⸝⸝₊ ┊in between
♰ chapter two ♰ ‧₊˚ ⋅⩩
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⁰︎⁰︎ °. • THE FIRST RULE in Maisie's life, don't be rude to someone unless they're asking for it. Because if they're asking for it, she (totally, 100%, (definitely not)) has her father's permission to be rude back. Don't ask her mother about that rule. She'll disagree.
Sometimes being a police officer's daughter is helpful. Because they surely wouldn't arrest the girl, he was on his way to be sheriff. Not that she has ever done anything ever in her life to get arrested...but if her and Peter kept it up, there was a cell waiting with their names written all over it.
But being rude wasn't enough to get her arrested. It was just enough to get her called down to the principals office.
"Maisie Hudson, please report to the front office."
If there was a more embarrassing moment in her life, it probably would still fall under this exact moment. Getting called over the intercom to the principal's office was practically social suicide. Because now everyone was going to be watching her leave the room. The ten foot walk to the door suddenly felt like she was running across a football stadium, except she was running in place. Not moving. All eyes on her as she scrambled out the door.
None of them even truly cared what she could possibly be getting called down for, it was just a short distraction from whatever science lab the teacher had assigned that week.
Okay, listen. So, maybe...possibly...Maisie got into a slight altercation with another student. But it wasn't her fault! Not entirely. Maisie is a good kid, but if you walk into her whilst she has the robotics project she had been working on all semester in her hands and it falls to the floor...don't get mad when she's annoyed.
Or more appropriate to the situation, don't be a bitch.
Worst part of all of this was, Maisie was 80% sure she had never seen the girl she had ran into. Not that Maisie knew everyone in the school, but she knew at least most of the kids in her grade, and the one who ran into her, she had definitely never seen.
Maybe that's what Ned was talking about the other day. Something about a new student in his class. God, she needs to start paying more attention to what they tell her. Half the time it's useless, but suddenly...she really wishes she was paying attention.
"Ms. Hudson," she was greeted when she made it to Principal Morita's office. Her eyes wandered over to the other person in the office that was sat in front of his desk. Her leg crossed over the other and an outfit that was fit for a role on Gossip Girl. A skirt that was definitely too short for dress code, the cardigan resting on her shoulders, and an overly expensive handbag sitting in her lap. Don't even get her started on the shoes.
But Maisie recognized her. It was the girl who ruined her robotics project.
"Please, have a seat," he motioned to the empty seat beside her as Maisie carefully eyed her for a few seconds before sitting at the edge of the chair. "You're a good kid, Maisie." Oh great. That's how all these speeches start. "I really don't want to see your chances at getting into a good school boil down to this."
It was an argument.
Simply as that.
There was no fighting. There was no hitting. There just may have been some...choice words thrown around.
Peter pushed her away before she got the chance to do anything else anyway.
She's a girl who was taught to stand up for herself. Whatever. People just need to learn to pick and choose their battles better. Maisie was definitely very good at that. Not.
"You two seemed to have gotten off on the wrong foot," he waited for either of them to say anything before going on. He didn't want this to go on any longer than it had too. "Have you met Andrea yet, Maisie."
"Not...technically, no," Maisie muttered.
"This will be a good chance for you to get to know each other then. As for your...disagreement we'll call it, I do believe the word "bitch" was thrown around?" Maisie and Andrea shared a short look with each other. Neither one willing to speak up on that because they definitely both said it. Oops. "If you two want this to stay resolved, I do have an opportunity for both of you. Now, Ms. Morris, you did start in the middle of the year. You were a few weeks behind at your other school, I believe?" He waited for her to answer as Maisie looked over at her carefully waiting to see her answer. "Ms. Hudson here is one of Midtown's best. And if she would like to keep this off her school record, I have a proposition."
Oh god...what did she just get herself into?
♰
"Sooo, what? You have detention now?" Genevieve asked as she leaned against the kitchen counter. A glass of wine in her hand as she watched her daughter finish topping off her pizza, clearly frustrated as she wiped a smear of flour right across her forehead.
"No. I'd probably rather have detention," Maisie grumbled. "Because apparently Mr. Morita doesn't seem to know midterms are this week, he's throwing tutoring at me. So, not only was my robotics project ruined, now I have to tutor the girl who ruined it!" She finished topping off her pizza angrily before looking over at her mother when she heard the woman laugh quietly to herself.
No way her mother was laughing. This was so not funny. This was life threatening. Like, end of the world-life altering-worst possible thing to ever happen kind of life threatening.
"What?" Maisie snipped slightly. Now she was definitely annoyed. "This isn't funny, mom."
"Mais," Genevieve placed her glass of wine down on the counter before walking over to Maisie and grabbing her head gently. "Having to tutor someone is not the end of the world. You will survive. And as for your project—" she interrupted Maisie before she could complain again as the girl huffed impatiently. "I will help you rebuild it tonight, alright?" She nodded as she waited for Maisie to acknowledge her before the girl nodded herself.
"Fine," she muttered quietly as Gen smiled softly at the girl before wiping off the flour that had accumulated on Maisie's face before kissing her forehead quickly before Maisie could fight her off. "Mom, gross," Maisie pulled her head away quickly when she realized what her mom was doing as Gen just watched her with a small smile as Maisie went back to her pizza.
Typical teenagers.
"Anyway," Gen finally changed the subject before Maisie could start cursing out every teacher in that school. Because, if you gave her enough time, she would sit there for hours complaining about how some teacher had wronged her on a grade or how what they were teaching was irrelevant to just about everything. "You know when Peter's coming over?"
"Few minutes," she answered. Finally calming herself down to just an annoyed grumbled. "You think he's being acting weird lately?"
"Weird how?" Gen tried. "Weirder than normal Peter, or just weird in general?"
"Weirder than normal." Maisie shook her head to herself softly as she thought about it. She realizes when this started, it started when he came back from Germany a few months ago. He came back from that and it was like he always had somewhere to run off too. "I went over there the other day because Ned was coming over to finish his LEGO set, and of course, Peter didn't show up, so I left but then at school the next day, Peter and Ned were all over each other whispering about something. I have no idea what it was because every time I got close they just shut up and made some excuse about having to get to class."
She was figuring it out eventually. She just needed to figure out the what. What was so important that they felt the need to keep her out of it? It couldn't have been that big of a deal, nobody was dead. Or dying. Not that she knew of at least. Maybe they knew something. No, definitely not. It was just boys and their stupid, stupid secrets.
Peter wasn't usually one to keep secrets, not honestly anyway. But ever since Uncle Ben died...something shifted. It was like he always had this overarching need to make sure everyone was okay but himself. It was just him and May now, Maisie didn't blame him, there was a point where he had totally shut Maisie and Ned out. It had taken them days just to be able to see him again and it had taken them weeks to get him to talk.
And once they did get him to talk finally, he was just angry. He was so angry with the world and with everyone in it. Mostly at the one who had taken his uncle away from May, but a lot of the time, Maisie and Ned were the ones in his line of fire. That's when he distanced himself.
Freshman Year was a hard year. For all of them.
And yet they've barely made it through sophomore year and it could still somehow get worse.
"Maisie!" Harry was calling out suddenly. When the hell did he get home? The front door shut behind him as Maisie and Gen looked over their shoulder to see him walking though the short hallway before reaching the kitchen. He was holding his hand out with something for Maisie as he kissed Gen on the cheek quickly in greeting. "This was stuck on the door."
Maisie grabbed the sticky note from her father. They could see her roll her eyes and look back over at the pizza's they had just finished making. All four of them. Guess they didn't need the fourth one anymore.
"See, this is what I mean," she gave the note to her mother. "Weird."
━︎━︎━︎━︎━︎━︎━︎━︎━︎━︎━︎
im so sorry. i can't make it
tonight. something came up
with may. tell them to save me
some. ill stop by tomorrow.
promise ∞
And her bad day just became worse.
Awesome.
Thank you, Peter Parker.
gracie's getaway //
peter lore goes crazy
maisie and andrea are gonna
be so fun. and i have plans for
andrea and another certain
curly haired girlie in the group
*evil giggle*
bye my loves
— gracie x