After they were let in, the Hearst siblings were shepherded over to Sniper’s bunk, and the newsies quickly crowded around them. The room fell practically silent once again, only this time the silence lasted for much longer than a few seconds.

Romeo was the one to break the silence. “So wait, what's goin’ on?” he asked as he leaned against a nearby bunk, voicing the confusion that everyone else had.

Once he was prompted by the twins, Bill retrieved the letter from inside his suit jacket. “Our mother has been writing to an old friend, who operates a boarding school in Boston. According to this letter, she had asked whether there was space for my sisters to attend, and apparently there is. From what I overheard this morning, it sounds like my parents are going to send them.” He held the letter out to show whoever felt like reading it.

Jack snatched the letter from Bill and started to read it, with Crutchie and Sniper trying to read over his shoulder. Crutchie was tall enough to somewhat make it work, but Sniper could barely see anything.

While they read, Elizabeth spoke up. “We clearly don’t want to leave New York. It’s the only home we’ve ever known. So, we were hoping that we could stay here until this all calms down, if it does.”

Initially, nobody replied. Jack was still reading the letter, and clearly the rest of the newsies were waiting for him to give his response. After all, Jack was still the leader, so his opinion mattered quite a bit. “Okay, this lady doesn’t understand nothin’ about what happened here,” he commented, breaking the silence as he gestured to the letter. “But anyway, we do have two beds in the back open. Technically, we all rent ‘em for a little cut of our earnings every day-”

“We can handle that,” Rebecca interrupted, grinning. “We can use our profits to pay for the beds each night too.”

Finch tilted his head slightly, looking at the girls. “Are you sayin’ what I think youse sayin’?”

“Hey, I’ve wanted to try and be a newsie since before the strike, so it’s the perfect opportunity to stay away from our parents and try something new,” Rebecca replied. Her answer received quite a few cheers from the surrounding boys.

“So, how much is a night’s rent here for the two of them? I snuck some money from our father’s wallet to pay for whatever they needed to start off,” Bill stated as he took the letter back from Jack.

“Not much,” Specs explained, “since the people who run this place are pretty fair to us. I’ll help ya get it taken care of.” With that, he led Bill away to get everything straightened out for the girls. Bill clearly had a lot of questions, so Specs was hopefully going to be able to answer every one of them.

This left the girls with the rest of the newsies. “So, youse finally gonna be newsies, huh?” Race asked the girls as he twirled an unlit cigar between his fingers.

Elizabeth nodded with a smile and said, “Looks like it.”

Sniper sat down between the two girls, looking between them with a sweet smile on his face. “Well, if youse gonna be newsies now, you gotta have names now, don’t ya?”

“If you insist,” Elizabeth stated, though she and her sister were fairly excited to join the ranks. Finally, they were going to be part of the family.

“Well, we ain’t gonna give you your names now. They gotta come naturally, out of the blue almost,” Sniper explained.

The rest of the newsies all nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it’s like they just happen,” Buttons commented. “Someone just calls out to ya with the name, and if it sticks, that’s it.”

“Then what was the point of making us excited, if you’re not going to give us our names now?” Rebecca asked, crossing her arms as she looked at the newsies’ faces.

Sniper just smiled. “‘Cause it’s fun, and you gotta know what’s comin’.”

Rebecca rolled her eyes, but a smile formed on her lips nonetheless. “Alright, alright. So where are we sleeping then? It’s been a long day, and we want to get settled in if it’s not too much trouble.”

It was Crutchie’s turn to speak up. “I’ll show you,” he told them and hobbled off into the back corner of the lodging house, followed by the girls with their little bags.

The empty bunk was the last one in the place, and it happened to be in the cleanest part of the lodging house. That wasn’t saying much, but for the girls who had lived in luxury for their entire life, it was blatantly noticeable. There wasn’t much there, save for some flat pillows and sheets with very low thread counts, but the girls didn’t think they’d mind.

“Well, here ya go. It’s probably not much to youse, but it’s all we got,” Crutchie announced, gesturing to the bunk.

Elizabeth smiled and sat down on the bottom bunk. “It’s perfect, Crutchie. Thank you,” she said and started to unpack her things from her bag.

Rebecca nodded in agreement. “I’ve always wanted a bunk bed,” she added, “so this will be fun!” The young girl joined her sister on the bed and started to unpack a little bit as well.

Crutchie nodded. He felt like he should let them unpack in peace, but he also wanted to talk to them, particularly Elizabeth. After what happened at the last read aloud, there was so much he wanted to talk about. He knew that nothing had really happened, but he felt like something would have if her father hadn’t shown up right when he was going to tell her his feelings. Crutchie felt his feelings needed to be addressed, even if there was the possibility she didn't feel the same way. However, the perfect words eluded him for a while as the girls settled in with soft chatter, so he just stood there, trying to figure everything out.

Finally, Elizabeth looked up as she retrieved her copy of Treasure Island from her bag, bookmarked at the last chapter they read. “Do you need anything, Crutchie?”

“I, uh, well,” he started, “I’m glad youse gonna stick around.” He desperately wanted to say more, to tell her what was on his mind, but something in him said it wasn't the right time.

Besides, the smile that he received from the girl was all the response he needed. It was also all he got, because that was when Bill returned and started explaining everything the girls needed to know. “Alright, I’ve paid for your board for a week so you don’t have to worry about it,” their brother declared as he came over to their beds. “It was as much as they’d let me pay in advance, though, so when you start selling tomorrow, you’re going to need to start thinking about paying for each night. I’d come and pay for each week, but then our parents might start getting suspicious, and I don’t want you to get caught.”

Crutchie hobbled away from the family conversation as Rebecca replied, “We understand. We’re just grateful you told us about the plan and helped us out.”

Bill leaned against the bedpost and commented, “What kind of brother would I be if I didn’t help you out?”

Elizabeth laughed and shrugged as she retrieved a hat Bill had found for her. “I don’t know, but we really appreciate it,” she replied.

“Eliza, do you have your medicine and the book?” When his sister nodded, he continued, “Okay, good. Darcy and I will try and check up on you as much as we possibly can. Let me know if you need anything, like fabric for clothes or extra money.”

“That’ll look suspicious. Besides, we’ll be fine, mother,” Rebecca teased and stood up to give her brother a hug. “Thank you.”

When Rebecca let go of him, Elizabeth did the same thing, being careful not to do anything crazy with her injured arm. “This Sunday, can you let the kids know to come meet by the statue in the square rather than our doorstep?” she requested. “I don’t want to stop reading to the kids, but I can’t do it back home.”

“Consider it done,” Bill assured her as they embraced. “Sleep tight, okay?”

“We will. Goodnight, Bill.”

“Goodnight, Bill. Thanks for everything,” Rebecca added with a smile as she tucked her bag under the bunk bed.

“It’s not a problem, you two. Goodnight.” With that, the young man left the lodging house after offering his thanks to the other newsies, leaving the girls safe and sound in their new home.

*****

The twins stayed up a little while to try and sew some more clothes, since they knew their parents would track them down almost immediately if they wore their normal clothes. Plus, the boys were still wide awake and goofing off all around them, so they weren’t going to get much sleep until they finally settled down. Bill had given them some fabric for the purpose of making some clothes, having placed them in the bags while the girls had packed. They managed to complete a shirt and pants set for Elizabeth before the rest of the newsies settled down for bed, so they had at least enough to work with for tomorrow.

Surprisingly, the girls slept well that night, despite the scratchy sheets. The two of them were pretty tired after what had happened that day, with all the stress they had felt. So, as soon as they laid down in their bed in the relative quiet, they were actually able to sleep. They felt pretty prepared for what they would be facing that day.

They were wrong.

A bell started to lull them out of their dreams that morning, but it was Jack’s commanding voice that really woke them up. The girls shot awake when they heard him loudly call, “Hey all youse! Get a move on! Them papes don’t sell themselves!” It sounded like he was in the room with them, but as they departed their beds, they realized that he was still up in his penthouse and was calling down the stairs.

The boys around them were running around, getting dressed and trying to clean themselves up, and Rebecca and Elizabeth were just standing in the midst of the commotion, watching it all play out. They clutched their hand-sewn clothing to their chests and listened as they tried to figure out where they could slip in and get ready without being seen in an indecent state.

Romeo noticed their reactions to everything as he ran between his bunk and the bathroom. He skidded to a halt while he placed his cap atop his head. “Uh,” he started, “are youse gonna get ready, or are ya just gonna stand there?”

Elizabeth glanced around, then inquired, “Is there an open bath?”

This got the attention of Race, who was strolling back to his bunk to pick up his newspaper bag. He couldn’t help laughing. “Yeah, there’s an open bath, but you don’t got time for it. Youse gonna need to be down at the distribution line soon so you can get on the streets fast.”

“Do you boys just not take baths or something?” Rebecca asked.

“Only when we’s goin’ to surprise our folks, if we’s got some,” Race explained. “Now get your clothes on and get your things. The nuns got our food outside. It tastes betta when it’s kinda warm.” With that, he grabbed his bag and a cigar and dashed out the door, followed by Romeo and the mob of other newsies.

With an almost empty room, the girls shrugged and quickly dressed in the corner, hoping to keep at least a little bit of dignity while the other newsies ran around. After tucking their hair up into the hats from Bill and tying their shoes, they exited the lodging house.

Jack was waiting for them outside, clutching a small cup of coffee in one hand and two ratty newspaper bags in the other. The rest of the newsies were in the process of getting their breakfast from the nuns, with only a few still getting theirs. “You two might wanna go get your food. It ain’t the best, but it’ll keep ya from goin’ hungry today.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Rebecca declared confidently and strolled over to the nuns, getting in line with her sister right behind her. After the nuns passed them their biscuits and cups of coffee, they returned to where Jack was waiting, with Crutchie at his side. She took a sip of the coffee when she reached the pair of boys, only to almost spit it back into the cup. “What is this?”

The two boys laughed. Crutchie shifted slightly on his good foot and replied, “It’s coffee.”

After Elizabeth took a sip and had a similar reaction to the curdled drink, she commented, “Well, I wasn’t a big fan of coffee in general, but if it’s what we’ve got…” With that, she started to nibble on her biscuit to try and get a little bit of nutrition into her body. Then again, these biscuits were like hardtack. Was there really any nutrition in it at all?

“That’s the spirit,” Jack said and held out the bags for them. “Time ta get a move on, though. Papes don’t sell themselves, and you gotta learn how to sell.”

The girls slung the bags over their shoulders and nodded, trying their best to finish their meals. “So, what do we need to know?” Rebecca questioned.

Crutchie smiled. “It’s easier to explain while we sell. Just make sure to make the headline interesting,” he told them as he and Jack turned to leave.

“So we lie?” Elizabeth asked, tilting her head slightly.

He looked back in her direction and shrugged slightly. “If ya hafta.”

“It’s betta to sell a pape with a lie than sell nothin’ and starve,” Jack told them, and the two of them started off towards the distribution center.

The twins looked at each other with matching expressions. This certainly was going to be different than they expected. But, it was better than letting their parents win. With one last sip of the curdled coffee, they followed their friends to the distribution center to give this a shot.

*****

A/N Hey everyone! Sorry this chapter took so long. School and other things got in the way of writing. I'll try to get the next chapter out more quickly next update.

I do have a request from you guys though. Any suggestions for some potential newsie names, particularly for Rebecca? I've been trying to figure out what I wanted to use for her since I started writing the book and nothing has come to me. Elizabeth's is pretty set in stone in my mind, but Rebecca's is still up in the air.

Please give some suggestions if you have any, and don't forget to vote and comment! Thanks so much for reading, and I'll see you next update!