Welcome back to the room what it happened: the living room. I walked around the room for a little bit while Albert gathered the others. This room was still the same as it was when I left, but something still felt different about it.
First, I noticed the charred-up pieces of the art book next to the fireplace, then I noticed the dried-up blood puddle on the carpet. They never bothered to clean this mess up? But why wouldn't they? It has been three months since that incident happened, so this should have been cleaned up by now.
Albert started to walk into the living room with the others, but none of them noticed me and all of them looked annoyed with him.
"Al, if this is a trick, then I swear that I will- -", Elmer paused in the middle of his sentence when he saw me.
"What will you do, Elmer? I dare you to finish that sentence". It was one thing if someone else threatened to hurt one of my boys, but I will not allow one of them to threaten to hurt each other.
"... Jack? You... came back?", Specs asked in a shocked tone.
"Look, I know that I am the last person that any of you expected to see, but I- -". The younger ones: Romeo, Mush, Tommy Boy, Henry, Buttons, Mike and Ike, immediately ran toward me and jumped all over me, which caused me to fall onto the ground.
"Jack! You came back!", Romeo shouted out excitedly.
"Where have you been?! We missed you!", Henry and Tommy Boy stated at the same time.
"Don't ever leave us again!", Mush and Buttons demanded.
"What have you been up to this past three months?!", Mike and Ike asked at the same time.
I managed to stand up from the ground and tried to push the younger ones off of me, but all of them held a tight grip on me and refused to let go of me.
Albert, Elmer, Specs and Kid Blink tried to pull the younger ones off of me, but it didn't work out that well as all of them acted like their lives depended on holding onto me. For crying out loud, these little ones will not let me go without a fight.
Knowing that I didn't have that much time until the others would come back to the Lodging House, I let the younger ones hang onto me and moved onto the main reason on why I came back to the Lodging House in the first place.
"So, Albert told me that you guys were not selling your papers anymore, is that true?". All of them looked nervous to answer the question. I guess that they think that I will be mad at them for refusing to sell their papers. "I am not going to be mad. I just want to know what happened"
"We were tired of them always talking about you, and not in the nice way", Romeo explained.
"Yeah, it was just too much for us to handle, so we just decided that it would be better for us if we didn't sell our papers anymore because we just couldn't deal with them anymore", Specs explained.
"Especially Finch", Elmer muttered.
"Look, I can understand that, but that doesn't mean that you all should risk your job and home just because all of you guys are mad at them"
"But isn't that what we did in the strike?", Mush asked.
"Yeah, but that was different. We went on strike against Pulitzer, not against each other. We are supposed to be a family and support each other"
"But we weren't the same for you"
"That doesn't matter anymore. I moved on from that. I don't want you guys to fight my battles for me. Just continue selling your papers". All of them reluctantly agreed. "Great, now I have to get out of here. The others could come home any minute now and I can't be seen here, so that means that all of you guys need to get off of me". The younger ones groaned at that, but they climbed off of me, but before I climbed out the window, because I didn't want to use the front door in case some of the other boys walked in, Tommy Boy stopped me.
"Will you ever come back to stay forever?". I hesitated at that question. How should I even tell the kid that I am going back to Santa Fe? Or that I might not come back after this? Fortunately, Specs stepped in and pulled Tommy Boy away from me.
"Come on, Tommy. Jack has to leave now"
"If you guys ever need me, then just come to Davey's place. Crutchie and Jojo are there too. They came with me"
"Bye, Jack"
"Bye". I climbed out the window, then headed into the streets of Manhattan.
YOU ARE READING
The Disgraced Newsie: Part 2( Rewritten)
FanfictionThe sequel to The Disgraced Newsie. A few months after Jack, Crutchie, and Jojo left for Santa Fe, Jack decided to go back to New York to visit Davey and his family, but runs into a few familiar faces that he never wanted to see again. Will Jack e...
