Will I?
by Mondie
Disclaimer … Disney owns Skittery, Jack Kelly, Boots, the Delancey brothers, Racetrack, and Bumlets. I own Charlie. He's from Growth and I love him muchly.
Author's Note … I'm thinking this will be a short fic. Four chapters, maybe. Each will focus on the same four boys. … If you haven't heard the song "Will I?" from the musical Rent, go download it right now. It's beautiful. I wanted its somber mood to set my fic… and it's a round, which is why I restate the lyrics over and over. **Mondie huggles song**
Chapter 1
Will I lose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?
Skittery sighed as he gripped thirty papers. He'd been on the street, on his usual corner, for three hours already. The heat was beginning to surge, and sweat dripped down his spine, soaking his shirt. His skin itched where the perspiration had traced its web.
He thought back to just weeks before, when his customers had been plenty and he'd been through selling within half an hour. But nowadays, smiles were hard to come by, and people just didn't want to buy newspapers from scowling newsboys. Sales had been down all over Manhattan.
Skittery shifted the heavy papers to one arm, and swiped his forehead with the other. Tears of frustration sprung to his eyes, and he stared dismally around him. Fifteen cents wasted on these papers no one would ever read, and fifteen cents of profits gone as well. If he wanted to be able to sell tomorrow, he'd have to skip his dinner.
Things had been different before. Back when Jack had been here. Back before his ridiculous obsession with Santa Fe had turned into a permanent dream… back before he'd moved there to stay. Since then, they'd gone down.
Skittery shuffled his feet and sighed loudly. Clearing his throat, he tried to yell out headlines again. Only selling two papers in the next fifteen minutes, he finally accepted defeat.
"Heya, Boots," he said, noticing a smaller newsie leaning up against a building. "Looks like I'll be sleepin' on da streets tanight."
Will I lose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?
Boots nodded. "Me too, Skitts," he agreed. He gestured to a pile of papers twenty thick beside him. "Gawd, wha's goin' on? Why's can't I sell nuttin'?"
Skittery shrugged and stalked away. Boots shoved himself off the wall and grabbed his papers. Just because he couldn't sell them didn't mean he wanted the tightwads who wouldn't buy to snatch them up for free.
Wandering through Manhattan, he half-heartedly called out headlines. "Baby born ta da Mayah, den snatched up t'ree days latah," he tried. A gentleman walking by in a pinstripe suit raised an eyebrow in disbelief, and Boots couldn't blame him. Even he knew how lame and beyond belief the made-up story was.
His stomach began rumbling with hunger, and he stared at a store window bursting with vegetables. He'd always made it a rule with himself not to steal. But that was befoah Cowboy left us all, he reminded himself. He sighed. It looked so good… and he was so hungry…
Before he knew what he was doing, almost, he was inside the shop and helping himself to carrots and tomatoes. The store owner was busy with a rich lady and her fat child, who was fussing for the penny candy in a display case. Boots grabbed a cucumber and bit into it, savoring the crispness and cool taste that filled his mouth. He was debating whether or not to risk a head of lettuce, when he realized it had suddenly gotten quiet. The brat and her mother had left, and a very angry store owner was standing next to him, tapping an impatient foot.
Fifteen minutes later, Boots was riding through the city in a coach. He hung his head in shame as it paused in front of a pair of heavy metal gates. The Refuge.
Will I lose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?
Charlie had to stop for a minute on his running path, because a carriage was going into the Refuge. He tried vainly to see inside, because he was friends with the Manhattan newsies, and wondered if it was anyone he knew. He was a runner between Queens and Manhattan; Queens being his home. He actually hadn't been in Manhattan since he'd run to Queens to tell them the news of Jack's leaving for Santa Fe. Now he was a bit worried about his Manhattan friends, and how they'd taken the departure. It was impossible to see inside the coach, even though he stood on his tiptoes and squinted.
When the gates had clanged shut behind the carriage, he shrugged and took off running again, his white-blond hair blowing back from his face, though the air was vapid and windless. He decided to head to the Lodging House and wait out the afternoon until the return of the newsies at nightfall.
He rounded the corner and smiled as he saw the familiar building move into sight. He slowed his pace a little, and was running past the last alley when—
A leg shot out, followed by a grinning face. The foot, clad in dusty boots, kicked into Charlie's kneecap. With a yell, he was pitched forward. He lost consciousness as the boy picked him up and aimed punches at his limp, scraggly body.
Oscar Delancey laughed a little and, after a while, threw the boy behind him into the alley. He turned to his brother, who was still sitting back a little ways on a crate. He usually didn't like to get involved in the fights, something Oscar continually made fun of him for. This time though, Oscar didn't really seem to mind. He let out a chortle as he said, "Now that Cowboy's gone, I'se got so much free time on me hands I don' know what ta do wit' it all…"
Racetrack heard the Delanceys laughing in an alley, and quickly crossed to the other side of the street for the rest of the twenty-foot walk to the Lodging House, crossing back over when he figured he was out of their view. They were always up to no good. But now, without Jack to harness them…
Will I lose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare?
Racetrack fell, defeated, onto his bunk. He was so tired. He didn't know why he felt this way, but it was constant now. He fingered the weird lump he'd just found the other day, positioned on his neck. He'd never felt it before then, but it was still there now. He tried to decide whether it was his imagination or whether it had really grown bigger since that morning. He fell into a deep but uneasy sleep.
When he awoke, it was evening, and the bunkroom was swarming with newsboys, crawling over the bunks and each other, fighting, laughing, telling stories. Usually Racetrack was the center of attention at this time of the day. His stories of his day at the track were always exciting (and, if the day had been boring, his fictional tales of his day at the track were even more entertaining). He was shivering now.
"Can ya close da windah?" he shouted out, his voice carrying across the bunkroom. He got shouts back along the lines of "yeah right ya bum, shaddap, it's boilin' in heah."
His teeth began to chatter as if he were encased in ice. He folded his arms across his chest and drew his legs up in the fetal position, trying to bring heat to his body.
Bumlets headed out of the washroom whistling, but stopped short when he came to Racetrack's bunk. "Race? Ya okay?" he asked. Racetrack's lips had gone blue.
"Yeah, Bumlets, I'se a'right," Race answered. "Jus' go on ta bed."
Race couldn't even get out of bed the next morning. He was shivering under his thin sheet, and continued to even after ten other newsies had given him their sheets, too. His eyes were glazed over, and no one was even sure that he knew they were there.
But with no money for a doctor, what was there to do? The boys still had to sell to get money. They left Race under his eleven sheets and went out the door.