According to this one thing I found, supposedly, people are most creative at night and least creative during the afternoon. As a writer, I think this is partially true. Therefore, I want to see if I can get my creativity going writing at 00:08/12:08 am in the morning haha.

So. The first day after the strike ended. Enjoy! :)

Race will never admit it, but the lack of routine during the strike stressed him out a lot. He's kinda relieved now that he can start his normal day again.

He is not looking forward to waking up, though.

"Alright! CARRY THE BANNER!" Kloppman shouts fondly at them.

Everyone who is conscious groans in complaint.

Drowsily, they get themselves out of bed.

If I don't open my eyes, I don't have to get up. And I can just fall back asleep and slip right back into that dream-

"Race," Blink shakes his shoulder gently. "You gotta get up now."

Race whines. "I don't wanna."

"I know you don't wanna, but you still have to."

Race groans but still mutters a small "fine" for Blink's sake.

He sits up. 

Can't believe I actually missed waking up in the morning to sell newspapers.

You'll feel better once you're up and at 'em, you know that.

Fine. But where is my darn cigar?

Race looks for his cigar. This time, he doesn't hesitate to look at Snipeshooter's bunk; where he finds Snipeshooter and his cigar.

He moves over there. "That's my-"

"Ah, you can have it," Snipeshooter shoves it at him. Race rolls his eyes, but happily takes it from him, flicks his tongue out-in, and, now satisfied, moves away, ready to begin his day.

The part of his mind that told him that he'd feel better once he was out in the city was right. This is what he missed. Running in the streets with the newsies before they get their papers. 

Once they reach the circulation center, Race has to remind himself that Weasel no longer works here. Well good riddance. The only downside, though, is that he's going to have to learn this new geezer's name. Not that he'd remember to put the name to the face later.

"Headin' straight to Brooklyn, Race?" Jack asks after Race collects his papes and he collects his, just checking in on him.

Race tucks the papes under his arm. "You know it."

"Stay safe, okay? Don't talk to strangers."

Race chuckles. "Okay, I won't."  Then he turns around. "Who am I supposed to sell papers to?"

Now Jack chuckles as he gets out of line. "No talking to unfriendly strangers."

"I think I can do that."

Jack pats Race on the shoulder. "Later, Race."

"Later, Jack."

As Race leaves, Jack smiles as he watches him walk away. It's moments like this that make everything worth it. It hasn't even been 48 hours since Jack reconnected with Race, but he's already back in full swing as Race's (over-)protective older brother.

But looking in a slightly different direction, Jack has another reason to smile this morning. The one that caused him not to just get his papers and go.

His selling partners. 

His eyes meet a pair of blue eyes, one that belongs to a very handsome guy who is now blushing slightly, who smiles at Jack. After he and his brother get their papes, they'll be ready to begin their selling day.

Race's intuition is telling him to walk to Brooklyn today. It's the perfect day to. The sky is a brilliant blue. 

Not just blue.

Sky Blue.

Sky Blue, however, is not one singular color.

It's all shades of blue.

Near the horizon line, or as close as one can get to a sorry excuse of a horizon line in a city, is the very light blue.

And the sky is speckled with glorious white clouds, taking the shape of whatever Race's imagination wants it to.

But not exactly like Spot's.

He thinks of what Spot said about his pareidolia. Well. He thinks more about Spot.

He can't wait to see him today.

But Race is on a mission. For once, he has priorities together. Sell at Sheepshead. Unless if Spot is there to sidetrack him. Spot would then come first. If there is no sign of Spot (or...if he can't spot Spot), he'll walk right in to Sheepshead. Then he'll go find Spot.

Still a little bit of an unorthodox sort of planning, but it works for him.

Race walks into Sheepshead, and breathes in that glorious air of a gambling atmosphere. How he loves this place. He can't exactly describe all that Sheepshead means to him. If he tried, people would just make fun of him. So he keeps all these feelings to himself. 

He sells almost all his papers. The headline is sinking a little. He knows for a fact it'll only get worse with more time passing on after the strike ended. But now, if he doesn't sell all his papers, he can sell them back.

More money the next day, more money for lunch, and more money to come straight back to Sheepshead the next day for gambling.

With this thought in mind, he keeps on going, making bets (not talking to unfriendly strangers per Jack's request), and selling what he can.

What Race doesn't know is that early that morning, Spot had come into Sheepshead and went straight up to Nicholas Jameson to talk to him about Race.

The two had conversed about a lot of different matters. As well as something that Spot wanted to do for Race, something that he couldn't do without the help of someone who actually worked at Sheepshead.

It took a lot of negotiating, but an agreement was made, and things will be arranged accordingly.

And Mr. Jameson was not supposed to tell Race about it at all. Spot wanted to tell him about it himself. Mr. Jameson agreed to that. And it's a secret, too. Only Spot and Nicholas Jameson are aware of what they talked about. Until Nicholas Jameson confronts his superiors of Sheepshead Races, of course. Spot left satisfied, and Nicholas Jameson knew that in this action he had made one boy very happy, and another one to be happy very soon.

But Race isn't aware of any of this. He's enwrapped in watching the last race of the day, anxious to see if he can finish the racing day with one last won bet.

Come on, Race. Fortunato in races. Not sfortunato. One last race...

When Race opens the door to the lodging house in the evening, he expects to see Jack and Crutchy, and Kid Blink and Mush, as well as some others, right then and there. 

He doesn't expect to see Spot there.

"Spot!" Race's voice goes higher than he wanted it to. This is not how I prove I'm not a little kid anymore. "Wha-wha-what are y-you doin' 'ere?" And there he goes on stuttering more than he wanted to.

Grazie al cielo that Spot finds it endearing. He smiles. "I got something to tell ya, Race."

Jack, Blink, Mush, and Crutchy are all smiling. They know what it is. Race doesn't. And that makes him feel like he's missing out on something.

"What is it?" he asks tentatively, bristling slightly. "Is it bad?"

His four friends/brothers keep on smiling, not saying a thing.

Some help they are.

Race's tongue flicks out-in nervously. He just wants to know what's going on.

"I did something for you today," Spot says slowly. "There was something you said back at that diner when we first appeared in the newspaper..." he pulls out a piece of paper from his back pocket. "And I found a way to make that dream a reality." He hands Race the paper.

As Race takes it, his eyes dash around the page wildly. He absorbs every word instantly, but he has to read them slowly to understand what they're saying. Then it takes at least five more times to reread them to actually have the message sink in.

There, scrawled out in really neat handwriting, reads:

Starting August 4, 1899, Box A of Sheepshead Races is now privately owned.

Its owner is Antonio Higgins.

It finally hits Race what that means.

I have a permanent box at Sheepshead Races.

"I-" Race looks up in disbelief. "How-?"

"It took a lot of work," Spot says. "But I was able to talk to people, and-"

"Yeah, but how?" Race interrupts. "It's expensive." Then he realizes what he did. "I interrupted. Sorry. I'll listen. How were you able to pull this off?"

"Well, I talked to one of the people that works there," Spot begins to explain. "And I told him that I wanted to have a box at Sheepshead Races for one of the most amazing people I know. He told me that it would cost something. But he was willing to help me pay. And we were able to come to an agreement."

"Why?"

"Because not all adults are horrible-"

"But why did you do it, Spot?"

Why did you do it, Spot? He hesitates. How do I answer this?

"Well," he says at last, "because you are one of the best friends I've ever had. And I wanted to do something real nice for ya, to show you how much I cared. And I remembered that you said you wanted a permanent box at Sheepshead Races. Throughout the strike, you proved to be steadfast and determined, and saw it all the way through. What better way to repay that than by giving the King of New York what he's always dreamt of?"

"I..." Race is at a loss for words.

It's too ironic. He has a strong connection to words. He feels them. Yet he is absolutely horrible at communicating his feelings with those same exact words. One of the cruelest forms of irony that he knows.

"Can't think of what to say?" Crutchy asks sympathetically.

Race nods.

"How 'bout you start with a thank you?" Jack suggests with a grin.

Race's face flushes. Of course. Why didn't I think of that? "Thank you, Spot. Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Spot smiles. "Of course."

"Everyone, come here!" Jack calls out. "Manhattan's celebrating tonight!"

As everyone comes down the stairs, some not knowing what exactly is being celebrated or what is going on, Race disappears into his head.

Box A.

A.

How the heck did Spot get Box A?

A is the first letter of the alphabet.

Surely Box A would already belong to someone?

Someone much more important?

But Race doesn't want to think about that for too long.

Instead, he'd rather think about how his permanent box is Box A.

A powerful letter.

The first letter of the alphabet. The first letter of his name. Antonio.

Antonio Higgins is the owner of Box A.

Some things end up working perfectly.

And so they all gather around, and Jack prods Race to announce to them that he had gotten a box at Sheepshead Races, to which he got a lot of exclamations of approval for. And so they celebrate.

Of course, there were too many little details to explain. Spot'll get to all of those later. Like how much of it Nicholas Jameson said he could cover, and how much he needed from Spot. And how much Spot is now in debt to him. And...for all the reasons for why Spot did it in the first place.

Race makes up his mind right then and there that he's going to do something special for Spot. He needs to do some sort of thank you in return. And Spot's birthday is soon. It'll be perfect. Now he just needs more time to think about what. He'll figure it out. He'll save up money in advance for whatever he's going to do.

He'll figure it out later. For now, he has an accomplishment to celebrate, surrounded by all his friends; the closest thing to a family he'll ever need.

I'm really glad inspiration struck. :)

So I have no clue how owning a box at Sheepshead Races would work, so I kinda made it up as I went along haha.

What I don't get in Livesies is why Romeo says he wants a permanent box at Sheepshead Races. And a lot of 92sies Race solos were sung by Romeo. I don't have a big problem with this, but...Brooklyn and Sheepshead is Race's thing??

I gave Race a permanent box at Sheepshead Races. I am happy now. :)

When I was writing that bit where Spot was explaining why he got the box for Race and he says you're one of the best friends I've ever had, I was listening to the song Can You Feel The Love Tonight from The Lion King (with the god Nathan Lane in it) and it fit perfectly haha.

So I wanna say a little anecdote about horse racing. My maternal grandfather LOVES horse races. A lot. Nearly every time we go to my mom's parents' house, local horse races are playing on the TV. Then, for Father's Day a couple years ago, my mom took him to the place where those races happen. And she brought me and my sibling with them. And I gotta say, it was awesome. It felt like I was inside the TV at my grandparents' house because I was seeing something that I only saw on TV before. That alone was cool. But then came the actual races and horses and betting. Of course, me and my sibling were too young to make bets. So my grandfather made the bets for us. There were many different kinds of bets we could make, but the most common one that I did was just who is going to get in 1-2 place or 1-3 place? All the bets cost two dollars to make. And we got a program to see which horses would be going, and just off of their descriptions, we would chose horses to bet on. And wow, I had awesome beginner's luck. I still have the paper that I wrote on to keep track of all the bets I "made" and won and lost. That was the year before I watched Newsies for the first time. When I learned that Racetrack Higgins would go to Sheepshead Races to place bets on horse racing regularly, I thought about my experience, and felt closer to him. If you're still reading this paragraph, thanks for listening. :)

Please, no homophobia, profanities, hate etc in the comment section at all times.

Best,

~Your Beloved Author (who is writing this at 2:00 am, listening to songs from Vivo, Aladdin (2019), The Lion King (1994), The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Raya and the Last Dragon)