CHAPTER 1
"Hey."
"Nnnn… No… Jus'… A couple more minutes…"
"Smalls. Get up."
"But-"
"Sure, if you wanna break even this week an' starve for a little while, it's fine with me. Jus' don't say I didn't warn ya."
"Jules…"
Smalls rubbed her eyes and ran a hand through her hair. Though frizzed out from wearing her green hat yesterday, it was manageable. It probably helped that it was almost the length of a boy's haircut. Jules, on the other hand, had thick, curly blonde hair that she stuck into a loose ponytail under her hat most of the time. Most of the time, a large strand was left out, covering her right eye. She seldom made any effort to keep it out of her face.
"You're fifteen years old," She grumpily reminded her as she climbed down from the bunk on top of her (as if Smalls needed reminding). "If I can suck it up and get up at six thirty, so can you."
"Early bird catches the worm," a girl called from across the room.
"Why would I want a worm? What if the bird is more in the mood for some coffee cake instead?" The older girl flashed a mock amused face.
"Nice one, Shortie." She walked downstairs of the Bronx Newsgirls Lodging House, buttoning up her faded yellow shirt. Smalls sat up in her bouncing, squeaky cot, pushing the thin cotton sheets off of her nearly bare legs. She wore shorts and a sleeveless undershirt, as she always did. No fancy nightgowns for her, or any of the other girls at the Lodging House, for that matter. They were lucky enough to get the roof over their heads and clothes they had for a couple of cents a night.
And it was a pretty nice place for a building that housed orphans living on pennies a day. It was four stories high with clean, striped wallpaper in every room. There were about five baths for the girls to rotate turns with and deliveries from the milkman every Sunday. Even as she looked around at the crowded room of newsgirls, rushing around in various states of preparation for the day of selling papers ahead, Smalls could only think about how glad she was to call a place like this home after her temporary lodging at Manhattan's Refuge a few years back. It gave her chills to think about the cockroaches she'd find in her bed each morning, the slop for food, the slave-driving demands of the abusive warden Snyder…
Man, was she lucky she escaped when she could, and even more lucky that an unsuspecting sap on the street coughed up some spare change for her to ride back home to the Bronx in a trolley. She always believed that she had a certain irresistible childish charm about her, and she had mastered the sacred art of begging.
A hanger poked out from underneath Smalls' rusty-railed bed, and she kicked it back into the stash out of sight with a bare foot. The jokester of her peers, her new prank was having all the wire hangers in the building gradually disappear. Within two days, the girls had taken notice, but still had not pointed a finger at the youngest on their floor. She made her way over to the closet, picked off her usual ensemble (one of the only ones that was still hung), and began putting it on, accompanied by the laments of girls who had to stuff their clothes under their mattresses or sling them over bunk railings, only to have them fall and be kicked around on the floor. Smalls swung her brown vest over her shoulders, buttoned her trousers, and slipped into her work boots before rushing down the steps and directly to the circulation center for the Bronx Sentinel.
It was a warm summer day with only traces of clouds lining the bright blue sky. Girls and boys both crowded the gate inside, though cleanly separated on either side by gender, as if automatically conforming to the puerile, age-old belief in cooties. She had to jump up to try and catch a glimpse of the headline board over the heads of the others, as she always did. "Senator Caught in Fatal Carriage Crash". Not bad for a Monday, though it was sort of a mouthful.
A whistle blew, the gates flew open, and young boys and girls flooded the circulation center, pushing to be at the front of the line.
"Single-file!" Shouted the man at the desk as he distributed the day's newspapers. It was obvious that there was a struggle to be heard over the chatter that swept up the collection of young news carriers.
Smalls, relatively close to the front of the line, overheard the girl in front of her say, "Didja hear about that Manhattan strike?"
Her head perked right up like she was a pet dog who just heard her name being called. Manhattan. That's where the Refuge had been. She silently leaned forward the tiniest bit, trying to hear the rest of the conversation.
"Yeah, jus' visited Buttons there yesterday. They were all in a tizzy 'bout the World hikin' pape prices."
"Why would Joe do that?"
"Beats me. Probably jus' 'cuz he's a greedy little rat. Buttons sure was ticked 'bout it though. He an' Specs were-"
What? Her Specs?
"'Morning Smalls," the man at the circulation window grunted, picking at his thick black mustache. "Come on, how many?"
Smalls turned to the man and dropped two quarters on the desk. He heaved a stack of one hundred papers from under his desk and dropped them in the petite girl's arms. She deposited them into the bag that crossed her body and wandered back out on the streets, thinking about what she just heard. Maybe it was just gossip, truths mixed with made-up stories. She'd heard plenty of that when the girls tried to sell their papers. But were they really talking about her childhood friend, or…?
Don't be stupid, she thought to herself. Plenty of guys have glasses. It probably ain't Specs. Russell. Whatever.
She went through her daily selling route, handing our papes in record time. Her gimmick was her ability to play young. Even as a teenager, she could pass for a starving little girl of twelve, earning the pity (and pay) of anyone out on the boulevard with a soft heart.
But all the while, all she could think about was that always-politely-smiling face of her past that was somehow always able to make her feel cared about, even when it seemed the world wanted to throw her away.
…
"Next thing we gotta do is spread the word. Get others involved," David Jacobs explained as the Manhattan newsie gang sat together at an otherwise-empty Jacobi's.
"A'ight, you heard the guy," Jack Kelly agreed, standing up and slamming his hands on the wooden table, creating ripples in everyone's glasses of water. "Who's takin' Woodside?"
"I got it!" Knobs declared, raising a hand.
"I got Flushings," called Albert.
"I'll take the Bronx!" Finch said, jumping up. Specs slumped uselessly in his chair. He hadn't been to his old home since his folks… well, passed away. This would've been him perfect excuse to visit. And maybe, just maybe, his old friend Lauren had found her way back home-
"Specs, you take Queens," Jack ordered. Specs stood and saluted, showing he was ready to do whatever it took to help the strike.
"Sure thing," he responded half-heartedly. Queens. Yippee.
It was a dumb thought. What were the odds that someone like her could sneak out of the Refuge? And even if she did, what were the odds she's still be at the Bronx?
Why was he even thinking about this in the first place? What are the odds that this stranger from his childhood would even remember him?
Why did her face stick in his mind after all this time anyway?
"Now who's takin' Brooklyn?" Jack asked. Specs dropped his gaze to the floor, pretending to be incredibly interested in twiddling his thumbs.
…
Smalls lied in Jules' upper bunk late that afternoon, letting her head and shoulders dangle upside-down over the side. She stared out the open window at the endless city skyline as exhausted newsgirls trickled in the door. The old stairs creaked with every individual footfall. She guessed it was about four. Pretty soon, Jules came in and stood in front of her bunk, glaring eye-to-eye with Smalls.
"So, how was your day?" Smalls asked innocently.
"You're on my bed," Jules replied.
"That's not an answer," She teased. Jules responded by setting her empty bag on the floor, climbing up the ladder, and sitting on Smalls' legs.
"You're on my bed," She repeated. "And if you had any hair, I'd be pullin' you down by it."
"No sense of humor on you today, huh?" She squirmed out from underneath Jules, rolled over, swung her legs around and leaped down to the ground.
"You're gonna get hurt if you do that too much," Jules called down. "Did it in my first month. Sprained somethin' in my arm."
"So? You were six, Julia," Smalls said.
"Just warning you that-"
All of a sudden, the bell at the door rung throughout the building. Smalls was the very first to race down the stairs and peek around the hall to the entrance room to see who it was. Ms. Tulipson, with her bulky purple dress and hair yanked back into a tight bun, approached the white, foggy-windowed door and twisted the brass knob open. About half a dozen other girls came down after Smalls. The eldest, a black-haired and fair-skinned eighteen-year-old who went by Snaps, was the first girl to actually come up to the door, followed by her closest friends, some of the Lodging House veterans. Jules was among them. Smalls could barely see the figure at the other side of the door, but she could hear his sharp and loud voice as Ms. Tulipson returned to her desk to allow them to talk.
"Ya see, we gotta strike goin' down in Manhattan, with all the newsies," he explained. "Pulitzer wants to raise the price of papers by another ten cents per hundred, an' we decided we's gonna revolt. Jack says we's gonna try to stop the wagon from deliverin' to the rest of the city…"
"We've heard the story, Finch," Snaps told him. "Cut to the chase."
"Listen, do you guys… eh, girls… want in? I mean, we could really make a difference. Get newspaper owners everywhere, not jus' Manhattan, to take kid workers more seriously. Plus, we'd kinda owe ya one if the Sentinel ever turns on you."
"Who else do you got on board?" Snaps asked.
Finch hesitated a bit before admitting "No one yet."
"Have ya sent someone to Brooklyn at least?" Jules asked. "A rebellion this big ain't gonna work unless ya got someone like Spot Conlon at the lead."
"Ah… No, no word from them yet," Finch said. "The abastards haven't come back yet-"
"Ambassadors," Snaps corrected. "And on that note, I think we're all good. You can have fun with your little strike, but I'm telling ya, it ain't gonna do any good."
"You're kddin' me right? Now I have to go all the way back an' tell Jack I couldn't even get a bunch of girls on it?"
"Come back to us when Spot's in," a girl Smalls couldn't identify from behind said. "Then we'll talk." The other girls nodded in agreement.
"Fine, I guess I'll be on my way then," He says. "But you all will be sorry."
But Smalls' curiosity about Specs was once again sparked by the boy's appearance. Without giving a second thought, she dashed to the door, pushed her way to the front of the crowd, and looked up at the tanned newsboy. "Hold on a second. You're from the Manhattan Newsboy Lodging House, right?" Finch nodded. "Is there a boy there with blonde curls and thick glasses - about my age?"
"Sounds like Specs," He answered, crouching a bit to talk to her like she was a little kid. "But he's probably much older than you, sweetie."
"I'm fifteen years old."
Finch was taken aback. He straightened immedietly. "Oh, I… well, yeah. Fifteen. That's him all right. Why?"
Dear God. And he actually kept the name?
"I'll go with ya, even if none of the other girls are," She told him, standing straight and proud. A half smile of appreciation of the gesture came onto the boy's face.
"Smalls, don't give the guy any pity. They're askin' for trouble," Jules muttered.
"I'm going," She stated. "Gimme one second."
She hurried up the steps snatched her hat from Jules' bed, where she last left it. By the time she came back down, the crowd of girls had dispersed, and Finch waited at the door. "Ya coming or what?"
When Smalls stepped out onto the sidewalk, she was surprised to see Jules leaning on the brick wall.
"You're comin' too?" she asked.
"'Course I'm comin'. Do you know how dangerous a strike can get? You can't go into a fight with this dirty lot of boys alone. Someone's gotta come to give you supervision. So," She sighed. "I guess it has to be me."
Smalls flashed a huge grin and threw an arm up and around her shoulder. She could barely reach. "Best decision of your life. This is gonna be great!"
Jules gave her a look through half-shut eyes. "Don't push it, Shortie."