Welcome to 5th Grade, a newsies fanfic

This was written for the Newsies Pape Selling Competition

Task used:

A newsie or newsies takes/take on elementary school.

Prompts used:

Attitude: obnoxious

Class: english

Word count: 3,460

Please ignore how awfully rushed this feels towards the end. I'm tired and needed to get this done before I forgot what I wanted to write. Also, please excuse any grammar errors or anything that might be present. Once again, I'm tired and my friend/beta is asleep so she can't really read through this. Anyway, here it is! Also, on an unrelated note, I really should update my Teen Titans/YJ fanfic, shouldn't I?

Disclaimer: I do not own the Newsies characters. They belong to Disney. However, Max is all mine. Mwahaha!

ATTENTION: I just want to apologize in advance for anyone I may have offended with my sentence about Davey's Jewish accent coming out when he yells or is upset. It was brought to my attention in a review that this could be considered offensive by some Jewish people. I didn't think anyone could be offended by it but apparently, I was wrong. I, myself, am Jewish and I know that a Jewish accent tends to come out a little when I'm upset or yell (as it does with so many other Jewish people who don't normally have a Jewish accent) which is why I included this in the story, seeing as Davey is Jewish. I will not be removing it because I don't see anything wrong with it and I feel like it's a nice little detail to have in there. However, I will apologize for offending anyone I may have offended. If you're offended by this, I'm sorry for offending you. Please know that I never meant any offense with this. It's just a little detail that I felt would be nice to slip in. If you will be offended by this, please don't read this story or skip over the sentence it's mentioned in. Thank you and once again, I'm sorry.

Davey woke up at the crack of dawn, brimming with excitement over his newly acquired job. He had been offered a position at a local public elementary school as a fifth grade english teacher. Of course, he eagerly accepted the position, teaching being his dream career for as long as he could remember. He shot out of bed, practically leaping to his dresser and pulling open the 'monday drawer', a pair of dark gray striped slacks neatly folded next to an equally neatly folded long-sleeved blue and white checkered shirt and dark brown vest. He quickly pulled the assigned outfit out of the drawer and changed into it. Afterwards, he rushed over to his closet and pulled out a black tie. Normally, he wouldn't be wearing a tie with this ensemble but he decided for it today. After all, he should look professional, right? After tying on the tie, Davey bounded over to the full length mirror on the back of his bedroom door and admired his reflection.

"Looking good, Jacobs. You're definitely ready to seize the day," he said to himself, smiling proudly as he straightened out his vest and adjusted the tie. He then grabbed a comb from the top of his dresser and combed out his hair, not that it really needed to be brushed what with the almost complete absence of bed head. Pretty soon, he was pleased with his appearance and wandered out of the bedroom of his apartment. It wasn't much to look at but it was all he really needed. It was reasonably priced and had one bedroom, a bathroom, a small living room, and a kitchenette. Davey wandered over to the kitchenette and put a pot of water on to boil. Without his daily dose of chamomile tea, he would be a nightmare. Pretty soon, the water was boiling and the tea kettle was whistling away. Davey jumped up from the stool he had taken a seat on while waiting for the water to boil and turned off the stove before pouring some of the scalding water into his tea thermos. He then got a scoop of his desired flavor tea and dumped it into the infuser in the thermos before screwing the lid on tightly. When Davey was satisfied with his tea, he double-checked that he had remembered everything, grabbed his briefcase, and walked out the door with a spring in his step. He scurried down the three flights of stairs to the garage and once there, he hurried over to his light green Prius and got inside, setting his tea in the cupholder and his briefcase on the passenger seat beside him and buckling up. After a minute or two of adjusting the mirrors and checking to make sure no 'check engine' lights or any other lights of the sort were on, he was ready to back out of the garage and was soon on his way to the school.

"Mr. Jacobs, correct?" a red-haired woman said to Davey as he walked into the principal's office.

"Ah yes, ma'am, that would be me. I'm Mr. Jacobs, err uh Davey, well, my friends call me Davey I uh…" Davey stuttered as the woman peered over her spectacles at him. Davey mentally berated himself for making a bad first impression before beaming at the woman and holding out his hand. "Hello, I'm Mr. David Jacobs, pleased to meet your acquaintance."

"Hello, my name is Hannah. I'm Principal Pulitzer's secretary. He is currently dealing with the latest… antics of one Mr. Kelly and is therefore unavailable to speak to you. However, I am more than happy to help you with anything you may need for your first day."

"Thank you, Hannah. May I call you Hannah?"

When Hannah nodded, Davey continued. "So this 'Mr. Kelly', is he a student here? Sounds like a rambunctious little rascal."

Hannah allowed herself a short chuckle before regaining her composure and leading Davey over to her desk. "No, no. Mr. Kelly is actually our, erm… art teacher," she began as she rifled through papers on her desk. After a couple moments she found what she was looking for and pulled out a yellow manilla folder, handing it to Davey. Noticing the confused look on his face, she said, "Everything you'll need to know about your classes."

Davey nodded and followed Hannah as she led him out of the office and down the hall.

"Anyway, as I said, Mr. Kelly is our art teacher and a rather brilliant one at that. He just has a tendency to… how do I put this… start uprisings among the students. He seems to enjoy making the students set on 'rising up' against Principal Pulitzer and Vice-Principal Hearst," Hannah said with a hint of amusement in her voice.

"Wait, wait… uprisings?" Davey asked as he rushed to catch up to Hannah and keep pace beside her. "What kind of uprisings?"

"Oh, you know. They go on strike and demand less homework, more recess time, etcetera… He definitely gets a kick out of it."

This was news to Davey's ears and he had to take a moment to process it. A teacher organizing strikes? What kind of school was this?

"Hannah, if you don't mind me asking, why do you still employ Mr. Kelly if he's such a problem among the students?"

"Well, as I've already mentioned, he is a brilliant art teacher and just an amazing artist in general. We wouldn't be able to get someone with half his talent to take his place, if we fired him. He's willing to teach our students so if he has to cause a little trouble here and there in order to work here, so be it," Hannah said with a decided nod as she stopped outside a locked classroom. She pulled a ring of keys out of her pocket and unlocked the door before handing the key to Davey. Stepping inside, she walked towards the desk at the front of the room and turned to address Davey. "Anyway, that's why we have responsible teachers to keep an eye on him. I'm sure you'll help keep him in check," she said with a wink. Before Davey could react, Hannah had already changed gears.

"This is your classroom where you will be teaching your fifth grade english classes. There will be six classes every day that you will teach. There is a recess after the second class of the day and a lunch break after the fourth class of the day. Be sure to check your schedule so you know when you're on recess or lunch duty. If you're not on duty, you can take that time to relax. If you are on duty, you'll have to watch over the children and see to it that they don't get into trouble. Got it?"

"Uh, I think so…" Davey said as he processed all the new information. "Seems easy enough."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that. Watch out for those little troublemakers. Lord knows there's always one and if you don't find them before they start stirring up trouble, well… it's gonna be awfully rough on you, kid," Hannah said with a sympathetic pat on Davey's shoulder.

"Well, I'll leave you to get settled into your space here. Your first class starts in 15 minutes, good luck Mr. Jacobs. And don't worry, being a teacher will be fun."

With that, Hannah turned on her heel and strode out of the room, leaving a slightly confused Davey by his new desk to sort out all his things before his first class. He was busy sorting through the papers in the folder that Hannah had handed him when he heard a knock on the door.

"So youse is the new english teacher, 'eh?" a voice said in a heavy New York accent. Davey turned towards the door of the classroom to see a man leaning on the side of the doorway.

"Yes, I'm David Jacobs," Davey said. "Who might you be?"

"Well hiya, Dave," the man said, pushing off the doorway and walking towards Davey, extending a hand towards him to shake. "The name's Jack. Jack Kelly."

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Kelly," Davey said, shaking Jack's hand.

'Kelly,' Davey thought. 'That sounds familiar…'

Suddenly, the gears in his head started working again and he remembered where he'd heard the name before. "Wait a minute, Kelly? As in the Mr. Kelly that starts uprisings among students?"

Jack chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck embarrassedly. "Ah, so youse already heard 'bout that, huh?"

"Yes, Hannah told me all about the 'strikes' you organized with students," Davey said, turning back to his desk and continuing sorting through papers.

"Of course she did," Jack grumbled, a twinge of annoyance in his voice. "That woman hates my guts, I swear to ya. Always rattin' me out… "

Davey rolled his eyes as he finished setting up his desk. "Don't you have a class to teach or something?"

"Aww, c'mon Davey, don't be like that. Ise is just tryin' to make friends," Jack said with mock sadness as he slung an arm around Davey's shoulders. Davey sighed and pulled Jack's arm off of his shoulders.

"Listen, Jack. I need to get ready for my first class, okay? I'm not really in the mood for making friends right now."

"Yeesh, youse is startin' to sound like Ms. Plumber," Jack said, chuckling and slapping Davey on the back good-naturedly. "Don't stress about it, 'ey Dave? Youse'll be fine… Well, I mean, so long as youse watch that Max kid."

"What are you talking about? Who's Max?"

"Youse is teachin' the fifth graders, right?" When Davey nodded, Jack continued. "Well, Max is a fifth grader and I knows for a fact that he's got english for his first class. He's a little bugger, that kid. Was one of the main kids in those 'strikes' wese has had."

"I'm sure he can't be that bad…" Davey started.

"Oh, youse has no idea. Max is gonna be a hard one to control. 'Specially cause you's a new teacher," Jack said with a chuckle. At the worried look on Davey's face, he added, "but Ise is sure youse'll be able to handle it."

"Pfft, of course I'll be able to handle it! Heh heh…" Davey said nervously.

"See? Now youse is comin' around!" Jack said as he turned back towards the door. "Well, first class is about to start so Ise'll see ya later, Dave."

Jack walked out the door and waved to Davey as he left.

"Well… he's an interesting character," Davey said to himself. After making some last minute adjustments to the things on his desk and making sure everything was in place, he waited for the bell to ring. At long last, the shrill sound finally filled the school and Davey anxiously awaited the arrival of his first class. Pretty soon, a line of children made their way into the classroom and they slowly filled up their seats. A couple minutes later, all the desks had been filled except one. Davey thought that seemed a bit odd but he decided that perhaps there was just one kid less in his class than normal and thought nothing of it. He grabbed his attendance sheet and a pen from off of his desk before turning to the students who were currently either staring at him oddly or chatting amongst themselves.

Davey cleared his throat in an attempt to catch the students' attention but that failed to do any good. Davey tried again a little louder but when that also failed, he sighed and addressed the class.

"Hello, class. Welcome to your first day back at school. My name is Mr. Jacobs and I will be your english teacher for the year," Davey said. The students quieted down and directed their attention to him as he continued. "I'm looking forward to a great school year full of learning. Now, before we begin, I'd like to take roll so please, say 'here' if your name is called."

Davey looked down at the attendance sheet in his hands and started calling out names.

"Angela Michaels?"

"Here!"

"Nicholas Thompson?"

"Here!"

"Espen Reynolds?"

The list went on and soon, Davey had gone through almost the entire list with no problems. He looked down at one of the last names on the list and called it out.

"Max Pines?"

The class was silent as they awaited a response to the name. Davey looked up in surprise. So far, that was the first kid to not answer.

"Max Pines?" Davey called again, still getting no response.

"That's odd…" he muttered to himself as he went to check off the name as absent. However, before his pen could make contact with the sheet, the sound of shuffling feet reached his ears and he looked up to see a young boy with dark brown hair nearly covering his eyes walk into the room and plop down into the empty desk.

"Are you Max Pines?" Davey asked the kid who sat slumped in his chair, completely uninterested. The boy looked up at Davey and a mischievous glint shone in his eyes.

"Yeah, what's it to you?" Max said with a roll of his eyes. Davey narrowed his eyes slightly but chose to ignore it and continue on. He finished taking attendance and then set the sheet down.

"Alright, so today, I'd like to just review some things you've already learned and then get you all familiar with my class structure," Davey began as he turned to the chalkboard and started writing out different parts of speech. "So, can anyone give me examples of a basic part of speech?"

"Here, I've got verbs for you," Max piped up.

"Oh, great!" Davey said, turning to Max with a friendly smile. "Let's hear them."

Max smirked before saying, "Shut up, get up, and leave."

Most of the class broke out into laughter at Max's smart aleck comment. Davey, however, was absolutely appalled. He had never been talked to like that before, especially not by a little kid. Sure, he had had to deal with Les giving him a little attitude in the past but nothing like this. Davey let the smile slip away from his face as he addressed Max. "First off, the first two are phrasal verbs, not what I'd call basic verbs. Secondly, young man, that is no way to talk to anyone, especially not your teacher."

Max snickered. "Yeah? What are you gonna do about it?"

"Well… this is your first strike. Don't make me give you a second one," Davey said as he turned back to the chalkboard.

"What's wrong, teach? Too scared to send me to detention?" Max said with a challenging smile.

Davey counted to three in his head before turning around and looking at the obnoxious student. "I believe that everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves. However, you now have two strikes. Please stop before I have to send you to the principal's office."

"Ooh, you hear that, everybody?" Max said as he stood up and turned to the rest of the class that was looking on in fascination. He continued, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "I have two strikes now. I'm so scared."

"Max, sit down, please," Davey said, trying to keep his cool.

Max shot a wicked smile at Davey before turning back to the rest of the class.

"Max… you must sit down."

"Look at this! This new teacher has no idea what he's doing!"

"I'm serious, Max…"

He thinks he can tell us what to do? I say no! Are you with me?"

And just like that, Max had turned the students against Davey. He watched helplessly as the class erupted from relatively calm into full blown madness in just minutes. Kids were jumping on desks, crumpling up notebook paper, screaming, and shouting.

"Everyone, sit down! You can't do this!" Davey said, trying to make the children listen to no avail. He really didn't like to yell so he simply raised his voice a bit and tried again. However, this also didn't work and the students continued to ignore him. Several kids shot up from behind their desks and shot spitballs at Davey, most of them hitting their target, forcing Davey to quickly dive behind the desk to avoid any further attacks. Now, here he is, his class being overtaken by an 11-year-old madman.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god…" Davey says to himself as he huddles behind his desk, crumpled balls of paper flying over his head while students laughed and cheered. Become an elementary school teacher, they said. It would be fun, they said. Well, if this is their idea of fun, Davey is most definitely not a fun person. No, spitballs adorning your tie and hair is definitely not fun. It's amazing how quickly the day went from perfect to complete and utter chaos. Davey starts to calm himself down as he tries to formulate a plan in his head. He can't let the kids go on like this. They can get hurt and miss out on a day's worth of education, not to mention the fact that he can get fired for this. He sighs and takes a deep breath before closing his eyes. He knows what he has to do and he's not looking forward to it. He slowly stands up and turns to once again face the students who are acting like complete wild animals.

'Alright, Davey, you can do this,' Davey thinks to himself. Taking one final deep breath, he clenches his fists by his sides and prepares himself for what he's about to do. He really doesn't like to yell.

"Everybody sit down right now!" Davey yells at the top of his lungs, his Jewish accent coming out a bit as it does whenever he yells or is angry. The students immediately stop and scurry to their seats, looking at Davey in shock. Even Max sits down although he seems to have a smug smile on his face.

"So I was able to make you snap, huh? Good to know," Max says, grinning like a Cheshire cat. Davey chooses to ignore him for the time being and instead addresses the rest of the class.

"Now class," Davey begins, his voice a deadly calm. "You will all get up, pick up the mess you made, and behave. Your parents will all be notified if you act out again."

The wide-eyed students move in unison, standing and picking up the huge mess left all around the classroom.

"Not you, Max," Davey says to the boy who was just starting to get up out of his seat. "Not yet."

"You don't scare me," Max says in defiance but with a slight nervous twinge in his voice. Davey walks up to Max's desk and leans down until he is eye level with the boy, piercing him with a strong glare. Max visibly gulps as he sits back down in his seat. He knows he's in trouble.

"Now," he continues in his deadly calm voice from before. "You, young man, will clean up your mess and then march yourself down to the principal's office. Do you understand me?"

Max simply nods as he nervously looks at his beyond-angry teacher. Then, with a mood swing that could make anyone think he's bi-polar, Davey smiles and stands up, clapping his hands together.

"Well great! I'm glad we could come to an agreement," he says, only making Max's fear of Davey even greater with the sudden hormonal-type swing in his emotions. Max gets up and hurries to join the rest of the students in their massive clean-up efforts.

Davey smiles to himself. If there's one trait that he has inherited from his mother, it's how to terrify children into behaving.

"I guess Max won't be such a problem anymore," Davey says to himself with a smug smile of his own, watching as the students clean up the rest of their mess and then make their way back to their seats. Well, all of them except for Max who, instead, slinks out the door and down the hall to the principal's office.

Davey grins. "Yeah, definitely not a problem anymore."