Maggie sighed. She only vaguely remembered the old country house she had lived in with her parents, but what little Maggie did remember, she missed.

"Thinkin’ hard," Mush teased, seeing the glazed look on Maggie’s face.

"Yeah, I just… hey!"

Mush laughed. "Sorry, ya kinda set yourself up for dat one."

"Oh be quiet," Maggie pouted. "So is there anywhere around here that isn’t all smoky and surrounded by buildings?"

"Well, kinda. You’d hafta leave the city to find places like that," he answered, giving her an odd look. "Why d’ya ask?"

"Oh, no reason. I just have this memory of being in the country when I was younger. So I was just wondering."

"Um, okay. So ya ready ta go?"

Maggie smiled. "Sure."

"Heya Kloppy," Mush said as he and Maggie walked in the door. Mush was carrying a small, brown paper bag at his side, low enough so that Kloppman couldn’t see it. As he and Maggie walked past, they both tried to keep a straight face and not laugh.

"Hello Mush, Maggie," Kloppman said, peering at their faces. "What are you two doing back so early?"

Maggie laughed. "Oh, we just have to do something real quick." She and Mush hurried up the stairs and into the bunkroom.

"Full house, boys," Race announced, throwing the cards down. "Uh, and girl," he added after getting a look from Alex. He pulled the pile of coins to his large stack of money and grabbed the cards, shuffling them expertly. "So who’s in?"

Jack stood up. "I’m done for tonight Race. If I keep playin’ with you, I’m gonna be broke." he leaned over and picked up the small amount of money he had left. "Personally, I’m goin’ ta bed."

As if this was a signal, most of the other newsies in the room stopped what they’d been doing, and started to get ready for bed. Mush looked across the room at Maggie, and both got up quickly, trying to leave the room without being noticed.

"G’night Mush and Maggie," Alex yelled at them as they got to the door.

"So much for a quiet exit," Maggie said under her breath to Mush. Then, as an afterthought, added, "good-night Alex." She and Mush walked out of the bunkroom and stood on the other side of the wall, with their ears up against it so they could hear better.

But with the noise Jack made, they really hadn’t needed to be touching the wall to hear. As Jack slid between the sheets, his feet hit something, and he jumped out of bed, yelling, and hit his head on the ceiling.

Mush and Maggie started laughing, and Jack heard them. "Mush! What da hell did ya do ta my bed?" he yelled at the top of his lungs, rubbing his head and wiping off his feet.

Kloppman walked into the room behind Mush and Maggie. "Now what’s going on boys," he asked. Maggie giggled.

"Dey put something in my bed, Kloppy," Jack answered, shooting a glare at the two. "What is it? I don’t even know what you put there."

"Well, ya know dat market down on Second street," Mush said, grinning. Jack nodded, and he continued. "So they sell all sorts ‘a stuff… vegetables, bread… da insides of a chicken…"

A chorus of "ewws" filled the room, and Jack turned a shade of green. "Well why da hell did you do that?" he asked.

"Payback for this morning," Maggie answered smugly.

Kloppman sighed. "Kids will be kids," he said to himself. He turned to Mush and Maggie. "Well you two have to clean all the blankets tomorrow," Kloppman said, then turned to Jack, adding, "and you can sleep in the bedroom next to theirs." Kloppman looked at Jack rubbing his head where he’d hit it. "And there’s ice downstairs if you bruised yourself," he teased.

"Just my dignity," Jack replied, looking at Mush and Maggie who were trying not to laugh. But surprisingly, it was Jack who started laughing. "Maggie, Mush is gonna be a horrible influence on you," he said, before turning around and going into the washroom to clean up.

"Hey Mush," Maggie said as she got into bed.

"Yeah?"

"I’m gonna sell with Alex tomorrow, okay?… well, try to sell, I guess," she giggled.

"Okay then, I’ll go with Blink. I haven’t sold with him for a couple days and I feel kinda bad about it." He paused for a moment. "Does that mean I don’t have to take you ta lunch tomorrow?"

"Oh no, you aren’t getting out of that," Maggie answered, smiling. "But we’ll have Alex and Blink come with us tomorrow."

"Are we just gonna meet at the restaurant tomorrow?" Maggie nodded. "Okay, what time?"

"Um, how bout 12:30," Maggie suggested.

"Sounds good."

Maggie settled into his arms. "Good-night, Mush."

"’Night, Maggie."

Maggie’s laugh floated on the breeze as she rode the rope swing in the barn at their farmhouse. Yellow straw was covering the floor completely, so that you couldn’t see the dirt underneath. Maggie’s hair flew in her face and then back out with the movement of the swing. The bright red of the barn made its white trimming show up even better. Maggie could smell her mother’s biscuits all the way from the house, and her stomach growled.

Getting the sudden feeling that something was wrong, Maggie looked up, just in time to see the rope break, and she felt herself fall. Instead of hitting the ground, the brilliant colors of the barn slowly darkened until it was blacker than black, and still she was falling, with nothing to grab onto.

Again Maggie saw faces; her father, Spot, Eric, more and more faces, some that she didn’t even know, but none of them kind or smiling.

She screamed.

Mush and Maggie woke up at the same instant; Maggie from the nightmare, and Mush from her scream. As she became more aware of her surroundings, the details of Maggie’s dream started to fade, and soon, al she could remember was that something horrible had happened. She looked at Mush’s worried face and tried to laugh her way out of the situation.

"It’s a good thing you’re here, huh," she said, giggling and forcing a smile.

"Are you okay," Mush asked seriously.

"Fine," she answered, sighing. "Let’s go back to sleep."

"Okay, so 12:30, promise?" Maggie called as Alex pulled her out of the distribution center.

"Yeah, I promise," Mush responded, laughing.

When they got out of the distribution center and onto the street, Maggie looked at Alex. "So would you mind letting go of my arm?"

"Oh, if you insist," Alex said sarcastically, but she let go and grinned at Maggie. "So, today, I’m gonna teach you to sell, okay?"

Maggie looked apprehensively at the papers. "I dunno, Alex, Mush tried to teach me and I wasn’t too good…"

"Yeah, well I’m better than Mush anyhow," Alex said trying to put on a regal look, which only succeeded in causing Maggie to break into giggles.

"Oh, be quiet, Maggie," Alex demanded, biting her lip to keep from laughing too. But Maggie knew why Alex was biting her lip, and she shook her head, smiling.

Maggie’s feet pounded down the road. "C’mon Alex, hurry," she begged, turning her head to look behind her. "It’s already 12:50, and I told - oof!" Maggie turned her head back around, rubbing her left shoulder, and looked up at Mush. She grinned. "I guess it’s a good thing I ran into you and not some hoity-toity rich person."

Mush just shook his head, laughing, so Blink turned to Alex and said, "I guess we’se all late, huh."

Alex nodded in agreement. "Well, let’s at least have lunch, I’m starving."

"Ya know Maggie," Mush said as they walked into the restaurant, "you have a really hard shoulder." He grinned, rubbing his chest where she’d run into him.

Maggie looked back at Mush and laughed. "Aww, poor thing," she said. "Did I hurt you?"

"Naw," Mush said. "I was just hopin’ for some sympathy."

"You’re so weird," Blink said, then grinned slyly. "Girls are too weak ta hurt guys anyhow," he said, looking pointedly at Alex.

Alex looked a Blink and raised an eyebrow. "If we weren’t in a restaurant, I’d hurt you an prove you wrong."

"Would you two behave," Maggie jokingly scolded, and all four burst into laughter.

Maggie tossed her cards down on the floor. "Drat, nothing again!"

"Man, tough luck," Race said, trying to sound empathetic and failing miserably.

"You’re just happy I’m not beating you again," Maggie said knowingly. "I guess the other night was beginner’s luck," she added, laughing.

"So Maggie," Mush said as Race dealt out the next hand, "how’d sellin’ go?"

"Horrible," Maggie said, grimacing. "I’m still horrible. I’ll never get it."

"Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself Maggie," Jack said, looking over his hand.

Mush grinned slyly at Maggie. ‘Yeah, Jack was horrible when he first started."

"Ya always hafta bring that up, don’tcha," Jack said, shoving Mush. "But yeah, Maggie, I was pretty bad when I first started.

"Well then, I guess I have a chance," Maggie decided happily. She looked at her new hand of cards and sighed. "Drat!"

"Mush, I can’t sleep," Maggie said, staring up at her ceiling two days later. "We’re getting up in 5 hours and I still can’t fall asleep."

"Are you tired?"

"Exhausted," Maggie answered, stifling a yawn. "I just can’t stop thinking."

"You can’t stop thinking, huh," Mush repeated. "Man, that’s horrible."

"That’s not what I meant." Maggie sighed.

Mush laughed. "I know. So what’s wrong?"

Maggie sighed again. ‘I don’t know what to do about Spot."

"Well, I dunno what ta do either," Mush responded. "I mean, it’s kinda difficult. We’ve seen him do the same thing to othah goils, but you really like ‘im, so that makes things hard."

"I know." Maggie was silent for awhile, then finally said, "well, I guess I’ll figure things out eventually. I just hope it’s soon."

Mush walked out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom. Maggie was still asleep, the covers pulled practically up to her chin. Mush walked over to her and shook her awake.

"Hey Maggie, ya gotta get ready," he said softly.

Maggie groaned as she rolled out of the bed and onto the floor. "Yuck. I feel horrible," she muttered into the floorboards.

"What, like sick?" Mush asked, kneeling down next to her. Maggie shrugged her shoulders in response, giving neither a yes or no. "Well, maybe you should get s’more sleep from now on," he said. "You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah," Maggie answered. "Lemme take a bath though." She pushed herself off the floor and stumbled into the bathroom.

Only a few seconds later, there was a knock at the door and Alex walked into the room. "That’s Maggie in the washroom?" she asked.

Mush nodded. "Yeah."

Alex looked at him, waiting for him to say something more. But he didn’t, so after a short silence, she said "okay, tell her I’ll be downstairs waiting."

‘Augh, stupid,’ Mush chided himself. ‘We could have talked for awhile. Why didn’t you just say something?’

A few minutes later, Maggie walked out of the bathroom and looked at Mush. "So ya feel better?" Mush asked her.

Maggie frowned. "I think so." She grabbed her clothes off the floor and walked back into the bathroom, shutting the door until just before it clicked shut. "So Mush," she said loudly from the bathroom, "am I selling with you or Alex today?"

"I was thinking all four of us could sell together today," Mush said, while running a comb through his hair. "Maybe you’ll get better if you see all three of us selling."

Maggie opened the door and stuck her tongue out at Mush, and he laughed. "But I don’t think it’s so much being bad at selling." She walked back into the room and took the comb out of Mush’s hand, grinning at him. "I mean, ever since I was little, my parents always said I shouldn’t lie, so I think I just have it stuck in my head."

"Well," Mush said truthfully, "it is a kind of lyin’, but if you think about it, all da newsies do it, an’ all da people are used to it. I mean, some of ‘em still get mad, but most people stop carin’ after awhile."

Maggie thought about what Mush had said for a few moments. "I guess you’re right. Okay, let’s go."

They got downstairs where Alex was still waiting. "Hey Alex, has Blink come down yet?" Mush asked.

"Um… yeah, I think he already went down to the distribution center," Alex answered. "Why?"

"Well, me an’ Maggie thought all four of us could sell together today," Mush responded. "I guess we’ll have to catch him before he leaves the distribution center."

"What if I kinda combine two different stories," Maggie asked Blink thoughtfully. "Would that work?"

"I guess so, Maggie. Which two?" he asked curiously.

Maggie grinned. "The one about doves at the mayor’s daughter’s wedding, and the one about all the seagulls on the beach yesterday.

Blink laughed outright. "I’m not sure I wanna know what you end up with."

"Probably not," Maggie giggled. She took a deep breath and started yelling out the headline she’d spliced together. "Seagulls terrorize wedding of daughter’s Mayor. I mean… dang!"

Alex shook her head and grinned, looking at Mush. "And we thought it’d just take time. I think it’ll take a miracle." Mush smiled back, relieved that he no longer blushed every time she looked at him.

As the four were selling, they slowly headed towards the Italian restaurant, finally getting there around one o’clock. Alex sighed as they walked up the steps. "If we come here everyday, I’m gonna be broke soon."

"Well," Maggie said, trying to make Alex feel better, "that’s probably true for all of us… Maybe we should go to Tibby’s from now on, and only come here on special days or something."

"That’s a good idea, Maggie," Blink agreed. The four walked over to a booth and sat down, deciding what to order for their last day there.

"So Race," Jack said, as he and a few others sat in the bunkroom playing poker, four days later, "how’d your horse do today?"

Race shrugged as he dealt the next hand of cards. "She actually won a bit, but not enough for me ta get back all da money I put on ‘er today."

"Well that’s a god sign, though, right," Maggie asked as she walked into the bunkroom with Blink, Mush and Alex. "If she’s starting to win more?"

Race snorted. "She won in da middle ’a the day, then got worse an’ worse. So no, not really."

"Oh," Maggie said quietly, then added, smirking, "well maybe you should stop wasting all your money at the tracks."

"Well den we’d hafta find him a new nickname," Blink said, sitting down and jabbing his elbow into Race’s side.

Race started to push Blink, but Jack interrupted them. "Hey you two, no fighting in da middle of a card game," he ordered, grinning. "What took you four so long," Jack then asked, looking at Mush.

Alex answered for him. "Oh, we were showing Maggie some of the sights in Manhattan, since she’s never been out of Brooklyn… Kind of a reward for selling all her papers before Blink," she added, winking at Maggie.

The boys in the poker circle all burst into laughter, and Blink, loudly enough to be heard, whined, "Alex, you promised not to tell! Besides, I had twice as many papers as her."

As the last of the laughter died down, Maggie turned to Alex and said, "I’m going to bed now, okay? I’m really tired from all that walking we did today." She sighed in exhaustion. "I’ll see you in the morning, alright."

"Okay Maggie," Alex said. She paused, then added, "you did have fun, right?"

"Of course I did Alex. Thanks for the tour," she responded, stumbling out of the room with tired feet and rapidly closing eyes.

Mush opened the door to Maggie’s room a slit, then turned around to say goodnight to Race. He opened the door slowly, and immediately saw that Maggie was asleep.

"Hey Race, will ya turn off da hall light," he whispered loudly.

The light shut off, and Mush slowly entered the room.

Maggie felt herself floating, almost flying, through utter blackness, not filled with fear, just emptiness. It was as though the emptiness of her surroundings rubbed off on Maggie, for she felt nothing while being in this place. Suddenly, a vertical line of light appeared to her right, and Maggie spun around to see what was happening, but as the line started to widen, it was suddenly dark again. But whereas the first darkness was empty, thus one was not. It seemed to Maggie that there was a pounding, a pulsing that reeked with fear and anger.

Then, though she could not describe how she understood what was happening, the pulse of fear and anger took form, and it was her father, it was Eric, Spot, Dice… and then it was her mother.

Though there was no ground, Maggie fell to her knees. She could not understand how her mother could be made up of all that fear and anger, but Maggie was suddenly in her mother’s embrace, and above the fear, above the anger, there was love.

"Shh, it’s alright, Princess, nothing can hurt you here," her mom whispered comfortingly.

"But mommy…" Maggie reached up her hand, put it on her mother’s heart, and felt the same pulse there. "I don’t… why?"

"I’m scared for you," her mom whispered. "And I’m angry at something you will soon know for yourself."

"What is it?" Maggie pleaded. "Please tell me!"

Her mother sighed. "I can’t. You must discover thus on your own, Maggie. But remember, I believe in you and I will always love you."

The darkness faded to gray. Maggie woke up.

"I didn’t wake ya up, did I," Mush whispered as Maggie suddenly shot up and glanced around the room.

"No, I… I…" And the weight of the world seemed to fall on Maggie, pushing her into the ground, until she could feel nothing but the pain. Burning, searing, red-hot pain that would not go away, for all that she tried.

Suddenly, it was different. The pain was not less, but there was something else. Comfort, love, faith, restoration all bunched together as if fighting the pain.

Maggie turned around and looked into Mush’s concerned eyes. "What…"

"You were crying," he whispered back. He reached up, and with one thumb, wiped away one of the tears that had been falling silently down her face. Maggie could do nothing but bury herself in his chest and breathe, in and out, and with each breath feel the pain leave, flowing into somewhere she would never know.

Alex rolled out of bed, hit the floor with a hollow "thud," and pushed herself up from the ground. She stumbled into the washroom with the rest of the newsies and, finding an open sink, made her way over to it.

"Jeez, that’s refreshing," she yelped, spitting water out of her mouth. "See if I ever use cold water to wake myself up again."

She was finally awake, though, so Alex walked over to Maggie’s room and knocked on the door. She heard a muffled," yeah, come in," so Alex opened the door and walked carefully into the room.

"Maggie? What did you want to talk about," Alex called out towards the washroom where she assumed Maggie was. Maggie walked slowly that door and looked up at Alex, who could not tell what the expression on her face meant.

"I have a problem," Maggie said, stumbling over the words.

Now knowing it was not a good expression, Alex quickly asked, "what is it?" and rushed to Maggie’s side.

Maggie took a long time in answering, trying to swallow the fear and the tears that were again threatening to spill down her face. But she told herself firmly that she had cried more than enough over the previous weeks, and did not want to allow that vulnerability to show itself again. Taking one final deep breath, and trying to hold on to any courage she had left, Maggie opened her mouth and stammered, "I think I’m pregnant."