A/N: (do people still do this now?)(Who knows?) Hello I am back friends and this is my fic! I've been playing with this idea for over a year now, so it's finally happening. I hate to be that person that's all "oh the canon characters won't show up for a while" but yeah, that's happening. I hope my general story keeps you interested enough, though?

Please love me, the more reviews this story receives, the more inclined I am to update sooner.

Okay just as a general disclaimer for all the stories: I don't own Newsies and never will yay Disney for owning it man guys I'm on fanficion dot net do I even need to say it?

Two girls in particular had caught my attention during our school's fall theatre production.

The first was Kaylee. She is irreverent to the plot of this story, but not the over all message. She was vivacious, voluptuous, and dark—skin, eyes, hair, but not personality. At least, not naturally. She spoke swiftly and sung softly. These songs she hummed often were usually from one musical or another, mostly about strikers and paperboys.

A nice girl, a bright girl, but her apparent lack of true friendship brought a thin shadow over her personality. If she lived by the motto "Champagne to my real friends and real pain to my sham friends", there would be very little alcohol and very much pain. Her friends were back stabbers, gossips, liars and cheats. Those were the type of girls to speak kindly to Kaylee in the open but call her fat and ugly and odd behind her back. They were the kind of people who either didn't know words could hurt, or simply did not care.

The second subject of my observation was Alice. Alice was the opposite of Kaylee in every possible way… She was gaunt and thin with long, dull, and greasy red hair which always came matted. She was always covered with grit and grime which made her pale face seem much darker. My speculation was that she was homeless—her stomach grumbled loudly and her clothes were almost always the same. Sometimes she might come to school with unexplained bruises.

Her sham friend count was much lower than Kaylee's—for Alice had no friends at all. She was sordid and dirty and nobody wanted to be around her much. The only reason she was in the production at all was because a teacher made her. I was surprised she had accepted, I was surprised Alice exerted even the slightest bit of effort in school at all.

Although I took an interest in both girls, and pitied them deeply, I never spoke to either one. I was an outsider, an observer. I loved to look at people but never interact. I did not have many friends, myself.

But an introduction is not a story's beginning.

This tale truly begins long before I shattered the fourth wall, just a quarter of an hour before curtains rose on the opening night of this school production of ours.

The straight play was a period piece, set in 1905 in the lower class. The timing and costume and placement was absolutely perfect, and you (the reader, I would hope) will soon find out why.

But on this fifteen-till, I was in a small corner of our dimly-lit backstage area, watching people as always.

Watching the Russian exchange student kiss the probably-prom-queen fiercely and passionately. Watching Katie (a girl from my Bio class) scurry along to get to her place just a tad bit early. Watching the stage manager walk towards me, briskly….

"Beth!" the small freshman boy who stood behind the curtain had quite a stage presence. "Beth! Where is Alice?"

I shrugged. How was I to know?

She was probably in the girl's dressing room, avoiding curtain call as she avoided most other social interactions.

The backstage ringleader asked me to go fetch the ginger girl in a hurry, and I obliged. I walked through people standing in clumps, whispering excitedly and single people making their way to their places. I passed Kaylee, who seemed upset, but I took no thought to comfort her in my rush (and in my mission to stay in the background).

I entered the dressing area, and Alice was there as was expected. She was sitting, facing the mirror on the far end of the room, and saw me enter. She turned around, and looked at me for a few moments.

"You're Elizabeth." She spoke after a few beats of silence.

"Beth" I corrected. I saw my birth name as being far too regal and complicated and preferred the nickname. I then delivered the stage manager's implied message—she ought to be in her place by now and ready to go on.

Alice looked at me, curiously, and slumped further into her seat. "I'm not going on."

Why not? I asked

"Because I don't want to be here. I'm not an important part. I only signed up because I like Ms. Korkin"

Ms. Korkin—an inspiring English teacher, who pushed Alice to join our little theatrical troupe.

I wasn't sure what to say, I wasn't sure how to respond. Should I boss her around, make her do something she didn't quite want to? Should I leave her be and pretend as if I hadn't of seen her at all? There was a last option, to tell the stage manager or someone or authority and drag her out by force.

But I was conflicted and lost and socially awkward, and the obvious answers did not seem quite so obvious to me.

I prayed in a split moment that any circumstance would bring me out of this absolutely uncomfortable situation. A bit of an overdramatic motion, but it was there all the same.

If I did get around to formulating a reply as Alice sat in the steady silence watching me (I cannot remember in the least bit), I surely wouldn't of have had the time to elicit a proper response as both Alice and I both blacked out and fell to our feet, waking up in what seemed to be an entirely different (although not magical) and incredibly strange new world.