Hello there again! TNE is here again! And it's time for our favorite kid, Les, to shine!
September 23rd 2005, 2:45 PM
Les lied on the couch, unsure what to do. In one afternoon, one sentence and one car ride home, his world was flipped upside down. Or rather, it was flipped sideways. Not everything had changed. He still had his siblings, the family apartment, and worst of all, school was still a thing he had to attend. What actually would change was his free time. Getting a job was nothing he had ever imagined doing at nine years of age, yet here he was, waiting for his brother to finish his research about what newspapers needed more teenagers and kids to sell their papers. His father was at the hospital with a serious leg injury, his mother was crying in the kitchen and Sarah was off talking to her older friend, Morgan, who owned a shop. Things were changing rapidly.
The fact that made the situation even more infuriating was that Mr. Jacobs had been planning on leaving his job as a vehicle mechanic in the very near future. He had a better job waiting for him, and was going to quit his current one. Now they were going to fire him because he couldn't work with that leg. His mom hadn't said it directly, but Les could figure out on his own that one couldn't repair cars and trucks with a severely damaged leg. Thinking about this, he crossed his arms demonstratively.
"Calm down, I'm gettin' somewhere," said David, who had noticed Les' action, and wrongly assumed it was to demonstrate that he was bored of David's research.
"So what have you got?" Les asked, deciding to not point out David's mistake. He sat up on the couch.
"Well, pretty much every paper needs more kids to sell their newspapers," David started clicking things on the family computer. He was probably showing some things Les couldn't see from his place on the couch. "The Sun, The World, The Tribune, The Journal..."
"So which one do we go for?"
"I'd probably say The World. They've got the biggest circulation, so we'd earn the most there."
"Doesn't that mean that's where there's the most kids sell?"
"So?" David sounded confused.
"It'll be harder to find people to sell to, won't it?"
"Or maybe the other kids will help us out."
Les secretly thought that assuming that was quite stupid, but decided not to mention it. He didn't care that much about where they would sell papers.
"I'm gonna see with mom when she thinks we should start sellin'," David announced, proceeding to stand up and leave the room, and the computer unattended. This of course left Les no other option than to go there and check it out.
A very boring-looking page rested on the screen. It was all white background and black text. The only thing sticking out was a picture of a strict and unpleasant-looking man. Les guessed this was Joseph Pulitzer, the newspaper owner that the text next to the picture told Les about. Scrolling up and down the page, it became more and more obvious that new newsboys really were needed. Mrs. Jacobs hadn't lied about the headlines being tedious. Les would actually have liked to take it a step further, and call them painfully boring. Half of them spoke about the city's current bus strike, with headlines like "Bus strike still going!", "Bus strike reaches second week!" and "Bus strike drags on." Who came up with those?
Other than dull headlines and pointless facts about the newspaper owner, the website told Les that the paper currently had nineteen of what they called newsies, and that more help was always wanted. Perhaps selling for this paper wouldn't be too bad.
"She says we can start anytime from tomorrow and onwards," said David, who now came back into the room. "If dad gets laid off."
David's amount of naivety was sort of foolish. This was another thing Les neglected to say out loud.
"So what do you say we start tomorrow?" David suggested. Right off the bat assuming that they were gonna need to become newsies was apparently a thing he had to do now.
"Sounds great."
"At noon?"
"I'm gonna hang out with Sally at noon."
"We can't show up too late," David's eyes fixed on a spot, his mind considering his options. "Would you mind skipping your play-date?"
Les made a sound of "I-don't-want-that-at-all", and cringed at Davey's use of the word "play-date".
"Why can't we just get there late?" he asked.
"Because we'll want to make a good impression."
"Don't you know those guys from your school?" Les tilted his head.
"Yes, but I haven't talked to them before," David shook his head.
"Why can't I go on my own later then?"
"Because you don't know how that job works."
Les rolled his eyes dramatically. Why must his brother be a rule-follower, with no exceptions whatsoever?
"Fine. I'll skip hanging out with Sally," Les surrendered, but not happily so.
"Good," Davey said, and Les would very much have liked to slap him.
"So... Do we need to sign up or somethin', or so we just show up and tell them that we're gonna sell papers now?" he said instead of opting for the more violent choice.
"I'm not sure. I'll look it up," David spun around in the chair and started typing and reading things again. Les fell back onto the couch.
So this would be interesting. Walking around the streets after school and selling papers to unsuspecting victims. His mother and father had been such victims a few times when Les was with them. Once or twice, they had bought a paper from the persuasive boys. Les could remember a few of them. His memory was quite good.
There had been one boy with very red hair, whose accent was so thick, and whose grammar was so bad that Les had trouble understanding him.
Once they'd bought a paper from a boy who looked like he was trouble looking them in the eye. His eyes never quite found the exact right spot.
They'd also bought a newspaper from a girl who was almost as short as Les. She'd been really loud.
One of the more remarkable moments involved the redhead and a blonde boy with a cigar in his mouth. They were chuckling on the other side of the street while a boy with only one vest button sold the Jacobses a paper.
The only time they'd actually walked up to a newsie to buy a paper because they really wanted to was when an older boy had shouted out a sublime headline. Les' mother had not been able to find it anywhere in the newspaper.
Recalling these memories, Les became quite excited to start selling these stories. If he was going to get to know the girl and the boys he'd encountered in the city, it couldn't be anything but fun. They sure seemed like they were having a blast on the dirty streets. They were also older than most people Les had the ability of meeting on a daily basis. Fifth graders weren't much fun for the most part. Terribly immature. Les couldn't call himself 100% mature, but he'd like to think that he was more on a teenager's level than a ten-year-old's.
"I think we just show up," David said after a while's reading. "We go to their circulation gate, and Arnold Wiesel reports to the newspaper owner how many newsies showed up and how many papers each one bought."
"So we're pretty much newsies now?" Les asked.
"Just by sayin' so..." David confirmed.
"Fun!" Les exclaimed.
"Let's hope."
His smile immediately turned upside down when David did what he was best at: ruin the mood by being a realist.
"I'm gonna get an apple," Les said, frowning at David for ruining his mood.
While David kept reading The World's website, Les rounded a corner and entered the kitchen. Mrs. Jacobs was still sat on a stool by the counter, exactly where Les had seen her last. She had several notebooks, old receipts and other papers in front of her on the counter. At a quick glance, Les caught sight of several numbers and dollar signs on the pages.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Checking our recent expenses," his mother answered quietly. "Seeing what we need to cut down on... or what we can eliminate entirely," she added the last part warily.
Les couldn't respond to that. Things were getting more serious by the hour. His mom had said that they'd have to cut down on stuff, and Les had known that it was true. Now that she was actually checking what they would skip buying, it was so much more serious.
When Les opened the fridge door to get his apple, half of the things in there might as well have had bright red signs on them saying "no more of this!" Les' favorite orange juice was an example. There was no way that was considered important enough to stay.
Now that he had the apple, he didn't really want it anymore. Maybe his whole reason for getting it was to escape the enclosure of serious truth that was his and Davey's room. That hadn't worked out too well. Les shot Mrs. Jacobs' papers on the counter a dagger look.
"How are we gonna get to places without the car?" Les asked, getting onto the stool next to his mother's. He put the apple on the counter, unsure if it would ever be eaten.
"Buses, bikes, walking," Mrs. Jacobs listed.
"Not buses. The strike," Les reminded her.
"Right..."
"And how am I gonna walk to school? It's ten minutes away in the car."
"You're gonna have to get up earlier."
Les made a noise of displeasure and squirmed on his stool.
"What if we have to go somewhere and it's too far to walk?" he said.
"Les," Mrs. Jacobs sighed. "Could you... ask Dave if he'd be okay with us only buying white bread?"
"Yeah sure," Les said, not detecting that this was an attempt to stop him from asking more questions.
He was going to complete the task he was given, but right as he jumped off the stool, the sound of the front door opening redirected his attention to the hall.
"I'm back!" Sarah shouted, having not noticed her mother and brother in the kitchen.
"Did you get the job?" Mrs. Jacobs asked immediately. It was very unlike her to not greet her daughter before asking questions. Couldn't things stop getting increasively more real?
"Morgan said I was welcome to try the job out on Monday," Sarah told. "So I'll come home late after school, obviously."
As soon as she had hung her coat on the hanger, she pulled her phone out. Les who'd planned on talking to her now grabbed his apple instead. When Sarah was texting someone, trying to talk to her was like trying to talk to a wall.
Les spun the apple around in his hand. There wasn't much to look at on it. He really had picked a perfect apple. How could there not be one bruise? His thoughts about the apple were interrupted by a giggle from Sarah.
"I'm going to Tom," she said, still a goofy smile on her face.
"You mean your boyfriend?" Les enunciated the last word very clearly.
"He's not my boyfriend," Sarah said tetchily.
"Yeah, he's just a guy you talk to a lot, talk about a lot, giggle while you text, see all the time..." Les counted on his fingers.
"Like that Sally of yours?" Sarah said, turning her head back to smirk at Les.
Les stuck out his tongue at his sister when she left. Never before had he seen anybody enter and exit their home so fast. It was as if she'd come in just to establish that she had a friend named Tom. Les shook his head.
"Tom is Sarah's boyfriend, isn't he?" Les asked his mother, wishing for someone else to say that they recognized the obvious.
"Les, please go ask Dave," she answered.
"Fine."
With that irritable response, Les left the kitchen.
Who is this mysterious Tom? Whoever could it be?
Maybe leave a comment and answer this impossible question...