Here I am, at a new school in a new city. I suppose it wasn't just any city. It was THE city: New York. Specifically, I was in Queens. It was practically, a city of its own, considering that it had over two million people living there. I was about to start a new school. Being the new kid was never fun. Hopefully, the school would be big enough that no one would really notice. Of course, I was trying to join something that people would notice and I wanted to do big things. Maybe it was better to be noticed.
Whoops, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Mary Jane Watson. My friends used to call me MJ before I moved. I'm 15 years old and I recently moved to New York with my father Phillip. I was pretty sure that the reason that we moved was to be closer to my older sister, Gayle, who had graduated from NYU and was going to be on Broadway in a supporting role. I personally wanted to go into my mother's line of work. She had been a reporter. She had been killed in action, but not because of what she did. She died in a car accident when I was 8.
I looked around the school. I was wearing a pale pink sweater and black jeans that were ripped at the knees. It was called Midtown High. I knew the first thing that I needed to do was register, but after that I would have to find the school newspaper. I hoped that I would have time to do that before classes started. I wasn't sure how long such a thing would take.
"Hello, Gorgeous." A blonde guy greeted me. "What's your name?"
"Not interested." I declared. He was attractive, but I wasn't the type to go after guys so cocky. Not to mention, his type was usually pretty dumb. His face didn't have the look of someone intelligent.
"Well, Not Interested, I'm Flash Thompson. I'm the school hockey star, and I think that you and me should date." He continued. I had to find out how to get away from him. Thankfully, I had a good excuse.
"I would but I'm needed in the principal's office right now." I told him before I walked away. It might not be the easiest to find, but I made my way down there in time. I found the secretary. "Hi, I'm Mary Jane Watson. I need my schedule."
"Yes, Miss Watson. It's good to see you." The secretary declared. "Since it's your first day, we have assigned an escort to you. I'd like you to meet our brightest student, Miss Gwen Stacy."
At that time, a blonde girl walked over to me. She was short and dressed kind of preppy. She was also kind of cute.
"Hello, Mary," Gwen greeted me.
"It's actually Mary Jane." I corrected. I had a feeling that I would be doing that all day. Well, it wasn't like I hadn't ever done it before.
"Well, it's nice to meet you, Mary Jane." She replied as the two of us left the office. I wondered if she would be able to show me where the school paper met.
"So, do you think you can show me where to find the school paper?" I asked.
"The paper doesn't meet on Mondays until after school." She told me. I sighed. Well that sucked. Why did it have to be like that? Whose idea was that. "So, is this your first time in New York? Where did you move from?"
"It is not my first time here. I came here for my sister's graduation from NYU." I explained. "We moved here from Pennsylvania."
"So, what does your sister do now?" She inquired.
"She's in a play on Broadway." I explained. "She said that she was going to come by today and pick me up from school. So, do you have any siblings?"
"I have two twin younger brothers." She answered.
"You know I just realized that I don't even know where my first class is." I stated.
"Don't worry about that." She answered. "You have study hall with me for first period. The school lets us do whatever we want as long as we don't leave or cause a ruckus."
"What exactly qualifies as causing a ruckus?" I wondered aloud.
"Well anything that is disruptive to one or more students or involves drugs or sex." She declared.
"So, basically nothing fun." I quipped. She looked a little surprised. "I'm kidding. I don't do drugs and I'm a virgin."
"There are fun things that you can do." She stated. "Some people like to read. Others play Dungeon and Dragons. Some just play video games. Or you can go to theater and hang out. Did you want to be an actress like your sister?"
"I actually wanted to be a reporter like my mother." I explained. This was probably the point where I would have to tell her that my mother was dead.
"Right, your mother was a reporter and she died when you were 8." She told me.
"How did you know that?" I inquired.
"When they told me that I was going to be your escort, I googled you." She explained. "I know your sister is named Gayle and your father is named Phillip. I hope you don't think that I'm weird. I just like to know things. You don't get to be smartest in school by slacking off."
"I suppose you don't." I agreed. "I guess you know a lot about me, but I don't know anything about you."
"Well my father is a captain on the local precinct of the NYPD." She replied. "My mom stays at home and hosts a cooking show on YouTube. She actually makes some pretty decent money from it, not more than my dad, but enough."
"I didn't know that there were cooking channels on YouTube." I declared. "At least, I didn't think that there were any that were hosted by adults or that were popular with adults."
"Yeah, there are pretty much channels for everyone on YouTube, including crazy conspiracy theorists. If you want a good laugh, check out J. Jonah Jameson sometime. One of my favorites was how he suggested that mutants helped fake the moon landing." She told me.
"I think I'll pass on that." I remarked. I had to admit that that was a pretty strange hobby. She didn't look particularly nerdy, other than her clothes. "I don't want to be a cop like my dad. I want to be a scientist."
"Really?" I asked with interest.
"Yeah, I was thinking of getting an internship at Oscorp when I'm old enough." She added.
"Do you they give internships to teenagers?" I questioned.
"They will when they meet me." She said. "We're going to go visit Oscorp next week. Also, Norman Osborn's son goes to school here."
"He does?" I questioned in surprise.
"Yeah, that's him over there." Gwen said as she pointed to a tall guy with curly brown hair surrounded by a group of other guys. "He's the big man on campus, but he's actually really nice and smart, unlike Flash Thompson who is the bully and kind of an idiot."
The rest of the day wasn't very eventful. I learned that the school that I was going to, while not a private school, was still more advanced than the last one that I went to. I would have to remember to study hard, but I was up for the challenge. I assumed that there was a grade restriction to get and stay on the paper. While I didn't really get the point of grades in school, I still knew that getting good ones was important. Not to mention, my father would yell at me if I got bad grades.
I quickly realized that I forgot to tell Gayle that I was going to check out the paper after school. I learned this when I got a text from her at 2:30 at she was on her way. I knew to silence my phone in class, so I was the only one that saw it. I knew that I couldn't tell her to wait a little because she had probably already been in traffic for a little while. That was the way New York could be sometimes. It was also the reason why a lot of people in New York didn't own cars. I imagined that I would have to use some later if I didn't want to walk. I found my sister in her green sports car.
"I still can't believe that your director gave you this for your first role." I stated.
"Well he thinks that I'm going to make him a lot of money, so I'll pay him back in no time." Gayle replied. "So, how was your first day of school?"
"Well I was going to go see about joining the paper, but I forgot to tell you that, and I know that you must have waited a while in traffic, so I don't want to make you wait any longer." I responded.
"I'm okay with waiting a few more minutes if you want to go and talk to the editor." She stated. "I don't want you to miss out on this because I was actually on time for a change."
"No, I don't want you to be late for the show. I'll just see about doing it tomorrow." I replied. "Besides, I want to spend some time with my older sister before she goes on. So do you really think that you'll win a Tony?"
"Of course I will, but don't worry, I'll make sure that there's still room in the trophy case for when you win your first Pulitzer."
"You say it like I'm going to win more than one." I commented. "That has only happened like ten times."
"Well you're going to be the 11th." She told me. I couldn't help but laugh. "I'm glad that you and Dad moved here for me."
"You know Dad will never say that we moved here for you." I pointed out. He would say it was for his exciting new job as a professor at Empire State University.
"But that doesn't mean that he didn't." She argued/.
That night, I sat with my father in the audience of my sister's first ever show. I had seen some of the rehearsals, so I already knew what happened in the play. I still thought that she was perfect in it. She was on top of the theater world. It would be an outrage if she didn't win the Tony next year, even though I didn't have any idea who she would be up against. I probably wouldn't go to all of the performances of her competitors because it wasn't like with the Oscars where you could just rent the movie and not have to spend as much money.
The next day, I knew that I would have to go through with it. I wasn't going to make it onto the paper if I didn't try. I also wouldn't be a good reporter if I didn't take some risks. Maybe I should have written a review of the play. No, that probably wouldn't have been a good idea because I was clearly biased for my sister and it would not make a good review.
I began to make my way towards the room. I found out that the school didn't have a journalism teacher and the paper was run completely by students. I would have to talk to the editor to see if he would give me a job as a reporter. I knew I wouldn't be making any money from it, but everyone had to start somewhere. I opened the door and walked into the room and noticed that everyone looked at me as I walked in. I hadn't expecting it to be so nerve-racking, but I had to do it.
"Hi. I'm Mary Jane Watson. I'm looking for Peter Parker." I said.
So, that was the first chapter. This doesn't really take place in any continuity. Anywhere, let's go into cast. Mary Jane is played by Katherine McNamara, Gwen is played by Madison Iseman, Gayle is played by Shelley Hennig, Flash is played by Luke Benward and Harry is played by Noah Centineo. Please don't forget to review.