A very special thanks to Austra, Paisley-the-Flower-girl and stress for their cheerful reviews!

Disclaimer: I don't own Newsies or any of its characters, but I do own all others.

The night the three of us walked home from Irving Hall the stars were shining more brightly than usual – truly a veritable ballet of burning gas. When my father and I first came to New York, I noticed that it was pretty easy to forget about the stars, what with all the lights masking the city at night. Not the case in Camaguey – the stars were always out and dancing amongst themselves, daring anyone to try to map their adventures.

Many people would have taken such a sight as a good omen, an uncommon sign of prosperity to come. Not for me – it may seem odd, but I believe I may be the only person in the world who doesn't appreciate stars.

Why? Probably because ever since I was a little girl in Cuba and beheld the stars so far removed it made me feel small. Small as a dancing fly on a giant circus tent; small as a solitary seed in a field of rollicking grass; small as a little girl with big dreams echoing silently into the endless night sky.

That's why I don't like stars. It was a relief to come to New York and not have to contemplate such peculiar ideas. So when I saw those stars as Carlos and Lola walked me home, I started to feel small again.

I felt small, and I started to doubt myself.

I had spent all of Sunday pondering the prudence of realizing what Jack Kelly and David Jacobs had proposed. I was a girl, I was a delivery mule for a millinery, and I was Cuban. All the characteristics they looked for in a protagonist for their plan were precisely the things I was convinced would prevent me from succeeding. How could a foreign low-class delivery girl convince one of the most powerful men in New York that he was wrong?

Also, I was worried about what Lola would say. I can see your eyes rolling now, and I can't fairly blame you. Perhaps I put too much stock in her opinion, but she was my best friend. I had spent the better part of three years following her around the city, and to abandon the habit wasn't work of a minute's notice.

If I was going to follow through with Jack and David's plan – successful or not – I knew there was no way I could hide it from Lola, at least for very long. We spent half of our waking hours together, and she had always been able to spot one of my lies from a mile and a half away.

What made the situation even worse was her disdain for my potential accomplices. A while back, I was witness to some of her talk about newsies, and she had made it abundantly clear she was not fond of them. A snarky remark and a betterthanyou glare had said quite enough. I never quite understood what it was about them she despised so much, but I didn't really want to know.

Monday morning arrived and I tiptoed oh so delicately into the millinery, hoping to sneak past Caroline Woods before she noticed I had turned up. As I closed the door with intense care, two click-clacks behind me informed me I had failed.

"Well, Isabel," she said, waiting for me to turn and face her. "I am quite surprised. You must have made a rare good impression on Ms. Larkson, as she has requested another hat to be made."

I know that most people would appreciate such an atypical compliment, but I was no fool. Any type of attention, negative or positive, singled me out in Caroline Woods's eyes, which meant my behavior would be subject to yet more scrutiny. With Caroline Woods it was always better to remain undetected.

"Oh, uh… I'm very glad to hear that, Ms. Woods."

She pursed her lips and ran her eyes up and down me like a prize pig. I had the feeling she knew exactly what I was trying to do, and plotting how to trip me up. I tried to stay as still as possible – maybe she wouldn't notice my shaking hands.

"Off to work, then," she said, shooing me off with a wave.

I was only too happy to get out of her way.

I finished the day and managed to avoid my employer's wrath, but was still confounded by the decision I hadn't decided yet to take. I have always considered it amusing (and terrible) how a person can spend days and days going over everything in their head, and they might never come up with an answer – a human state (unfortunately) especially true for me.

I left the millinery and walked. I walkedandwalkedandwalked in circles like a fool, puzzling if I should go to Tibby's or continue on with my quiet, but safe, life. I didn't doubt that if I didn't show up at Tibby's Jack would find me somehow, but it was easier to avoid him in my own territory than to convince him I wasn't the right girl for his plan.

A boy of about 11 passed me and asked if I wanted a shoe shine. I instinctively looked down at my scuffed shoes and looked back at him, hoping he'd see the futility of the question. He didn't, and I was forced to shamefacedly reject his offer. He shrugged and walked away, his shoe-shine box thunking heavily against his bony thigh.

In the end, it was the rain that decided for me (or so I would like to believe). Torrents of tepid water hailed down from the sky a mere 10 minutes later, soaking my dress and further mussing up my shoes. I was disappointed to realize that I had walked too far away from the millinery to go back, and home was in the complete opposite direction. After a few wet moments, I finally decided to go to Tibby's.

I know, I know – I could have stayed under an awning to wait out the storm and then trek all the way back home. I could have avoided what fate had put in front of me, but I took the timely rain as a sign. A sign that I should drop my usual excuses and do something good for someone other than myself.

(In case you were wondering, Carlos, my infinite guide, had informed me where Tibby's was located. That one cost me a handful of my favorite taffy.)

I sloshed in my dank shoes until I got to the restaurant. Sure enough, standing just outside the restaurant door, safe and dry under the awning, was my friend, Cowboy Kelly.

"Nice of ya to show up," he said, barely looking up from under the brim of his hat.

"Yeah, well, the rain…" I started to say and didn't finish, realizing he wasn't interested.

"Well, go on," he said, looking at me expectantly. "Davey's in there already."

I bit my lip and went inside.

Sure enough, there was David sitting at a booth near a window with a kid that couldn't have been older than seven. They didn't look too much alike, but I figured he was David's brother from the look of naïve determination on his face.

I must confess here that the kid made me nervous. Firstly, I was not expecting additional persuaders and secondly, I'm not very good with kids. Growing up as an only child made it so that I don't relate to kids younger than me. Any kid younger than me. I don't do babytalk and I certainly don't feel comfortable talking to them like adults, hence the dilemma. Lola would always laugh under her breath at that problem of mine.

I looked around the room before taking my seat, searching for other newsie-like young men they had brought to increase the pressure. I found none.

David nodded with a slight smile to me as I sat down warily at the booth he and his brother were occupying. Jack slid into the seat across from me, sticking the younger one in the midst of a newsie sandwich. I couldn't help but feel like a key witness amongst such a mealtime jury.

I didn't say anything after I sat down. Truth was, I didn't know what to say. So I sat, hoping someone would make the first move. I couldn't help looking at the kid across from me. I tried not to, to avoid having to introduce myself to him, but those brown eyes…Luckily for me, David take it upon himself to introduce us.

"Oh, this is my brother, Les."

I nodded.

"I'm near ten," the kid said, a goofy smile on his face. "But Jack says I should tell people I'm seven."

"That's nice," I said. I scratched my suddenly-itchy neck.

"Who are you?"

I stumbled. Of course he would ask. "Oh… I'm Izzie."

"What kind of a name is that?"

"Les, stop bothering her," David said, saving me from a full on neck-scratch attack.

"Whaddya want?" Jack said, motioning to a waiter that passed by the table.

"Oh," I said, forgetting we were sitting in a restaurant, "sorry… yes, whatever you're having."

He turned and talked low to the waiter. Almost immediately a plate of food was brought to the table. One plate of food.

"Oh," I said to the waiter, who had already turned around, "I think you forgot their food."

"We ain't eatin'," Jack said.

Surely noting the awkwardness of the situation, the waiter turned and left immediately.

"What do you mean?"

"What I said. We ain't eatin'."

I couldn't help myself from looking at David pleadingly.

"Here, I can share –"

"I told ya, we ain't eatin', so relax."

"I can send it back – "

"What, and waste it?"

He had me there. If there was one thing my father taught me, it was never to waste food. I looked desperately at David, who simply looked uncomfortable.

I sighed and picked at my food with a fork. I wasn't particularly hungry, but after the scene I just made I knew I couldn't leave the plate untouched.

"Alright, let's get this over with," Jack said, leaning back against the booth and pushing his hands across the table in front of him.

David turned to me. "So, what do you say?" he asked.

I pulled at my thumb web under the table.

"I don't know."

Silence. Then, "Whaddya mean, ya don't know?" Jack asked with dark eyes. "What are ya here for then, huh?"

"Well, I just wanted to explain –"

"Explain what?" he said, leaning forward towards the table. "Explain how yer gonna chicken out on us?"

"Jack," David interrupted. "Let her –"

"No," he said. "She knows exactly why she's here. She's already made her decision, Davey. So tell us, Cuba," he said, glaring in my direction, "ya gonna back out?"

I had never been so spoken to before in my life – probably because I had never been in such a mess of trouble. I could feel the sting of his words entwine itself through my ribs. Those damn snakes of guilt.

"Look, I don't know who you think I am, but I'm not who you think," I said, hoping my eyes were more convincing than my words. "I mean, I'm not the kind of girl for this stuff. I barely speak English for God's sake!"

David leaned on the table.

"We know it's not easy," he said, "but we wouldn't be asking you if we didn't think you could help us."

I glared at the both of them, my eyes passing over the brown-eyed boy in the middle. "And what makes me so perfect for this mission?"

"Well," David said, his concentrating his eyes on me, "first of all, you're Cuban. It wouldn't faze Pulitzer at all if a newsie tried to talk to him about the war in Cuba – we're irrelevant. Secondly, you're a girl."

Seeing my glare, he tried to recover.

"What I mean is, Pulitzer would be more likely to listen to a girl than some dirty newsie. Girls have…"

David looked at Jack for the right word, but his friend folded his arms and turned his head.

"Well, you know what I mean."

I nodded.

"Look, Cuba," Jack said, unfolding his arms and placing his hands on the edge of the table. "Do ya think any of us wants to do this? We don't. Before we risk everythin' and blow out this strike, we gotta know if there's a better way. We gotta know if you can convince Pulitzer to change his mind before we send a bunch of kids to their defeat."

I pulled my hands up from below the table and entangled my fingers, thinking hard on what they had said.

"Please, lady," a soft voice said across from me. It was David's kid brother, who had up until then remained unusually silent. "Our papa is hurt and sellin' papes is all we got."

He was the kid with those dark brown eyes, just like Marisol's. He was the kid sitting next to David, the kid who was his brother. The kid that looked just like all the kids I'd seen walking into the factories every morning.

He wasn't crying – that would have repulsed me immediately – but his eyes did me something awful. I couldn't look at them for more than a second – that brown, that same Marisol brown – before the gut-wrenching, body-aching guilt came on.

Jack patted the kid on the head as if to silence him. Then he turned to me.

"This is yer chance to change things, Izzie," he said, using my name for the first time that night. "This ain't somethin' that comes around every day. We can't make ya do it, but you'd be crazy not to."

I looked at Davey and Jack, specifically avoiding those small, dark brown eyes. I thought about my job, my friends, my family… I thought about history, I thought about life. Who knew there were so many things to consider?

I smiled at the empty sound of food-grimed clay dishes clanking.

"I'll do it," I said, hastily adding, "I can't promise anything, but I'll at least try. But if I'm going to do this," I said, looking steadily between Jack and David, "there have to be precautions."

Jack and David looked at each other. From the looks on their faces I could have sworn they weren't expecting me to say yes.

"What are you thinking?" David asked.

I looked out the rain-spattered window for a moment, noting a woman with a gray umbrella crossing the street, mud dashing across her shoes.

"It has to be quiet," I said, still staring out the window. "My father can't ever find out about it, which means we need an escape plan, and a good one."

They nodded.

"But –" I said, thinking more deeply. "It's more than that. What is the plan if this talking with Pulitzer thing doesn't work? Where does that leave me?"

I saw Jack look at David, expecting him to reply. David seemingly understood the message, and began slowly.

"Well," he said, "I suppose we'll just keep doing what we've been doing. You can still help us, even if the plan doesn't work. If Pulitzer refuses to listen to you, we can still use you as a public face to let the rest of the city know what a hypocrite he is. We'd need a few more of your… compatriots, though."

I looked down at the table, noting each knot of wood that disrupted the fine lines of grain running across it.

"And my father will never know?"

Jack smirked and stuck out his hand across the table. "And yer father will never know."

I shook his hand with a smile.

"We'll do it tomorrow," he said. "Davey and I got it all worked out. Meet us here at four o'clock."

We all stood up from the table and walked to the door.

"Pleasure doin' business with ya," Jack said, tipping his hat to me. "It's a pretty good deal, ya know. A fool-proof escape plan in exchange for your kindly participation."

"We'll see how good of a deal it is tomorrow," I said, shaking my head.

Jack nodded and exited the door.

"It's going to work," David said to me, helping his brother adjust his coat. "It's gotta."

"Let's hope so, Davey. Let's hope so."