My Mother, the Newsie Freak Chapter 1: Prologue: It Starts in the Middle, a newsies fanfic

MY MOTHER, THE NEWSIE FREAK

Prologue: It Starts in the Middle

If your grandmother ever says to you, "Let's watch this movie. It used to be a favorite of your mother's when she was your age," and it happens to be a movie called, of all things, Newsies, just run far and run fast. Don't feign interest just to be polite. Don't even waste time saying, "No, thank you." Seriously. Far and fast. You'll thank me.

I only offer these words of wisdom because no one was around to offer them to me until much later. And maybe I'm being a little melodramatic. Forgive me. But sixteen-year-olds are good at melodrama, so if you want to read my story, you'll have to learn to love it.

This past summer I was shipped off to California to stay with my mom's parents. Mom and Dad, the coolest people you'll ever meet, were off to New York City where my dad's jazz band was on tour. I wanted to go with them, but Grandma and Grandpa won out. They hadn't seen me for a couple of years, even though Las Vegas really isn't so far from Whittier. Maybe four hours away by car (or three if my dad is driving…)? Anyway, it was all planned out. I was going to be with them for two months, sleeping in my mom's old room and everything. It promised to be a riot.

The first week or so, nothing very strange occurred. But then, yep, you guessed it. My grandma said to me, "Let's watch this movie. It used to be a favorite of your mother's when she was your age." And I was instantly intrigued. I'm a sucker for old movies. So I agreed to watch it with her right away.

And it was a really fun movie! The dancing and the singing and the…well, I promised myself that I'd be honest, so I might as well admit that the sights weren't too shabby, either. I lost count of how many boys were in it, which is amazing considering my age and the fact that most girls my age like boys…

That night I went on my Grandma's sweet vintage iMac (back when they still had keyboards!) and googled "Newsies." I was curious to find out more about it. The search results offered me much more than I'd ever want: 1,423,000 results. Okay. Obviously my mother and my grandmother weren't the only people to have ever seen it.

Determined to find out more about this mysterious movie, I clicked on the most obviously useful link. Newsiespedia. And there was no going back.