A great big thanks to Austra and Paisley - you make posting this story worthwhile!

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

An entire brigade of angry police officers, at the kindly behest of Mr. Joseph Pulitzer, had just chased me over the low Manhattan rooftops. Sleep wasn't an option.

Out of habit, I crawled into bed, listening for my father's overly concerned scolding for the late hour. None. I was free to stare at the ceiling amidst my nest of crumpled sheets.

I wonder: do you know what it feels like to be completely eluded by sleep? If not, allow me, please, to elucidate. The day's worries, so optimistically thought to be forgotten, double and triple and quadruple until there is no room left in your puckered brain for anything else. The slippery troubles slide around cozily; they're snakes slithering through your ears, past your eardrum, into the deep burrows of your brain, resting their uneasiness right where you hoped they wouldn't go.

Sound unpleasant? It is, and if you've experienced the same, I'm sure you'd agree. I can't stand it. After a few hours, give or take a minute or two, you think you've managed to relegate those thoughts into the back of your mind. You console yourself that they're tucked away safely, that the night is full of dreams and that you are ready and willing to escape.

You'd be mistaken.

Just as you are drifting off to sleep, your nerves poppoppop and recall you back, reminding you that your troubles wait to be resolved and presenting the generous opportunity to think about them even more. The most peaceful person in the world is condemned to a night of chicken-pox-popping sleeplessness.

That night, I rustled up my sheets, picked at my nails, and hummed invented songs until I just couldn't take it anymore. I got up, tripping over the entangled sheets, made a cup of coffee – the dark kind, of course – and sat by the window, staring out at the definite black air pocked with the occasional streetlight. The usual nighttime noises made their appearance: barking dogs, crying babies and banging pots of nighttime cleanings. In other words: the familiarly oppressive sounds of the poor trying to get by.

I had managed to go over the entire fiasco in my head three times over by the time I heard my father's door open. Too absorbed in myself, I held my cup tightly and tried to see his reflection in the dark glass of the window. His eyes looked half closed from what I could see – I hoped he was merely sleep walking again, taking a lovely night stroll through the kitchen unawares.

"Isabel, are you all right? What are you doing awake so late?"

Just my luck, no stroll. I turned around, gripping my cup tighter. "Oh, it's nothing, papá. I just couldn't sleep."

His moustache made a sweeping motion across his face. It was odd, and oddly comforting.

"What's wrong, cariño? Are you cold? I have a blanket in –"

"I'm fine, papá, I promise. Please, go back to sleep."

He stood about five feet away from me, looking at me with red-veined eyes that resembled poorly organized ruby thread. His pause told me he suspected something. Not that I was surprised – my acting skills were limited to avoiding any and all conversation about Caroline Woods. I hadn't yet had time to practice on the subject of the newsies.

He finally nodded, turning slowly around to go back into his room. The door latch sounded, and the cup nearly dropped from my hands.

Phew. The last thing I needed was for my father to get involved in this mess.

I woke up the next morning with a bitter red indent in my forehead, thanks very much to my friend the windowpane, against whom I had apparently fallen asleep. Sitting up, I moved my arm too quickly and knocked the coffee cup onto the floor, spilling the last few drops of liquid onto the dry wood panels. I watched, hypnotized, as the aging timber darkened before I pulled myself together.

Remembering what Jack had asked of me the night before, I got ready as fast as I could and ran to Lola's apartment before work. The rally Cubans had to come from somewhere, and my best friend was as good a place to start recruiting as any.

Lola's mother answered the door, her laundry basket all but falling out of her stalwart arms. Every time I saw those arms, I always felt the oppressive hug that went along with them.

"Buenos días, Isabel, how have you been?" She shifted the basket on her hip. "Lola says she hasn't seen you lately."

I gulped and heard it reverberate in my head. "Oh, I've been working a lot… You know, Caroline Woods is very demanding and I…" What was the point in finishing? "How have you been Mrs. Martínez?"

"Oh, just fine querida," she said, shifting the basket from one hip to the other. She made a sweeping gesture with her free hand. "Come inside, Dolores and Carlos are just finishing breakfast."

Ever since I met Lola in New York those many years ago, I had always loved her house, in an envious, seething kind of way. It wasn't half as clean as our apartment, but it had the feeling of life that I loved. You could tell that there was a time, not too long ago, when there had been loads of screaming kids running around the place, fighting and silently loving each other.

I walked into the kitchen, followed by Mrs. Martínez, and saw Carlos standing by the main table. "Izzie!" he said with his typical hey-you smile. "How's it going?"

Lola, sitting at the table, simply raised her eyebrows. "What are you doing here? Don't you have to be at the millinery?"

"Dolores!" Mrs. Martinez chided. "Where on earth are your manners?"

Lola leaned back farther in her chair. "Sorry, mama. I must have canned them up at work."

Her mother clicked her tongue. "Always with the sarcasm, Dolores. It's unattractive, you know."

"I'm not particularly worried about that around Izzie, mamá, but thanks."

Mrs. Martinez left the three of us in the kitchen, shaking her head as she left.

The remaining silence made me squirm, so I broke it. "I have to be at the millinery soon. I just stopped by because I have a favor to ask you both."

Carlos leaned forward on the table and Lola leaned back in her chair. Jack really had no idea how difficult what he had asked me to do would be.

'All right," I said, shoving my hands into my dress pockets, "you two remember on Saturday when we went to that theatre to drop off a hat?"

Carlos nodded and Lola stared.

"Well, while I was inside I met these two boys, remember?" (True to his style, Carlos cooed.) "Shut up, Carlos, not like that." Lola raised her eyebrow up as far as it would go, a real-life piece of artwork. I knew she would remember seeing David, at the very least. "I swear, it's not like that! Anyway, they're newsies, they're on strike and they're planning a rally."

Neither moved. "What's the point, Izzie?" Lola asked, folding her arms.

I took a deep breath. "Well, they need our help."

Carlos cocked his head, grinning suspiciously. I didn't bother to look at Lola.

"Who is 'us' exactly, Izzie?" Lola asked.

"Well, you, me and Carlos, I guess. And any other Cubans we can find."

"You guess? What do they want 'us' for, anyway?"

I explained the same old story to them: Pulitzer, Cuba, tyranny, newspapers, etc., etc., etc.

"So they were thinking if we could gather some Cubans we could make a public go of supporting the strike. People would see that Pulitzer is a liar and they'd have a better chance of winning the strike. Because of the hypocrisy, see?"

Carlos was holding his chin with two fingers, his thinkingaboutthis face. I turned to Lola, and barely resisted the urge to cover my eyes.

"Let me see if I understand this," she said, her voice low, a sign of trouble. "You want to help a bunch of street rats so they maybe, possibly, might win this strike of theirs? Is that what you're telling me?"

I thought carefully before I spoke, knowing that at any moment all support would be lost. As if it hadn't been already. "I suppose…"

Boom, crack, smash. It all went up in smoke. Lola's fists clenched and she screeched. "¡Por Dios, Izzie, you don't know anything about them! For all you know they could be confidence men looking for a scapegoat for their heinous crimes."

"I'm pretty sure they're not."

"Oh yeah? And how do you know?"

"Please, Lola, not everyone is a criminal."

"They probably are."

"You don't even know them!"

"You don't either!"

I couldn't take it anymore. The low murmurings, the bad attitude, the snarky remarks. "Lola, what is your problem with them anyway?"

For a moment, she looked like she was going to respond. I waited, sincerely wondering why she was so violently opposed to a bunch of kids who, in reality, were not that different from us.

Just as she was about to open her mouth, she closed it. "It doesn't matter, Izzie," she said, folding her hands on the table. "Go ahead and join them if that's what you want."

I'm not sure if I'm glad that Carlos saved me from screaming at her. "Just calm down, you two. Think about it, Lola," he said, turning to her. "They've got a pretty good idea. If this Pulitzer really did criticize the all the things that happened back home, it would be wrong for him to do it to the very kids that work for him. They were right to have asked Izzie."

Lola's glare was focused on Carlos now. "So you're siding with Izzie now? Tell me, hermano mío, what would you get out of this scam?"

"Come on, Lola, isn't it obvious? We'd be at the front of the newsies strike, standing up for poor kids everywhere!" He was getting more enthusiastic by the minute, and his hands began to shake as he threw them up in the air. "We'd be in the papers, we'd be famous!" (Leave it to Carlos to think of world fame during breakfast).

Lola laughed, but not in her usual way. "Famous? You're forgetting these are newsies, Carlos, not Theodore Roosevelt."

He ignored her. "I saw an article the other day about the newsies and their strike; people are really starting to pay attention to them. It was in The Sun, I think, and there was a big picture with a bunch of them all lined up. Imagine, Lola, your face on the front page! And nobody would look at us like poor immigrants again…" His hands had stopped shaking, and he had put them on the table again. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm in."

I tried to smile at Carlos behind my face of disappointment. At least I had someone to bring to Jack – a good start, but somehow it wasn't enough. I had to convince Lola. I looked at her and hoped my eyes were watering in that pathetic way they sometimes did.

"Come on, Lola, it's not just to help the newsies. If we stand up for this - "

She shook her head and grinned, a creepy facial paradox. "You think this is actually going to make a difference?" She looked at Carlos. "You think you're actually going to be famous because of this?" Now between both of us. "I'll tell you what's going to happen. You'll get snatched up by the police. All of you are going to be scorned for the rest of your lives, and you don't even care."

Carlos shrugged, but I stepped forward.

"But Lola," I said, "think about it. I mean, if it works, if these kids can get their rights, maybe what happened to Marisol –"

The air between us died. It was the end. Lola ground her teeth and stared at the table. "I'm not doing it, Izzie, so just drop it."

Carlos sighed, which made her ever angrier.

"Me importa un comino what you think, Carlos. I'm not about to go ruin my reputation to help some newsies win their absurd strike. You're crazy to even think about it."

"But Lola –" I tried to say, futilely.

"No, Izzie, that's it. I'm not doing it, and don't ask me again." She looked at both Carlos and I. "I just hope you've thought about this. If Caroline Woods finds out that you're helping these, these," I almost grinned at her missing word, but checked myself just in time, "these sewer rats, you won't be able to show your face in this city again. She'll make sure of that."

And with that, she stood up and walked out. I was stunned – I had never in my life heard Lola so toxically angry before. I had seen Carlos ask her to do things, sure, and she would always shake her head, count herself out, and then come to me, bitter that she had told them no. Was it wrong for me to assume she'd do the same with the strike?

This time it was clear she wouldn't, and I had doubled her resolve by mentioning Marisol. There was no getting Lola involved in the strike. It simply was not going to happen.

Despite her irrational hatred of the newsies, she had one thing right: Caroline Woods was not going to like my involvement in a public strike. If she caught wind that I was implicated in the upcoming rally, that would be the end of me at her millinery, and any millinery in the city of Manhattan. Forget that she had essentially stolen me from my job at the bakery; she was not a woman to put up with betrayal. And essentially, I was betraying her to cavort with striking newsies. I was a bitter news article away from joblessness.

"Forget her, Izzie. She's had her knickers in a knot all morning." Carlos always knew how to coax a smile out of even the toughest nut. "So what's the plan?"

"Oh," I said, still staring at the door out of which Lola had stormed out. "They said to meet them at their lodging house tonight."

He nodded.

"Are you sure Lola is going to be okay?"

Carlos gave me his dontyouworry smile. "Forget about her, Izzie, she's fine. Moody, as usual. Nothing to worry about."

I sighed. "All right. Come to my house tonight and we'll go. Without Lola."

Carlos nodded and left, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I could hear Mrs. Martinez yelling at Lola from the floor above, something about leaving her dirty clothes around her room. It was as if the conversation in the kitchen had never happened.

Unfortunately, it had.

I stepped out of their house. The streets were busy, as usual, but this time the noise didn't bother me. I stared at the miscellaneous hustleandbustle in front of me.

"Boy, do I hope this isn't a mistake."