Dispute

The ringleader said aggressively, "Putz, you said you'd get paid to borrow people from me to do errands. Where's the money? You've owed me for days, do you even know that?"

The brat shouted back, "That old Lame Willie also owes me money. He didn't pay me, so how am I supposed to share it with you guys?"

"That's your problem, I only acknowledge you. Lame Willie's job belongs to Lame Willie, and you're the one who gives us the job, so you should pay us."

"Fuck! You guys were too scared to go to that Cannibal Street and ask Lame Willie for work, so you asked me to be the middleman. I didn't take a cut, and now you're asking me for money because you've been taken advantage of. It's like I took so much from Lame Willie and have money to pay you back."

Children who live in the sewers know that no matter how much you squeeze someone who has no means of making money, you can't get any more out of them. So their purpose in coming here is actually for something else.

The boy who was in the lead said, "Alright, let's put aside the score with Lame Willie for now. But Skye's debts should still be paid back."

The Black girl, who had been dragged out in a disheveled state and struggled to her feet, shouted angrily, "I don't owe you anything! What do you want me to repay?"

At this point, an even younger child in the group stood up and accused, "You took my bread! I hid it in the sewer culvert on West 34th Street!"

"That was lying on the ground, nobody wanted it! I just took it."

"Thief! You can't assume it's unwanted just because there's no one watching it around. I marked the bread, my own mark."

"Damn it, who recognizes your mark? You stupid kid who'll end up in the Cannibal Street in three days, becoming food for the Monster there! And how can you be sure I took it?"

"I saw it! I even yelled at you to put it down, but you wouldn't listen and just ran away. You ran away with my bread!"

The Black girl said in a greasy, street-smart tone, "Oh, I remember now. It's just that the way you looked back then was like you thought everything you saw was yours and told others to get lost."

"There's no such rule here. Whoever has it, it belongs to them. Besides, I've already eaten it and turned it into a pile of poop. What If...? you really want it, look around the next corner for some poop, and take whichever one you like. Consider it your return."

The Black girl's outburst ignited a chorus of anger from another group of children, who joined in with their own insults. A torrent of unfiltered profanities emanated from the mouths of children who should never have had access to such things.

It was the same boy who had led the group who spoke up, suppressing the voices of his own people. "There are no rules here. All that matters is whoever has the most people and the biggest fist."

"Skye, I don't want to argue with you about the bread I ate a few days ago. But you bullied my people, and I can't just sit idly by. Here's what we'll do: I heard you have a treasure. Hand it over, and that'll settle your debt."

The Black girl raised both middle fingers. "Fuck you! Impossible!"

The bratty kid looked at the black girl next to him with surprise, seemingly astonished by the "treasure" she possessed.

However, before the two could discuss the "treasure," the group of children opposite them, who were after the "treasure" that the black girl often secretly showed off to outsiders, rushed at them when they realized that coercion was ineffective!

The brat nicknamed Putz had been kicked by an adult earlier. Now, as he fell, he instinctively protected his stomach, curling up like a boiled shrimp to shield himself.

Another Black girl was not spared either; in fact, she was even more people who reprimanded her, and she could only try her best to protect herself.

The child in the lead stopped everyone, saying, "Quickly, look on her and see where she put that treasure!"

A group of people frantically groped the girl's body, when a child nearby shouted, "I saw her put her treasure in the inner pocket!" Immediately, some people started feeling inside her clothes.

When someone touched a certain spot, the Black girl reacted particularly strongly, struggling to pull the person's hand away and saying, "Don't take my baby away..."

The boy being searched paid no attention to any of that; instead, he became even more certain that he had found the right thing. He immediately grabbed it and pulled it out. "I found it! I found Skye's treasure!"

Everyone looked with great interest at the boy who had just gotten his hands on the item, eager to see what this "treasure" actually was. What the boy held was a pink elastic hair tie with multifaceted plastic balls at both ends.

The children who had struggled to grab the item were all dumbfounded. However, some who didn't recognize it asked the person next to them in their childish voices, "What is this? It looks shiny and pretty."

Everyone who recognized it looked down on it. Even the first child to snatch it instantly felt his joy vanish. He threw it on the ground and cursed, "What kind of treasure is this? It's just a hair tie that nobody would even pick up if it were lying on the ground."

Putz saw this "treasure" and realized what it was. It was the gift he gave to the Black girl when he first met her and received help from her. It was the only foster family that had ever treated him kindly, and his only remaining attachment.

Having grown up in an orphanage since infancy, Putz spent time with many different foster families. Most of these families were only interested in receiving government subsidies, so they were not kind to the children. As a result, Putz often ran away from home on his own initiative.

Only the the Brodis family, the elderly couple, took good care of him. Putz once thought that this would be where he grew up, until he became an adult.

Who knew that the elderly couple would have an accident, and even though he didn't want to run away from home, he had no choice but to leave. And because he was afraid that the accident would make him a murderer in the eyes of others, he dared not return to St. Agnes Orphanage.

He had seen enough of the bureaucrats in the U.S. government system who had none of the patience and love that outsiders imagined when dealing with children like him.

Even if such people occasionally appear, they are rare and hard to come by. Most people treat social welfare work as just a job, and they are merely one of many in the statistics.

The plastic ball hair tie was the only thing he brought with him, which he also used to "bribe" the black girl named "Skye".

Putz never imagined that Skye would like the hair tie so much. He also never imagined that he would get beaten up because of a cheap hair tie.

But Putz could understand that this Black girl, born and raised in the sewers, was different from someone like himself who was fortunate enough to enter an orphanage and move between foster families.

Ordinary life was a distant dream for him, but a fairy tale in the clouds for the Black girl.