Guess what, guys? I don't own Newsies! The Man (who goes under the alias of Disney) owns Newsies. Any character not in the 1992 movie is mine, unless specifically stated. Also, this story will include more about Newsies later. Just not now. I also admit that Slip is kinda like Two-Bit from The Outsiders which I do not own, because S.E. Hinton does for she wrote it. (For those of you who haven't read the book, Two-Bit is a wisecracker with very sticky fingers.) I don't own the trademark Apple iPods. "Eye of the Tiger" is a song by the band Survivor. Also, Slip in a few of my other stories was female, but this Slip is male.

For Beth.

Chapter One-

I sat at the edge of the docks, dangling my feet in the water.

This was my thought spot: the docks. I loved the docks. Well, every Brooklyn kid loves the docks, but, I loved them differently than most Brooklyn kids.

Not like I'm saying I'm special or something.

Just different.

My friend Spades tells me that all the time... just in less delicate terms.

"You're crazy, Scratch, ya know that?"

I heard the words laced heavily with a thick Manhatten accent play through my head.

"Yeah, crazy as you, you lunatic Italian spaghetti-eater you."

That was my retort that cold New York January morning, as we walked in our neat little forest-green and royal blue plaid skirts, with matching forest green blazers and white knee-length socks to our sheltered little Roman Catholic school in Manhatten.

"Shut it, Scratch."

"Well, who's the one who walks to Brooklyn every morning at five am with her brother to meet me, just to walk back to Manhatten again?"

"Me."

"Precisely."

I looked up at the setting sun. The smog of our great city enhanced the reds and golds and oranges.

Then I saw the little purple. That must be a cloud of angels.

At least that's what my mother used to say. That the little bit of purple in a sunset are just angels checking up on things through a screen of purple cloud-cover.

My mother was an avid beliver of angels.

At school, we sit in our perfectly starched uniforms and listen to the teachers tell us about angels -- how God made every one of us an angel to protect and guide us...

Our guardian angel.

I still think about that. How, in any room you are in, there is an angel with you.

Your angel.

And, how, here, in New York City, there are millions of angels.