Newsies Middle School - High School AU

Chapter 3 - The First Chapter With a Name

The first few days of summer were pretty boring for everyone, the weather hadn't gotten warm yet, so no one was outside, except Davey, Les, and Sarah, Mrs. Jacobs had made them ride their bikes around their block, which wasn't at all abnormal. At one point, Les started complaining about having training wheels on his bike, so Davey and Sarah decided they were going to teach him to ride without them. But it wasn't until Les angrily gave up after falling the third time that they realized this was going to be a long-term project. 

Jack and Crutchie spent most of their time playing Minecraft with the other newsies, most of the time they worked on their survival world, but sometimes, if they were just not feeling like fighting for their lives, they worked on a flat world in creative and just free-built.

Maine spent the first week of summer re-painting her room, as she always did at that time of year. She went over three of the walls in their usual pink (which was her favorite color), but this year she decided to do something different with one of her walls, she had black, white, purple and green paint, and she figured with a little masking tape, she could make her room look amazing. With some help from her mom and grandma, she was able to create exactly what she wanted to. "It's nice to have some contrast in here after all that pink," Maine's mom commented.

"Yeah," Maine nodded, "plus, it's nice to show my true colors, if you know what I mean," 

Her mom chuckled, "Yeah, I love that you're embracing the real you," she pulled Maine into a hug.

"We have some extra paint, if you want to paint your wall to resemble your flag," Maine pointed to the paint cans.

"Mmm, no, I think a flag is enough for me," Ms. J shook her head.

"Okay, mom," Maine nodded.

"Hey, somebody's birthday is next month," Ms. J's mom, or Maine's grandma, commented.

"Yeah, it is," Maine shrugged, "But, I'm just turning eleven, it's not a big deal,"

"Umm, yes it is, eleven is a double, doubles are like eleven, twenty-two, thirty-three, and so on, and those are totally important," Ms. J explained, "So, are you going to have a party? Maybe invite some of the newsies over for games and... karaoke?"

"I don't really want a big party, can't I just have Crutchie over for a movie night or something?" Maine asked.

"Well, if that's what you want," Her mom shrugged, "now, why don't we go to Dairy Queen and get ice cream? I know it isn't technically warm yet, but ice cream is... ice cream,"

"I'll agree to that any day," Maine smiled, so, without changing out of their paint splattered t-shirts and overalls, the three got in their car and went to Dairy Queen. 

Closer to the end of the month, the weather had gotten warmer, so Maine had summer clothes on, a pink t-shirt and a denim knee-length skirt. And she couldn't wait for later that day, because she was going to her first pride parade. Maine loved the LGBTQ+ community, and she was so glad to be part of it, even if she wasn't one of the most well known branches, ace/aro's still counted. Maine picked up her phone and texted Crutchie 'r u coming to the pride parade?' about a minute later, Crutchie responded 'no, I don't have your confidence.' Maine sighed, she didn't understand why Crutchie was so scared of people finding out he was ace/aro, it wasn't a big deal. Or maybe Maine just thought that because she was raised by a demisexual mother, so it wasn't like she had anything to be afraid of, she knew her mom understood. 

Maine thought about when she first met Crutchie, they had just left choir class, and the Delancey brothers had stolen Crutchie's crutch and pushed him to the ground, Maine didn't like to pick fights, so she considered doing nothing, but when Morris Delancey said "Your brother's not here to save you this time," Maine knew something had to be done, acting on instinct she kept into action, she took the crutch from the Delancey's (she couldn't quite remember which one was holding it) and used it to knock the Delancey's down, first she hit them both on the shoulder, then the legs, causing them to fall over. Then Maine helped Crutchie up and they got away as quickly as possible. Crutchie had looked at Maine like she was crazy, they started talking more often, and when they became closer and were friends, Crutchie started asking ice breakers, he had asked her if she associated any specific emotions with the month of June, to which Maine responded "Yeah, isn't June pride month?" Crutchie was slightly taken aback by this response.