It was cold. The air, frigid and crisp, cut through the alley and Kid Blink shivered. He'd gone out onto the fire escape to get away for a few minutes. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy what was going on inside. Thanksgiving and Christmas, they were the two days that all the newsboys made sure they had dinner at the lodging house. They were the only two days that there was guaranteed to be something worth eating. Some of the younger boys had started helping Kloppman in the kitchen, knowing that in the past few years his heath had taken a turn for the worse and he tended to need them there.

After taking a long drag off his cigarette, Blink flicked the ash off the end and watched it fall to the ground below him. This was one of those days that got him thinking more than he liked. Everyone inside was talking about what they were thankful for, and he'd just had to leave. There was so much they had going against them. Most of them were orphans, or as well as orphans, and they kept a job that barely gave them two nickels to rub together at the end of the day. The lodging house was growing more crowded each day, and with the cold weather there was bound to be more illness than usual. Last year, a boy named Cricket had died, thanks to the weather and his lack of money to put a decent coat on his back or shoes on his feet.

And yet there they all were, sitting around a table, feasting on chicken and potatoes and talking about how thankful they were.

Of course he had things he was thankful for. He had gotten away from Staten Island with his life intact, a chip on his shoulder, and enough money to keep himself going for a good while. Not that he let anyone know about any of that. He was more than happy to live a quiet existence in a lodging house, working for pennies selling newspapers. Just being another nameless kid in the street worked well for him. It kept him alive, kept him safe.

Maybe that was what he was most thankful for. The anonymity of being just another newsboy wandering the streets of the city. That he had been taken in, bruised and bleeding, with practically no questions asked. That he had been there for a little over a year and had managed to completely avoid anything having to do with his old life. There were people there who were his friends, who he felt like he could actually count on and trust, and he wasn't worried about them stabbing him in the back - literally or otherwise.

"Hey Kid, you coming back?" Mush's voice broke through his thoughts, and Blink didn't know how long he'd been standing there behind him. It didn't matter. He'd just been standing there, leaning on the railing, his cigarette dangling from his fingers and slowly burning down, just lost in his own mind.

"I'll be in soon." He glanced back at his friend, giving him a hint of a smile. Mush returned it, though his was more convincing, and he disappeared back through the open window. Even up there on the second floor, he could hear the laughter coming from the dinner. He raised the cigarette to his lips again and closed his eyes, little bits of conversation coming through the laughter.

Despite everything, despite it all, everyone was just so happy. He wanted to be able to be like that, to be able to forget everything in reality for a day and just live in the moment, thankful for all the little things. As hard as he tried, he just kept coming back to the truth. But as much as he could, especially that day, he was going to try and focus on what he had going for him. Food, friends, a roof over his head, clothes on his back, and money in his pocket. Those were all things to be thankful for indeed. So he kept repeating them over and over in his mind, as he flicked the butt of his cigarette down to the street and ducked back in through the window, going back down into the fray and joining in the thanks being given around the table.