Chapter 8

Mush's Point of View

Central Park

I led Hannah and Trig towards the lodging house. Hannah didn't have anywhere else to go, so I was figuring she could hang with us and then go to the newsgirls lodging house afterwards, at least for tonight. I had wanted some time alone with Trig, but when Seagull had showed up I couldn't say no to letting her sell with us, and then I thought that once we left her in Brooklyn then I'd be able to talk to Trig but no. There had to conveniently be a fight, in our way, and what kind of person would allow three guys to take down an innocent girl? Ok, not that Hannah was that innocent. Of course I've stolen food before and gotten into fights but I'll bet Hannah could beat all the newsies combined for her list of crimes, and I'll bet that she's been in the refuge more than all the newsies combined as well. That girl had some serious, well, issues is the best word I can come up with.

Yes, I had been in the refuge before, several times actually. All of us had, even Dash, and he was only eight! Though it's not surprising, the authorities want to get rid of all the street rats, and the only way they see to get rid of 'em is to throw 'em in the refuge. Not exactly logical, but I guess they think it is. Some of the reasons are ridiculous too, one of the things that they got Bumlets for was "disturbing the peace" when all he had been doing was shouting the headline a bit…um loud. Ok, it was louder than loud, that kid has a very loud voice, but that's not the point. The point is he was supposed to be locked up in the refuge for two weeks for a very, very, very, dumb reason. Of course he wasn't there that long; we got him out the night after he had been arrested.

As we approached the lodging house I saw Racetrack and the girl with the red hair, I think they had said her name was Nanners, coming back. From talking to Nanners I had learned that like Race, she loved horse racing, enjoyed cards, and was a good gambler. Also, she said that before she came to New York, she used to live in Chicago and was a stable-girl, taking care of horses, exercising them and other things like that. All things that Race would find interesting.

"Heya Mush!" He called as we approached the building.

"Hi Race," I answered

"Who's the goil?" asked Race, referring to Hannah.

"Oh, she's Hannah, the Delancy's was givin' her a hard time so she's gonna hang out here for a while" I turned to Hannah, "Hannah, this is Racetrack and the goil is Nanners."

"Hey," she said, looking them both in the eye, the girl sure had confidence, or at least she seemed to. We entered the lodging house, and introduced her to the rest of the guys, as well as Katie, Pippa, and several of the other girls who happened to be there.

"Who's up for cards?" asked Race jumping down from his bunk.

Skittery rolled his eyes, "Race, do ya honestly think we'd still be dumb enough to take ya up on that offer? You alone has taken more money from me than all the other guys combined."

Race just gave him an evil grin, "wanna bet on that?"

"No!" Skittery then turned and stormed off to a corner to pretend to pout, I say pretended 'cause I was positive I saw a hint of a grin on his face, but he turned around before I could make sure.

"Hey, Folly, go cheer your future-boyfriend up will ya?" called Snipeshooter. Folly just snorted.

We ended up playing a game of Texas Hold 'Em, and Race and Nanners were the last ones in, though Racetrack beat her, Nanners said afterwards that she had let him out of "sympathy". Racetrack thought otherwise, and at last Folly was finally able to talk Skitt to come out of his corner.

Hannah tried to at least be civil with everyone, but she didn't exactly strike me as a "people person", and in the end she pretty much retreated to a corner, and it took Celena the better part of the evening to lure her out to at least talk to everyone else. Of all the people there Celena seemed to be getting along best with Hannah, though if someone said one thing that Hannah took the wrong way she would go storming off and Celena would need to spend another half hour to talk her out of the corner. Despite that it was a fun evening, and when Kloppman finally came up to tell us it was time to go to bed we were still all wide awake, but when you gotta turn out the lights and go to bed you gotta turn out the lights and go to bed, besides, it doesn't help selling very much if you've stayed out all night.

"So, who wants to walk the goils back to the lodgin' house?" asked Jack standing up.

Katie rolled her eyes, "I think we can find our way by ourselves Cowboy, I've only been doing it for the past ten years."

Jack grinned, "Well you can still get lost can't ya? Um, Blink, you can go, and Skittery, you need something to cheer you up, maybe a walk will do it."

Skittery snorted but didn't protest. "Anyone else?" called Jack.

"Honestly Jack, are you gonna send all the newsies in Manhattan just to walk us back to the lodgin' house?" teased Pippa, "how 'bout you call up Spot's crew just to make sure we don't get lost, and why not have Snapshot's group come down from Queens as well just for a little extra protection?"

Jack grinned "ya know Pippa, that ain't a bad idea."

"Aw, shut up."

The girls headed down the steps and out the door. I watched them go, especially Trig and Hannah. Those two were so different, Trig was happy and peppy, always had a ready smile and a joke, she was friendly and pretty. Hannah, on the other hand seemed outwardly confident, but when you looked at her that confidence never seemed to reach her eyes, which always seemed sad, and a bit far away, from what I had learned from talking to her, Hannah was anything but a thinker, she dove right into things without thinking, and she had a big mouth and was very opinionated. Apparently she and her brother had been living on the streets since their parents died in a train crash when she was 6, and then she had to fend for herself after the Delancy's killed her brother 2 years ago. Hannah didn't hold back at all, she said anything she thought, though I was positive that at least a little of what she said was a lie, maybe more than a little.

The next day at the distribution office Seagull wasn't there, I wondered about it until Record, a kid from Brooklyn showed up and said that Sea was going to be staying there for today, but coming back tonight, though he didn't give any reasons.

Trig and I were going to sell together again, Hannah had said she wasn't going to sell any papers and was only going to stay with the newsgirls for one night, so I was surprised when she showed up and said that she was going to sell with Celena, Paloosh, Katie, and Specs. Trig and I bought our papes and headed towards Central Park. She had asked about it yesterday and I had promised I would take her there. We wandered around the park, selling our papers as we went. It was an extremely hot day so we walked down to the lake, and sat under the trees. Trig has said she was from Philadelphia, and had come to New York for a "change of scene" she said that she moved around a lot.

"So, ya think you might stick around 'ere for awhile?"

She shrugged, "Dunno, really, it all depends, its kinda a thing when one day I'm one place the next day I'm not, I don't really like to get settled in one place."

"So where all have ya been?"

She shrugged again, "all over pretty much, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston…" her voice trailed off.

"Must be pretty hard moving around so often"

"Not really, I like it, I mean, sometimes I wish I had a family and a solid home, but ya know, its life and I gotta deal with it the best I can."

"You could stay 'ere, ya know, sell papes, stay in the lodgin' house"

She just smiled, "eh, I don't even know what I'm gonna do or where I'm gonna go, it's pretty spontaneous really. I wake up one morning and decide I want to go to New York, or D.C. or wherever, and then I go."

For some reason I was disappointed, I was really beginning to like this girl, she wasn't the greatest at selling papes, but that could change, I could hardly manage 20 a day when I started. I shook myself; she was probably going to be leaving soon anyway, no point in liking her anymore. Get over it she isn't even going to be here much longer, besides she's just a goil. I told myself, but it was hard…

"Mush, still there?" she said grinning.

I shook myself and came back to reality, "yeah, just thinkin'"

"Well thinking can wait, I still have about 30 papers to sell and it's almost noon."

"I guess your right" I said getting up

We spent the rest of the day in Central Park, until we had sold all of our papers. It was a nice day so there were plenty of people to sell to. Families with kids running through the grass, couples wandering through the tree shaded paths, and plenty of people by themselves just enjoying the sunshine. We ran out of papers around 6:00, though we stayed at the park much longer talking. We didn't even notice the time slip by until around 9:30 Trig seemed to snap back to reality.

"We better be getting back, besides I'm getting pretty tired."

I nodded and we exited the park, I dropped her off at the girls lodging house, and before she went inside she stopped on the step.

"Thanks for helping me out so much with getting the hang of selling papers Mush; I don't know how I would have figured it out without your help."

"Hey, it was nothin'; I enjoyed having someone to sell with" Oh stop acting so stupid I told myself say something besides that but I couldn't think of anything. Trig just grinned then hugged me.

"We can do it tomorrow again, if that's ok?"

I nodded, "absolutely fine."

She smiled again, gave me another quick hug, and ran inside the lodging house. I walked back to the newsboys lodging house and flopped on my bunk.

"Tough day Mush?" asked Blink

"What? Oh yeah, it was ok." I said, I didn't want to deal with explaining right now, I was too tired, and in about 10 minutes I was asleep.