"What?" Specs stared at the board in perplexity. They had taken a break from their tournament for a helping of bread donations from the nuns at the church. Then they had moved the game up to the second floor. They sat across from each other atop an empty, mattress-less bunk out of the way of the ever-clamorous newsies, abuzz with excitement about tomorrow's endeavor. "Three outta four. You got me."
"I learned from the master," Smalls answered playfully, kicking his king off of the board with the slightest swing of her white figurine.
"Flattery ain't gonna make me go easy on ya next time," He assured her, packing his pieces back into the shirt box. "This is war."
"I'm absolutely terrified." She began picking up her white pieces.
"'Ey, Shortie!" Smalls heard a commanding voice call.
She sat up straight with a start. "Uh-oh."
"Jules?" Specs asked.
"Jules," Smalls answered.
"C'mon, we's gonna be late for curfew!" She went around the room, checking each bunk.
"I probably gotta get goin' now," Smalls said.
Specs paused his work, and his eyes turned a bit sad. "Right, right, I understand." He began packing up the game once more.
"Hey, listen to me…" She hesitated for a moment before placing a hand on top of Specs'. He ceased his task immediately and looked up at her. "Thanks for tonight. Had a great time. An' be careful tomorrow."
Specs nodded quickly, smiling. "A-all right. Thanks… You too. It was great to get to see ya again."
Were his cheeks turning… Pink?
Smalls smirked.
"What?" Specs asked.
Smalls dangled her legs over the side of the bunk. "You always were a blusher." Specs tried to shrug it off, embarrassed. Smalls pushed off of the bunk and landed on the ground with a solid thud. "Catcha later, Specs."
"Bye Lauren," he called back, still feeling stupid about the exchange.
…
Early the next morning, newsboys scurried all around the Lodging House. Like always, they shouted from across the room, clamored up stairs, and banged violently on bathroom doors, a racket that when multiplied by twenty or so boys in one room could quickly give an outsider a headache. The two Bronx girls were also back, Smalls clinging to a bunk ladder and talking loudly to some boys and Jules sitting on the floor next to her picking at her cuticles. David had arrived at the house by request of Jack, and the two stood at the top of the stairwell.
"Excuse me!" David attempted with a controlled yell. "Can I get everyone's attention for just a sec?"
Not a single boy looked up from their routine except Crutchie, who was sitting on his bottom bunk fastening what looked like a vertical banner that read "STRIKE" onto his crutch.
"Guys, listen!" David tried once more.
Crutchie frowned at their disobedience, stuck two fingers in his mouth, and shot out a glass-shattering whistle. "Listen up!" He shouted. "Jack an' Davey got somethin' ta say!"
The entire crew shut up and turned to the three boys.
"Thanks, Crutch," Jack said.
"No problem," Crutchie replied.
He looked at David with a bit of a smile and a nod to say, "it's all you." He stepped on top of a small wooden box once filled with bottles of milk and cleared his throat, wringing his hands.
"All right, guys, this is it." He clapped and kept his hands folded at chest level, pointing them at the newsies. "Today we stop the wagons from delivering papers to the rest of the city. This is where we show old man Pulitzer we are serious. I…" He paused, trying to find the right words. "I'm not going to lie, what we are about to do is really risky. I mean, you all heard about that trolley strike that's still going strong. Someone might call the police. And, well, our numbers are limited. So I suggest-"
"What about Queens?" Knobs yelled from the back of the room.
David dropped his hands and wrung them once more. The palms were beginning to feel sweaty. "Erm…"
Specs raised a hand sheepishly. "They said they'd be over in a jiff if we got Brooklyn on our side."
"But Woodside?" Buttons asked nobody in particular. "Please tell me we got Woodside!"
"Nope," Albert said. "Wanted the nod from Spot Conlon."
"Oh, pssh, please, who needs Spot Conlon?" David tried to casually brush off.
"Apparently, all the newsies in the whole damn state of New York," Jules replied. David shot her a look - an expression that read neutral surprise that she spoke up and annoyance at her continued negativity.
"Who are we jokin'?" Race demanded, yanking a fat cigar out from between his teeth. "This is suicide. The other guys smelled the stinkin' corpse. That's why they backed off, ain't it? Do we got anybody at all backin' us up?"
Soon, the crowd of boys was alive with murmurs and doubts. David looked out at his slipping audience with nothing coming into his head to say.
"Welp, this is turning out to be one hell of a pep talk, Dave," Jack grumbled.
Smalls climbed up to the top of a bunk ladder, leaned out and cupped a hand to her mouth to shout over the conversations. "What, so girls don't count, fellas?" Her volume drew only about half of the boys' eyes over.
"Smalls, get down from there," Jules muttered, grabbing her arm.
Smalls tore it away. "You got the Bronx here. We's gonna fight to the finish, no many how many scabs we hafta soak, and no matter how many carriages we hafta halt."
A few glances were exchanged. Smalls' face began to redden.
She jumped down from her perch and stomped her foot. "What?!" A few laughs rippled through the crowd.
"Hey!" Specs snapped. A hush fell over the newsies in a split second. It wasn't like him to yell. "Smalls is right. What we lack in number we can make up for in spirit." He stood up beside her defensively. Jules leaned away from the two, sitting right at their side.
David smiled. "That's it, guys! So listen. We can carry this far if we work together. I mean, come on, an entire Lodging House with a personal score to settle against some old geezers with a newspaper. We'll be defiant. We'll revolt. We'll turn their whole setup upside-down."
He paused for a second, acknowledging that he now had the entire room's attention. Everyone sat up straight, even the ever-casual Jules, impressed by the passion behind his words.
"This is our chance to show them that we are a force. That we exist. That we will not be pushed around. If we don't, who's to say they won't hike the price again? So… What do you say? Are we going to be Pulitzer's silent slaves, or are we going to seize the day?"
There was a moment or two of complete silence. David started to feel that his speech did no good, or worse, was going to be mocked. He stepped down from the crate and took a step back, falling in line with Jack.
He was the one who started the applause. It started as a slow clap from two or three of the newsies, but it soon escalated to a full standing ovation from everyone in the room. It lingered for a while, and David took it all in with a grin - the enthusiasm that showed clearly on the faces all around him, the war cries that rang out through the applauding rally of newsboys, and the approving pat on the back from their leader, Jack. He was stuck in the street rat revolution, all right, but he would never even think of leaving them now.
"A'ight, you heard the guy!" Jack shouted. Then, swinging a fist into the air: "Let's soak 'em!"
The newsies roared "Yeah!" before they started bolting down the stairs. Jules was stuck in a traffic jam against the wall as the boys pushed their way through the cramped dormitory. Smalls, however, had been able to run ahead.
"Smalls!" She called, attempting to push her way through. "Hey, Shortie, wait up!"
Smalls didn't look back. Her attention was forward.
"Come on, Lauren!" Jules heard Specs call back to the younger girl from the stairs. She smiled brightly and squeezed past the others to catch up. As the two began to walk down the steps, Jules could've sworn she saw the boy's hand begin to reach for Smalls'.
She stopped struggling through the crowd and just stared for a moment. Something about the easily mistakable motion added to a dent in Jules. Smalls was always the kid. The young. The innocent. Everyone's up-to-no-good little sister. At least to her and a couple of the other Lodging House girls. So yeah, Jules felt protective of her. And now, this boy she knew nothing about and Smalls saw for the first time in years only yesterday was hanging around her all the time. She smelled something bad, and though she had joked about it before, she didn't like the idea of her Shortie being reeled in, soiled, and heartbroken by some dirty, cocky newsboy one bit.
The room was now clear except for one other person. Jules knocked a straggling Jack Kelly who crossed into her way almost to the floor with one arm as she marched to the stairs.
"'Ey!" He stumbled back and caught his breath. "Jeez, Jules, what's ya problem?"
"Nothing to concern yourself with. Now let's topple this stupid wagon."
"Nobody is going to be toppling anything," a voice said, accompanied by the drumming of new leather shoes against the staircase. David emerged, defeated, followed by several groaning boys. "I was the first one out. The wagon already went around, and we saw it come back in just now. Pulitzer must've seen our plan coming and changed the delivery schedule."
"It ended five minutes before it's supposed to go out?" Jack demanded. "Okay, this is jus' great. We gotta wait 'til tomorrow."
"Come on, don't ya guys gotta evenin' edition?" Jules asked. There was no way she was going to beg for change for the trolley to bring her back a day she didn't need to.
David raised his eyebrows and looked to Jack. "Do we?"
Jack nodded in equal excitement. "We do."
"Perfect," David said. "What time do you think it'll go out?"
"Don't ya worry 'bout it. I'll ask around. Even the loyalist goons can be deceived for a little information." With that, he turned and started heading down the stairs, past the wave of discouraged newsboys.
That left David and Jules alone in the corner of the room. David looked up and down the girl. She was about his height, and like a majority of the newsies, was brushed with city grime from head to toe. She, like Smalls, wore layers of ill-fitting men's clothing. Her wavy blonde hair was taken down from its usual ponytail and flowing over her shoulders, messy as always, with her bangs in her face.
David realized he had been staring at the disheveled girl too long, and she was taking notice. She turned her head and asked, "What?"
"It was a great idea," He commented.
"Thanks, but it was no big thing. You'd hafta have a pretty thick skull to not think of it yourselves."
David sighed. "Okay, Jules, I understand you're not the cheeriest of people. But I really need to know whether you're in or out of this strike."
"Does it matter?" Jules crossed her arms. "Like I said, the kid was the one who wanted in. Smalls. I'm jus' here to make sure she doesn't get into too much trouble."
David's expression softened. The thought of some sort of compassion behind her tough barrier took him by surprise. "Oh. So…she's your sister?"
She shook her head. "Nah. But she likes to get into trouble sometimes, so somebody's gotta play big sister."
"You do realize that this strike might get violent," David reminded her.
"Hell, that ain't stoppin' Momma's Boy here from bein' at the head."
David involuntarily showed a bit of a wince in his face at the use of a curse. A snort slipped out of Jules.
"Okay, I've tried to be nice, and quite frankly, I could do without the immature assumptions," he said, starting to clench his fists by his sides. "Maybe you could start acting your own age."
Jules widened her eyes. "Oh-ho, I'm the one who needs to grow up?" She scoffed, and the puff of air shot a drooping strand of hair up off her face and back down. "Listen to yourself."
David raised his hand as if to make a gesture, but then dropped it angrily. "All right, I've had it with you. I'm trying to organize a strike here, and if you're just here to contradict and babysit that little mouse girl, you shouldn't be here at all."
Jules stepped closer to him, getting into his face. "Trust me, I ain't too fond of you either, Sweetheart, but that mouse ain't gonna let me leave. Remember, genius?"
"Oh, sure, like you could be bright enough to lead these guys."
"How are you even their leader?" Jules snapped. "These aren't even your kind!"
"Four o'clock sharp!" Jack came hurrying back up the stairs and approached the pair. "Just overheard Weasel and the-"
"Not now, Kelly," Jules replied icily, not tearing her poisonous glare away from David.
Through gritted teeth, David grumbled, "Get your damn hair out of your face. You look like an idiot."
"Whoa, Davey, calm down!" Jack set a hand on his friend's back. David swatted it down and began to leave.
"This isn't your fight, David. Run back home to your folks while you still can," Jules shot as she stood her ground.
David disappeared back down the stairs without another word.
"And while you still got 'em," she muttered. "You ungrateful turd."