Authors Note: Ok this is the first chapter of my first fic ever.  I had so much fun writing this first chapter I hope it shows through. I want to thank my friends Taylor, and Q especially because you guys read my stuff and gave me the best suggestions on how to improve it and for the I am eternally grateful.  So here it goes

Footloose and Fancy Free

Disclaimer:  I don't own any of the Newsies, not even just one.  I've asked Disney to share but they didn't want to.  Also all of the other characters in this fic are really people, so I don't own them either…or so they think.  And Footloose is a real Broadway musical and it has really, really great music if you haven't heard it I suggest you take a listen, and oh yeah I don't own that either.

Chapter 1:  Announcements, Attacks, and a New Found Friend

 "Attention everyone, attention!"

A striking lady with bright red curly hair stood in front of a large group of students in the auditorium, bringing them to order and motioning for them to sit down. The students stopped their discussions and took seats as close to the front of the auditorium as possible. They looked at their teacher, waiting for her to begin talking, some with nervous glances others with excited, smiling faces.

"Right then," she continued, "the musical production we will be putting on this year is," she paused for dramatic effect as the students leaned forward in anticipation, "FOOTLOOSE!"

At this, numerous WOOTs, cheers and other various shouts of approval arose from the crowd followed by one lone, but strong, "YEAH TECH!"

"I can't believe we're doing this play!" KP exclaimed excitedly to her good friend Fifi.

"Yeah I'm so excited I think I might actually try out for once!"

"Me too!" smiled the three others sitting in the row, giggling at the similarity in their thoughts.

* * * * * * * * *

"So we's gonna try-out dis yeah, right boys?" urged a taller boy with golden brown hair, chestnut eyes, and a cocky smile.

"A'course Jack, I try-out every yeah. Gosh I'm so happy you guys are trying out dis yeah, too!"

"We know ya try-out every yeah, Mush. You've made us come an' watch ya every yeah, too!"

"Lay off him, Race. He's just a little excited," Kid Blink cautioned.

"A little excited, Blink? Look at 'im! If he were any more excited we would have to tie him to the chair out of fear he would leap up and do a jig!"

"I hate jigs…" Skittery stated, simple and quiet.

"Hey! What's-a-matter wid you! Ya been in a bad mood all day!" Jack directed his attention towards Skittery, annoyed with the pessimistic attitude he seemed to get when he was tired.

"I haven't been in a bad mood!" Skittery retorted defensively, his voice getting louder with every word.

"Hey shut-up da both a ya or I'll soak ya!" a thin boy with dirty blonde hair and striking, icy blue eyes, warned in a low, cold voice.

"Spot! Are you tryin-out, too!?" Mush cried out in sheer excitement.  Spot shook his head in awe of how excited Mush truly was.  He started at an attempt to calm Mush down but their attention was called back to the front of the room before he could say anything.

"Alright, try-outs will require you to do a reading of your choice from the play. The song you will be singing, in pairs, with one other person from the opposite sex is 'Almost Paradise'. Try-outs are tomorrow after school, right here. Good luck to all!"

The students gathered their things and slowly began to mosey out of the auditorium and into the lobby.

"I'm going to land the part of Reverend Moore and the lovely Rachel is going have a flawless try out and get the role of my wife. We will have an unblemished performance and she will fall hopelessly in love with me and become me real wife," David stated, his eyes glazed over with a dreamy glow.

"I have a wife," came a soft, creepy voice from somewhere behind him, snapping him out of his fantasy, "I have ten…million."

"Your mom is his wife!" came another not-so-creepy voice from the same direction.

David turned around to address the voices but there was no one there.

"Uhh…down here, you moron!" came the not-so-creepy voice once again.

David looked down to see an extremely short girl with glasses; her hair was tied up in a high, side ponytail, and she was standing next to none other than Itey.  A little taken aback by this random girl, David decided to skip right over her and move directly to Itey.

"What have I told you about talking to me? You are a freak and nobody likes you. I don't know why you even bother to ta—OWWWW!!"

A sharp pain in his right shin interrupted David. He looked down to see what could be causing him this agony only to find that the girl had gone into full-on attack mode and was kicking him viciously as hard as she could. With one last good kick she ran off yelling, "Your mom mommed your mom at your mom dot com!" Itey followed her yelling, "backslash Bob Dole!"

David was clutching his shins, tears forming in his eyes - though not so much because it hurt, but because his well taken care of legs would now be dirtied with welts and bruises from where he had been maliciously attacked. Spot, Skittery, Kid Blink, Mush and Jack all looked at David in shock. They didn't know whether to laugh, or be outraged that their friend had been assaulted.

KP, Fifi and their friends, Rachel, Laney and Lindsey had seen the whole thing as well and they knew exactly how to react; they were doubled over, laughing hysterically and trying to hold each other up.

"Damn, I wouldn't have stopped there, I would have kicked your ass to hell and back if you spoke to my friends that way," a new voice spoke up. "You shouldn't talk to him that way just because he's different."

"And who might you be?" Jack asked, not really seeming interested in the answer.

"The name's Randy, but everyone calls me Fighter, and for good reason. So don't test me." The boys looked from her to each other and tried to stifle their laughter. She was a shorter girl with long blonde hair adorned with chocolate highlights and blue eyes that seemed to challenge them. She wore baggy pants and a baggy t-shirt, and when she saw that the boys were not taking her seriously she took it personally and began to advance on them.

"—Hey! ...Fighter, is it?" KP, seeing what was going to happen, yelled from the opposite side of the lobby that she and her friends had taken over.  Randy turned her attention away from the boys and looked at her, a little annoyed that the girl had interfered.

"Yeah, that's right."

 "Come here a minute," the girl said coolly. 

Randy looked back at the boys, a glint of warning in her eyes. "You better watch yourselves—next time there won't be anybody around to interrupt me."  The boys looked at her; a fake sense of seriousness plastered their faces. As soon as she turned and started for the other side of the lobby they burst out laughing again.

Randy continued walking towards the small group of girls, grumbling about how they were going to get what was coming to them one of these days.  She eyed the girls as she walked up to them, readying herself in case anything happened. She had, after all, just threatened people they knew and she wasn't sure how close they were to these boys.

The girl that had originally addressed her spoke again as the others looked Randy over. "You're the new girl, right?"

"Right again. Man, you're either really smart or really good at guessing, huh?" Randy said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

KP smiled, obviously amused by this girls attitude. "KP," she said simply and approvingly. Randy looked her over: she was a girl of average build, with long, straw colored hair that was tied up on the top of her head in a high pony tail, and a rebellious glint in her blue-green eyes.  Standing to KP's left was a girl about KP's height with blonde, chin length hair, clear, green eyes and a great but mischievous smile.

 "I'm Emma, but everyone calls me Fifi," she said, that smile never leaving her face.

"That's Laney, Lindsey, and Rachel," KP finished, pointing to each girl as she went down the line.

"Hi, nice to meet you," Laney smiled sweetly holding out her hand for a shake. Laney was shorter than the other two, with black hair in an interesting cut that complimented her very well.  She had big brown eyes that were hidden behind her glass and her nose ring glinted in the florescent lighting as she turned her head.  Randy took her hand and shook it shortly before letting go and looking to the next girl.

"Call me Rae-Rae…or just Rae if you want.  I'm impressed that you spoke up like that, you don't see that a lot from new kids."  Rachel was pretty; she had a medium build about the same height as KP and Fifi. She had mahogany hair that brushed her shoulders, and her eyes were a murky blue-green with a hint of gray.

"Yeah, well, I don't take crap from anybody. I stand up for what I believe in, and I don't think its right to mistreat someone and speak down to them just because they're different," Randy stated matter-of-factly.

"Yay!" This was the voice of the last girl, Lindsey.  She was very tall with brown shoulder length hair that was decorated with blonde highlights. She had a kindly face, and Randy got the feeling that this girl was extremely innocent; she not only wouldn't, but also couldn't, hurt a fly. This judgment was based on the girl's warm smile and her comment in response to Randy's beliefs. It had nothing to do with her physical appearance—Lindsey looked like a very powerful girl.

"Well it's nice to meet you all," Randy nodded, completely forgetting about her annoyance at the inconvenience of the earlier interruption. "So are all five of you trying out?"

"Hell yeah!" KP answered enthusiastically while the other girls nodded in extreme excitement.  "It's going to be kick-ass! The music in this play is amazing.  We were going to go run lines for our try-outs tomorrow if you wanted to join us."

"Yeah, I think that'd be cool," Randy replied with a smile. She hadn't known these girls for very long but she had a feeling that they were nice people and there was a solid possibility that they could become good friends…not to mention she hadn't really met anyone else at the school yet. The girls turned around, heading up the stairs to the chorus room, joking and laughing.

"Looks like we're going to try-out for the play too," Oscar Delancy turned his attention from the girls to his brother.

"What! Why? The play is for losers. Jacky-boy and his…uh…boys, are trying out for it, doesn't that tell you enough?" Morris replied, absolutely appalled at the suggestion his brother had just made.

"Yeah but look at who else is trying out," Oscar said pointing to the—now empty—stairwell.

"Oscar, stairs can't try-out! They can't even sing!"  Morris retorted stupidly.

Oscar looked at his brother in awe of how dense he could be, "Not the stairs you idiot, those girls! They are going to try out and probably get in, from what my sources tell me, and so are we, and when we do, they are going to fall for us. We will take them right out from underneath Jacky and his boys' noses! They won't even know what hit 'em!"  Oscar said, chuckling to himself.

"I don't know Oscar, I don't really want to hit 'em again. Remember what happened last time? I can just barely open my eye again."

"We aren't actually going to hit them you moron! We're just going to take all of their girls."

"Ohhhhh!  I like the way you think, my bother, I like the way you think," the two slapped five and went to look for someone smaller than them to pick on.

* * * * * * * * *

"So next year when we're at college together—"

"—Specs I don't think I'm going to get into college, my grades aren't that good and I don't have any extra curricular activities to put on my transcripts."

"Oh come on Dutchy your grades are fine so all we have to do is find something that you're good at, something you enjoy doing, a hobby if you will," Specs said smiling. "Alright, do you write any poetry I don't know about?"

"No!"  Dutchy broke eye contact, hoping Specs didn't notice that he had just lied.

"Do you have a secret passion for art?" Dutchy started in again, oblivious to his friend's obvious discomfort around the last subject. "Do Picasso and Monet hold a special place in your heart? Do you have a longing to be heard and feel like no one understands you? Are you really, really hungry?" he said, his voice getting more intense with each question.

"What are you talking about?"

"I was going for the whole starving artist thing."

"Oh…then…no."

"Ok, are you into any spor—" Specs looked at this friend and shook his head, "never mind that was a stupid question. Well, what do you do for fun?"

"Specs, you're my best friend, you know what I do for fun, I sing and I watch movies and that's pretty much it," Dutchy looked at the ground sadly as he walked on.

"Hmmmm…" Specs mused in a tone that told Dutchy he wasn't giving up that easily.

"Well, this is my stop," he said cheerlessly, "I'll see you tomorrow, Specs," his voice fading as he turned and slowly walked up the driveway. 

"Bye, Dutchy."

Dutchy walked into his empty house and turned on the TV.  "Looks like I'm on my own again tonight," he said out loud to himself. He moved into the kitchen and saw that the answering machine button was blinking, indicating a new message. He walked over to it, knowing exactly who had called and what they called about, he reached out and pressed the button.

"Hi honey, it's me," his mothers voice rang through the machine echoing in the silence of the empty house. "Looks like you're going to be on your own again tonight…I know, I know, it's the forth time this week but—"

"—Work is really busy" he said mimicking his mothers words, matching his own up perfectly with the ones on the recording that he had heard so many times.

"I'll be home late, but I'll call you later. I love you Dutchy," there was a pause as if she wanted to tell him something else, "…bye." Dutchy heard the familiar sound of his mother hanging up the phone and the answering machine voice informing him that he had no more messages. He sat down on the couch in front of the television and took out his homework. His eyes grew heavy and soon he was asleep, only to be awakened bye the sound of the phone ringing.

"Hi, Mom," he said dismally into the receiver.

"What?" came a voice of very different timbre than his mothers on the other end.

"Oh, sorry, Specs. I thought you were my mom calling. What's goin' on?"

"DRAMA!"

"What?" asked Dutchy, pulling the receiver away from his ear in case Specs had any intention of yelling into the phone again.

"You should try-out for the play!"

"I dunno, Specs…"

"What's not to know?"

"Well, I'm not that good at acting and I've never really done anything like this. Plus I wouldn't know anyone there and I would feel weird. I think I'm just gonna pass on this one, thanks anyway."

"Come on Dutchy!"

"…"

"I'll give you…strudel!"

"What?"

"I don't know, your name's Dutchy."

"Alright I'll do it, but it better be apple."

"Apple?"

"My strudel? It better be apple."

"Right, apple it is. Dutchy this is going to be great!" 

Dutchy could hear the smile on Specs' face and for some reason it made him smile knowing that Specs was smiling.  "Provided we both get in," he said, keeping a pessimistic attitude so as not to get his hopes up.

"We will, you watch!" Specs said positively, "Try-outs are tomorrow after school."

"Ok."

"So I'll see you tomorrow then?"

"Yeah, bright and early. Good night, Specs…and…uh…thanks for looking out for me."

"No problem, Dutchy. That's what…err…friends…are for. Goodnight"

Dutchy hung up the phone. 'He called us 'err…friends.' Does that mean he doesn't really want to be friends with me?' he thought to himself. 'Or maybe it means that he wants to be more than just friends and doesn't know how to tell me.' Dutchy thought about the prospect of his best friend being in love with him, his stomach lurched and his breath stopped short. "Nah, Specs isn't like that," he said speaking out loud this time, "and neither am I…I don't think…"

* * * * * * * * *

"Hi mom? ...No, I can't, I'm trying out for the school play."