Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership of the Newsies, the songs, or the plot line in anyway. Anything or anyone that you recognize from the movie belongs to the movie. I am not claiming ownership in any way, shape, or form. I'm just a girl who loves the movie and wants to write about it.
Chapter 6
Rebecca's Point of View
We wandered down to the distribution office and bought our papers, I happened to have a nickel on me so I was able to get ten. Skittery explained that you would buy two papers for a penny, then you could sell them for a penny each, therefore, if I sold all ten of my papers I would have ten cents rather than five cents at the end of the day. It seemed simple enough.
"But, even more important than how much money ya make is how ya make it, see heah" he said pointing to one of the headlines that read Possible Potato Virus. "No one is gonna buy a pape 'bout that, now watch this." He stepped out to the middle of the sidewalk "Deadly vegetable epidemic sweepin' New York City!" Several people came over and bought a paper. "See?" he turned to me, "headlines don't sell papes, newsies sell papes." I nodded, "now see what you can do."
I scanned the front page for a promising headline, nothing there. "Don't be fooled by the front page stuff, some of the best headlines are hiding in the middle," said Skittery as I turned the page. Finally I found one that looked okay. I read it aloud "New telephone design" I looked up at him "how's this?"
He shrugged, "It'll woik, now how can you improve it?"
"Jeez Skittery, you sound like a English teacher or somethin'" I said grinning.
"Well I am a teacher ain't I?" he said, "now go sell a newspaper or ya won't have any money to pay for lodgin'"
I rolled my eyes and tried to come up with a good way to "improve the headline." Then I got an idea. "Extra! Extra! Communication better than ever with the new telephone design!" A passerby stopped to buy a paper. One down, nine to go.
"Good job!" said Skittery "let's see if we can beat Jack back to the lodgin' house!"
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We arrived back at the lodging house around seven thirty that night, when we came in the door the talking quieted.
"Ya came back" said Boots finally breaking the awkward silence.
"Yeah, well, I gotta make money somehow." I said staring down at my feet.
"So, ya gonna stick around this time?" asked Jack coming over
I shrugged, "maybe."
"Hey fella's I think we need a name for Becca" said Jack, leading me over to a sofa.
"A name? I think Becca woiks fine" I protested.
"Nah, ya need a good nickname, all of us go by nicknames" he said motioning to the other newsies.
"You don't" I argued "Jack's your real name…ain't it?"
"Yeah actually, me nickname's Cowboy, did ya honestly think that Skitts' real name was Skittery or that Race's real name was Racetrack?"
"Well…" now that I thought about it I had suspected that they were all nicknames.
"So, we need a nickname for you. What do you do in your free time?"
Well that's a bit of a change of subject ain't it? "Uh…I write a lot."
"What do ya write?"
"Fairy tales mostly."
"Hmm, we could just stick with Rapunzel then."
"Rapunzel?" I asked shocked.
"Yeah, ain't Rapunzel a fairy tale person or somethin'?" asked one of the newsies.
"Yeah, she's the one with the evil stepmother who went to the ball and lost her glass slipper," answered another.
"No she ain't! That was Cinderella!" argued someone from across the room
"It wasn't Cinderella!" Pretty soon they were all in an argument over what princess did what, and soon Snow White and Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty) were involved too. I groaned and slumped down in my chair. How could a simple nickname cause forty teenage boys to get into such a stupid argument?
"A'right everyone SHUT UP!" Yelled Jack, everyone immediately quieted. "Good, now I think we've narrowed it down to Rapunzel or Cinderella, which do ya want?"
I shrugged, "do I have a choice to say no to both?"
He grinned wickedly "nope sorry" he paused "but I suppose if you chose Cinderella you could go by Ella."
Ella. The name made me think immediately of Elizabeth. No. I wouldn't be able to go by Ella. "I guess Rapunzel will have to woik then." How stupid I thought maybe I could just refuse to answer if people call me that.
"So Rapunzel it is" said Jack. I think I actually winced at the name that time.
So, Becca is going to stay with the newsies but got stuck with the nickname Rapunzel which she obviously doesn't like. (Haha Athena is so evil coming up with her nicknames). Make my day! Leave a review for Athena! (Or she just might find you…)
Shout Outs:
Racerchick: Yay! I get 100 papes! (dances) wow, I'm really hyper. About Nellie showing up agian, I have no idea whether she will or not, I've been tossing the idea around and I have a few ideas for how to add her in but I'm not sure yet...
NarniaRulz: That's too bad about your computer not letting you log in. Thank you so much for reviewing!
Ktkakes: Thank you so much! This chapter was a little hard for me to write, I mean, it seems like I've used the Central Park setting TONS. Oh well...Athena's fault lol.
SilverRain1.3: I'm glad you decided to read it, I hope it was worth your time. And I'm really glad you took the time to review. I mean, right now the little statistic thingy says that 26 people read chapter 5, but I only ended up getting four reviews, thanks so much for leaving a review!
