbing his eyes jadedly.

Skittery teasingly punched mush on the shoulder and mush resumed to washing his face.

Royal waited for Skittery down stairs in the lobby of the boarding house.

She watched the newsies file out the front doors and into the streets, whooping and hollering at the new day. Never had she seen children so happy and content. These boys were under 18 and already going off to work yet they acted as if they were just going to school, like nothing had damaged their childhood.

Skittery came out wearing thin brown pants, a half buttoned white shirt with rolled up sleeves, a wool vest and suspenders. Seeing her, he quickly stepped out of the stream of newsies headed for the door and came up behind her, putting on his cap as he did so.

"Lets go."

Royal nodded and followed him out the door and into the streets of Manhattan.

The World Distribution office or the D.O. as Skittery had called it, was not open when they arrived. Many of the newsies (some of whom she had not seen at the lodging house) were lounging about, the younger ones playing with cardboard swords and the older ones leaning aimlessly against the buildings.

Skittery and royal joined the group they had been with the day before minus spot who had left for Brooklyn earlier that morning.

Kid blink pulled out a pocket watch and checked the time.

"Kloppman woke us up too early today; we gots 10 minutes 'till the office opens." He said dismayingly, kicking the dust at his feet.

"Yeah and what would a lousy ten minutes of sleep have gotten us?" race argued sarcastically, placing a half burnt cigar between his lips.

Blink leaned his head back wearily and checked his watch again. Jack turned to royal as if just noticing her presence.

"How'd ya sleep last night royal?"

"Better then I ever have," she responded truthfully.

Jack noticed the honesty in her voice and grinned, "I'm glad."

Suddenly the rusted iron doors of the distribution office slowly began to creek open, producing a sharp shriek that rang out about the square. As if the sound of the oxidized gates had reminded him, jack capriciously blurted,

"Oh! I need ta find Davie, he said he needed ta talk ta me 'bout something,'" and with that rushed off into the crowd of boys.

As royal and the others began to file into the large court like area in front of the actual office, royal noticed something; there were no other girls selling at the distribution center. She reported her findings to Skittery who nodded his head knowledgably,

"They come every so often ta sell but after a week they usually end up leavin' ta go work in da factories." He shrugged almost uncaringly before stepping into the line of newsies to get his papers.

Royal remained off to the side, not sure whether Skittery would be getting her papers or if she would be purchasing them herself.

Noticing her confusion, Skittery pulled her roughly into line with him.

Skittery did not realized just how rough his pull had been and instead of royal standing up next to him, she teetered and slowly fell back into his chest, pinning him against the brick wall of the court yard.

Royal blushed slightly before steadying herself on her own two feet and dusting off her coat. Skittery smiled weakly, also blushing a deep crimson.

As they slowly approached the office window, Skittery stepped in front of royal to show her how to buy her papers.

"We have a new one?" The man behind the bars of the office said rudely to skittery, nodding his head towards royal.

Skittery grinned sardonically at the man.

"They just keep comin' don't they." The man muttered to himself as he opened up a small writing folder. The man was quite large with graying hair and looked about fifty years old.

"50 papes Mr. weasel." Skittery said once the man had gotten situated at the counter behind the office window.

"Fifty papes!" the man called back to two tall men working behind him.

Skittery moved over to collect his papers, dropping 25 cents on the office desk. Mr. Weasel collected the change greedily and turned his attention to royal.

"Jus get 20, royal!" Skittery called to her from his position at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the office window.

Royal nodded and turned back around to Weasel.

"20 papers, please," she said to the man as politely as she could.

He nodded and shouted in back of him yet again "20 papes," He turned to her once more, "10 cents…please" he mocked.

Royal dug in to her pocket for the money, finally coming across the coins she needed. She dropped the change on the desk and proceeded to collect her papers as Skittery had done.

She walked heavily down the steps leading to the street, balancing her papers on her hip and trying to relieve the weight the papers added on her back. Noticing her pain, Skittery cocked her arm up awkwardly in the air so that the papers were now resting on her shoulder.

"Doesn't hurt as much," he explained.

She nodded contently as the pain in her lower back subsided and a dull ache commenced by her neck.

"So where do we go now?" royal asked as they left the D.O.

"Well… we could go ta central park. It's a nice day so plenty of folks will be out and about."

"That sounds good."

They changed direction, now facing north to reach the park.

Royal was familiar with the park; the orphanage took the children there once a week to exercise. Royal only hoped that she would not be meeting up with anyone she knew from there.

As they walked, Skittery taught royal how to sell and improve the headlines.

"Ok, turn ta the…" he paused flipping through the pages of one of the papers. "Page 6. Antique shop burned down in Bronx. Now make it sound more appealin'."

She thought for a moment before speaking up. "Old shop goes up in flames?" She answered timidly.

"That's a good start. Now add some big words, word that would make readers gasp."

She thought once more, forming a sentence in her head, "old artifacts burned in uncontrollable fire,"

Skittery grinned toothily. "That was great! But you could even have gone farther,"

He folded up the paper again and raised it high in the air. "1000$ antiques reduced to ashes in brutal inferno."

A man came up to them and handed him a penny. Skittery gave him the paper he had been holding, smiling deliberately at royal all the while.

"Stop showing off," she laughed playfully.

He shrugged and held another paper in the air, chanting a different headline that he had tweaked.

Royal stopped walking so that she could open up one of her papers and find a headline. She saw one on the 7th page that read in large font, 'pope put on feeding tube for a week'. She hesitated before, glancing around impishly and beginning to hawk her headline, improving it as she went.

"Pope in coma, doctors say he'll kick the bucket within the week!"

Her voice was small and insecure though her words attracted several men and a couple ladies. The small crowd hastily gave her a penny and took a paper before going their separate ways.

She caught up to Skittery who was several feet ahead of her, selling to an old man in a dark suit.

"Nice headline," he commented still in the process of exchanging penny for pape with the man.

"I'm just creative." She responded casually though inside she was bubbling with the warmth of his compliment.

"Next time a bit louder and less coy; it attracts more people when you gots confidence." Royal nodded her head understandingly.

After about another thirty minutes of walking they made it to the park with half their papers already sold.

"Your not doin' to bad… not to bad at all." Skittery said nodding his head.

"Why thank you" she replied almost coquettishly.

"Of course you're no Jack Kelly but… it's your first day…" His voice trailed off.

Noticing the awkwardness and tension he had just created, Skittery started talking once more about nothing in particular. Royal listened attentively to his ramblings, nodding her head every so often as he made a statement or remark. When it seemed as if he had no more blather about, he began to talk about more important subjects.

He talked about his deceased parents and how in their will they had stated that Skittery would get to choose, if anything were to ever happen to them, whether he would go into an orphanage or live on the streets and support himself. He had chosen the later of the two.

They sat on one of the stone benches, facing a small lake complete with geese and a boathouse.

Skittery continued to talk, moving on to the trouble he had recently been in with the police and his 'courtesy call' days where he would spend nights in different jails without being arrested. An opportunity to get out of the cold and to eat a meal. His life monologue finally ended with him finding the lodging house and turning around his childhood.

He chuckled slighty, removing his cap from his head and running his hands through his auburn hair.

"wow, you're a good listenah'."

Royal gave a short bark like laugh at his observation.

"no, im serious!" he said through mature laughs, placing the cap back on his head and turning even more towards her. "you don't find a lot'a newsies who would sit a whole hour listenin' to ya tell ya whole life story."

"well then im a very special newsie," she said gigling.

"you most deffinatly are!" he remarked, still chuckling though he soon blushed, realizing what he had just said. Royal blushed as well and stared down at the stack of papers in her lap.

Determined to eleitminate the awkwardness which had just been created she suddenly stood up, clutching a newspaper in her right hand and waving it over head wildly.

" terrorist attack in california leaves thousands homeless! Hundreds more dead!"

Skittery stood up beside her as 3 men rushed forward, pennys in hand.

"c'mon," he said laughing "lets go ta tibbys; we'll peddle the rest later."

She finished exchanging paper for penny with the man on her left and dumpted the change in her pocket with the other coins, buttoning it up tightly. Skittery put his free arm around her shoulder and they started off once more.