The Disgraced Newsie( Rewritten)

Chapter 18: Racetrack Higgins' POV/ Albert DaSilva's POV

It just wasn't like Crutchie or JoJo to leave the Lodging House for reasons, other than selling newspapers. I know that they wouldn't dare cross into other newsie boundaries, especially Brooklyn. But even if they wanted to, they would have told someone.

I remember that they would always ask Jack if they could go out for any reason, but at that time, Jack was the leader and everyone trusted him. I can still remember that Crutchie and JoJo were against the fact that I replaced Jack as the leader of the Manhattan Newsies, and that was before Crutchie hated Jack.

Speaking of Jack, despite of what Crutchie told me, I know that it might have something to do with Jack, and he might be in Brooklyn since Crutchie and JoJo would never step into Brooklyn unless they had a reason to, and it seemed that the reason would be Jack.

Of course, when I find him, the first thing that I'm going to do is apologize to him, then I would reinstate him as the leader of the Manhattan Newsies. Jack always knew what to do and I can't think of anyone better for the job than Jack.

"Race, what are you doing?", Finch asked as he walked toward me.

"I'm waiting for Crutchie and JoJo to come home. I think that they might know something about Jack, and maybe Davey might know something about Jack too"

"Why would you care about him? He's a traitor! He sold us out and almost caused us to lose the strike!"

"Finch? Have you ever thought that Jack might have said that speech because he was trying to protect us from something?"

"No, and I don't even care why he said that speech. He's still a traitor". Finch was never the kind of person who would change his mind about anything. Once he was certain about something, he never wanted to hear anything that would argue against his position, just the fact that he could be right.

"Ok, whatever you say"

"You know that I'm right. Anyways, where do you think that traitor is?"

"Why do you want to know? You just said that you didn't care where he was?"

"I know, but I overheard some rumors that Spot Conlon is trying to unite all of the newsies in New York to hurt down Jack and make him pay for his speech at the rally"

"What?! But why would Spot Conlon do that?". Haven't we all hurt Jack enough?

"Because he wanted to talk to him. He heard the news that Jack left the Lodging House, so he wanted him to come to Brooklyn, but knowing how Conlon can be, everyone knew that he wanted to beat him up to teach him a lesson about what happens when you betray the Newsies. Now, Conlon got all of his boys to look for him in Brooklyn, but now, he is trying to get everyone else to look for him"

"So, I'm guessing that he wants us to look for him on our turf?"

"Either that or we let him come into our turf and look for Jack himself, but you're the leader, so it is your call"

I don't know. After how we treated him, I don't want Jack to be hurt by anyone else, especially Spot Conlon, but maybe the search party could help us find him since he won't be able to hide for that long if every newsie in New York is on the search for him.

"Fine, the Brooklyn newsies can look for Jack on our turf, but I want them to turn him over to me, then I will take him to Brooklyn"

"Why?"

"Well... I'm sure that Spot Conlon would want to make sure that Jack would be beaten up properly, which would mean that he would want to do it himself. And I'm certain that Conlon told his newsies that he doesn't want them to beat him up until he got to him first, so I just want to ensure that Jack won't be harmed by the Brooklyn newsies until Conlon can get his hands on him". Ok, that was not that bad of lie.

"Alright, then. So, who is going to Brooklyn to let Conlon that his boys can come into Manhattan to look for Jack?"

"Why don't you tell him? Since you're the one who heard about the rumors?"

"Well... I would, but sometimes that Spot Conlon gets me a little jittery"

"Just do it"

"... Fine. I will be back by tonight"

"Ok". After that, I heard him walk out the front door. I hope that I made the right call. Maybe I can find a way to make sure that Spot won't hurt Jack, but in order to do that, I have to find him before the Brooklyn newsies do.

It is going to be hard, especially since Jack made it clear that he doesn't want to be found, especially by any of us, but I have to try because no matter what, Jack will still be my brother and I have to protect him at all costs.

Albert DaSilva's POV

I can't believe that Spot would want to do that to Jack, and I can't believe that Race would agree to it! I thought that he regretted treating Jack the way that he did, but I guess that I was wrong.

But that is not the main issue right now. How am I supposed to help Jack out when no-one even knows where he is?

Wait. I think that Race mentioned that Crutchie and JoJo were acting suspicious, especially since they would come back later than usual.

JoJo always hated how we treated Jack. And Crutchie, before he found out what Jack said about him, always defended him and would try to stop us from beating him up. Also, those two seemed to care the most when Jack left the Lodging House, so if anyone knew where Jack was, it had to be them.

I don't know how much it would help Jack, but I had to try, especially since I owe him that much after how badly I treated him.

I managed to sneak out of the Lodging House and ran toward the direction that Crutchie and Race would usually head toward.