So...I discovered Newsies a few weeks ago and I fell in love with it. For all those fans of the musical, I will have to apologize ahead of time: any stories I write will strictly be movie based. I tried watching the musical and did not like it for various reasons.
So here's my first attempt at a Newsie's story. It's a little short, I'm still working on getting the various characters down, and I hope the accents come across all right. Enjoy, and as usual, constructive criticism appreciated. Please, no offensive language!
Please review!
Disclaimers: I own no characters!
Every Friend a Brother
Jack Kelly awoke with a headache. He pushed himself slowly to his feet, forgetting the low wooden beams only a few feet above him, and promptly bashed his head. Muffling the groan between clenched teeth, Jack stumbled out from the soggy ground of the pier and hunched his shoulders under the influence of the city-tainted sunlight.
He could hardly remember why he had chosen that stinkin' pier to spend the night in. That's right, it was raining, and he hadn't felt like crossing the whole length of town to get to the lodging house. He had figured that the thick wooden flooring of the pier would be enough to keep the sand dry—or dryish. He had already been feeling out of sorts—ever since that noon. He had wandered by himself along the length of the port side of town, throwing rocks into the limp water and watching the ripples make their way to the thick wooden pillars of the quay. And then—it had begun to rain.
He had continued walking, letting the soft, slightly chilled drops cool his sun-heated face. Then, it had started to get cold, and Jack's legs were starting to ache, and he could feel a strange foggy sensation creeping over his brain. With a sigh, he glanced back over the length of streets he would have to walk to make it back to the lodging house, and then decided that it wasn't worth it. Not tonight. He would bed under the pier. Right here, where there was a nice, flat stretch of sand and he could hear the lap of the water against the pillars. He had barely curled himself into a corner when he was asleep.
He awoke with a headache. And he was wet. Soaking wet. Apparently, the thick wooden flooring hadn't been as watertight as he had hoped. Quite the opposite. Jack felt a shudder run through the entire length of his body as he wrapped his arms around himself and limped up the shoreline.
He didn't have a watch on him, but he could tell by looking at the sun that he was going to be late to the paper lineup if he didn't put a little effort into his cold, cramped legs. He shook his head in a vain attempt to rid himself of the throbbing headache that was swallowing his entire ability to think and started off at a half-jog.
Despite best efforts, the gates were already open and the Newsies had already begun getting their daily stack of papes. Jack pushed his way in past the smaller groups of random news boys until he reached his own. Racetrack looked up.
"Hiya Jack! Where were's you last night?"
"I thought you's got picked up by Synder for sure!" Cructhie put in, a warm smile of relief and welcome on his young face.
Jack shook his head, the thin smile he tried to reply with hardly parodying his friend's. "Nope. I just bedded down someplace else."
"Lier," Race snickered, elbowing him. "Come on, Jack. What really happened?"
Jack shoved him back, harder than he intended. "I was just tired, and now I's got this headache. Stay off me and let me get my papes."
The Newsies fell back, silent at Jack's unexpectedly harsh outburst. Racetrack was the only one who had the nerve to make a comeback.
"Well you's don't have to come at us 'bout it!"
Jack ignored him. He got his usual hundred papes and started down the steps, wincing at the way the blood shot to his brain in painful throbs at every step.
"Jack? Are you feeling all right?"
Jack started at the soft voice at his elbow, and he looked up to see Davey. There was worry in the blue eyes of the young man, and Les, Davey's younger brother was gazing up at Jack with something very much like tears for his adored hero shining in his own eyes.
Jack turned away from Davey and started walking up the street.
"I's fine, Davey. Go take Les and sell your papes."
"I don't think so," Davey insisted quietly. "I don't think you're all right, Jack Kelly."
"I don't think so either," Les echoed.
Jack half-turned. "Well, what's you goin' do 'bout it, huh? I've got papes to sell, and you's got papes to sell, so go sell 'em and stop sticking your long nose where it doesn't belong!"
Les let out a howl of indignation. "Davey ain't got a long nose!"
"Jack—" Davey hurried to catch up with his friend. "Stop and—"
Jack tried to turn, tried to whirl back and face Davey with one of his forget-it-and-beat-it faces, but the fluid that was throbbing in his brain cast a thick veil of blackness over his vision and he stumbled forward. Davey caught him under the arms and Les dashed forward and saved the papers from crashing to the sidewalk.
"All right, Jack, you're coming with me. You're sick."
"Let go of me, Davey." Jack pulled back, but Davey kept a hand very firmly on his shoulder.
"No, you are coming with me. Don't even give me that look. Les, get the papers. I'm taking you home and Mama can give you something."
Jack wanted to say something but his throbbing head and the undulating lights that were still pulsing before his eyes decided otherwise. He allowed Davey to lead the way down the street with Les holding his papers close behind him.
They paused in front of the flight of steps leading into David's apartment house. David glanced back at the street, and then at Les.
"Here, Les. Give me those." He took Jack's papers from his brother.
"Got to sell 'em, Davey, can't afford to eat a hundred papes—" Jack murmured.
"I know Jack. Don't worry about that now. Come on. Go tell Mama that Jack's coming, Les."
"I want to help carry him," Les whined.
Jack pulled away from David's arm under his shoulder. "I don't need no carryin'," he insisted with a definite sniff.
David sighed. "See what you did, Les? Jack, can't you be cooperative for once? Come on, let me help you—"
"Davey, I don't needs help—"
That sentence was cut off shortly by Jack's foot catching against the bottom of one of the rather rickety stairs and his knees hitting the next stair hard, causing him to curse in pain. Davey reached down to pull him to his feet.
"Come on. Stop being so stubborn. And please—Les doesn't need to hear those kinds of words."
They reached the top of the stairway and Davey shoved at the door with his shoulder. Les hurried around to the other side to open it.
"David? Les? Why, what happened?" Ester Jacobs, David's mother, turned from her clearing of the breakfast table as her sons and their friend stepped through the door.
"Jack?" Sarah, David's pretty sister stepped from the back bedroom, a basket of laundry in her hands. "What happened, David?"
"He's sick," Les announced a little too cheerfully. "We had to drag him up the stairway, Mama."
"Really, it ain't that bad, Les," Jack hissed, in between clenched teeth. "I's just need a little water, that's all. It's this headache—"
"It looks like more than a headache," Ester said softly, moving to take Jack's other arm. "And your clothes are soaking wet. Sarah, can you make some tea?"
"Yes, Mama. Come here, Les. There's some extra toast that you can have."
"Good, because I'm starving!" Les scrambled onto a chair at the table and began eagerly devouring the dry toast strips.
The stress of the morning was rapidly catching up to Jack. The world around him had faded to a blurred version of reality, and his heart was pounding quite too fast for his own good. Jack was no fool. He knew he was sick, very sick, he knew he needed help. He trusted David and his family, therefore, his body was allowing itself to slip into a near state of unconsciousness. By the time Ester was helping him to climb under the white sheets of Davey's bed, the world had turned to a soft grey and voices had faded into a soothing murmur. By the time his head hit the pillow, he was out.
Jack awoke sometime later. The headache had subsided to a much more comfortable degree, and his breathing felt less strained. He kept his eyes closed, breathing in the warm, comforting scents of laundry suds and mid-morning sun and freshly baked bread. And some kind of warm milk. Jack opened his eyes.
"Awake I see?" Ester made her way to the side of the bed and set down a cup of steaming liquid on the rather unevenly legged side table. "Sarah kept fussing about you, thinking you were going to sleep away the whole day and waste that good comfrey tea she made."
"Why, what time is it?" Jack wondered, trying to push himself to a seated position.
"It's quite past noon," Ester smiled, turning from the bed back to the kitchen. "It's all right. You need to rest and get your strength back. I don't know where you picked up this nasty thing from—"
"I can't, Ma'am," Jack protested, pushing the covers off his feet and swinging one leg over the bed's side. "I's got papes to sell. Les had them—"
"You're in no condition to sell papers," Ester insisted, pressing him back into the bed with quite a show of unforeseen firmness. "David made sure to tell his father and me that you were not to set foot back into the street until and unless you have the strength for it."
"Where does Davey get off dictatin' my livin like that?" Jack fumed, shoving the pillow to one side for the spite of it.
Ester stifled a smile. "He wouldn't do it for just anyone, Jack. It means he's worried—he cares for you."
"Funny way of showin' it," Jack murmured. "I cant's stay in here all day, Ma'am. Soon as I down that brew—"
"We'll see," Ester said briskly, taking the cup of tea from the side table. "Now down this brew and I'll see about getting you something to eat. Are you hungry?"
"A little."
"Soup?" She had moved into the kitchen by now; Jack could hear the metallic clang of a pot. He swallowed the grimace that had risen in alarm at her words. Soup. That word always held horrible connotations of the Refuge and its thin, watery, putrid tasting excuse of a dinner. Or—on the rare days, the thick, chokable sludge known as "stew" that slid down your throat, made you gag, and then somehow disappeared halfway between your belly and your windpipe. It made Jack cringe anytime he heard the word now.
His rampage of nightmarish memories had served in place of a reply, and Mrs. Jacobs came back with a hot, steaming bowl of the promised dish, smiling, so kind, so motherly. Jack swallowed hard again.
"I's really not quite so hungry—"
"Yes, you are. Now here's the soup, and I'm going to try to see if Les left me some soda crackers. Sarah will make you some more tea. Eat up."
She left, and Jack was stranded with the bowl of soup. He peered cautiously over the edge of the bed, trying to draw up a minute whiff of it. It didn't smell bad, at least. It didn't look sludge-like, and it wasn't quite watery looking. Just a taste. Then if he could make it to the window, he might be able to pour the rest out without Mrs. Jacobs noticing. He scooted up a little further in the bed and taking the spoon, heaped up an experimental portion.
The first bite instantly crushed the horrific memories of the Refuge's soup, twisted it into a hardly recognizable piece of lingering thought, and threw it out to drown in the East River. This was not soup. Not the way he knew soup. This was Soup. With a capital S. Jack didn't have a ton of schooling, but he knew enough that capitals made any words really special.
He finished off the Soup at an incredible speed. Sarah was just stepping back into the room with a fresh cup of tea in time to see him draining the last drops.
"Did you—like it?" She laughed softly, setting the tea down beside the bed. Jack started at her voice and lowered the bowl.
"Yes. It was good. Tell your mother so's."
"You can tell her. She's coming in to give you medicine."
New horrors! Jack made a scrambling motion that brought him clear to the other side of the bed.
"What's that for? I ain't sick enough for that."
"I beg to differ," Ester broke in, moving into the room, glass bottle in one hand, suspiciously empty and wide spoon in the other. "David has to take the same medicine, and so does Les, so don't think I'm singling you out."
"Well, that's the thing, you see," Jack insisted, shifting a little to the side so that he wasn't quite in perfect line with the threateningly empty hull of that spoon. "I's ain't really a Jacobs, you know, so what works for Davey and Les won't really be likely to work for me—"
"Open your mouth." Ester heaped off the spoon with the thick, syrup-looking liquid from the glass bottle. "Some water, Sarah?"
"Yes, Mama." Sarah hurried to the kitchen. Jack swallowed thickly as a dozen completely unqualified excuses rushed to the forefront of his young mind.
"You see, Ma'am—"
He had made the Fatal Mistake. He had opened his mouth in front of a woman holding a medicine spoon. Had he lived a little longer among any semblance of "family," he would have known that. He would have seen the tell-tale signs. He shook his head around a gasp of equal parts betrayal and shock, struggling to move the bitter-tasting liquid down his throat.
"I—" He managed a protesting word as the last of it moved past his shuddering spine. "I—Ma'am, I was tryin' to say—"
"Yes?" Ester pressed, her voice perfectly innocent. Jack shook his head as he lowered himself to his pillow.
"Never mind."
Sarah returned with the water. Jack drank a few sips to try and remove the lingering taste of medicine from his mouth. He wished he had saved a little of the Soup so that he could have ended with that comforting memory against his tongue. He was starting to feel quite tired; his lids were falling heavily over his brown eyes of their own accord. He blinked them open and found Sarah gazing at him across the room. It wouldn't hurt to ask, he supposed.
"Is there—any more of that—Soup?"
"There is. Do you want some?" She asked.
"Yes. Maybe jus' a little." He suppressed a yawn. Sarah smiled and stepped away into the kitchen.
He was awake when she brought the Soup, he managed to watch her set it down, along with three soda crackers Les hadn't confiscated. He ate two of the crackers and three whole bites of the Soup. He was considering working on a fourth, but his body decided otherwise. The spoon slipped from his fingers into the bowl, and in a moment, Jack Kelly was fast asleep.
He awoke much later. The sun was casting long, heavy shadows against the opposite wall of the room. There was a sound of voices from the front rooms, murmured, but Jack could detect Mr. Jacobs, and then David's soft tenor among them. He pushed himself up in the bed and found that his head was much clearer and there wasn't that dull ache behind his eyes.
"He slept most of the day," Sarah's voice was saying. "He did eat some soup, and Mama made him take medicine—"
"Not—that medicine?" David whispered in barely concealed horror. "Mama! How could you—"
"Because I care about him as much as you do," Ester said briskly. "It didn't kill him any more than it did you—"
"It killed me," Les whimpered.
"You tell 'em, Les," Jack murmured.
He had thought that his voice was low enough to prevent detection, but apparently, it wasn't, and in a moment, he heard David's swift steps hurrying into the bedroom, Les and Sarah right behind him.
"You're awake," David observed, approaching the bed. "Feel any better?"
"Yeah, I do," Jack replied. "How was your day, Davey? Hi, Les." He managed a relatively decent version of his classic smile at the child.
"I'm good!" Les crowed. "David sold all the papers!"
"Well good for Davey," Jack said with a smile. "But doesn't he always now?" He moved a hand to ruffle Les' hair.
He didn't see the pile of coins until they were suddenly there on his lap: a nice, big pile of them, winking softly in the dying light of the window. Jack glanced at David.
"What's this?"
"Your money."
"I ain't made any money today."
"But we made it for you. Les and I and all the other Newsies. We divided your papes and sold them."
Jack stared at him. "Why?"
"Because—" David shrugged one shoulder. "You're the one who says it: we have to stick together, we look out for each other, every kid's our friend, every friend's a brother. What—did you think the looking out part only applied to you?"
Jack shook his head slowly. "I don't know. I can't take all that, Davey—"
"I think you can if you really try."
"How 'bout's we split it? Seventy-thirty?"
"Fifty-fifty," Les piped up.
"Sixty-forty, or I forget the whole thing and it goes 100%."
"Fine," David said.
"Fine then. Sixty-forty."
"Nope, I said fine, we go 100%."
Jack stared at him, clearly confused. "You's makin' my head spin, Davey. What's you talkin' about?"
David shoved the pile of coins a little. "It's your money, Jack. Stop pretending like it isn't."
"But—"
"I really don't think you're in a position to be arguing with me. It wasn't just me, you know. Race and Mush and Crutchie and Specs and Kid Blink and all the others—"
"You forgot Snipe-Shooter!" Les chimed in.
"I wasn't trying to get every name in, Les," David told him. "I'm just trying to get across to Jack that if he doesn't take this money, he'll be explaining himself to more than just me." He glanced meaningfully at Jack. "You know how Race gets when he's crossed."
Jack scooted the pile of coins over a little further toward himself. "Yeah, I know how Race gets," he murmured.
There was a moment of meaningful silence between the three of them. Sarah's soft voice from the kitchen asking her mother if the laundry was ready to be taken down brought Jack back to the moment.
"Well then, I can't argue much with that, I suppose. I means—I did eat your mother's Soup and take up your bed and use your mother and sister's time and—well—you wouldn't mind me leaving a little tip-like?" He fingered a few of the coins still lying in his lap.
"Yes. I do mind," David said stubbornly. "My mother told me that you would likely pull something like this, and she told me not to put up with it."
Jack actually laughed aloud, the first time he had done so since he had gotten sick.
"Well, you's beat all, Davey. I'm not one to argue with your mother. Fine then, but—"
"It's settled." David spat on his palm and held it out. "I'll get you something to put those in," he added, nodding at the coins.
Jack nodded and reciprocated David's action. Les shoved himself in there and proudly did likewise. David glanced at him.
"Les—"
"What? I sold as many papes as you did! Why can't I spit?"
David bit back a laugh and Jack reached over to ruffle the boy's hair.
"He's got a point there, Davey. Like he 'most always does."
"Go and see if supper's ready, Les," David told him, a soft, fond smile turning up the corner of his lips. Les nodded and hurried off. David turned back to Jack.
"You hungry?"
"A little."
"I'll see what Mother and Sarah have. Rest now, Jack."
"I's not stayin' the night here—"
"I think you should."
"I's feelin' much better, and 'sides, the boys will miss me at the boardin' house—"
"Oh, and that." David turned back, his soft, fond smile suddenly turned quite wicked. "They told me that you weren't allowed back until you could stand on your own two feet. In the words of Race, he doesn't need another one of your stinkin' colds."
Jack nearly choked on his own offended laughter. "He says that, does he? I's half a mind to go back and shove some of that stinkin' cold down his throat."
David's reply was broken by Les's rather desperate holler from the kitchen table. "David! We're eating now! With or without you! Come on!"
"I'm coming!" David laughed. "We'll talk later, Jack. I'll bring you something to eat." He started for the door, and then stopped and turned back.
"Get better soon, Jack. The streets aren't quite the same—"
He left, but there was that fond, brotherly smile in his eyes that told Jack that he meant every word he said. Not that David ever didn't mean everything he said. David was like that: honest, loyal, sometimes painfully candid. But that's what made him David. Just like Jack's almost insane optimism and incredible charisma was what made Jack Jack. And Les—
Jack let himself settle back against the soft sheets and the warm covers. The world was full of beautiful things and kind people. And he didn't have to go all the way to Santa Fe to find them.