Newsies One-Shots

Chapter 3 - Jack and Race

Word Confusion with Race and Jack
Ship - Young Jack and Race (brotherly)
Era - Cannon
Triggers - Crying

All the Newsies are around 7-10 years-old so Davey and Les won't be in this one-shot.

Jack's favourite part about summer had nothing to actually do with summer itself but rather what came along with it.

There would be boat loads of immigrants in need of work, a lot of people saw this as a bad thing but Jack had to disagree.

It just meant he got lots more brothers.

Most of the Newsies liked getting new brothers too.

Some didn't like it because it made the Lodging House busy but after a few days they got used to it.

The summer prior their most hyper brother had joined.

At first there was confusion over where he came from, some thought he came off one of the boats but some thought that his parents had and he was born in America.

Regardless, they welcomed him into the Newsie family quickly and earned the nickname Racetrack.

He did have some language issues at first but with the help of the Newsies and some words sounding mildly similar they got around it.

Though sometimes it did lead to some very funny situations.

"Jack," Race shouted through the Lodging House. "I forgot a word."

He ran up the stair to Jack and met him half way up the short staircase.

"What is it in Italian?" Jack asked him calmly.

He knew that if one thing was almost guaranteed to happen when Race forgot a word it was that he would get frustrated.

And when Race got frustrated he had two ways of dealing with it.

1.) Crying.

2.) Playing with his cigar.

Jack really preferred the latter of the two, it didn't cause much harm, except for when he broke the cigar, and didn't make everyone else sad too.

"I can't remember it in Italian," he admitted, looking down at his shoes.

"That's okay, what does it look like?" he asked.

He could see that Race was about to start crying based on the very obvious tears gathering in his eyes.

"I don't know," he said as tears started to pour down his face.

Jack pulled him into a hug and rubbed circles on his back.

"It's okay," he reassured the young boy.

"Why don't we play something outside?" Jack suggested. "Blink found a ball so we can all play together."

Race nodded and took off running towards the door of the Lodging House.

Jack laughed and ran after him happily.

They got outside and Jack ran to the alleyway at the side of the Lodging House.

He picked up the ball and ran back around to where Race was waiting for him.

When Jack neared him he saw that he was in deep thought.

"What's wrong?" he asked his brother.

"I think it's a food," he explained. "But it changes and goes woo, woo."

He wiggled from side to side, trying to his best at explaining what he was thinking of.

Jack thought he looked like a fish flopping around on dry land.

"Why don't we play while you think about what it is," he suggested.

Race nodded and picked up the ball.

He threw it to Jack and they stayed there for over half an hour throwing it back and forth.

They would also take turns to see who could throw it highest.

Jack won that competition.

Once it started to get dark outside, they were told to come back inside.

Both boys walked in together.

They reached the doorway when Race stopped suddenly.

"It's wobbly and slippy and shakes," he said quickly.

"I still don't know what you're talking about Racer," Jack admitted to him.

Race roughly grabbed his cigar out of his mouth and dropped himself onto on of the couches.

"I wish I knew what the stupid word was," he grumbled.

"It's okay, you'll remember it soon," Jack reassured him.

The rest of the day went by and eventually the night rolled around.

The Newsies all went asleep peacefully, except for Race.

He was kept awake for most of the night trying to think of the word.

He only fell asleep a few hours before they were due to wake up the next morning.

The Newsies were walking to the distribution centre the next morning to get their papers.

Jack and Race were walking together, along with Crutchie, Blink and Mush.

They reached the distribution centre and a very audible gasp was heard from Race.

"Jelly," he exclaimed. "The word is jelly."

The other boys with them looked confused while Jack just shouted with joy.

"Good job Racer," he said. "What did you want to say about jelly, though?"

Race thought for a moment before shrugging and starting to make his way to buy his newspapers.

"I can't remember," he admitted.

~~~
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