Title: Secrets Behind the Lies
Author: Stress
First written: June 27, 2002- March 19, 2004
Edited and replaced: May 16, 2006
Summary: Part II of the Soul Mates Series; After living in Manhattan for two years, Stress thought she knew everything about Jack Kelly or, should we say Francis Sullivan? Well, guess not.
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Manhattan
"Rise and shine my ladies." The quiet and soothing voice, spoken with a hint of a Polish accent, called to the sleeping girls' as they continued to slumber in the Bottle Alley Lodging House. The owner of that voice, a tall grey-haired women who'se genial face hid most of her fifty-one years, walked over to the first bunk and gently shook the occupant of the top bunk awake. "Rise and shine, Stress."
Fifteen year old Stress pushed her long, curly blondish-brown mop of hair out of her yellow-green eyes as she rolled over onto her belly. "I don't want to get up, Mrs. Cook. Let me be."
Mrs. Marsewicz, known as Mrs. Cook to all of her lodgers, merely chuckled and reached down to wake up Quirky, who slept directly below Stress. "Up, up, up. C'mon Quirky, your turn."
The only answer from the lump on the lower bunk was a muffled groan and a shake of her reddish brown head. The girl on the bottom bunk next to Quirky's, Moth - a shy blonde whose extraordinary purple eyes were clamped shut at the moment - snuggled deeper under her ragged blanket. "Not you too, Moth. I thought you hated dark places," Mrs. Cook added with a smile as she headed off to wake Spin.
Surprisingly Spin was pretty much awake and put up no resistance to Mrs. Cook's morning wake-up call. Rubbing her ice blue eyes, Spin sat up in her bunk and leaned over to wake up Stripes. "Wakey-wakey, Stripes." Stripes stirred in her bunk and yawned. "Is it morning already, Spin?"
Yanking the blanket off of her bunk and pulling her newsies cap over her brown hair, Spin turned to face Stripes. "Sure thing, Stripes. Time to sell the papes, sleepyhead," she snickered as she ruffled Stripes' short blonde hair before she had the chance to duck away. When Stripes was out of Spin's reach she ducked around Spin, and laughing gleefully, snatched the hat off of Spin's head. Shrieking with surprise as her hair fell in her eyes, Spin took off after Stripes, pointing as Stripes bumped into Stress and Quirky at the water pump.
"Girls, break it up!" cried Mocking Boid, tying her long auburn curls back with a blue kerchief, as she exited from one of the changing stalls in the backside of the bunkroom. Mocking Boid was always acting like the "mother" to her fellow newsgirls and often became the peacemaker between any of the petty squabbles that broke out in the lodging house. "Hey!" she shrieked as both Stripes and Spin rushed by her, knocking her glasses off in the process as she fell over onto the floor.
"Ha ha ha!" tittered Moth as she ran a brush through her blonde hair. Quirky shot her a "this-ain't-the-time-to-laugh" look as she ran passed Moth to offer Mocking Boid a hand to stand up.
"Moth, you laugh too much." giggled Stress as she walked to where Spin had Stripes backed into a corner.
"I do not!" cried Moth as she spied the corner where Spin was tickling Stripes. As Stripes gave Spin back her hat and fell to the floor gasping for breath, Moth broke out into another round of hearty laughter. As Stress reached over to help Stripes to her feet, giving Spin a playful shove as she raised her arms in victory, her hat clutched in her right hand, Moth leaned against the sink basin and stopped laughing for a moment. "Ya know what, Stress. I think you're right."
Stress looked up at Moth, her green eyes flashing yellow as she grinned. "I'm always right."
Meanwhile, two other regular lodgers in the Bottle Alley Lodging House, Gip and Bookie, were helping Mrs. Cook come up with a way to wake up the deepest sleeper in the whole of New York, Martini.
"Martini, there. Tis time to sell the papers," Mrs. Cook said as she shook Martini's frame. As she continued to snore in her bunk, Mrs. Cook slumped her shoulders and turned to Bookie and Gip. "Well girls, how do we get her up today?"
Gip pulled on one of her dark braids as looked at the quiet girl laying on the bunk right at her eye level. "Why don't we just shove her out of her bunk? When she lands on the ground, she should be awake, eh?"
Bookie laughed as she imagined Martini's reaction if she found herself being pushed out of her bunk. "No, Gip, I got a better idea."
"The ol' standby?" Gip asked with a knowing smile.
Bookie nodded. "The ol' standby."