Chapter 3: Extra! Extra! You might want to fix that.

Chapter 3: Extra! Extra! You might want to fix that.

I left the orphanage that morning with a skip in my step. The first job of the day was selling newspapers on a street corner. Stacks of papers were left out in front of the orphanage along with corner assignments. The assignments weren’t given in any particular order, so we usually fought over them. Of the twenty kids in Madam Havasu’s House of Hope, only four of us worked for the newspaper. The other kids had tasks of their own. I was lucky in that I only arrived at the orphanage when I was nine years old. Some of the kids lived their whole lives there and were forced to work from a very young age. The five of us were chosen to work for the newspaper because we seemed like the most personable of the orphans. I had no clue how they made that decision, considering Gordon was also chosen. The other orphans included Beth Gibbler and Nancy Sinclair. Her last name wasn’t really Sinclair. She made it up when Miss Havasu explained that she hadn’t arrived with one. The other person on the team was my best friend Sam Young. He’d taken me under his wing the day I arrived at the orphanage. Sam was the polar opposite of me. While I was content to bury myself in a book or learn something new, he loved to be the center of attention. It was a talent that lent itself naturally to talking his way out of trouble and selling newspapers. We met the paper man, Jimmy, at the loading dock behind the Daily Gazette. It was the newspaper nobody wanted. As the small newspaper in Manhattan, it was dwarfed by The Times. “You guys get Fifth Avenue and St. Marks,” Jimmy announced as he chucked a bundle of papers at Sam and Gordon. “Don’t stop till you sell ‘em all.” Gordon slammed his bundle into my chest and said, “I’m with Sam. You take Beth, your girlfriend.” “She’s not my girlfriend!” I muttered, giving Sam a pleading look. “And I want to go with Sam.” The reason I wanted to go with Sam was that he could easily outsell the rest of us combined. Whichever team didn’t have him could be stuck on a street corner until noon. It had happened before. There was no arguing with Gordon though, not unless I wanted to pay for it later. Once we were out of earshot, Beth elbowed me. “It’s not that bad teaming up with me, is it? I can sell too, you know.” It was true. Out of the rest of us, she was easily better than me or Gordon. I grinned as we walked past a billboard of a supermodel advertising a handbag. “It would help a lot if you looked like one of those women.” Beth laughed and pulled her shirt tight over her chest. “I can be one of those girls. I have the body for it.” It was true, Beth had probably the best figure in the orphanage. It was just hidden under hand-me-downs from the fat lady at the opera. I knew how good-looking she was though. I’d seen her plenty of times at the orphanage. It’s not that I tried to spy on her, though some of the other boys did. It was just hard to get any privacy at the orphanage even in the best of times. Twenty kids occupied two rooms and even smaller bathrooms. Accidents happened. Under normal circumstances, boys and girls would be separated more than we were but Miss Havasu said we were lucky. A lot of orphans were being shipped west, or worse. While she never said what worse was, we’d all heard stories like The Little Matchstick Girl. That stuff wasn’t just in stories anymore. Kids were dying for real. It took the two of us about twenty minutes to make it to St Mark’s Avenue. We didn’t have to ask which one Gordon took because he always took the best spot. It probably made up for the fact that he intended to do nothing and make Sam do all the work. Beth and I quickly divvied up the papers and went to opposite street corners. I heard her in the distance calling out to passers-by. “Extra, Extra, read all about it-“ Looking down at my stack of newspapers, I wondered if my new skill could be applied to help me out.

Daily Gazette Owned by: Evans

It didn’t tell me who made it, and I was surprised that it told me I owned it. I was reminded of a saying I heard whenever I went to local stores. “You break it you bought it.” I stared at the newspaper until my eyes hurt, trying to see if my Analyze skill would tell me anything else.

Newspaper Components: Paper, Ink Crafting Component

There was that word from my class, Crafting. I’d heard of Arts and Crafts before. It was something rich kids did. I knew tradesmen were sometimes called Crafters but I failed to see how a newspaper could come in handy. A high-pitched whistle made me jump. I looked up in time to see Beth giving me a glare from across the intersection that made a passerby jump out of her way. I got the message loud and clear. It was time to stop slacking off. I called out to several people as they walked by with no luck. That was the way it always worked for me, and a good part of the reason why I was a lost cause without Sam to help out. After a while, I resorted to trying my Analyze skill again.

Davey Smith Class: Middle Management Level: 1 Age: 37 Weight: 187 Lbs Height 5’9

A name was something I could use. I called out to him. “Good morning, Mr. Smith.” He turned and looked me up and down, confused that I knew his name. “Can I help you, Son?” “Would you like a newspaper, Sir?” I asked, doing my best to look confident. “Only two cents.” He frowned, still trying to place me. “Um, I don’t know. Do I know you?” I decided to lie. “Yeah. My father knows you from the country club.” The frown evolved into a scowl. “I’m not a member of any country club.” The moment was lost. He spun on the spot and was lost in the crowd. I pitched a few more people before trying again.

Joe Schmidt Class: Unemployed Level: 1 Age: 41 Weight: 204 Lbs Height 6’1

I stopped in my tracks. There was no use trying to draw water from a stone. Once I began inspecting everyone, I noticed that the majority of them were unemployed. I sold a whopping total of five papers in that first hour. I spent the majority of that time people watching, or more accurately, people analyzing. I concluded that most were underweight and struggling to find jobs. A tap on my shoulder made me jump. “What is wrong with you today?” Beth asked with her hands on her hips. My stepmother had done that pose more times than I could count. Beth’s expression softened and she reached for my stack. “Here, let me help. I’ll take half but please, try to sell yours. I really don’t want to miss lunch.” I puffed out my chest indignantly. “We won’t be here that long.” “We better not,” She sighed, her stomach growling in agreement. It was a known fact that she ate less when there wasn’t enough to go around, and that happened every day. I gave up on experimenting and only used it to see who was employed. That seemed to have an impact as I managed to get more people to buy than usual. Within the hour, it was me waltzing across the street to take half of Beth’s stack. It didn’t matter that she was selling my stack. I still outsold someone for the first time ever.

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Thinking back, I realized I didn’t get any of those experience messages when I Analyzed people. Maybe they didn’t count to my eyes. I tried to Analyze things as we walked back to the newspaper but nothing worked. Did I have to be right next to an object for it to work, or perhaps just standing still? There was so much I wanted to know. The whole ordeal reminded me of the struggle to educate myself back home before my stepmother shipped me off to the orphanage. I couldn’t figure out how I learned to read in the first place. Nobody voluntarily taught me how the alphabet worked, so I had to figure it out for myself by asking questions when my father was home or tricking my Stepmother into answering questions about words. We found Jimmy in his office back at the loading docks. It wasn’t a fancy office by any means, just the only room with a door. I took a few minutes to Analyze the printing press as we passed by. The gears and conveyor belt surrounded by massive cylinders of paper still took my breath away as it had the first time I saw it. I immediately wanted to know how it work and who came up with such a complex design.

Bullock Rotary Press Rank: C Created by: William Bullock

Error: Item Damaged. Requires replacement part immediately. Risk of imminent failure.

The error message made my heart jump in my chest. Something glowing caught my eye. One of the bolts holding up the left side of the machine wobbled precariously as paper fed along the conveyor belt above. I had to warn someone. Blowing past Beth and into Jimmy’s office, I bellowed. “Jimmy! Come quick. The press is about to break.” He took a cigar out of his mouth and blew smoke in my face. “What’s this nonsense? You’re late. Did you sell out?” Beth shimmied around me. “Yes, Sir. We did. Here’s the money.” He focused his attention on Beth and reached out to grab the large bag Beth held out to him. I groaned as the high-pitched squeaking sounds I’d noticed when I arrived started getting louder. Jimmy seemed to pay it no mind as he arranged our profits into neat little stacks of coins on his desk. When he was finally satisfied, he slid several of them back to us. “Here’s ten cents kids. Go enjoy yourselves. Buy something sweet.” “But what about the…?” I started to ask about the press again when all hell broke loose. Paper exploded out of the machine, flung all over the place by the malfunction I’d predicted. The cigar fell from his mouth into his lap as Frankie gaped at the pandemonium. He quickly scooped it up and put it out in an ashtray before jumping to his feet and scrambling around the desk. “You kids need to go.” He disappeared momentarily into the storm of paper before emerging on the far side of the room next to a big red button I’d always wanted to push. When he hit it, a loud buzzer started to go off, and everything ground to a halt. Other workers were already flooding the warehouse and causing a commotion. Beth grabbed my hand and tugged me out the door even though I wanted to stay and watch.

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“How did you know that was going to happen?” Beth asked as she selected a gumball. While we’d purchased a whole bag of candy with our pay, we only got one piece each. I chose a mint. We couldn’t afford any of the big candy because Beth insisted on getting enough treats for all of the little kids. The big ones that could work outside were on their own. Realizing she was expecting an answer, I thought about it. “There was a loose bolt, and didn’t you hear that whistling sound?” She shrugged. “It sounded the same as always to me.” Beth dropped it and we made our way back to the orphanage, chatting idly about our plans for the day. I wondered if we were late as we walked through the door. What I found surprised me.