Destructive - Newsies | Sprace

Two | Race

Racetrack and Jack followed Blink all the way back to the Manhattan Lodging House. As soon as they stepped in, it was obvious something was wrong. All of the newsies were crammed onto the stairwell and through the corridors. Most of them were yelling while others were just frozen in place.

"Quiet!" Jack yelled, trying to grab the attention of all of the newsies.

Most of them fell silent, but a few were still chattering about.

"Who wants to tell me what's going on?!" Jack yelled even louder, causing the remainder of the boys to shut their mouths.

"We don't know what happened!" A voice in the crowd yelled. "He just dropped dead!" The speaker emerged and it was Crutchie- the newsie who earned his nickname for simply having a gimp leg.

"Who did what now?" Race coughed, shocked at what had just come from Crutchie's mouth.

"It's Kloppman!" Crutchie cried out. "He just... died."

"Where is he?" Jack's face dropped.

"In the hallway. Second floor in the dining room." Crutchie said. His tone of voice came off as if he was a young child admitting to his parents that he failed a test.

"Blink! Mush! Skittery! Racetrack, Boots, Crutchie, David! Stay with me! The rest of you, get to your bunks! I don't want to see any of you out of the bedroom for the rest of the night!" Jack instructed, climbing on top of a chair so he could address all of the newsies in the room.

Groans and complaints quickly filled the room. Some of the older newsies yelled that they wanted to see what was going on, while some of the really young boys were scared about what had happened to the lodge owner.

"NOW!" Jack yelled.

All of the boys trudged up the stairs and murmured that they deserved to know what was happening too. Once all of the newsboys had cleared the area, Jack hopped down from his chair and addressed the newsies that he had asked to stay behind.

"Show me where he is," Jack instructed, his voice cold and hard.

Crutchie nodded and made his way over to the stairs, then began to jump up the stairs on his good leg. The rest of the gang followed behind. The stairs creaked as they made their way up, but it was okay because it was their creaking stairs.

Race had never had a home. His parents died when he was fairly young, so he didn't get to experience the luxury of a family for more than a few years- not that he could remember that much. He found the newsies lodge home purely by chance and he's been stuck there ever since. Therefore, the lodging-house had been the only home Race and ever known, leading him to loving every creaky floor board and leaking pipe the building contained.

"It's awful..." Crutchie whispered, pointing to a corner of the dining room where Kloppman was slouching against the wall.

Race went around the thick, wooden table and crouched down near the body of the lodge owner. There was a spilled glass of water next to him, and his eyes were left open.

Racetrack had to glance away for a second. There was an unknown emotion flooding his body- it wasn't quite sadness, but more anger. This man woke them up every morning, he fed them during the holidays and would manage to get them medicine if someone was sick. Now he was dead- who allowed this? What happened to him? How did he die?

"Race, you good?" Mush came up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder.

Race nodded his head and shoved his cigar back into his mouth.

"What happened? Does anyone know?" Jack asked, stepping over to where Race and Mush were.

Crutchie just shook his head.

Skittery decided to chip in though, "I heard the glass fall. I was with Blink and we was passin' by. When he came in he was already gone."

"Yeah! Then Blink comes flying down the stairs and I tried to chase after him with his coat 'cause he was gonna freeze to death out there, and then the other boys started flooding the hall and things got real messy." Boots called out.

"What are we gonna do, Jack? If someone finds out we ain't bein' watched by nobody things could get bad." Mush stated, looking over at Jack.

"They could split us up if they can't find someone to watch over the place! We'd all have to go to different lodging homes!" Crutchie gasped.

"We can take care of ourselves, cain't we? We ain't babies." Blink folded his arms.

"But Christmas is a few weeks away! Kloppman always provided the food for everyone! Now we're going to have newsies flocking here with no feast to give them!" Boots exclaimed.

Suddenly everyone in the room started yelling over each other and Race quickly lost track of who was saying what.

"How we'se gonna wake up in the mornin'?"

"Can't we just hide the body?"

"Romeo and Specs are laid up, sick! How are we supposed to afford any sort o' medicine?!"

"If we take 'em to the coppers they'se gonna think we killed 'em!"

"Hey, shut up! Just, everyone pipe down, alright?" Jack yelled, gaining control of the room once again. "I need serious ideas."

"We should go to the police. Or, at least someone of authority." David stated as if it was the obvious answer. Which, in the end, was indeed the obvious answer.

"Well, like Blink said we can take care of ourselves. Let's just hide him." Race offered what he thought was a good idea, but it was clear no one liked his plan.

"We should hold a proper funeral," Crutchie suggested.

Not that they had the money to spare for a funeral.

"Well, we could always plant him somewhere and wait for someone else to find 'em. Then it'll be their problem." Blink said.

The energy in the room changed very quickly and everyone's heads turned towards Blink. He glared back at them all through his one eye, probably confused about why they were all looking at him.

"That... that ain't a half-bad idea." Jack admitted.

Blink let a smug smile settle on his lips and his face beamed with pride. It was strange because while Blink looked as if he had just won a bet, there was still a dead body in the room. Race rolled his eyes, but hey, they didn't have too many options.

"Blink, stay behind. I want to rest of you to head to the bedroom. Don't tell anyone else what's happening, I'll deal with that. Try to make sure the younger ones don't hear anything graphic." Jack explained.

Race finally stood up from his spot near the body and made his way towards the staircase, where he climbed up another floor to the third floor. The third floor is where the majority of the bunks were. Some of the newsies were already on their beds while others sat in clusters on the little floor space the room had to offer. As Race and the others entered the room, everyone started to bombard them with questions.

Race managed to slip out of the main crowd and hoist himself up to his bunk. He dropped his cigar into the small tin container on the table beside and then stared up at the ceiling as the other newsie's voices rang throughout the bedroom. 

-1235 Words-