The King of Brooklyn // Spot Conlon

Seeing The Stars

3rd Person POV

  The newsies sometimes found it hard to fall asleep at night. While most of them were exhausted from walking the streets all day, others could never seem to shake away their worries. Some of them stayed up worrying about money, others lay awake thinking about food or the cold. 

  For Sun it was the nightmares. When she first starting having them after a month on the streets, she starting staying up as late as possible to avoid them. Then when she moved into the lodging house, she tried to hide the fact that she had nightmares by sleeping with a pillow over her head so they wouldn't hear her sleep talking. Eventually she got caught. 

  She was sitting outside one night trying to calm down after a particularly vivid nightmare when Kid Blink and Racetrack spotted her and came out to see what was wrong. After some convincing, she opened up to Race and Blink about her nightmares. She never told them the specifics, didn't like to think about the details, but they had some ideas what it was about. 

  Race and Blink's solution was to get out. Distract Sun before bed so by the time she fell asleep she was too tired and having too much fun to have nightmares. Race knew some newsies that liked to stay up betting in Queens, so he took them there. And that's how they started card nights in Queens. 

  Almost every night the three of them would head over to Queens to play different card games for a couple hours, before heading back to sleep. Soon newsies from others places heard and started to join. There weren't too many of them, a lot of newsies would rather get a good nights rest that walk all the way to Queens just for cards, but they had a lot of fun.

  So that's where Sun is now, sitting on a crate in Queens next to Dice playing cards past dark.

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Sun's POV

  I know it's gonna be a lousy night when Dice sits next to me, that means he wants me to help him cheat. Dice is from Queens and overtime he's become a good friend. So don't get me wrong, I don't mind hanging out Dice, I just hate having to help him cheat. Dice knows I'm good at sneaking around, so he'll make me look at other peoples cards for him. But if I'm busy helping Dice win how am I supposed to win anything for myself?

  By the time we're walking back to the lodging house I haven't played any games, and I haven't really had the chance to talk with anyone. At least Dice gave me a dime for helping him out. Once we're finally inside I say goodnight to Race, Blink, and a couple others who haven't gone to bed yet. I walk upstairs to where the girls bunks are, but I don't lie down. Instead I go out onto the fire escape, and climb up to the roof. 

  Sometimes it's easier to sit up here, just me and the stars. I feel like my head is clearer up hear, I can think better. Tonight I don't have too much on my mind so I let my mind wander. I think about selling papes, about card games, food, and warm blankets. And then suddenly I remember the handkerchief. I pull it out of my bag and look at it for a while. It really is nice, and I almost feel bad for taking it. I decide that I'm not gonna sell it. Instead I quietly go back inside the lodging house, and sneak over to the dresser where we keep all our clothes. In the bottom drawer we keep an old sewing kit, it's mostly used to fix holes in our clothes since we can't afford new ones. 

  I take out a needle and a spool of thread, and carefully stitch my initials on it. 

S.W. 

  There, now it's really mine. Sun Williams. Part of me feels bad for not using my old name, the one my Mama gave me, but that's not really me anymore. Truth be told that hasn't been me since I was sleeping on a street corner cold and hungry. I've been going by Sun since Jack found me on that street corner and gave me the nickname. 

  I put the sewing kit back, and I put the handkerchief under my pillow so nobody takes it while I try and sleep. I change outta my clothes and into my sleeping ones, and lay in bed. For a while I listen to everything around me, Speed snores really loud so I try and focus on that, then the creaking of someone's bed as they toss and turn. Eventually I end up drifting off to sleep, and all I can do is hope I don't have any nightmares.