"No."

"What did you say?" Skittery asked, his eyes narrowing menacingly. The new kid sighed, looking away.

"I said no. I don't want to race you," the new kid replied. The new kid's brother, who had recently been dubbed Kid Blink, already stood laughing with a boy named Mush.

"Why not?" Skittery wanted to know.

"Why would you want to race me in the first place?"

"I want to make sure I'm still the fastest newsie in Manhattan," Skittery replied simply. The new kid laughed.

"That's all? All right then, I guess," the new kid said. Skittery smiled.

"Good. From here to Tibby's, where Racetrack is standing. You do know how a race works, right?"

"I'm not stupid," was the new kid's only reply.

"What are ya doin', Joseph?" Kid Blink asked, strolling over to his twin brother, who was bending down to tie a shoe lace.

"Racin'." Blink turned to Skittery.

"You better watch out," he informed the taller boy, "my brother's the fastest kid I know. He'll beat ya for sure." Skittery snorted.

"Right."

Blink agreed to start the race. He held his arm up high, above the heads of Skittery and the new kid. Once his arm came down, the racers were off.

Blink chuckled. There was no way that this Skittery kid was the fastest newsie in Manhattan, his twin must have been at least fifteen feet ahead. His brother kicked up the dust in the streets, and he made his running look so effortless. Joseph, as Blink had called him, had a nice easy stride, with large steps. Skittery, on the other hand, seemed slow and clumsy while running, and he tripped over his own feet twice in the first fifteen seconds of the race. Skittery wasn't in the least bit graceful, unlike the new kid.

The new kid reached Racetrack long before Skittery even jogged around the corner. When Skittery finally came to a halt in front of the new kid, he bent over double, his hands on his knees as he wheezed away. The new kid hadn't even broken into a sweat.

"If you were a horse," Racetrack told the new kid, "I would put all my money on you. I mean, you looked like you were going to take flight."

Flight. And it stuck.From then on, the new kid was known as Flight, and had been given the title of fastest in Manhattan ("And probably everywhere else," Jack Kelly had commented), pushing Skittery to second. He refused to look Flight in the eye for weeks; this had definitely been a major blow to his pride.

Flight and Blink laughed about the race for hours afterwards. No one was certain what was so funny. Blink and Flight had to keep that to themselves.

If anyone knew their secret, or, rather, Flight's, Skittery certainly wouldn't be laughing, and the twins would probably be kicked out of the Manhattan Lodging House for good.

Right now, that didn't matter. They had a new home, a job, friends, and their past was behind them. Life was good, and the other boys never had to know.

This is my first fic, so if you would please review, that would be very much appreciated. I also don't own Newsies (like you couldn't have figured that out).