// and u 🤪🤪

// that’s what I get for trying to think at 6am 😂😂

“Wait. You’d really get me some food…?”

// local Edwardian boy introduced to McDonald’s food 👁️👄👁️

EXTRA, EXTRA!!

… NEW SOCIALITE RIDES BICYCLE AROUND TOWN!

+ be taken in, only to be thrown out five minutes later? It would make a good story to tell the fellas about, but…

As they head towards the fancy part of town, Crutchie can’t help but whistle in admiration. This man really stays here? He starts to slow down nervously.

“Uh… they won’t kick me out or nothin’ ‘cause I don’t got the right clothes, right sir?”

A flash of panic shoots through him. Could he really +

At first, Crutchie tenses up slightly. Why does this man want to know? Hopefully he won’t report him to the cops…

For once, he decides to be honest. Crutchie shrugs, trying not to make a big deal of it.

“Ten cents a hundred, sir.”

“Um… I mean I’m kinda workin’ right now and I don’t know you…”

“What’s… fast food? A clown…?”

Crutchie frowns immensely. He’s never heard of either.

“…Five cents, sir.”

He blushes as he gives the real price for once.

“Ohhh, youse talkin’ bout that Irish pub down in the Bowery, aintcha?”

“Maybe a change of pace, sir? With today’s headlines?”

“Wait!” Crutchie exclaims, pulling out of THE READER’s grasp.

“It w-wasn’t me! Please let me go — I’m just’ tryin’ to sell my papes!”

+ overcome the skepticism in his heart? No, of course not. But for a rare moment in time, Crutchie stops and truly believes in miracles.

“Wow…”

Enraptured by the sights, Crutchie stands there turning slowly in a circle. He smiles brightly, like he can’t believe where he really is.

He’s always dismissed magic as an impossibility, something tricky to fool others. But this? This has to be the real deal.

Is that all that’s needed to +

Minutes later, Crutchie runs back to her, whisper-shouting in his hurry.

“They’re comin’! They’re on their way!”

+ can you really get me outta here?”

The more Nyx explains, the paler Crutchie turns. He blinks as she talks of shadows, of a Dr. Gideon and experiments. But he won’t call her a monster. How could he? The nuns say this kind of stuff about him all the time.

He slowly reaches out for her hand, trying to show his acceptance.

“Can — +

+ surprised at the force he used. Crutchie blinks, and then raises his crutch up again to really give it a blow.

“You ain’t my family! You can’t keep me here forever!!”

Crutchie yells through the glass, then proceeds to hit his crutch against the window angrily. He glares at Tessa just as hard.

“I don’t got a family! I got my friends an’ that’s all I need! Let me GO!”

The glass cracks, and even he looks +

Crutchie smiles, standing on his good leg and putting his bad leg through it as he makes a circle with it. He then twirls and extends his hand to Claudia.

“May I have this dance?”

Crutchie looks at her curiously, somewhat amazed that she doesn’t know. But then again, she’s rich. Why wouldn’t she. He smiles sheepishly.

“I ain’t like you, Claudia. I ain’t allowed in there cuz I ain’t got no money. And you do.”

Crutchie snaps up his head to look at the man, then smiles bashfully as he’s caught with the charge. He retrieves a paper from his bag, showing it with the right price on the corner - only five cents.

“Sure, sir. But it’s a tough world out there right now. Gotta make a livin’ somehow right?”

“Oh… no, that’s alright,” he says awkwardly, now feeling bad about telling her off so abruptly.

“It’s gonna be a real hot night tonight, I won’t need it. Um. But we could share this spot if you want…?”

Crutchie looks up at Jack admiringly, always liking his attitude when it comes to stuff like this. But here, when folks are giving him looks? He still doesn’t like it.

“Yeah, what Jack said,” he mutters, eyeing the others.

“Y-Yes,” Crutchie says, a little worried now. “If — if it’s not allowed, I can move somewhere else.”

Is she a cop? That’s what he’s worried about now, with the flashlight and her mannerism. Crutchie shrinks down, trying to make himself look small and unassuming.

“Pfft, if you think so, you should tell Pulitzer yourself. Too bad he’s already made that decision up in that fancy office of his…”

Bumps into {the reader} with a big yawn.

“Oh, sorry…”

Dreaming…