Quips wandered the streets of the big city. Everything she owned was in a sack on her back, which at the moment wasn't very much. Quips didn't care. She could get by with what she had. New York was like nothing she had expected. It looked so much different, so much bigger now when she stood there in person.
Quips walked aimlessly, caring where she went. Instead she amused herselfby watching the people. For some reason Quips thought a lot of things that people did were funny. For example, she thought to herself, here on the streets everyone was in a hurry to get to point A. What happened when they got to point A? They found point B and were in a rush to get over there. Why? Quips wondered. What does it really accomplish in the big picture?
Lost in these thoughts, Quips rounded a corner and saw a newsie. Quips had seen lots of newsies. They sold newspapers by exaggerating the headlines or "Improvin' da truth a liddle"! The younger ones were especially good at sympathy. They had this "cough, cough. Buy me last pape mister(or lady, depending on the circumstances)" It never failed to get an "Aw, poor child" from a compassionate adult, as well as a quarter! This newsie was different, however. He was attempting to sell newspapers using the most unsuccessful tactic ever - honesty. Quips stepped into the shadows cast by a nearby building to watch him with an amused smile on her lips.
Dave has never been overly good at selling newspapers. The other newsies made it look so easy. Since Dave was a little too old, and well-fed to use sympathy to its fullest advantage, he was forced to exaggerate. Dave found it humiliating that even his little brother Les could sell more papers than he could.
Unfortunately for Dave, Les was not around to help him. Les had gone off early this morning with his hero Jack, and Dave knew of four places where they could be. First, Les could be visiting Medda and watching Jacks Odepeus complex-like attempts to hit on her. Second, Les could be selling papers alone while Jack payed a visit on his sweetheart Sarah (Authors Note: I know that a lot of female Newsie fans despise Sarah, but you have to admit that watching Jack drool over a ditz like Sarah is better than watching Jack drool over Medda, a woman old enough to be his grandmother.) A third thing Les could be doing was taking a swig of beer so a man would give him money. The last and most likely senario, however, was that he was faking pneumonia and a runny nose in a successful attempt to get attention.
Dave stood on the street corner with a bundle of papers under his arm and knew it was hopeless. He'd never be able to sell them all by the end of the day and would be forced to eat them in the morning. He had tried to exaggerate today's headlines but he couldn't make them sound interesting. "Besides," he thought to himself, "even if it was interesting, I couldn't be convincing because I hate to lie...
"Any of the other fellas could do this" Dave said out loud while looking at the papers, full of frustration. "They'd look at this and make up something about kids being born with three heads or-"
"Well" a voice said from behind him "Anything's possible. Especially if you drink the tap water."
Dave was shocked at this response becausehe did not know that he was speaking his thoughts out loud. He turned around and saw that the voice belonged to a girl who was standing in the shadows of a nearby building. She was tall with curly black hair, green-gold eyes, and from the expression on her face, she had been watching him for some time.
This irritated Dave, just because he couldn't sell newspapers, didn't mean the whole world had to know it. "Yeah, well what do you know about selling papers?" Dave snapped at her.
"No need to get personal." She said, although she did not appear stung by his remark. "I don't know much, but I think I could do better than you."
"Prove it." At this point, Dave was just plain angry.
"Ok, can I have a paper?"
"You'll have to pay for it."
"I know that!" The girl looked hocked and offended. "Contrary to popular belief, I'm not stupid. Here..." She said digging through her bag and finding some money. "Take this. All the money that a poor girl on the streets has and I'm giving it to you so I can prove myself." She was being overly dramatic.
Dave gave her a paper.
~*~*~*~
Quips looked through the newspaper she had just bought. Just because she intended to sell it didn't mean she couldn't read it. Besides it might give her some inspiration. Suddenly a plan struck her. It was perfect. She looked around for a target and found it, an obviously rich man walking down thestreet in a hurry. "Maybe I can sell this for more than its worth." she told the newsie. "Now watch how I sell papers."
~*~*~*~
The man didn't want trouble. All he wanted was to go to work, do his job and then go back home to his family. So he had a lot of money invested and the market wasn't doing very well. Big deal! No need to worry. No need to panic...
"Excuse me sir." said a girl walking up to him. "Would you be interested in buying this newspaper?"
Buy a paper? Was this some kind of joke? Here he was about to lose all he had and on top of that be late for work, and this girl wanted to know if he would buy a paper! "Go away kid, I don't have time for this nonsense." The man said rudely.
"Thats ok, I understand. I don't like bad news either." she said.
"What kind of bad news, girl?" The man was starting to worry.
Note from Panda: This Sara, my namesake, sadly has moved to Canada, and doesn't have the internet at the moment. She snail-mailed this story to me, and I typed it up for her. There are a few irregularities that are my fault. The main one being references to Jack's girlfriend Sarah before she left, I told her that Jack didn't have a "newsie girlfriend" and at the time he didn't so we just assumed he was with Sarah. Now, I could have easily taken that part out, but it was too funny to allow me to do that. So lets just assume that Sarah and Jack decided to go their own separate ways right after this story. And as for Dave, once again, he didn't have a girl at the time this was written, so I told Sara it was cool if she made him seem like a putz. And awful as it is, I even cut out a little of that, as bad as that makes me feel. And while I'm on the topic of Sara, good ol' Quips,. she has got to be one of the most brilliant writers there is. ESPECIALLY when it comes to sarcasm, then she even leaves me in her sarcastic dust. So you all remember her, and when she becomes famous, you can say you read some of her first work. I just have to get her to write parodys, then there'd be no stopping her. This last part was inserted for no other reason than to prove once and for all that if talent is indirectly included in this contest, you win. And she'll know what I mean when she reads this. So anyways, that was just to clarify a few things.