FAMILIAR | Spot Conlon

Chp. 5: The Newsie Way

Spot comes up to me and pulls me aside.

"The first thing a newsie does is get papes" He goes up to these big gates and and older man opens them up. The newsies start throwing the adult insults and fake punches.

"What's up with him?" I point at the man the kids are teasing

"That's Mr. Bates. We never treat him with respect" I raise my eyebrows and look at him.

"We's jus don't, ok"  I roll my eyes at how childish these boys are.

"So once your done teasing the shit out of him, what do we do?" I have never cursed before since mother would have my head if I did. But mother isn't here so I can do what I want.

"Now we get papes from him"

"You get papers from the guy you tease? That's ironic" We walk over to this big box. Sort of like a ticket booth. Spot slaps down 50 cents on the counter.

"100 papes Bates" Mr. Bates hands him his papers. He drags me off and we walk through town a bit.

"Where are we going?" I ask Spot and he ignores me. I ask again and still nothing. I kick his shin and he finally looks at me.

"What was that for?!"

"Ignoring me" I flash a smile. He rolls his eyes and stops.

"Here we are"

"And where are we exactly?" Were just in another road.

"My sellin spot. On the boider between Brooklyn and Queens. All of the people gettin off of the boat tour are here, which is why I's sell here" That's actually pretty smart. Maybe he does have a good brain along with his looks. Wait what am I saying? It might be true but I can't think like that.

"Camryn?" I focus back on Spot.

"Huh?" I ask

"Are you ok, you zoned out"

"Yeah I'm good"

"Watch this" He starts walking towards a line of people waiting for the boat. He asks a few people if they want to buy papes and comes back with 6 pennies.

"Pretty impressive, eh" Spot says very egotistically.

"I could do better. Give me a paper" Spot hands me a paper and I walk up to a man.

"Would you like to buy this paper for a penny sir?" He scoffs and walks away from me. I look back at Spot and he's laughing. I walk over to him and lightly punch him in the arm.

"It's not funny" I frown and give him puppy eyes and he stops laughing.

"Maybe we should sell papes together from now on. You're gonna need the help" He smiles and I smile back.

"If you wanna spend time with me then just ask" I wink and flip my hair in his face as a joke. I walk away kinda hoping he'll stop me. He doesn't. So I keep walking.

~~~~

I find out that I stumbled into Queens territory. I walk out of a store and am accidentally tripped by someone. The person catches me before I fall and I look at them.

"Do I know you? You look familiar" The boy looks at me and gets the same look on his face.

"Yous look familiar too" We both stand there for a second looking at each other. He has green eyes and dirty blonde hair.

"What did you say your name was" I ask the boy.

"I didn't but its Nick. Nick Hawkins" I feel my jaw mentally drop. A new last name can't fool me. Nick is still standing there confused. Something lights up in his face which makes me believe he knows who I am now.

He hugs me and I hug him back.

"Alyssa wha~what are ya doin here?" He releases me from the hug.

"Same with you!"

"I haven't seen ya in forever"

"Yeah, it's been like 8 years"

*flashback*

"Alyssa there's someone here to see you"

"But why mommy, my 7th birthday was yesterday"

"I know sweetie, but we're hoping you can make him feel better. His mother just died"

I see a young boy probably about 2 years older than me. He looks sad so I go over to him.

"What's your name"

"Nick Menken" My face becomes confused. That's my last name.

"Are you my brother?"

"No honey he's your cousin"

"Oh, I'll go play with him" I grab the boys hand and we go outside to the playground in my backyard.

*end of flashback*

I see the stack of newspapers in his hand.

"Are you a newsie?"

"Yeah, I'm actually the leader of the Queens newsies"

"No. Way." I remember my talk with Jess. I remember her talking about Nick, the leader of the Queens newsies. This is really weird. My friend has a crush on my cousin.

"What?" Nick asks.

"Oh just thinking of something someone said earlier today"

"So, why are ya here"

"I ran away"

"If you don't mind me asking, why?"

"You might wanna sit down for this" We walk over to a bench and I start to tell him all about the fancy dinners and lessons and balls. And how mom was gonna send me to a finishing school.

I didn't realize the sun had pretty much gone down by now.

"Wow. We definitely have some catching up to do"

We both laugh and then we see someone start to walk towards us. Nick adjusts his posture to look more intimidating. The person just keeps walking towards us. Nick finally gets up from the bench and starts walking to the person with an angry stance. I finally realize what he's gonna do and I run over and stand in front of him.

"Nick, don't worry. I know him"

It was Spot. I've learned to notice what he looked like, even in the pitch black shadows. Spot comes into view.

"Hey, Spot!" The two spit shake and I shudder.

"There you are. I've been looking for you for over an hour." Spot says in an angry tone.

"Sorry guess we lost track of time"

"We? You and Nick?"

"Yeah we were talking and~" Spot cuts me off.

"We're going home. Now" I give Nick a look that says I'm sorry. Spot grabs my wrist and pulls me away from my cousin.