September 8th, 2017
Observation 2
Peter Parker sneaks his own experiments in and out of the science lab.

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With a quick and light hand, Peter poured the supposedly-toxic blue liquid from Beaker A to Beaker D under the lab table as the teacher wrote formulas on the chalkboard at the head of the room.

Nellie cocked her head sideways, watching the boy work as if he knew exactly what he was doing, despite that the teacher hadn't even given out the instructions for today's lab yet.

She watched as Ned leaned forward and rested his chin in his hand, completely oblivious to what Peter was doing. In fact, Nellie realized she was the only one actually paying any attention to Peter's actions.

But what's new?

"What mind-blowing investigative work are you gathering on Parker today?" MJ whispered obnoxiously loud in Nellie's ear.

"I don't know. It's hard to focus with you spit-blasting my ear canal." Nellie scrunched her face in disgust and stuck a hand out to her right, pushing MJ's face away from her personal bubble.

MJ roller her dark eyes at her friend, "Have I ever told you your ears are quite elf-ish?"

Nellie shot her a disapproving glare, "Take your notes before I pour the mysterious liquid from Beaker C on your head, MJ."

"Ah, but I don't need notes," MJ leaned back on her stool and jammed her pointer finger against her own forehead. "I have all the info up here."

Unbelievable, Nellie thought. There was no fairness in the fact that her dear friend got to have a photographic memory while Nellie had to study each afternoon just to keep her spot in the school.

The sound of shattering glass caused everyone to jump in their seats; Nellie's gaze returned to Peter and Ned, whose hands were up in the air at this point as of to prove innocence.

However, the broken beaker and green liquid covering the floor beneath Peter's sneakers told it all, in addition to his cheeks turning a deep shade of red.

After class, Nellie exited the science lab to find Peter sitting at the end of the hallway, right outside of the Principal's office. She took a glance around the hall as everyone bustled from one classroom to the next.

By the time the late bell rang, she was the only student left standing in the hallway, other than Peter who was slumped in the bench beside the door.

"Peter?"

Her voice was enough to catch Peter's attention.

"Yeah, yes, hey. Nellie, right?"

He reached up and pulled his jacket hood from his head, revealing messy brown locks.

Nellie nodded and took a step towards him, her hands resting on her backpack straps awkwardly.

"What happened back there?" She inquired, hoping to understand why exactly he was performing his own experiment behind the teacher's back.

Peter's mouth formed the shape of an 'o' and be ran a hand through his hair, "I-I was just goofing around, I guess. I didn't mean to—"

Nellie's brows pulled up in amusement, "Goofing around? With dangerous chemicals?"

She didn't truly buy that. She knew Peter was smarter than he was letting on. Due to her curiosity about him—and for the sake of her article—she just had to know what exactly he was doing.

Peter's cheeks turned colors again, and he sucked in a breath, "It was stupid—"

The door to the Principal's office opened, cutting their conversation short.

"Good afternoon, Miss Jenkins." The Principal offered her a small smile.

Nellie had always remained on the good side of the faculty at Midtown. After all, they often cared more about her than her foster parents seemed to.

"Parker. . ." He muttered, urging the nervous boy to enter the office.

"I'll see ya around, Peter." Nellie gave a slight grin, as if to bid him good luck.

Peter nodded; she could see his Adam's apple move as he gulped. A part of her felt bad for him, he never usually got into any trouble. Another part of her wanted to press her ear to the door and find out what his explanation to the principal would be.

She opted out of doing this, however, due to the camera's placed at the end of either side of the hallway.

Throughout English, her last class of the day, she kept glancing behind her at the empty desk that was usually occupied by Peter. Up until the bell rang signaling the school day had come to a close, he still hadn't made an appearance.

He was nowhere to be seen throughout the hallways after class either, and finally, Nellie decided she'd be better off to begin her walk home. She dreaded arriving at the old townhouse, where her foster mother would be waiting for her, probably with a long list of things she planned to nag at her about.

Brenda could be a real pain in her neck sometimes.

Sometimes Nellie wondered if she would have been better off with real mother. She may have been popping pills left and right but at least she was nice—when she wasn't passed out on the living room couch.

Nellie kicked at a broken chunk of concrete as she headed down the sidewalk, leaving scuff marks on the tip of her white sneakers. One kick was just a bit too hard and sent the concrete chunk flying, and she watched as it disappeared up ahead.

Then, something else caught her eye. Something red moved quickly from the top of one building to the next. She squinted to try to make the picture clearer—it almost looked to be the shape of a person. But no human being could jump so far from such great heights. She couldn't understand what exactly it was she was looking at. Before she knew it, the figure was long gone and she could no longer locate it.

Once home, she somehow managed to avoid her foster mother's nagging today and reached her bedroom undetected. Kicking off her sneakers, she took a seat at her desk and pulled her laptop from her backpack in one quick motion.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard as she tried to think of what it was she saw.

Red person jumping off building, NYC.

Of course, her search wasn't exactly specific and she had to scroll through dozens of disturbing and confusing news articles until she finally found something that clicked.

She pulled up a YouTube link and hit the play button. Before her eyes, she was met with a clearer, closer-up view of what she believed she saw in the city.

A person in some sort of spandex suit with a spider logo pressed into the chest, jumping and swinging from city scrapers like she'd never seen before. The masked hero stopped a potential bank robbery and luckily, someone had caught the entire thing on film. It was incredible—and mind-boggling.

This, Nellie thought to herself, this is who I need to be writing my article on.