The Fanfiction 2 or Why Does Technology Hate Me So Much?

Chapter 3

Les and I arrived in an untidy, empty lodging house. I wasn't surprised that it was untidy, there is a bunch of boys living there, but it did surprise me that it was pretty dirt and dust free.

"Hey Les," I said, an idea forming, "Do you wanna help me with a little surprise?"

He brightened at that idea, and I explained my idea: we were going to put the sheets back on the beds and straighten them, and we were going to clean up any little things that had been left out.

We worked eagerly, with me singing Newsies under my breath; it was completely stuck in my head. Soon after, the whole building had been tidied. Les and I sat down on one of the beds, and he asked me about where I was from. Seeing as no one was there to tell me not to tell him, I told him all about my home, my friends, and my family.

*** 

A few hours later, I heard voices outside. They weren't voices I recognized, so I decided it was newsies returning from selling. I panicked; they didn't know me and they didn't know that some girl was relaxing inside.

"Hey Les," I said. "Could you go warn the boys outside that I'm here? Just say I'm a friend of  Katherine's or Race's or yours or something." Les nodded and ran outside to tell the group just before they got to the door. 

He must of said something alright, because the group of three came in and wasn't terrified by my existence within the room. One of them even said something that sounded like hello.

"I told them you're a new friend of mine and an old friend of Race's comin' to surprise him," Les whispered in my ear. I nodded.

"Hello, I'm Ellie, " I said, reaching out my hand for a handshake. "You are?"

"I'm Specs," said the first boy.

"Because of your glasses, right?" I asked, and he confirmed.

"I'm Mike," said one of the other boys.

"And I'm Ike," said the one who looked like the one who had just spoken.

"You two are twins, right?" I asked, and they nodded.

We made a sort of awkward bit of small talk, and the other boys began trickling in, with somebody always explaining who I was.

A little while after most of the boys had come in, Davey and Jack arrived with Katherine, who was very surprised and excited to see me. I loosley explained why I was there to her, being general so as to not scare the boys around us. The two of us girls sat together chatting, and I realized that Race had not come in yet.

I asked about him, and Jack said that he had made Davey head down to Race's selling spot to tell him that some girl had been asking about him and wanted to meet him, so Jack had sent her to the lodging house to catch him when he got home, so to be home at a good hour. (If Jack had gone himself Race wouldn't have believed that some girl would have been asking after him at all.) I figured a good hour meant soon, and so I kept glancing up at the door hoping he would come in because my neck was hurting from turning from the conversation to the door and back again rapidly.

Finally, though, the door opened and he walked in. I stood up and turned around to face him. He saw me, did a triple take, and then stood there in surprise, shock, and disbelief.

"Yes, I am actually standing here, and no, you aren't insane," I said, practically reading his mind. "Besides, if I was fake I wouldn't be able to return this button you lost." I revealed the button that I was wearing and I tossed it to him. 

He caught the button, but still seemed to be doing double and triple takes. So I walked up and grabbed his hand to prove I wasn't a hallucination. That did the trick. I hastily explained how I got there in general terms to, once again, not terrify the others, who were already confused about how Race and I had met each other. Noticing I still had his hand, I led him to where I had been sitting and we sat down there together, the conversation slowly restarting.

"I missed you," I heard a voice whisper from next to me.