Seizing the Day

Chapter One: Carryin' The Banner

DISCLAIMER: Hi there! So, just as a general disclaimer, I don't own any characters other than my OC's, and the cover art is not mine either (I'm afraid I don't know who the artist is, but kudos to them; it's a truly beautiful piece of work.) Anywho, that's about all I had to say. Enjoy!

JACK KELLY

He was about sick and tired of watching people walk by.

"School paper?" The boy offered an article to a girl who was trying to rush off to her locker, one individual in a swirling swarm of bodies that pressed thickly through the hallways of the school. Either entirely uninterested or having not heard him, she swept past, her shoulder neatly clipping the newspaper he had outstretched in his hand without a second glance.

Same as always.

"Y'know," Jack glared at her quickly disappearing back, before glancing over and catching the slight grin on the face of the teen next to him, who was waving a paper in his own hand, "I could almost swear we were invisible."

"Eh, c'mon Jack," the other boy smiled brightly, happy to be out and doing something, even if nobody else seemed to take notice. He turned as best as he could without disturbing his single crutch, resettling the papers that had nearly slipped from his arms, "I can see ya'."

"'Course you can, Crutchie. It wasn't you I was talkin' about."

Todd- or Crutchie, nicknamed by the permanent crutch under his right arm at all times, did nothing but roll his eyes. He'd been Jack's best friend for as long as he cared to remember, and had never failed to prove his loyalty. An outcast of the athletic group, because of his crippled leg, and a shy boy from the get-go, Crutchie had fallen into Jack's world with the same grace a train would acquire when slamming into a wall. It was as if the years of Jack's life before his best friend didn't exist; he was such a crucial part of who he was that it sometimes became hard to differentiate when and where their stories began.

While most of the other kids in the school seemed to shun the cripple for his abnormality, Jack had never been fazed. To be honest, he hardly ever remembered that Crutchie was different-that his best friend had a horrible limp and a metal appendage that served as a reminder of a tragic farm accident that had left his leg broken in four different places when he was twelve. There was just Crutchie, whole and simple, and to change any part of him would have been to change him entirely.

"When was the last time we had any interest at all in these things, Crutchie?" Jack grimaced, tossing his stack of newspapers back down to the floor beside him. The other boy frowned, wincing as he eased himself into a sitting position on the edge of the podium, his face twisted into a thoughtful frown, "Everybody brushes us off. Nobody cares anymore. Not 'bout the paper, anyway."

"Well, with headlines like that," Crutchie gestured towards the black and white print disdainfully, "Can't say I blame 'em all that much."

It was probably the fourth article that had been produced about the importance of healthy diets in leading longer lives, and that cafeterias like the one the New York Institution had were something to be admired. Crutchie scowled, "Honestly, Jack. It's been a joke ever since Pulitzer passed the idea that teachers make the topics."

It had been a joke- to their principal, at least, who didn't seem to care that the once flourishing club had completely nosedived over the course of the past year. There had been a time when they'd have been sold out of papers by noon. Now, they were lucky if they even sold five a day. With a student body of over five hundred students, to say the lack of enthusiasm from their peers was disappointing was an understatement.

Jack sighed, slumping next to his friend.

"Let's pack it up. There ain't gonna be anyone interested today."