"Hype, wake up," Ike says as he pokes me. I lazily look up at his white smile and turn over. "Look." He continues, "I know you haven't got much sleep this week but you need to wake up. And I need something for this bruise I have on the side of my leg." I take a deep breath and pull the covers over my head as Ike continues to wake me up. "Come on Hype," he says playfully, tickling me until I either wake up or die from laughter as I squirm away and eventually fall of the bed. "That's what you get," I hear Ike smirks as he throws a pillow at me.
"What are you doing?" I mutter as he tries to crawl on top of me to kiss me awake.
"Trying to wake you up," he smirks, he kisses me again and says Star's in the main room and she's going to kill me if I don't get up at this exact moment. I frown at him and tell him today's still young and it can only be what seven in the morning?
"It's um, eleven in the morning; Star kind of knew you wanted to sleep so she thought of selling in the afternoon." He says hesitantly.
"So, where's the kids?" I ask as I lazily stretch and go to the closet.
"Lucy, Cole and Luke are at the Landlady's" he comments as I look at him, trying to get a blouse off a hook.
"Where's Bella?" I say, coking my head to the side as I finally get the shirt loose.
"She's in the nursery," he replies. "She's sick remember?"
"She's not sick, she's just having allergies to something." I say, shooing Ike to the main room while I get dressed. As I finish getting dressed, there's a knock on our front door as Ike and I make a run for it.
"I want to open it," I whine.
"You always get to open it," Ike argues.
"Fine then, open the door." I grumble.
"No its okay, you can open the door," Ike sasses.
"Then why did you want to open the door?" I ask
"Because you always get to open the door," Ike comments.
"Do you want to open the door or shall I?" I continue.
"You're already at the door," he smiles.
"Fine then I'll open the door." I sass, most likely whoever is on the other side of the door must think we're being complete idiots right now. Star cuts n and opens the door as we see some stranger with brown hair only curly at the tips. Ike and I both notice her hand is slightly mangled.
"Hype," Star says, "it's for you." Moving out of the way, I come closer to the girl and I think I have a vague memory with her in it.
"Hi stranger," I say stupidly as she gives me a gentle smile. She cocks her head at me both ways and gives me a silly face.
"I'm looking for Mrs. O'Malley, is she here?" the girl asks nervously. I bite my lip as I think hard, trying to connect this girl with a memory.
"What?" I ask after a few minutes. "Oh, that's me. At least, I think." I call out for Ike as he comes to the door and smiles at our guest.
"Yes Hype." He asks cheekily as I roll my eyes.
"Never mind," I smile, turning back to the girl.
"Well, Hi," she smiles, "are you Hype O'Malley?" I give her an instant answer as I ask for her name maybe that will bring back the memory.
"Mary, but you may remember me as Minnie." She states. I shake my head as she continues. "You don't remember me do you? Well, it's okay; it's been what, seven or eight years?" Seven or eight years, then I really have no idea who this girl is unless she's had some awfully big impact I have no idea how she found me either. "Anyways, you may remember when I mangled my hand in the thread factory one day." I give her a giant grin because I know who she is now, surprisingly I didn't remember sooner. I hug her and feel tears lining my eyelids as I bring her into the main room with Star.
"Hype," Ike directs to me, "I'm going out for the day, see you at dinner."
"Oh wait, I kind of want to play would you rather tonight with our friends, because I loved playing it with you yesterday, do you think you could tell them? And if they come, tell them to bring some sort of food." I say as he heads out the door. I kiss him goodbye and go into the main room as Minnie tells Star how she knows me. Way different version thought, but I guess it's just her viewpoint. But the memory's coming back now I can tell. When I was seven, I think, I worked in a factory that made thread and one of my best friends, a year older than me, was injured by the machinery. That's why thread costs so little now, like a newspaper; people get injured to easy to make it. I never really knew her since we weren't allowed to talk but we came up with this secret language I guess you could call it. We got in trouble a lot though. But one day it was just a regular work day and I heard her scream from the other side of the room and she was bleeding heavily and crying. I haven't seen her since.
"So where do you live now?" I cut in, not realizing she just answered that exact question.
"Flushing, like, not near the water, but more in the center I guess," She responds. "I wanted to get as far away from that factory as money could take me."
"Oh, okay, Ike or Mike probably can figure out where you live. They lived in Flushing before they moved out so…" I say trailing off. "Did you walk here?"
"Oh no, I took the ferry, walking takes almost three and a half hours, maybe more." She smiles. "I brought a newspaper for you if you don't mind. It's from The World, but if you prefer the Journal or the Sun, I can figure out a way…"
"Oh good," Star smiles taking it from her, "an extra half cent, Hype, we can sell it easily." Minnie gives me a somewhat sad look as I explain what Star means.
"We sell for the World. We're newsies. I haven't been in a factory since…because…" I stammer. She looks downwards for a few seconds. "So what do you do now?"
"Oh, nothing really, I think I may be pregnant, it happened this morning, I think I blacked out and when I woke up, most off my clothes were shredded and I could barely walk. I don't know. There were these two boys that…" she says as I immediately cut her off. Delanceys no doubt probably brushed her in broad daylight. Might as well add one more person to their list, they both have now what more than five no doubt.
"How did you find me?" I ask hesitantly.
"Easy, when you're crippled, you can get sympathy from almost anyone. Then, they feel guilt for you and give you whatever. Anyways, I got fired from the factory the day…yea and I asked the manager or whatever he was your name. Then I came to the courthouse to see if they had anything on you, well, I'm guessing now your maiden name. They had your birth and marriage certificate, basically all your records there, you just have to ask. Then they found like, a tax bill which has your address on it and I tried my luck and came here." She simply states. Star and I give her a blank look as we both make funny faces.