On the cold wood floor in a musty hallway Coin rocked back and forth.
She knew. She read the book. It was all her had left that stupid, godforsaken, carnet colored book lying on the table. It was Sarah. The nosey bitch. Sarah gave it to their mother and her mother read the notes to Mush. It was the book he read over Christmas. He had just given it back to her. Coin remembered setting it down on the table and Sarah must have read it. That nosey, good for nothing bitch.
Coin never hated someone so much as she hated her sister at that very moment. She was completely out of breath lying on a cold floor. In the next room, there was a baker's dozen worth of boys who were convinced that she was crazy and a handful that didn't even notice her existence. She ran over the scene in her head as she dully kicked the wall, Mush watching her. He didn't know what to do; he just watched. Coin thought.
"We gave you a nickname because you hated your real name. Not because we wanted you to become a street rat. I should've seen this coming. You hate EVERYTHING, don't ya Coin? Anna? Godforbid anything not go Anna's way! And now, you're running 'round the streets with some common thief that sells papers for a living! I know it's a newsboy! I can see the print all over the pages. AND THE LITTLE NOTES! You sure do love that piece of shit, don't you? But godforbid you like school or mass. We came here for you. We work for you. Everything I do is for you. This is how you thank me! Hah! Anna you are a thankless little brat!" Coin's mother had screamed to her over the doctor while he was taking her pulse. He had given up, knowing the reading would be inaccurate, and watched as a woman who had just given birth less then twenty four hours ago yelled and swore like a drunken sailor.
He had never seen anything like it before. Ignoring Mrs. Carrigy he went to check on the newborn. A boy. His eyes looked just like Mush's to Coin. She smiled at him and walked out of the room, past the midwife and bassinet, while her mother yelled about her being a trampy and thankless brat.
Coin decided to leave before her father got home. She couldn't handle it. She wasn't thankless, she was. Well, she was in love. Her crazy mother was just going to have to deal with that.
She took her books and her measly amount of money from under her mattress, threw it in one of her mother's bags without her knowledge and calmly walked out of the apartment. She was no longer Anna Coin Carrigy. She was just Coin. Out in the hallway Sarah played hopscotch with chalk they stole from school and Coin spat in her face. They may have been blood related but as far as Coin was concerned, she had no sisters. She had no family.
It was Kloppman who opened the door at, according to his time piece, 5:43 PM. He thought it was one of the boys home early for dinner but it was a girl. A girl who would be pretty if she didn't scrunch up her face like that and if she fixed those curls.
"This place is for boys, I'm sorry. Girls is down the street," he gestured out the door and down the cobblestone. He smiled and tried to close the door but he stopped her.
She said nothing. Walking straight past the old man she smiled, said thank you and stood in the center of the lodging house.
"Alright then," he ushered her in closing the door quickly. "If anyone asks, you're a boy."
She laughed and he walked off into the shadows. She took a seat on the foot of the stairs and after hearing a door close she began to cry to herself.
In the middle of her breakdown, twenty boys came trampling in. She was sure that they had to have broken the door down but there it was, still on the hinges.
"None of us can ever come home without someone's girlfriend sitting on the steps, crying. Goddamn!" Skittery called out agitated.
The boys' nodded in agreement and Coin heard one or two of them murmur "Yea" to themselves. After they all climbed over her, up the stairs she saw Mush. His face was stricken with the thought of the bad news he knew was coming.
"They know," she whispered.
"You can stay here tonight," he said soothingly and took a seat right next to her.
"What are we going to do after that?" they said in unison.
A/N--If it sucks, please forgive me. I've had an awful day. Thank you again for all of the reviews.