Small Gazebo

[Administrator]

A smaller gazebo on the other side of the park. Nice for a short break though watch your heads. There's a few birds nests in here.

[Smarty Jones]

Smarty Jones broke the kiss abruptly. "Go," she muttered, pushing away the boy who had her pressed against the gazebo railing. She stepped past him and paused at the steps, looking out moodily at the park green.

The boy stared after her."What? What d'you mean, go? I thought..."

"I know what you thought," Smarty snapped without looking at him. She ran her thumb across her swollen lips and brushed her hair from her eyes. When Specs first approached her on the park paths, she'd taken a swing at him, but despite the black eye he was persistent, and Smarty was...well, she was upset. Angry. A little crazy. More than a little crazy, perhaps. She had allowed him to take her to a quiet corner of the park and lock lips for a while.

After perhaps ten or fifteen minutes, though, she grew tired of it. She added, "I'm getting sick of you, actually. I'm staying here. You can go."

Specs sauntered towards her, smirking suggestively. "Don't suppose we could do this again sometime, eh, Smarty?"

"Not likely."

"You're a phenomenal kisser."

"You bit me."

"Well, I thought, y'know, a Brooklyn girl would like..."

"Shut up! Get outta here." She waited, until Specs sighed and brushed past her, making far more contact than he had to, and walked away through the bark, glancing back a few times at her. She paid him no mind. She listened to the wind, focused on the grass, and hated herself just a little.

[Gwennie]

There was nothing Gwennie liked more than a good game of hide and go seek. It was just kind of a hard game to play when all the other kids were either working or at school. Well, technically, she was still working too, but the beauty of being a newsie was that, if you were sold alright early on, you could take a break whenever you wanted later in the day. So, she’d decided to give playing hide and go seek with just her and Marvin a whirl. It turned out it wasn’t very fun. Invisible dog friends were good for a lot of things, but they didn’t make very good seekers or, believe it or not, very good hiders.

As she was looking for another place to hide, though, she came across something a lot more interesting. Right there, leaning against the side of the gazebo, there were Smarty and Specs kissing! She didn’t know either of them really well, but she knew smarty lived in the lodging house and she’d talked to her at least once or twice and she’d never talked to Specs, but she knew that Milo knew him and she’d seen him around when she went over there to play. Still, she’d never known that they were boyfriend and girlfriend.

She stifled a giggle and hid behind a tree to see what would happen…or maybe to see how to kiss right. Oh, she didn’t know, really. All she knew was that this was a lot more fun than hide and go seek with Marvin. But, then, all of a sudden, they just stopped and Smarty got all mad at Specs and made him go away when he hadn’t even done anything wrong. Sometimes she really didn’t understand big kids. Smarty wasn’t usually that mean. She really wanted to know why she decided to be mean all of a sudden to Specs, who usually seemed really nice too. So, a moment or two after he walked away, she walked up, right behind the older girl and did just that. “Hey, why’dja be so mean to ya’ boyfriend like dat?” she chirped inquisitively “He wasn’t doin’ nothin’ wrong. I saw.”

[Smarty Jones]

Smarty jumped at the sound of the little voice behind her, then sighed angrily. It was only Fighter's brat. The little girl's words made Smarty's eyes flash with a momentary anger that she reeled in quickly. Smarty rolled her eyes. "He ain't my boyfriend," she said. "All he wanted was to neck. He's a rake, him." It had crossed her mind, briefly, to soften the truth for the young girl...tell her something else, or at least tell her nothing at all. But no, Smarty was a crass young woman. The world was hard for her to look at sometimes; why should she strain herself to make it easier for anyone else?

Crass though she was, Smarty knew better than to brush of Fighter's brat. The same thing that made Fighter so fond of the kid, made Smarty tolerate her a bit. How the child had grown up around such brouhaha and turned out like she had, it was a mystery. "The hell are you doin' here, anyway? You finish your papes, or what? C'mon, let's get outta here." So much for time to think, Smarty thought bitterly. But it was an excuse to get moving and back to the lodging house, which was the next best thing. She started walking toward the edge of the park and gestured for Fighter's brat to follow.

[Gwennie]

Gwennie raised an eyebrow “neck?” she repeated quizzically “what’s dat mean? He wasn’ even touchin’ ya’ neck. He was too busy kissin’ ya” she finished with a giggle and climbed up onto the side of the gazebo. She knew big kids liked to kiss and she’d done it a few times too, but she still thought it was silly that they liked it so much. It seemed like a weird thing to like so much because it was kind of boring to do.

“I t’ink ya’ pretty confused too ‘cause he’s a person. He ain’t no rake.” She turned around with some difficulty and sat down on the gazebo’s railing. “Rakes can’t do nothin’ an’ ya don’ wanna kiss one ‘cause it’d hurt real bad.” She grinned and giggled again at the thought of somebody trying to kiss a rake. She liked Smarty even though she was kind of mixed up and sore about stuff. It wasn’t her fault, really. She was probably just tired. That made lots of sense and she even looked kinda tired too.

She thought she should be especially nice to her so she wouldn’t feel any more tired, so, when she spoke up again with a beckon to follow her, Gwennie shot her a broad grin before hopping down off of the gazebo and chirping “okay! I jus’ gotta get my papes. I still got some left” She skipped over as quickly as she could and scooped up the two or three papes she had left. With a cheery cry of “got ‘em!” she turned again and skipped off after the older girl. Usually, she sold on her own, because it was easier to get people to buy from her without someone bigger around, but she only had a few left and she didn’t want to make Smarty feel sad by making her think she didn’t like her or anything. She could probably sell them along the way anyhow and, even if she couldn’t, peoples’ feelings were always more important than a few pennies.