((So as you can see by the preview at the bottom after this chapter the set up ends and the story picks up. Sorry, that it took so long to get out- Jane.))

Chapter Two:: Raises

"What?" Maggie asked with, disbelief, anger and a bit of panic written on her face. How could they raise the price? She needed her money to pay for food, and a place to sleep, not to buy extra expensive papers.

"Upped it las' night." Spot said angrily.

"Can they even do that?" Cricket asked. He seemed more panicked than angry.

"O' coise they can. We're nuttin. Workin' street rats. Dat's all. Why should they care if we starve or stop workin' cuz we can't affoid it, or are livin' on the streets? They got all them scabbers ready to fill our spots. We ain't worth the thought." Maggie said. Her anger taking over as she looked at the still closed window. "I'mma settle this." Maggie said, pushing up her sleeves and walking up to the window. She banged on the door. "Tanzler!" she cried. She banged harder, "Tanzler!"

"Hold your horses! I'm coming, I'm coming!" Tanzler cried from behind the window. She drummed her fingers on the little counter that the newspapers were slid across. She could hear muffled grumbles of "darn girl" and "she's worse than the boys". In a few seconds, the window was opened, revealing Tanzler and his assistant behind the bars.

Tanzler was in his mid to late 50's, clean shaven, and he wore nice clothes. But something about him made her skin crawl. His teeth were tinged yellow, his curly brown hair was speckled with grey, but the creepy part was his smile. It looked as if when he was looking at her, he was thinking of her in an inappropriate, disgusting way. But his eyes never appraised her, they always seemed to look through her, and his face seemed to have a constant look of disdain on it. In order to pay him back for creeping her out, Maggie tortured him in any way she could. "Hello, Maggie." He said.

"Why the jack up Tanzler?" she demanded, fuming.

"Good morning to you too." he said, smiling. Maggie wished he didn't.

"Why'd they jack up the price?" she barked again, gripping the bars in the window.

"Why not? It's their decision. If they decide that a little extra money would be nice, why shouldn't they get it?" h e asked. His smile grew wider at her displeasure. Maggie angrily pushed herself away from the window and back over to Spot and Cricket.

"Unbelievable. They just woke up and decided ta rob us." Maggie said pacing. "I have half a mind to go work in a textile factory, then they'll see what a mistake it was ta raise the price and drive off one a' da best sellahs."

"They'd just get four scabbas to replace you. It wouldn't work." Cricket said. "All of the Newsies would have to leave."

"Or go on strike." Maggie said.

"No." Spot said. "We ain't goin' on strike. If we go on strike, we'd need all the Newsies in New York, and half o' 'em are cry baby/mamas boys and will stick to sellin'. Just get ya papers. I'll figure somethin' out." Spot said walking to the window and ordering his papes. Maggie followed him and slammed her money on the counter.

"Da usual." She said. Tanzler made sure to count out every penny before giving her, her papes. In return, Maggie counted out all 100 papers. Maggie walked away with Cricket close behind reading the headline.

"Trolley strike drags on, and on, and on. I dunno what we're gonna do with this headline. They give us this and expect us to make up for all the money we lose in buying our papes at a new price. Insanity." She said walking over to where Spot was looking over the paper with Hawkeye.

"Any headlines?" Cricket asked the two of them.

"Nothin' we can actually sell a pape with." Spot said as the four continued to go through the pages.

"The World nevah has any good headlines." Hawkeye sighed.

"'Cause o' da war 'tween the papes." A young voice chirped in. Babble stood a little outside the group, flicking through his own Newspaper. Babble was ten years old, and he got his nickname from the way he'd talk forever and always forget to say parts of words. He had a light green eyes and a thick mess of curly brown hair and a splatter of freckles across his nose and face. His left front tooth was chipped, but his smile was dimpled and adorable. Babble walked over to the rest of them. Maggie's blue-grey eyes smiled at him as she returned back to her paper.

"How abou' this?" she asked. "Gunshot near Oakley's leaves owner frightened. With the proppah twistin' it could be good."

"Best I've seen." Spot said. "See ya all back at the lodgin's."

"We should probably get a move on too, if we want to get a good sellin' spot." Cricket said.

"Yeah, you're right. Let's go." Maggie agreed stomping off into the streets.

Maggie stomped around the streets with Cricket. "I can't believe it! Cannot believe that they'd do this to us! We're hard workin'. We sell their papes, with the rotten headlines. We make 'em good money, but now suddenly we're not makin' enough?! I'd like to see them out here sellin' papes."Maggie ranted.

"Well it ain't the end of the world. It ain't that much more."

"Ain't that much more! I didn' think I needed to tell ya how quickly money adds up, Cricket."

"I know, Mags, but ya need to calm down some. You're scarin' off the customers." Maggie looked at him and took a deep breath.

"Fine." She snapped, and they began to sell their papers.

Maggie and Cricket wandered back to the Newsies lodgings with only 5 papers between them. It was relatively good, considering. By the time they were back, a good handful of the Newsies were, including Spot, who was lounging around by the cargo with a few Newsies that were smoking. That was one habit Spot never really got into for some reason.

"Heya Mags, how was ya day?" he called out across the docks. Maggie walked over with Cricket next to her.

"As good as it coulda been I guess." She said. "I ain't up for no games tonight, I'll let ya keep some money in ya pocket. Ya need it now."

"See ya tommora then." Spot said. The look on his face clearly told her he thought something was up.

"Don' worry. I'll be right as rain tommora." Maggie smiled before turning to walk to the lodgings and go to bed. It had been a kind of long day.

Preview of Chapter 3:: Revolutionary

Maggie was never late, except the few occasions she sat in bed too long arguing with herself. It was this morning 3 mornings after the Jack-Up that she had tried to figure out if she was making more money than she was spending, or if she really should find a new job. As she ran out the door adjusting her hat, something caught her eye. It wasn't the boys coming out of the harbor, finally ready to start their workday, it wasn't the swarm of Newsies heading to the distribution, and it was a group of four boys, coming up to where Maggie was. Maggie smirked, one of them looked f