Queens//Newsies

Chapter 2

We walked past the several buildings between the lodging house and the distribution center, including the one we hung out on top of when it was nice out. When we arrived, Thomas was just rounding the corner, a wicked smirk on his face, and he purposefully bumped into me.

"Have fun today." He spat. I frowned, what was going on? I looked up at the men who wrote the headline. They were taking their time today, occasionally glancing down at us, before muttering amongst themselves, and beginning to write.

"Hey look, it's not about the trolley strike." Ladders said. I nodded and watched as they spelt out the words I had never wanted to hear.

"New Newsie Price? 60 Cents A Hundred?" Cheery shouted. Shouts of protest echoed through the group.

"I can't afford that!" Clothespin shouted. Several shouts of agreement echoed through the crowd.

I marched through the gates, headed towards where Mr. Moses, and Thomas stood, the rest of the boys following me.

I slammed my hands on the counter. "Why the jack-up?"

Mr. Moses flinched backwards, having never seen me this angry. Thomas leaned forwards and responded for him. "For them kind of answers, you have to ask farther up the food chain. So are you buying? Or moving on?"

I gestured for the boys to crowd around me.

"What do we do?" Cheery asked.

"Let's just get our papers while we still can." Raven spoke up.

The group broke out into various shouts of protest, until I whistled to get them to stop talking. They all looked at me expectantly, waiting for some sort of solution to the problem.

"Well, what are we doing?" Ladders asked.

I paused, and thought about it. What was Queens going to do?

~

Later that afternoon, we all sat on top of the roof, waiting. I knew at least one of the other turfs was going to have an idea, and to have any success with that idea, they were going to need my help, since I had the biggest turf out there. I was going to give it a day, and if nothing happened, than I'd figure it out when we came to it.

Raven had just gotten back from his short journey to the lodging house, and he ran up to me. "People from Manhattan and Brooklyn are coming here."

I nodded and thanked him, before standing up, and adjusting my stance to make me look a lot tougher than I needed to be. The boys of Queens, sensing what was about to happen, stood up and repeated my actions, making themselves look like the turf we were rumoured to be, instead of the turf we actually were.

I looked around at all of the boys and nodded, placing an evil smirk on my face. We didn't just look tough, we looked mean, even Ladders, who could rarely stop himself from smiling.

As we finished these actions, the two boys from Manhattan and Brooklyn appeared up the fire escape, along with another boy.

I let Ladders walk up to them and talk to them for a moment, before he came back to me and smirked, muttering in my ear. "They are sort of nosy. Be careful. I told them you were gone and that I'd get a different boy for the time being."

I smirked and walked up to them, feeling the glances of the boys' eyes on my back, keeping an eye on the situation.

"What can I assist you with?" I asked, keeping my voice low, my strong Queens accent coming through.

"We need Queen's help."

I tilted my head, assessing the one from Manhattan. Tall, with dark hair and eyes, around seventeen. I raised my eyebrow, a disarming skill I had. "With what?" I asked.