Kimberly: Book Two of the Kimberly Hummel Series

Chapter Sixteen

"Alright, we need five thousand dollars to pay for our nationals trip to New York," Mr. Schue said on Monday in rehearsal.

"What happened to the money we got from the Cheerios?" Quinn asked.

"Uh, I guess Sue was hiding it in offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands, and we're having some trouble accessing it. Any of it," Mr. Schue answered before grabbing a piece of candy out of a box on the piano. "This is saltwater taffy."
    "I love saltwater," Brittany said.

"When I was a student here, we paid for our entire trip to nationals selling this. Kim, feel free to come check the ingredients," Mr. Schue said before starting to toss taffy at us as I walked over to the piano, checking the box. "Classroom to classroom, door to door. We pushed this stuff like crack. And so will we. Kim, are they safe?"

"Yep," I said, grabbing a piece for me as I went back to my seat as he went to the board.

"So, to make five thousand dollars at twenty-five cents apiece, we need to sell twenty thousand pieces of taffy."

"Wait. Do you honestly think that we can sell twenty thousand anythings?" Santana asked as I opened the taffy, biting into it, being a little grossed out by it. "I mean, we won regionals for the first time since dinosaurs roamed the planet and I still got a freaking cherry ICEE facial."

"Yeah, Santana's right. Nobody cares about us," I said, wrapping up the rest of the taffy and sticking it in my bag. "And this is kind of not good, no offense."

"I can't listen to this," Mike said, getting up, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

"Mike, are you okay?" Mr. Schue asked.

"No," he turned back to us. "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."

"I'm still trying to remember his name right now," Lauren whispered as Tina, Artie, and Brittany joined Mike.

"Artie, Tina, Britt and I are on the Brainiacs," Mike continued. 

"Isn't that the Academic Decathlon team?" Rachel asked.

"We have one of those?" Finn asked.

"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 next week," Artie said.

"You guys were on TV?" Sam asked. "Why didn't you guys tell us about it?"

"We did," the four said.

"To be fair, I watched you guys," I said quietly.

"Thanks, Kim. We can always count on you to be nice and supportive," Artie said.

"Wait. I get the three of you being on the team," Mr. Schue said.

"Is it because two of them are Asian and Artie wears glasses?" Puck asked.

"No. But Brittany?"

"Liz Schnieder was our fourth but then she got rubella," Mike said.

"Her parents are hippies who don't believe in vaccinations," Tina added.

"Brittany was the only person we could find on short notice," Artie said. "We bribed her with dots. That Sunshine Corazon that Rachel sent to a crack house was on the other team. Luckily, we had our own secret weapon." He went on to tell us how there was a category on cat diseases which Brittany answered and helped them tie with Carmel before there was a category on white rappers for the final question which Artie won. "We can't afford to go to the finals, so, we're gonna have to forfeit."