AN: Welcome to my time travel fic! I have tried to take a different approach to the idea, so I hope you like it. As usual, Newsies belongs to Disney. I also don't own Sketchers, and even though I barely mention them I have to say that. As to characters, Mandy is mine. Heddy belongs to Rae Kelly. And Hades belongs to herself of course. You all know Hades! And if you don't, well lucky you. Just kidding Hades! *ducks bricks flying her direction* All other non-newsie characters belong to me. Now on with the show!

****

The crash, accompanied by a scream, echoed from the stairwell. "Heddy!" a petite girl, with curly strawberry blonde hair bounded down the stairs to where her friend was lying in a heap at the bottom. "Are you all right?" she demanded.

"I'm fine, Mandy. Just help me up, ok?" Mandy nodded and helped Heddy to her feet. Once standing, Heddy was quite a bit taller than her friend, with long straight light brown hair and dark green eyes.

Just as Heddy made it to her feet, a gorgeous blonde in a cheerleading outfit walked past, trailed by her sheep-like followers. The girl shot a disdainful look at Heddy. "Destructo girl's at it again," she muttered snidely to the girl beside her. Heddy blushed and looked down at her feet. Mandy on the other hand stepped directly into the girl's path. She glared up at the blonde, her normally sparkling light green eyes as hard and cold as jade.

"Heddy is worth ten of you, Marissa Peters! So why don't you and sheep just go shove it?"

Marissa was taken aback for a moment, then her eyes narrowed. "You'll pay for that Mandy Parker. Just wait!" Then she stormed off, sheep in tow. As soon as she was out of sight, Mandy leaned back against the stair railing, her hands over her face.

"I am so dead!" she moaned, her voice muffled by her hands. Heddy placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Thanks," she said softly. Mandy lowered her hands and grinned sheepishly. "Come on, we've got to get to homeroom."

The girls slid into their seats just seconds before the bell. As their teacher, Miss Patterson, called roll, they attempted to catch their breath without drawing attention to themselves.

"Heddy Lewis?"

"Here."

As Miss Patterson checked off her name, Principal Carter came into the classroom, followed by a very strangely attired girl. "Miss Patterson, I have a new student for your class," he said, motioning the girl forward. "This is Carrie Mason."

Carrie's long brown hair was covered by an old fashioned looking cap. She was wearing a blue button down shirt partly open over a grey tank top, capris jeans, and Sketchers boots. She stared boldly out at the class with her dark eyes, seemingly daring anyone to comment. As soon as Principal Carter left the room, she turned to Miss Patterson.

"The name's Hades. No one calls me Carrie." The teacher raised her eyebrows slightly.

"Okay. Well . . . Hades, why don't you sit beside Miss Parker?" she said, indicating the seat on Mandy's left.

A little while later, the bell rang, and the students headed to their lockers. Mandy and Heddy decided to take a shot at befriending the strange girl. They hurried to catch up with her, since she'd gotten a bit ahead of them in the heavy hallway traffic. When they made it to her side, Mandy tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hi! I'm Mandy and this is Heddy." Hades just stared at them.

"Yeah . . ."

"Well, um . . . do you need help finding your locker or something? This school can be kinda confusing till you find your way around."

She looked at Mandy critically for a moment and seemed to make some kind of decision. "Thanks," she said, and smiled, dropping her cold, suspicious demeanor, "It's number 304."

"That's right next to ours!" Heddy said, "Come on, we'll show you." The three girls walked off making friendly small talk. When they reached their lockers they were talking about movies. "So," Hades said, "Have you guys every seen Newsies?"

"Seen what?" Heddy asked.

"Newsies."

Mandy and Heddy shook their heads.

"Too bad, it's great. Maybe you two could come over to my place sometime and watch it sometime."

"Sound fun," Mandy said, smiling. "So what do you have next?"

Hades consulted her schedule. "Biology."

"Oh, that's right down the hall. We've got English." Mandy pointed Hades in the right direction, then she and Heddy headed off to English.

****

About a week later, Heddy, Mandy, and Hades were spending Study Hall in the computer lab. Heddy was working on a paper, while Mandy was goofing off and saving her paper writing for the last minute as usual. Hades was working on some immensely complicated computer program that she wouldn't tell them anything about. They had been working, or not working, for about twenty minutes when Hades suddenly jumped out of her chair. "I think I've got it!" she cried.

"Got what?" asked Mandy mystified. Hades didn't seem to hear her. "Now just to test it," she mumbled, quickly sitting back down and typing hastily. After a moment she finished whatever she was doing. "That should be it . . ." She his the enter key.

Suddenly the world turned upside down and the computer lab seemed to fade out. Then the world went black.