Just a Newsboy

Chapter 1

Los Angeles, California

"You're fired."

I let out a dramatic sigh of relief. "Finally,"

Mr. Woodworth furrowed his brow and peered at me over the rim of his glasses. "Miss Alexander, this is not a joking matter."

"I'm fully aware of the state of this conversation, sir." I crossed my arms. "My response was not intended for sarcasm."

"Right." He cleared his throat, folding his hands atop his desk. "Well, allow me to thank you for your service and dedication here, but—"

"Oh, sir, there's no need to thank me. If anything, I should be thanking you." Accompanying my words with a small smirk, I took a step towards his desk, and began my rant without stopping to think my words over for a second. "What on earth would I have done without you? You dictate my working hours, my wages, my lunch break—you even dictate my deadlines!" My eyebrows shot up in heavily sarcastic astonishment. "I mean, I know you couldn't tell me the difference between a media query and a cascading style sheet, but what does that matter? Of course you should tell me how long a project is gonna take!"

"Miss Alexander—"

"Who better than the guy who literally has no clue how challenging and time consuming my work is? If I was hiring a web designer, and I knew absolutely nothing about web design, I'd definitely tell her how to do her job on a daily—"

"Miss Alexander." He interrupted, exhaling sharply in frustration. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave the building."

I raised an eyebrow. "Mr. Woodworth, trust me, I would've ditched your establishment my second day," I shrugged, "but I decided to give this place a shot. Sadly, it's just as much of a waste of my time as the last company I worked for."

He sighed. "We can hire another web designer, Miss Alexander, and a more qualified one at that. Someday, you're going to be faced with the hard fact that you're actually not entitled to as much 'respect' as you claim to be."

"You know, something—and I don't know, it might be the fact that I've taken five classes for web design, two classes for lighting tech, and worked at ten companies in the past two years, but something tells me that that's simply not true."

Mr. Woodworth, exasperated, ran a hand through his thinning grey hair and gave me a stern look. "This conversation is concluded, Miss Alexander."

"As you wish."

"Kindly remove your belongings from your desk."

I dipped my head with mock politeness. "With pleasure."

Five weeks before, when I was hired, I was fully aware that I'd be let off sooner or later, and I chose not to permanently move into my desk.
Therefore, I didn't really have anything to remove.

There was a small photograph of my sister, decorated with wrinkles and creases from being folded and unfolded an obscene amount of times, and a rubber duck named Siegfried.

The rubber duck was five inches tall, four years old, and the orange paint on its beak was peeling, but it was a prized possession of mine; it was one of the only things I absolutely couldn't live without.

After refolding the photograph and sliding it into my jacket pocket, I picked Siegfried up and exited the office area.

Once I was out of there, it was just a short stroll to the front door, and then I was out for good.

I probably wouldn't be allowed to return, due to the way in which I'd spoken to Mr. Woodworth, but I wasn't planning on coming back anyway. I was a free woman.