Glee: Back to the Top (the third book in the Glee series)

Chapter 20: Jalie

Will walked into the choir after having spent the weirdest night of his life at his high school reunion. Not only was seeing Terri awkward, but finding out that she was dating Ken Tenaka was even weirder. And then there was Bryan Ryan, who appeared to have his ego even more inflated than normally. At least seeing April was nice.

He was pleased to find that Sue had taken care of the kids without any of them coming to any permanent harm in his absence. He walked into the choir room and asked them, "Ready to vote for the musical?"

"Mr. Schue!" a few of them exclaimed with excitement.

"Thank goodness you're back, William," Sue said as she pulled him aside. "These kids are a lot more boring than your old crew." She patted him in the back as the two took the center of the room.

"Let's get the voting going," Will said.

"Voting for what?" Stefan asked, raising a hand.

Will furrowed his brow. "The musical?" he said. "I told you this was happening before I left."

Stefan shrugged, not remembering, but Harmony rolled her eyes at him and said, "Let's continue, please, Mr. Schuester."

"Right," Will nodded. "Ok, we are going to do this rather crudely. No anonymity or games.  Just your honest opinions. Ok?"

The kids nodded so Sue said, "All in favor of doing The Sound of Music?"

Marley's hand shot up, followed by Unique's, and Dan's. They looked around, disappointed to be the only ones voting for it.

"Ok, how about Sweeney Todd?" asked Will. Rory, Ryder, Amity, and Shana put their hands up in the air. Julie and Jake glanced at each other, having predicted this turnout.

"And Les Mis?" Will asked. Harmony was the only person with her hand up. Of course, considering the musical was definitely up her alley.

"Footloose?" Sue asked. Only Julie put her hand up, slowly followed by Jake. Everyone stared at them as they sheepishly put their hands down.

"Worth a shot," Julie mumbled to Jake, who shrugged.

"And last but not least, Spring Awakening," Will said. Alex, Stefan, Bree and Kitty raised their hands.

"It's a tie," Sue said, "between Sweeney Todd and Spring Awakening."

"Let's put it to a second vote," Will said, sighing. "Now the only options are those two. Again, all in favor of Sweeney Todd?" This time Rory, Ryder, Amity and Shana were joined by Marley, Unique and Dan. 

"And the rest of you Spring Awakening," Sue rolled her eyes. "Which leaves us with a tie."

"I'll switch my vote," Ryder said. "Spring Awakening it is."

"What?" Rory said, not believing how he could be the only guy to vote for Sweeney Todd in preference of Spring Awakening. 

"Great," Will said, rubbing his hands together. "There will be a role for almost everyone."

"Almost?" asked Amity, raising her hand.

"Yes," Will said. "There are the guys: Melchior, Moritz, Georg, Otto, Ernst, Hanschen... With six guys in the glee club, you can all get a role, assuming you don't have much outside competition. But for the girls... We have the characters of Wendla, Ilse, Thea, Martha, Anna... And all female adults are traditionally played by the same person. So that makes six female roles available and there's eight of you."

"Which means next week will surely be a bloodbath," Harmony said, looking around at everyone.

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