Newskids

Chapter 3: Questions

I stepped onto the street with such caution, as the other four of my friends did as well. They made a sort of circle around me, to shield my identity as if it would do anything. Blue stood in the front, Splint limped on my left, Gold walked on my right, and Cat was behind me. We knew the direction to the shore, and we just had to keep me away from cops for about thirty minutes. If we could do that, I'd be good for the time being.

Even though I knew that no one paid attention to newskids if we weren't yelling, because most people thought of us as good-for-nothing kids who would steal whatever money we couldn't make. And while I- as well as Shade, were guilty of pickpocketing from time-to-time, it wasn't a common practice of ours. If I were totally honest, I'm bad at keeping myself from breaking the law, but it's never been anything as serious as murder before. Before today, I was never caught, and it was always stealing change or bread, lying about my age or name, or even as far as auto theft if I had no other options, but nothing that warranted the chair. Nothing as serious as this. In our little "family" that lived in that basement, I was the criminal mind of the group.

Lynn never approved of my trouble-making, but she never really approved of anything I did. I could breathe too loud and she'd lecture me. I love my sister, but she was always a bit bossy. She stopped with the lectures about a year before she moved out, but she would just say "you're gonna end up arrested, you know.". She didn't move out because of me, no. She moved out to become famous in Hollywood. I had no idea how that was working out for her.

We made it up the street to where we knew would be the riskiest area to pass through. Pine Street. Where this started. We turned the corner to get there, and we could see the alleyway swarmed by police. We crossed the road and walked on the other side, even though there were also cops that way, they weren't directly in front of the crime scene.

"Hey!" An officer shouted at us. It made Blue and Splint flinch a little. He pointed down at the bag that Splint was carrying, and the bag that Gold was carrying. I realised the problem here.

"What are you doing with those bags?" He asked. He then grabbed an identical, but bloodstained bag from an officer nearby. It was mine.

"Is this anyone's bag? There's a name inside, but I'm not giving out that information" He told us, authoritatively. "Because it sure looks like one of you is, considering that your bags look identical to this one."

"Barring the bloodstains," Cat added, sarcastically, without thinking.

"Yes, barring the bloodstains." He said. "What is your name, young lady?"

"Clara Samuels. These bozos call me Cat, sadly."

"Sadly?" He questioned.

"I like my name better, but they persist." She said, dryly. The officer chuckled. "Alright, kid. What about these kids?"

He looked at Blue square in the face, having to look up, due to Blue's tall stature. I saw Blue tense up and stand straight. I was amazed that he wasn't sweating.

"And what's your name, boy?" The officer asked as if he were a scolding father.

"Stan-Stanley Dawson. Call me Blue." He stuttered. He held out his hand, without thinking about it, and the man just brushed him off. He turned to Splint.

"Your knee's pretty badly busted up. What happened, young lady?" He wondered.

"You don't wanna know. But I can tell that you do wanna know my name, I'm Splint." The man gave her a questioning expression. "Real name?"

Splint suddenly remembered that 'Splint' wasn't her real name, a fact she usually forgot.

"Oh yeah- uh.. I'm Jessie Ross. I forget my birth name a lot." She timidly said, embarrassed. He went right to Gold. And I prayed to no one in particular that he either hadn't noticed or forgot about me.