Author's Note: Teehee! I'm normally really bad about finding gifts for people's birthdays so…I decided to write a fanfic instead! Anyways…this is just a fluffy little Race fic for my dear friend Kathleen, as Racetrack is her favorite character (for now), so I hope you enjoy your birthday present my fellow Newsie freak!
Disclaimer: Why oh why do I have to put this in? If I owned Newsies, I wouldn't be writing this fic, I'd be giving Kathleen the notorious Racetrack as a present. Duh. Well fine, I don't own Newsies, or Kathleen. She owns herself, as far as I know.
The door to Tibby's slammed as a dripping wet Racetrack slid into one of the seats.
"What a rotten day," he growled.
"Heya Racetrack," Mush chirped, smiling brightly.
"Hey Race," Skittery said nodded his head, "Did the rain getcha?"
"No," Racetrack growled, "I just decided to jump into a lake with my clothes on. Yes I got caught in the rain, what's it to ya?"
"Easy there, I was just askin'…" Skittery said, putting both his hands up defensively.
"Can I get anything for you, sir?" a waiter asked Racetrack, taking a pen out from behind his ear.
"Uh, I'll just have the clam chowder…" he mumbled, selecting the least expensive dish on the menu. As the waiter tottered away, Race groaned.
"I'm never gonna make up that five cents. Say good-by fellas, 'cause I'm sleepin' on the streets from now on. I'll hafta start stealin' from the venders on the streets, an' then I'll get so desperate I'll start stealin' from the nuns! An' then the bulls'll catch me an' I'll hafta go to the Refuge an' by the time I get out I'll be forced to move to Canada! An' I'll hafta grow a beard an' change my name-"
"Quit your blubberin', Race," Specs said, rolling his eyes.
"Yeah, that's Skittery's job, an' anyway, I can loan ya six cents for tonight, seein' as I sold all of my papes today," Kid Blink boasted, puffing out his chest proudly.
"How," Dutchy asked, "did you manage that? What with the terrible headline an' the weather today, I wouldnt've guessed anyone would sell more than half of their papers,"
"Well I did,"
"No he didn't, he's lyin'," Jake snorted.
"No I ain't!" Blink snapped.
As a small quarrel broke out, the waiter placed a soup bowl in front of Racetrack, as well as a spoon.
Well, at least a nice, hot bowl of chowder should cheer me up…he thought, picking up his spoon and dipping it into the thick soup. After blowing on the chowder to cool it off, he sipped it up eagerly, only to spit it out moments later.
"Uhg. Potatoes," Racetrack muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'll be seein' ya, fellas," Racetrack said, standing up and heading for the door.
"But you just got here!"
"Aw, it's fine. I'm just gonna head back to the lodging house…you know, see what everyone's up to…"
"Here Race, keep the change," Kid Blink said, slapping a dime into his hand.
"Right. Thanks Blink," Racetrack gave his friend an appreciative smile and headed out into the downpour.
Racetrack shook his head as he stepped into the lodging house, splattering water in various directions. After he had wrung out his cap and pushed his sopping hair out of his face, he collapsed into the nearest chair and closed his eyes.
"Tired Racetrack?" someone near him asked. Racetrack cracked an eye open.
"Just havin' a lousy day, Cowboy," he mumbled, opening his other eye and sitting up.
"Ah, that's too bad," Jack said, nodding sympathetically. Just as Racetrack was about to blow off some steam, Jack turned around and began talking to Snoddy.
Racetrack sighed as he looked around the small lobby of the lodging house. Boys were strewn around the room, along with a few of their girls, and were happily conversing with one another.
"Well that's just a perfect ending to a perfect day," he grunted.
"Um, Racetrack?" a tentative voice from behind him asked.
"Yeah, what?" he snipped, spinning around. In front of him stood a girl he had seen around before, perhaps said hello to once and awhile, or made small talk with every now and then, but didn't exactly know.
"Well," the girl said, looking slightly nervous, "I heard you say you weren't having the best day, so I just wondered what was wrong…" she trailed off and bit her lip anxiously.
Racetrack sighed and put his head in his hands,
"Well if you're sure you don't mind sitting here for five hours, then I guess I'll tell you…'cause I don't got much else to do at the moment, if you couldn't tell," he laughed dryly as the girl sat down on one of the old, creaky chairs next to him and waited patiently for him to begin, much to his surprise.
"Well, see, it all started this mornin', when I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk an' fell into a puddle an' got all of me papes ruined…"
Racetrack continued his story, recounting every bad event that that happened to him that day, from the spineless little kid who'd stolen his cap and he himself had to run around the entire city twice to get it back, to when he had lost all of yesterday and most of the current day's profits on a stupid bet. And the whole time, the girl kept her attention focused on him; 'oh'ing at exactly the right moments and wincing whenever his tale called for it.
"-an' then, when I fin'lly thought I was gonna get some quality food, they go an' put too many potatoes in me chowder! An' I hate potatoes. After that, I just decided to go back to the lodgin' house, an' then I started talkin' to you…"
"Oh," the girl looked at him with a hurt look in her eye.
"I didn't mean that talkin' to you was a bad thing! I really kinda liked it, actually…" Racetrack said, a bit of color rising in his cheeks.
"Oh! Sorry to have to leave like this Racetrack, but I think I have to head home. I'll see you soon, I hope," the girl said, standing up suddenly and nodding to someone over Racetrack's shoulder. He turned around and saw Bumlets tugging on a jacket and a girl next to him motioning for her friend to get ready to leave.
"What? Why do you hafta leave so soon?"
"Well, since I'm takin' Christina home, I figured I might as well take Cathleen too, seein' as they both work at the same place," Bumlets said, answering for Cathleen.
"I can take her home!" Racetrack said, a bit louder than he meant to. Bumlets suppressed a laugh, and Christina just grinned.
"I'll see you later, Cathleen," she said, waving good-bye to her friend and stepping out of the lodging house.
When the couple had gone, Racetrack stood up and rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously.
"I'll just get my jacket, an' then, we can um, go, I guess," he said, beginning to weave his way toward the coat rack near the door. When he had finally wrestled into his coat (and nearly punched Swifty's eye trying to get it on) he found Cathleen already waiting by the door. Apprehensively, he held it open for her and the two of them stepped out of the comfort of the lodging house, and into the rain. Again.
After making three wrong turns, tripping twice and getting chased off of some rich, hoity-toity man's property, Racetrack and Cathleen arrived at Burke's Fine Tailors, soaked to the skin.
"Sorry 'bout the whole 'rain' thing, but I can't control the weather too easily, or at all, come to think of it," Racetrack said, glaring daggers at the sky, and getting rain in his eyes. Cathleen smiled.
"It's fine. I don't mind the rain too much, most of the time,"
Then neither of them said anything for what seemed like hours, until Racetrack coughed slightly and said awkwardly.
"Well, uh, I guess I'll see you soon…I-I mean, that is, if you want to see me soon, 'cause if you don't, I'll just uh-"
"I'll be working most of the day tomorrow, and Madame Burke can be very strict sometimes…" Racetrack looked at his shoes, disappointed, "…but I'll see what I can do,"
"Oh, well, then I'll see you, um, tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow's good," Cathleen smiled, "You know, my day was pretty lousy too, I stuck myself with a pin at least twenty times, and everyone seemed to want their suits tailored by the end of the day, to top all of that off, it's my birthday today,"
"Is that a bad thing?"
Cathleen shrugged, "It was, until I started talking to you,"
"Oh," the two of them stood in another awkward silence, looking at everything but each other. After a good five minutes, Cathleen broke the silence,
"Tomorrow, right?
"Yeah, I'll see you then," Racetrack said, turning around and began heading down the front steps.
"Wait!" Cathleen exclaimed. Racetrack spun back around and began to ask 'What?' but before he had a chance, she kissed him on the cheek. "See you then,"
Racetrack grinned, "Yeah. G'night,"
"'Night," she smiled, and then disappeared into the tailor shop.
Racetrack jumped down the rest of the steps and began the long walk back to the lodging house through the still-pouring rain.
"What a great day…"
Author's Note: Well, there you have it. I hope you're real birthday is as awesome as this Kathleeneh! And, yeah, I even managed to stick myself in. Hee hee. I'm so evil.