All girls in the bunkroom turned at the sound of knocking from the door, followed shortly after by yelling. Dani was the first to move towards the door. She opened it to reveal a new girl standing there. Nosey was standing a few feet away, listening almost patiently to what she was saying. Evidently, she had caught him snooping around. Nosey had a small, satisfied smirk on his face as he walked away.

"Uh…hi," Scribble greeted the newcomer before she could enter the room.

"Hi, I’m Mink," the 14-year-old girl exclaimed, her earlier angry completely gone. She stood at 5 foot 3. Her black hair just barely touched her shoulders and her dark brown eyes sparkled excitedly.

"What was that about," Rebel asked her.

"Found him hanging around outside the door," Mink replied, "Looked like he was listening in."

"When isn’t he," Dani muttered, "That’s the second time someone’s caught him today."

"We can’t be that interesting, can we," Chaos asked.

"We’re the only girls in this lodging house," Artist pointed out.

"He probably listens to find things to tell the boys," Scribble spoke up.

"He’s like our own personal stalker," Smartass remarked sarcastically, "And an annoying one at that."

"I’ll beat him up if he tries anything," Minks said.

"And I’ll help you," Smartass replied. Suddenly she glanced out the still open doorway, "Can we help you?" She glared at the guy, who was trying to sneak passed.

"No," he replied, sounding a little nervous, "I didn’t want to disturb you so I tried to get by without drawing attention to myself."

"Well you did," Smartass told him.

"Calm down," Dani told her, "He wasn’t doing anything."

"Sorry," the guy said, stepping forward, "I didn’t mean anything." He was shorter than most 17 year olds, standing at 5 foot 4. He was extremely skinny and had rugged brown hair. Brown eyes looked embarrassingly out from glasses, which were partially hidden by a gray newsie cap.

"Aren’t you gonna tell us your name," Mink asked suddenly. He jumped slightly at hearing her loud voice.

"Quills," he said, holding out a hand to Smartass, hoping to ease the obvious tension between them. She simply glared at his outstretched hand and Scribble quickly moved in to shake it, "It was nice to meet you all. I’m…gonna go now." He moved away slowly before heading to the guys’ bunkroom. Scribble shut the door after he left.

"He seemed nice," Chaos commented, breaking the deafening silence that followed. Her plan didn’t work because still, no one spoke.

"Somebody say something," Mink yelled suddenly, "It’s too quiet."

"Now it’s not," Smartass remarked, glaring at the girl. Mink simply shrugged. She obviously didn’t care what anyone thought of her attitude.

XXX

The next morning found the girls in school once again. Mrs. Hudson was at the front of the class, droning on about nouns and verbs. It was obvious that some already knew what she was talking about, since Mrs. Hudson acted like they were kindergartners that knew nothing. She was a nice enough lady, but didn’t seem to understand that things made sense after about the fifth time it was explained.

A lot of teens liked the class and put all their effort into their work. Then, there were the few who didn’t understand it at all. One of these was Blitz, who spoke more Italian than the native tongue of the people in New York.

She sighed as she looked at the board and the scribbled chalk words on it. Although she got the basic point of it, the hardest part was getting it down onto paper.

Nico Mazzari, or Crusoe to others, leaned over to see how she was doing. When the teacher found out that he was fluent in Italian, she immediately sat him next to Blitz to help out if needed. This was all thanks because Mrs. Hudson made everyone tell an interesting fact about themselves and that was his.

Crusoe stood at 6 foot 2, probably the tallest in his class. He was on the skinny side with sandy blond hair that was short, uneven and choppy. His dark brown eyes studied the board quickly before turning back to her.

Both Crusoe and Blitz were glad when the bell rang for class to end, and both for different reasons. Her because of the difficulty with the subject and him because he was tired of explaining, which he had to do every once in a while.

His friend Freddie Van Orden or Daft met up with him outside their next

classroom. Daft was 5 foot 6 and had a nice build. His shaggy black hair was in great contrast to his clear light green eyes.

"How do you understand that," Daft asked, referring to the previous class.

"It’s not that hard," Crusoe replied.

"To you maybe," Daft told him, "You’ve read that book enough times." He pointed to the copy of Robinson Crusoe in his hands.

"You should try it sometime," Crusoe told him, his face expressing absolutely no emotion. He walked in the classroom as he said it…the second that the bell rang.

XXX

Shout-Outs: (They’re going to be a lot of these. I’m doing ones I didn’t get from Ch. 9 and all of Ch. 10)

Ccat – Thank you so much for the character. And I’d love to use him.

Minkers_luvslotr – Thank you for your character, even though it was me who made you send it in. Hopefully you can find some way to get on the Internet and review more. It was fun watching Newsies with you a few nights ago.

My Dog Ate My Penname – I’m glad that you seem to like Pillow. I just randomly thought her character up. I had no idea that people would like her this much. And I’ll take your suggestion into consideration.

Koodles4you – I’m really glad that you think my story is original. It always means a lot to an author to hear that. It was just an idea I got one day. I had no idea so many people would like it. No, now school starts in less than a week! I’ll update as often as I can.

ShortAtntionSpaz – I got your e-mail and I got it only once. I love the character, thank you so much. I’ll be sure to use him.

TheAngryPrincess13 – You’ll be an 8^th grader. Cool! My best friend is going into 8^th too. Yeah! I also got to turn her into a Newsies fan. It’s weird, but a lot of the younger kids are actually really cool…just not freshmen. No offense to freshmen, I meant the ones at my school. I knew some cool freshmen last year.

Buttons14 – Yeah, and I still have more to introduce. Once there are introduced though, that’s when the story can really get into detail.

SmartassLeprechaun - Actually, I’m graduating early. I’ll still go to Graduation and everything, but I’m taking 2 tris instead of 3. And because of that, I might be starting college by next year.

Racetrack’s Dealer – Sorry, but I didn’t give your character a guy. It was really hard to pair every character, but if you’re interested in any of the OC guys, let me know and I’ll be glad to do that.

Geometrygal – I’m glad you liked the chapter. Yeah, Nosey is an interesting character.

Shooter O’Brien – Yeah, I try to update as often as I can. Here’s the thing. I paired you off with Blink. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not to create a character for Nick. The way you described him reminds me of a friend of mine who’s really smart. They call him ‘Frank the Tank’. I still have no idea why…I guess it’s because it rhymes.

Newsiesfreak2519 – I’m glad that I got your character right. It is hard to keep up with all these characters, but they’re also a lot of fun to write.

Allaboutelephants22 – I’m glad that I helped make your day. I like the thing about the british accents. Reminds me of the last time it really snowed down here, which was Valentine’s Day. My friend and I had a huge snowball fight and we started talking in English accents. We tried to stop afterwards and couldn’t for 30 minutes. I dressed as a newsie once…for Halloween last year. It was fun!!!

Moonlights Sundance – Yeah, I love both of your characters. I’ll have more scenes with the girls and guys once I get everyone introduced. Oh, and to answer your question when you reviewed my song…it was inspired from when you said one of your character’s wishes was to not be shy for a day. Thanks for the inspiration!

Akiko Iris – Obviously, I’ll write another chapter in the school. It’ll be much easier to write once I finish bringing in all the new characters. Hopefully, they’ll all be introduced soon.

Chapter 12