Author's Note: So. It's Skittery Week over at newsiesforever[dot]webs[dot]com. I really wanted to write a little character piece for him, but it... Well, kinda ran away on me, so it's not so little anymore. I think this is quite possibly the longest oneshot I've written, probably ever. *checks* Yup! Beats out Back of the Line by more than a thousand words. Man, I wish it was this easy to churn out chapters for Carryin' the Banner... Anyhow, on that note, don't worry, I'm still working on getting the next chapter for that up. I'm also working on a story called Heart of Brooklyn, kinda a follow-up for Back of the Line and Gamblin' Pride both. You would not believe the amount of ridiculous research that's going into that one, and this one too. I'm so paranoid of making up like street names or something and then have someone come along and tell me I'm wrong or something. So literally, I had Google Earth open the entire time I was writing this, making marks and notes all over Manhattan while I looked for interesting street names that were in close vicinity to each other. Anyhow, hope it's not too confusing because of that. And I desperately hope you don't wind up needing a map just to read this story, cuz that would make me sad.

Oh. Story. Right. So I don't know where this idea came from. Kinda sorta inspired by the line which opens it (yes, another one of those). I also really wanted to try to explain why Skitts is the way he is, which was kinda hard at first, but once I got the ball rolling, he just up and ran with it. So I hope you like it. It definitely went a lot longer than I intended, and it may seem a little choppy at the end, cuz I was trying to curve it back to the point I had wanted to make at the beginning (sound familiar?). But enough rambling. You want to read it. Enjoy.

P.S. I own Anna and Louise, but nothing else. I wish I owned the corner of Thomas and Broadway, cuz that would rock. Not that I've ever been to New York or anything, but apparently Blink and Mush claimed it, so I want a piece too.

Making a Living

"This'll bust me! I'm barely makin' a livin' right now." I throw my cigarette to the ground in frustration. Actually, it's not really mine. I kinda bummed it off Blink. My nerves are shot, with all this talk of jacked-up paper prices. They do call me Skittery for a reason. Mostly because I have a tendency to be jumpy when I'm stressed out. And today I am definitely stressed out.

They call me other things too. Glum and Dumb, that's what Race likes to call me. He makes fun of me all the time, cracking jokes about my mood and asking me why I'm always moping around. You know, they just don't get it. They think they know me so well, that I'm just moody. But they don't understand. And they never will. I have every right to be the way I am.

They don't have two other people to take care of. To worry about day and night. To be responsible for.

David has his family, but that doesn't really count, 'cause his family includes parents. Mine doesn't. Just me and my two sisters. My two sisters that I never see anymore. I'm really all alone in this world now, and yet everything I do is still for them. They are my life, no matter how far apart we are, or how hopeless this whole thing may seem.

Anna's only seven, but she's smart and she's tough. I haven't seen her in almost six months, but I still remember her clear as day, the soft touch of her mouse-brown hair on my cheek as we huddled close in the alley off of 42nd. Her eyes are soft chocolate-brown, like mine. Like our mother's. Everything about her reminds me of our mother.

Except her little button nose. I used to make fun of her for it. I'd call her Mouse and tweak her little button nose. It always made her laugh, high and clear like nothing else mattered in the world. Her nose would scrunch up and squish all her little freckles together, and her chocolate eyes would glimmer at me. I miss hearing her laugh.

They took her away from me.

See, when Anna was about three, Dad left, and Mom was working overtime at the sweatshop trying to scrounge out a living for us. I was already working part time every now and then selling papes, trying to help in any way I could. Usually though, "helping" meant staying home with Anna and Louise. I was fifteen at the time, and of course I resented having to babysit my little sisters. I'd much rather be out selling papes and feeling responsible. Or at the very least, with my friends from East Side. That's where I was when it happened. I should have been home, but instead I was out with my friends. I walked right past the sweatshop where Momma worked. Right past it.

It was burning. There'd been some kind of accident, and it was up in flames. There were only a few survivors. My mother was not one of them. Before I knew what I was doing, I ran home to Anna and Louise. I'm pretty sure I cried the whole way there, but I don't remember. I just remember getting home and pulling the two girls into my arms and holding them for hours and hours as if they'd go away and leave me, too. Louise was nine. Anna was too little to understand. As for me, I felt like I aged thirty years that night.

For a while we tried to last on our own. I started working almost full time as a paperboy, but I still had to be home a lot to take care of Anna. Especially since Louise was working now, too. She wouldn't work in a sweatshop, not after what had happened to Mom. Instead, she got a job working in a bakery. Not that it was too much better. They had her working the big brick ovens pretty soon after she started. At nine years old. She came home every night sweaty and covered in soot and flour. And with barely enough for her to live on, let alone the three of us.

When the landlord finally kicked us out of the apartment, I had to start taking Anna with me to work. Besides the fact that Louise was really too young to watch her, I wouldn't let little Mouse anywhere near those ovens. Having her with me wasn't much better, though, honestly. And since the accident I'll admit I was a little paranoid. I found it hard to concentrate on selling papes when I was constantly looking over my shoulder to see where Anna was, and to make sure she was okay. What a sight I must have been, jumping at every child's cry on the street, every stray sound. By the end of the first week, I was positively a nervous wreck. And as the second week wasn't looking much better, I finally sat her down and had to lay out some rules. I made sure I had specific spots I sold in, easily recognizable, and gave her a specific location where she could play while I was selling there. For instance, if I was selling in the Park, she had to stay right by the big oak on the hill. If I was selling in the square, she had to stay right in front of the Greely statue.

I remember one day, I was selling down Broadway, kinda down near Duane. It'd been a slow day, poor headlines, so somehow I'd managed to make it all the way back to the other side of town from the square. Broadway's my beat, and on a good day I usually don't make it past Bleeker. But the headlines were particularly bad that day, so after trying the Square and the Park for a while, I just walked down Broadway until I found myself near the Lodging House on Duane Street. I must have wandered into some other kids' selling territory, cuz there were these two ragged-looking newsboys standing on the corner of Thomas Street and glaring at me. Well, I knew one of them was glaring at me. The other, it was hard to tell. His head was turned slightly, and the one eye I could see was covered with a patch.

I started feeling a little uneasy around them, so I glanced around to make sure Anna was close by. She wasn't. I did a couple full circles in place, scoping out my entire line of view. She was nowhere to be seen. I started to panic. The two boys were still staring at me, and I started to panic. Despite how nervous they made me, I hurried across the street to where they were standing. Before I could say a word, the one with the patch shoved me. "Hey, Skittery," he spat. "Dis our sellin' spot. Go find you's yer own."

I can only assume the nickname came from my obviously amusing display when I found Anna to have disappeared. At the time, I really didn't pay it much attention. "Look," I said quietly, rubbing my chest where he'd shoved me. "I'm lookin' for my little sister. Ya seen her?"

The other boy shrugged. They couldn't have been older than twelve or thirteen. "Thought I seen a little girl wanderin' down Duane a minute ago. Blink, ya see her?"

The one with the patch – Blink, obviously – backhanded his friend in the stomach. "Shut up, Mush. He's in our territory."

"Easy, boys," said another voice, and I saw an older boy walking up the street from Duane – with Anna in his arms. This new boy was short and well-built, dark hair and dark eyes. But a warm smile, probably the kindest I'd seen on the streets yet. He looked to be about my age, and when he reached us, he set Anna gently on the ground next to me and flicked Blink soundly on the forehead. "Dem boys is always tryin' ta cause trouble," he said to me. "Don't mind dem." Then he turned back to Mush and Blink. "Hey, last I heard, you boys said you's gonna claim Park Avenue today. What happened?"

"Bulls chased us off," Blink muttered, his gaze fixed on his worn shoes.

"C'mon, Bumlets," Mush whined. "It's a long walk from Park Ave." He gave a little wimper. "Ya know dem boys over t'da Bowery… Well, dey been chargin' us toll, so it takes even longer. 'Sides, wit' it gettin' dark earlier an' all… I don't like walkin' t'rough Little Italy at night."

"Not wit'out Race, anyways," Blink mumbled in agreement, still looking at the ground.

The older kid, Bumlets, just nodded and smiled. "An' where is Race? Wa'n't he s'posed ta be helpin' you's?"

Blink and Mush shared a look before answering in unision, "Brooklyn." Bumlets just shook his head and muttered something about Kloppman having his hide for losing track of Race.

"I didn't mean ta cross nobody's territory," I said, picking Anna up off the ground while trying to shoulder my bundle of papes at the same time.

Bumlets just shrugged. "Forget about it. Ain't no harm done, really." He stopped a moment and glanced at Anna. Something inside me was slightly embarrassed by her dirty face. I'm not sure why. But after a brief pause, he said, "Hey, you's ever needs somewhere ta stay, ya let me know. We's gotta lodgin' house down on Duane, not far from here. I's can put in a good word for ya."

I won't deny that I did think about it for a moment. But in the end, some sort of pride prevented me. Well, maybe that and the thought of bedding Anna and Louise under the same roof with a bunch of run-down, ragged, homeless orphan boys. Whatever it was, I nodded politely and went on my way. I'll never forget that day for as long as I live.

Another day I'll never forget is the day they took her from me. We was staying in an alley off of 42nd Street, near Broadway. It was easier on all of us, and less confusing, if I just stuck with Broadway down to the Distribution Office at Greely Square, and then all the way down to Duane. I'd kinda made a point of goin' down that way every so often. Blink and Mush were there sometimes, and we'd talk. But that day… It was sometime last spring. The bulls were making their rounds. Usually they didn't get to our alley til well after we'd left for the Square. They came early that day, or maybe I slept in. Either way, they took Anna. She was only six. Shouldn't be on the streets, they said, and they stuck her in an orphanage. Louise was thirteen and I was nineteen, so they didn't bother with us. I've tried so many times to get her back since then, but they won't even let me see her. They know I'm her brother, that me and Louise are the only family she has left, but still they say she's better off there. I just know they're going to adopt her off to some new parents that'll never let me see her, either. Somehow or another, I've got to get her back. I made a promise that day that I'd fix everything.

I broke that promise two months later.

Louise lost her job at the bakery right before they took Anna. Since then things were goin' real bad. I was startin' to seriously consider Bumlets' offer to go stay at the lodging house, since we weren't saving much by living on the streets. But we could barely eat. I was so caught up in trying to get Anna back, and making sure Louise was taken care of, I just wasn't getting my papes sold like I shoulda. I kicked myself for it, but the headlines were goin' sour too, so there wasn't much to be done about it anyway.

That one particular day, I hadn't made enough the day before to cover my papes, let alone buy food. Since I couldn't buy as many papes as I usually did, we were looking at goin' without food for quite some time. Louise was hungry. I was desperate. So I snitched some fruit off a cart for her. It wasn't much, half rotten anyway, so it wasn't like anybody was gonna miss it to begin with. But stolen fruit is stolen fruit, apparently, and the bulls caught me doing it. I dragged Louise along with me, started running down Broadway hoping to get lost in the crowd. Unfortunately I lost Louise too. They caught her instead. Shipped her off to the Refuge on charges of theft and avoiding arrest.

The one good thing is, there's actually some hope for her. Or at least there was. Her penalty's two years, unless someone pays her bail. So, theoretically, I can still get her out. If I can manage to scrape together five bucks. Ain't easy, especially since I don't make much to begin with. I ain't exactly good at sellin' papes. Most people like buyin' from kids who are happy and upbeat. I just got too many problems on my mind. Sometimes I just plain forget to hawk the headlines. But somehow I get along. I set aside a nickel every day when I can, and I'm getting there. Slowly, but I'm getting there.

After they took Louise, I finally broke down and moved into the lodging house on Duane Street. Blink and Mush welcomed me pretty quickly. So did Bumlets. After all, they'd known me for a couple years already. They never ask about Anna. Part of me wishes they would, but I know they'd never understand. Now, with the talk of this strike breaking out… See, none of them have anyone else to worry about but themselves. If they gotta go without food for a day or two so we can get our price back, that's fine. Or if they gotta go through their savings so we get treated fairly, that's fine. But my sisters are in this too. My savings aren't just for some rainy day. I'm trying to get my life back. As soon as I get Louise out, I've gotta find me a better job and a place to live so I can get Anna back. It's up to me to keep this family together.

She turned seven on Wednesday. The day we started the strike. As they talk about unions and soaking scabs, all I can see is that little freckled face with the button nose. See, I have every reason to be in a bad mood. They'll never understand. They don't have the responsibilities I have. It's not the strike that's got me in a bad mood though. It's the fact that I know it's the right thing to do. Even for me. Cuz I was barely making a living for myself before. This tenth of a cent they're gouging us… Without it, I'm screwed. Without it, there's no way I can continue saving up the money to get Louise out of the Refuge. Without it, I can never hope to make enough to bring Anna back.

Without it, the only family I have left is gone.

Author's Note: Pleeeeeease review! Review the crap out of this story! It's almost five thirty in the morning... I'm going to bed. Leave me some love! *pointed glare at apparent fan club that seems to follow her around* If not for me, then at least for my car. He gets released from the Refuge sometime next week, and hopefully his "attitude problem" will be fixed (aka no more moody Skits the Car). Okay, now my brain is doing weird tangents again... I'm going to stop. Review!