Glee: To the Next Level (the second book in the Glee series)

Chapter 4: Rite of Passage

"Is there a problem here?" asked Coach Beiste from the end of the hall. Thank god. She definitely forced them to back off, even from twenty feet away. 

All I heard was Bree's laughter as they merrily walked away. Nobody in the hallway did or said anything. They were all probably just glad it wasn't them as they walked past us and pretended to have seen nothing.

"Holy crap, that's cold," Ryder murmured, finally taking the impact of the slushie. He turned to me and asked if I was okay. I nodded and turned to the newbies.

"I'm so sorry you guys had to go through that," I said.

"I think it ran all the way down to my pants," Dan said with a chuckle.

"I can't feel my face..." Amity mumbled softly. 

"And with that you're all official members of the glee club," Jake said. He placed a palm on my shoulder, sympathetically nodding at Ryder, before walking away.

"The loser club, eh?" said Dan softly. He was cleaning his glasses.

"Don't say that," I told him. "You are not a loser, okay?"

He nodded. "Fifteen minutes," said Ryder as he looked at the time.

"Ok, let's get you guys cleaned up before first period starts," I told them. I nodded at Ryder, signaling for him to help Dan out as I led Amity into the girl's restroom.

"Thank you," Amity said as I helped her clean the sticky syrup that was drying on her skin. We couldn't do much about the clothes, so I texted Sugar, who I was pretty sure had plenty of clothes in her car, locker, and probably stored in some of the janitors' closets.

"It's really not a big deal," I said. She took over as I started cleaning myself off. "I've never gotten a slushie facial," I added.

"Me either," she whispered.

"You don't talk much, do you?" I said as I remembered about my meds and began digging through my backpack. It had survived the attack, but Amity's bag wasn't so lucky. The outside was soaked and, unfortunately, stained. If only it weren't white, it wouldn't be so noticeable.

I finally found my medication, so I took what I needed to and then put it away.

"Are you sick?" Amity asked me. I looked up, surprised she was talking to me.

"Um, yeah," I said. "Something like that." She nodded and then turned back to the sink. "So why were you late?" I asked her. "The day of auditions. Joe said you had a good reason."

"Oh, that," she said. "Um, it's really a long story. But basically, my family's going through a bit of a rough time lately. And I needed to go home to babysit my sister right after school until my mom got home. Then I had to rush back here for auditions."

"Oh," I said. "Well, that makes sense."

"I'm really sorry we got you into that mess out there," she apologized, wanting to change the subject.

"It's not your fault, sweetie," I told her. "So why were those guys messing with you, anyway?"

"I have the one with the braids for Algebra II," she told me.

"Ahh, our dear pal Phil," I said. "Continue."

"Well," she said nervously. "I have a little bit of a fidgeting issue. And, uh, he sits next to me in class so I guess I was bothering him the other day, just tapping away. And he came over to, well, make fun of me for it..."

"Sounds like a classic dick move," I said. "Oops, I meant jock move. Sorry." She smiled. "Ahh, and she does have teeth!" I joked. "Listen, those guys are idiots. You have no reason to listen to them and you've done nothing wrong, got it?"

She nodded. Then she cringed her eyebrows. "Wait, so what about Bree?" she asked.

I stiffened. "What about her?"

"Isn't she also a part of the glee club?" she asked. "Doesn't that mean she just--"

"Hello!" exclaimed Sugar as she and Kitty interrupted. They were carrying clothes.

"We just heard what happened," Kitty said as they started handing us what they had brought us. "And Oh-Em-Gee. What has gotten into Bree? I swear, we will get her back for this, Jules. One of us has to show her who's boss by winning the new Brittany contest."

"No, not one of us," I told her. Amity was scrunching her nose at the clothes Sugar had given her. She went into one of the stalls to change but I just changed out there so that I could keep chatting with Kitty.

"But we're the only ones who can beat her at dancing," Kitty insisted.

"But we aren't the ones she's angry at," I said. Kitty squinted at me as I put her jeans, which were a little loose on me, on and slipped into a girly, yellow blouse. The first bell rang so we rushed to class as soon as we could, trusting that Sugar would help Amity out.

Once in physics, Ryder smiled at me. He was covered in slushie stains, so I figured he had spent his time on helping Dan out.

"You look like a--" he started, a mocking look on his face. I glared at him. "Like a flower," he said, intimidated by my scowl. "Like a beautiful, perfect flower." I stuck my tongue out at him just as Marley was coming in, with Bree right behind her.

"I heard," Marley whispered to me. "I can sit next to you, if you'd like."

I shook my head. "Sit with Ryder," I told her. "I can handle this." She nodded and took her usual seat as Bree grinned and took hers next to me.

"Sorry about earlier," she said. "Those boys just can't tell a cheerleader apart without their uniforms, you know?"

"You're going to lose this contest," I told her. "And you're going to fail this test."

"What test?" she asked as our teacher handed us the exam booklets. I grinned at her as she began to panic. She tried to get an angle at my booklet, so I asked to take the test outside in the hallway. 

"See you at glee club," I whispered to her with a smile as I left the room.