Newsies Middle School - High School AU

Chapter 1

It was an early Monday morning in late April, and the Jacobs family was already rushing about. They had just moved to Manhattan the previous week, and now, eleven-year-old David was getting ready to start at a new school, and sixth grade was hard enough when you weren't the new kid, he wouldn't know anyone, so he wouldn't have any friends, he would have to learn where everything was, and, to top it all off, at his old school, sixth grade was elementary school, but here, it was middle school, which meant six classes he had to keep track of, waking up earlier, and a lot more people.

"You ready to go, Davey?" David's mom asked. David, who was just finishing his breakfast, nodded silently. "You nervous?" His mom whispered.

"Yeah, a little," David nodded again, standing up and putting his now empty cereal bowl in the sink.

"You're going to be fine, I'm sure of it," His mom walked over and gave him a hug.

"Thanks, mom," David hugged back. David was very tall for his age, despite being only eleven, he was almost as tall as his mom.

"Well, we should get going, you don't want to be late on your first day at a new school" David's mom looked at her watch, "You go get in the car, I'll be right out," she walked over to David's four-year-old brother, Les, who was sitting in a booster seat, eating oatmeal, "Come on, Les, we have to take big brother to school," Mrs. Jacobs lifted him out of his seat and put him on the ground.

"Oh-tae," Les followed her out to the car, where David was already in the passenger seat, silently panicking. You're overreacting, David told himself, things are going to be fine.

Across town, a twelve-year-old named Jack Kelley was getting ready to go to school, too. He, unlike David, had gone to that school all year and was used to it, he had a large friend group that everyone called the "Newsies" because they had collected votes at the beginning of the year to start a school newspaper, and when they got enough votes they almost instantly started, and Jack, who was quite the artist, drew a weekly cartoon for it.

"You ready to go?" asked Jack's eleven-year-old adoptive brother, Charlie, or Crutchie, as most knew him because he had a bad leg and had to use a crutch.

"Yeah, give me a second," Jack replied, he was putting the finishing touches on a drawing in his sketchbook, "Aaaaaaaand... done!" he closed his sketch book and stood up to join Crutchie outside.

"Can I see?" Crutchie asked enthusiastically. Jack shook his head.

"Not until I color it," he hugged his sketchbook close to his chest, "Where's Ms. Medda?" he asked, realizing he hadn't seen his and Crutchie's mom all morning.

"She had to go to the theater early, when are you gonna start calling her mom?" Crutchie responded.

"I dunno," Jack closed the door behind them as they left, still holding his sketch book to his chest, and with that, the two boys headed to school.

Ten minutes after David left his house, he was already at school. The only way he knew it had been ten minutes was the clock on the dashboard in the car. It had been the shortest ten minutes of his entire life. After exiting the car, David's mom took David to the front office to check him in, and the lady at the front desk handed David his schedule along with a map of the school. "Have a good first day, David," David's mom hugged him and turned to leave.

"Bye Davey!" Les waved as he left. David was glad there were no students around, because THAT would not have been a good start, David's legs felt like jelly as he exited the office, and, attempting to keep his head down so wouldn't have to make eye contact with anyone, he read over his schedule and tried to locate his classrooms on the map.