On The Docks | A Spot Conlon Love Story

Think It's Fate?

Ash's POV

I hear laughing and wake up from my dreaming, I open my eyes to see that I fell asleep at my desk, which makes me laugh along.

I head to the bathroom and change into my Newsie outfit then call the others to the streets. No one catcalls me, which is a nice change.

As we're walking through the streets I spot Jackie, and he finds me and walks up to me.

"Hey, Ash... Are you doin' okay?" I think for a moment, I don't want to lie.

"Yeah, I just needed some cool down time." He nods.

"Do you wanna tells me why youse was upset in the foist place?" He's pulling the "Overprotective brother" role very well.

"Not really. Sorry, I know you want to take care of me but I don't think I should tell you this one. But nothing bad happened. I just fell into water and someone helped me, and it was a guy and I had a freak out moment." He nods and smiles at me.

"I'm just glad youse alright." I smile and hug him.

"I love you Jackie, now let's go read today's headline!" He laughs and we both take off.

We get to the headline with the other Newsies, I'm hearing some chatter, so I read what it says: "NEW NEWSIE PRICE: 60¢ PER HUNDRED PAPERS"

What?! This is so unfair?! We're all homeless orphans trying to make a living, Pulitzer is more rich than I could possibly imagine, what makes him think that raising the price is fair?!

"Jackie, what's going to happen?" He shakes his head.

"I don't know, Ash."

The new kids from yesterday come over, and Jackie turns to me.

"Oh yeah, Ash, these are my business partners, Davey and Les. Davey and Les, this is my sister, Ash."

The older one, Davey, holds out his hand for me to shake. So I shake it.

"Nice to meet you! But I'm sure that with this new price, there won't be a business to work in." He laughs.

"Yeah, you're right. I don't know how I'm going to feed my family."

(I'm just going to skip a bit, sorry)

Jack climbs the ladder up to where they put up the headline as we all cheer him on. He grabs chalk and writes something on the board: "STRIKE!"

"YEAH! THAT'S MY BROTHER!!!" I yell to no one in particular.

He gets down and I see Oscar and Morris, so I run up to them and smile.

"Look at that! That's my brother! And we're on strike now!" I laugh. They both look at eachother with confusion and try to intimidate me.

"You kids bein' on strike won't stops us from beatin' yer ass!"

"Yeah, but you know what? You don't scare me. Because I've got my brother. And I'm not going to get hurt anymore. Plus..." I take off my cap, holding it in my hand and throw my Newsie bag at them, "you gotta catch me first!"

I take off, hearing them follow, the other Newsies watch and cheer me on and I look over and see Jackie looking like he's ready to kill those brother's.

I find a fire escape leading to the roof of a building and start climbing it. I hear the brothers shouting at me that they're going to get me.

I reach the top and look at the space between two buildings, maybe about a 3 foot gap, I turn around to see the boys have just got up, I look down at the Newsies, a few of them are watching me, the others are watching/following Jackie.