A few days later, Katherine had managed to set up interviews with both of the boys. After school, she had them come to the meeting for the school newspaper. Crutchie was fairly excited about this, glad to be a part of something that likely wouldn't get him hurt. Jack, on the other hand, was less excited about this. Why couldn't they go somewhere besides school? It wasn't like he was very popular anyways, but if his friends found out he was going to this club, he'd never hear the end of it.

Jack and Crutchie walked into the room to find Katherine sitting at a computer, ready to type and take notes, while a bunch of boys were wildly chatting with each other and working on seemingly random projects. One of the boys looked up.

"Jack? What are you doin' here?" He asked. Jack looked at him, realizing with a little bit of embarrassment that it was one of his friends.

"Romeo! Oh, uh, I'm just helping with one of the articles, that's all." He said.

"Are you drawing a picture for it or something? That'd be so cool!" Romeo grinned.

"No, actually... I'm being interviewed for it." Jack replied quietly, as if it was some horrible fate he had to face.

"That's cool, too!" Romeo didn't see how anything about the school newspaper could be embarrassing.

"What are you doing here, anyways? I thought you didn't like school activities."

"Well it's not just me, actually. It's the other guys too." Romeo replied. Jack looked around. Sure enough, all of his friends were in the room, some writing, some doing other activities. One of the other boys, Henry, walked over.

"Hey Jack!" He grinned.

"Seriously, what are all you guys doing here? I thought you all hated anything related to school."

"It turns out we were wrong. See, we all had to do some sort of after school activity to get credit for English class. But it turns out that this is really fun!" Henry shrugged.

"But none of you can write very well. I know that for a fact."

"We don't have to write to be a part of the newspaper. Some of us conduct interviews, some of us just do the typing. But most of us do the advertising. You know, making sure people buy it." Henry explained.

"Oh. Well that's not so bad, I guess." Jack shrugged. At that moment, Katherine walked over to the small group of boys.

"Hey Crutchie! Hi, Jack. You two ready to be interviewed?" She said with a bright smile.

"Ooh, can I go first?" Crutchie volunteered immediately.

"Sure!" She smiled and lead him over to the desk where the computer was situated.

"So, why did you sit in the back of the bus in the first place? That's a pretty brave thing to do." She asked.

"Well, I didn't know it was bad. See, Jack is my best friend and he was helping me with what I should and shouldn't do as a freshman. I'm pretty sure he mentioned not sitting at the back of the bus, but I was so tired that morning that I must've forgot!" He said, with a slight laugh. She nodded.

"Now, some people would be embarrassed by someone else coming to their rescue. What do you think about that?" She asked.

"I wasn't embarrassed at all. I mean, with my crutch here, I couldn't have gotten away. So it was either get beat up or get saved by Jack. I'd much rather get saved by my friend." He said after thinking about it for a long moment. Katherine smiled.

"You look up to him, then?"

"Who wouldn't? Jack's the best friend someone could ask for." Crutchie grinned. After a few more questions, it was Jack's turn for an interview.

"So," Katherine smiled brightly at him. "Tell me about yourself."

"And why do you need to know? All I did was stop a bully from hurting my friend." Jack commented. Katherine rolled her eyes.

"I don't need to know every single thing about you. I just want to know what made you stand up for him like that. Not everyone has that kind of courage." She replied.

"Oh, right. I dunno, Crutchie's my friend, that's all. Besides, Oscar's just a big jerk. No one was standing up to him, so I did."

"And have you ever been bullied yourself?"

"Why do you care?" Jack wasn't about to admit to anything that could make his current relationship with school bullies any worse than it already was.

"Jack, it's just easier to write about if there's another reason you stood up for Crutchie." She sighed in exasperation.

"Fine. Yes, I've been bullied, specifically by Oscar. Why? I'm an artist. I draw. Apparently it's not normal for a guy to draw. There, you happy now?" He said quickly, wanting to get it over with. Katherine wrote all of this down eagerly, knowing it would make a great story.

"Great, now all I need is your permission to-" she looked up and he was gone. She looked at the other boys who shrugged. Where had he gone?