♪breathe♪

♪neglected♪

"all right, we need $5,000 to pay for our trip to nationals in new york," mr. schue told his kids.

logan furrowed his brow, unsure of how the spontaneously lacked the funds, "what happened to the money that we got from the cheerios?"

"i guess sue was hiding it in offshore accounts in the cayman islands and we're having some trouble accessing some of it. any of it. this is saltwater taffy."

"i love saltwater," britt happily giggled.

mr. schue rolled his eyes, continuing, "when i was a student here, we paid for our entire trip to nationals selling this classroom to classroom, door to door. we pushed this stuff like crack. and so will we. so to make $5,000 at 25 cents apiece we need to sell 20,000 pieces of taffy."

"wait. do you honestly think that we can sell 20,000 anythings?" santana asked rhetorically. "we won regionals for the first time since dinosaurs roamed the planet and i still got a freakin' cherry icee facial."

logan groaned, "i hate to admit it but santana's right. nobody cares about us."

"i can't listen to this," mike declared, turning to leave with tina, artie and brittany.

mr. schue looked concerned at his typically quiet student as he turns to leave, clearly frustrated, "mike, are you okay?"

"no. you guys complain all the time about being mistreated but you have no idea what it's like to work your butt off for something and have everyone, even your friends, ignore you."

puck looks at mike as though they'd never met before, "i'm so trying to remember his name right now."

"shut it puckerman," cass hissed, smacking him hard in the gut.

mike smiled at cass as she assaulted their friend, "artie, tina, brittany and i are on the brainiacs."

logan looks at them shocked, not having known about this before, "isn't that the academic decathlon team?"

"we have one of those?" rachel asks surprised, having been in every club in the school

"yes, we do. and the four of us went on the smarty pants show and beat carmel high to go to the academic decathlon finals in detroit next week," artie explained.

finn looks embarrassed to the quartet, "you guys were on tv? why didn't you tell us about it?"

"we did," they snapped at him.

cass nodded, crossing her arms across her chest, "they did."

"wait. i-i get the three of you being on the team," mr. schue started, confused.

"is it because two of them are asian and artie wears glasses?" puck asked innocently, making his classmates giggle.

mr. schue suppressed his smile, "no. but brittany?"

"blake was our fourth, but she had something important the same day," mike explained exposing blake, who never told anyone she was ever apart of the academic decathlon team.

like a wave fourteen sets of eyes landed onto cass, who simply shrugged, "sue called me to talk about something. i had to."

"brittany was the only person we could find on short notice. we bribed her with dots," artie explained. "that sunshine corazon that rachel sent to a crack house was on the other team. sadly, we can't afford to go to the finals, so we're gonna have to forfeit."

"why don't you just have your parents pay for it?" mercedes inquired.

tina whined, "because we shouldn't have to. we're a school club. the school should pay for it. it's a matter of pride."