The Queen of Brooklyn~A Spot Conlon Fanfic

Chapter Seven: Never Fear, Brooklyn is Here

The next morning, the newsies of Lower Manhattan gather around Newsie Square. We link arms and sing together.

"Open the gates and seize the day, don't be afraid and don't delay...nothing can break us, no one can make us, give our rights away...arise and seize the day!"

With our arms still linked, we march right up to the pape stand's entrance gate...only to be almost run over by a horse-drawn carriage. Panicked, we break our chain of newsies apart—we would have gotten crushed by the horse if we hadn't.

Once the carriage is a safe distance away from us, we link arms again. We're not singing anymore, instead we're staring disappointedly at the scabbers—the newsies who are still buying papes.

They put down their sixty cents, get their papes, and then turn to stare at us, almost mockingly, like they's thinkin' So we's buyin' papes. Whadya gonna do about it?

Davey looks at all of us, staring angrily at the scabbers, who are starin' right back at us. "All right," he begins slowly. "Everyone remain calm—"

Jack pumps his fist in the air and yells, "Let's soak 'em for Crutchie!"

After that, it's chaos. The scabbers, who look pretty scared, back up, only to find there's not much space between them and the pape stand. We start soakin' 'em, throwin punches. They try to fight back, but it's useless—there's about twenty of us and only seven of them.  That's when I turn around and see a bunch of thugs, carryin' chains and bats. Oh no. The entrance/exit gate slams closed with an ominous BANG, and my heart crashes to my feet. A line of thugs stations themselves in front of the gate, daring any one of us to try and escape.

We're trapped.

Morris, Oscar, and Weasel abandon the pape stand and unlock the door that leads into the room they sell papes from, cracking their knuckles. "Time these kids learned a lesson," Weasel practically growls.

"Heya, Jackie boy," Morris says, almost tauntingly, as he approaches Jack, who's backed up to the wall and doesn't have anywhere to run.

"Leave him alone!" I yell, running over and thrusting myself in front of Jack just as Morris throws a punch. It hits me square in the jaw, and I see stars.

"Red!" Jack, angry as a volcano, shoves me aside and punches Morris—hard—in the nose. "Don't hurt her!" he yells. Morris stumbles backwards, shocked, and looks for backup, but Oscar is nowhere to be seen. Jack turns to me, taking advantage of Morris's momentary still shock. "That was a real stupid thing to do, ya hear me?" he says, not sounding angry but not sounding happy either. "I can take care of meself."

"Okay," I mumble, rubbing my jaw. 

"Are you okay?" Jack asks, looking concerned.

"Yeah."

I catch sight of Denton, who's talking to a police officer outside of gate, separated from us. "Aren't you going to stop them, sir?" Denton demands, nodding towards the thugs.

"Just move aside, mister," the bull says, ignoring our situation.

Just then, Oscar sneaks up from behind Jack, grabs him by the shoulders, whirls him around, and punches him—hard—in the stomach. Jack doubles over, gasping and coughing. I kick Oscar right in the shin, and he yells out and stumbles backwards. He shoves me hard against the brick wall, then pulls back his fist, ready to give me a lethal punch t the guts.

That's when a pebble comes whistling through the air at full speed. It hits Oscar on the side of the head, and he falls to the ground, not dead but probably unconscious. I look up in confusion. Who shot that?

That's when I see the familiar light brown hair, the checkered shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the red suspenders, the blue eyes, and the smirk.

"Spot!" I yell, and he looks at me and winks. I sigh with relief. He's not mad at me anymore.

"Never fear, Brooklyn is here," he calls out.

"It's Brooklyn!" the scattered voices of Manhattan newsies cry.

Spot and the other fifteen or so Brooklyn newsies (I guess only some came) pull back their slingshots and shoot the pebbles at the thugs, Weasel, and the Delanceys. Jack, who seems okay now but is still holding a hand across his stomach, yells out, "Hey, Spot!"

Spot gives Jack a smirk as he grabs a wire and slides to the ground. He spits in his hand and holds it out to shake. Jack spits in his unoccupied hand, and they have a strong handshake.

Oscar, who must have recovered by now, swings him arm back to throw a punch at me, but I grab onto his hand, leaving it hovering in the air, and punch him in the face with my good hand. He stumbles into a wagon full of extra papes and seems to be knocked out. Spot nods to me with approval.

Race is struggling to fight a tall, muscular thug. His left eye is already starting to bruise, and there's a cut under his right. I'm about to go over and help him, but suddenly he sits down on the steps and says, "Hey, I give up, all right? All right?" The thug hesitates, confused. That's when Race lifts his leg and kicks the thug real hard between the legs. The thug yells out in pure anguish and falls down. Race smiles with satisfaction and stands up, brushing his hands. He heads over to me, and we do a spit-handshake. "Nice job," I tell him.

Spot, meanwhile, is looking at Race with kind of a lost expression.

"So..." I look at both of them, back and forth, then finally say, "I assume you guys remember each other?"

"Wait—how did you—no, I have no idea who Spot is!" Race protests.

"Racetrack," Spot interrupts. Race turns to him. "It's okay. I told her."

"You two know each other?" Race asks, then teasingly wiggles his eyebrows at me. He's obviously avoiding the fact that I know about his being in the Refuge.

"It's not like that," I say firmly, and it isn't. I think.

Spot grins at Race. "It's good to see youse again, bud." The two boys spit in their hands and shake. It's clear they're best friends. By now, the majority of the thugs have either gotten seriously injured and run away or have been knocked unconscious, but there are still a few left. One comes charging at Spot, Race, Jack, and me with a baseball bat. Spot raises his fist, pulls it back, and hits the thug with such force that the thug goes tumbling backwards. Spot's no big guy—he's pretty short, just a little taller than —but the thug's flung backwards with such force that I finally see why the newsies are afraid of Spot Conlon.

The line of thugs guarding the gate from earlier is gone now—they're all soaked to the ground. Spot rips off his newsie cap, fights off the last remaining thug in front of the gate, and yanks it open. The newsies cheer.

Spot runs back to the group of victorious newsies that's now forming and joins us as Denton approaches us. "Kids, freeze!" he cries, holding up his camera. "Freeze!"

Once we've frozen, giving our best smiles, he shoots a triumphant photo and grins.

Spot, who's standing next to me, murmurs, "Sorry for yesterday. I was overreacting."

"It's okay. I'm sorry too," I whisper back.

"By the way..."

"What?"

"You fight like a girl." He nudges me playfully, and I nudge him back with a laugh.

"Thanks," I tease. "Maybe if you try hard enough, you can as well."

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Brooklyn's HERE...and Denton took a photo!