Oscar woke up when the early New York sun hit it's usual 6:30 angle: shining straight through the slightly warped glass in the center window in the upper story of the Newsboy's Lodging House, onto the pillow of one of the lower bunks--right into his eyes. As annoying as it was when a late night out had led to less sleep, Oscar usually didn't mind its rays. His previous lodgings, under the Manhattan selling office of the "New York World", hadn't had any windows, and Oscar was slow to forget that. The early light may have gotten him up a few minutes earlier, but it was a tangible reminder each morning of his new life, and the new family he had made for himself.

At the moment, his new family was sprawled out over the wooden bunks spaced throughout the room. With the creak of Kloppman's footsteps on the old stairs, many of them instinctively turned their faces into their pillows through their sleep. Kloppman entered the room and woke up Skittery, stuck with the bunk closest to the door long before Oscar came, with his customary slap to Skittery's foot. Groaning, Skittery sat up in bed and began the morning's routine with his half-asleep, near-incoherent mumbling. As Kloppman traveled from bunk to bunk, the newsies slowly dragged themselves to the washroom. Oscar swung his feet out from his bed and stood up, grabbing his shirt from where he had deposited it on a chair the night before. As he stood looking out the window, idly buttoning his shirt, Kid Blink jumped off his upper bunk from across the room and called over to Oscar, " So you gonna get ready or just stand there thinking?"

"Oscar can think?!" Jack asked mock-incredulously as he passed.

Oscar grinned and shot back, "Sure, Cowboy--foreign concept to ya?" as he followed Jack into the washroom. In the rush of combing hair, washing faces, and buttoning clothes, Oscar was quickly swept up into the crowd. He followed down the stairs and into the street, joining in the mad rush through the alleyways towards the selling office. Once there, he waiting, killing time until it was his turn to order his usual 60 papers from the new man working there. He grinned slightly at the Irishman behind the counter, remembering his own long days of lugging stacks of papes through the building. Walking out the gates, Itey jostled his way up to Oscar, grabbing his elbow and asking, " You selling with anyone today?"

"Nah," Oscar answered. "Why?"

"Well-uh," Itey stammered, suddenly uncomfortable. " I gots a few questions about--well, there's this girl--"

Oscar laughed, recognizing the boy's nervousness. " If you want advice from me, fine, but it's not like I know what I'm talking about!" Chuckling, he joined Itey in walking off towards his usual selling corner.

"So how much’d you make?" Itey asked, ambling down the street with Oscar.

"Ah......" Oscar thought, squinting into the slowly deepening twilight. " Dollar nineteen, after the apple."

"Not so much the apple as the apple seller," Itey grinned. " I got ninety- seven cents, so I figure we're set...wanna go to Tibby's?"

"Sounds good to--" Oscar began to reply, but a cane lashing out from the darkness of an adjacent alley knocked the breath out of him, preventing him from finishing his sentence.

"Not him--the other kid!" a voice hissed from the darkness. With a terrified glance back at Oscar and a muffled yell, Itey was dragged into the alley by several large, shadowy figures. Frightened, Oscar stared for a moment, then darted into the alley after his friend. Trying to fight his way to Itey, several restraining hands grabbed him back. Oscar was held, helpless, listening to his friend being beaten. Finally, the hands let go, and the unknown group of men rushed past through a back passageway and vanished. Rushing to Itey, Oscar found him slumped against the ground, grimacing as he rummaged through his pockets.

"You all right?" Oscar asked, skidding to a stop by him.

"Yeah, I guess..." Itey winced. " At least they didn't find my money. You look okay, anyway."

Frowning, Oscar said, "They didn't touch me, Itey."

Squinting up at him, Itey asked, "You got a friend in the Crips?"

"No," Oscar answered. "How come?"

"Ah, I recognized one of the guys," Itey said as Oscar helped him up. Brushing off his clothes, he added, "Crips usually won't touch the relative of a member. So...you wanna head back to Kloppman's?"

"Yeah..." Oscar answered thoughtfully. Smirking, he added, "We probably should. You look kind of beat."

"That was horrible," Itey grinned as the pair began walking.

"Hey, it kinda matches your appearance, then..."

As the two of them walked up the stairs and into the bunkroom, a chorus of shocked statements greeted Itey's battered appearance. Looking at his friends, Oscar realized the night had hidden the worst of Itey's bruises; he had several scratches down his arms and a large purplish bruise forming across his right cheek.

"What happened?" Racetrack asked in shock.

"Couple a' Crips," Itey answered, moving to sit by the perennial card game in the center of the room. " Don't worry, it looks worse than it feels."

"Crips?" Jack frowned, thoughtfully studying Itey. " Why would they have anything to do with us?"

"Yeah," Skittery added. " They haven't done anything to us since the strike."

At that statement, many eyes turned unconsciously to Oscar, remembering the circumstances that led to the Crip's involvement. Feeling their eyes on him, Oscar blushed and shifted uncomfortably, remembering his own involvement.

Seeing Oscar's discomfort, Itey leapt to his defense. " The same creeps that soaked me kept Oscar from helping me."

"So..." Skittery began, puzzled. " Why would they go after Itey? We haven't done anything to them."

"Maybe we could find out," Kid Blink said thoughtfully.

"Oh, sure, Blink," Mush said sarcastically. " What do you think we should do, walk up and ask 'em?"

Seriously!" Blink said over the laughter of the newsies. " I didn't mean like that. But if we could listen in on them somehow..."

"But how'd we do that?" Jack asked as Kid Blink trailed off.

"I might know," a young newsie said bravely. Turning, the newsies say an Italian boy, around ten, who had joined them only a few weeks ago. " Um..." the boy continued, slightly nervous with all the sudden attention. " My father's in the Crips, and they used to hang around our house all the time."

"Any way we could get close enough to hear them without being seen?" Jack asked.

"Yeah," the boy said. " My apartment's on the ground floor, and the one above us had a fire a few years before we moved in...It's been empty for years."

"All right," Jack exhaled, standing up. " I guess Oscar, Blink, Race, and um..."

"Sniffer,"" the young newsie supplied.

"Yeah, Sniffer," Jack grinned. " We're gonna get up into the house. A few of you hang around outside--play cards or something--so we got some help f we need it."

"Can do," Skittery grinned, standing up with a few of the other newsies.

"All right, then--lead the way, Sniffer!" Jack said. SO Sniffer, probably the proudest he had ever been, led the group of newsies downstairs and into the foggy New York air.

About an hour later, Racetrack was trying to stretch silently in a husk of a building. Jack was sitting precariously on an ancient crate in the corner, and Oscar and Blink were crouching by opposite walls in the room. Sniffer was sitting next to Jack with a look of adoration on his face. All of them were carefully avoiding being visible in the small hole in the middle of the floor. The charred gap, with the spider web of cracks lacing the burnt boards around it, looked down directly into what passed as a family room, dining room, and kitchen in the cramped apartment below. For the last 45 minutes, the group of boys had been waiting silently, listening to the few men downstairs talking about everything, it seemed, *except* what the newsies had come to find out. Just as Racetrack stifled a yawn, however, the door downstairs crashed open and they heard several heavy footsteps, along with gruff chatter. Oscar stiffened as he heard a familiar voice among them, and glanced at his friends to see if they had noticed it. Sure enough, in the hole in the floor, Morace Delancy was seen, sitting and greeting the men at the table.

"So how'd your little visit go?" a grizzled man with bloodshot eyes asked.

"Fine," one of the men who had just arrived answered, pulling a pewter flask from a pocket. " Not that some scrawny spick and his boyfriend would've been a problem."

"Hey, shut your mouth, ya shit," Morace said absentmindedly. " That's my brother you're talking about--and he's *not* gonna be around them much longer."

Oscar stared, wide-eyed, at his friends, full of anger and guilt. Seeing his stricken expression, Racetrack mouthed at Oscar. Oscar, uncomprehending, shrugged at Race. Race glanced down, then beckoned to Oscar as he began to carefully step towards him. Unfortunately, a misplaced foot caused Race to teeter wildly towards the gap in the floor. Twisting as he fell, Racetrack landed lightly on his hand and knees--but not lightly enough. The floor underneath him, worn by fire and years of decay, splintered apart, showering the room below with charred boards, dust...and Racetrack. Crashing onto the table, he quickly rolled away and landed in the corner. Without thinking, Oscar jumped through after his friend, followed by the other newsies.

" Uh....nice skylight!" Kid Blink babbled, grinning wildly. Seeing several of the men reaching for chains or brass knuckles, he turned and yelled " HEY SKITTERY!". Jack ducked under a man's arm as he swung as Skittery and the other newsies rushed through the door, and the fight was on.

Oscar had been in fights with the newsies before--on their side or against them--and he knew they could probably handle themselves. He turned and swung at a man with broken blood vessels on his face identifying his as a serious alcoholic. The man dodged the blow, but refused to take a clear shot at Oscar, turning instead to help a friend pinned by Mush. As Oscar fought through the crowd of scuffling bodies, he realized that no one would hit him. Realizing that that was probably Morace's doing--along with everything else--Oscar searched until he saw his brother slipping out the door. Oscar followed, reaching his brother as Morace ran towards the corner of the block. Grabbing him and spinning him to face him, Oscar asked angrily, " What the hell're you doing?!"

"Could ask you that--hanging around with them," Morace sneered.

"They're my friends, Morace," Oscar glared back. " And I don't even see what your problem with them is, anyway."

"Does it matter?" Morace asked.

"Yeah," Oscar answered. " It does. I just--I don't see why you did all that."

Morace sighed, calming down. " I didn't like you hanging around them. Thought you'd leave."

"So you got in with the *Crips*?!" Oscar said. " Look--I'm doing what I want. And if you have a problem--"

"Fine!" Morace snapped. " Fine, but when they drop you, don't come whining to me about it--won't even be here."

Oscar watched him walk away, unsure of what was happening. Morace shot over his shoulder, " If ya change your mind, I'll be in Jersey somewheres. If *you* want to waster your life--". And with that, he vanished around the corner.

Hearing a thunder of feet behind him, Oscar turned and saw several men running away from the small crowd of newsies on their heels.

"Won't they come back?" Oscar asked Jack, one of the last people out of the house.

"Nah," Jack answered as he trotted after the crowd. " If Morace was the one who put them up to it, they won't make it a big deal Besides, we owed them that from the strike."

Walking up to him, Kid Blink asked, " So--what happened with Morace?"

"Aah...." Oscar said softly. " He left. I don't think he's a problem anymore."

Blink looked at him silently, recognizing the hurt on Oscar's face. " Don't worry about it, Oscar..." he said, not knowing what to do.

"Hey Oscar!" Bumlets yelled from the group, ending the awkwardness of the moment. " You coming? We're going to Tibby's for a victory feast--one of the Crips dropped his wallet!"

Grinning, Blink and Oscar looked at each other; then calling back " On our way!", ran up to join their friends--and, for many of them, including Oscar, what was also their family.

THE END

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