"GLEE" Season 1, Episode 9: WHEELS!!!
*NOTE: I do not own the Glee characters or Jordin Sparks. Lexi, Lonny, and Lonny's family belong to me. Thank you.*
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The Cheerios were performing a cheerleading routine with jump ropes while Coach Sylvester was pacing in front of them. Lonny notices Jacob Ben Israel and Quinn watching from the stands. She shouldn't do this to herself. Finn comes in the gymnasium and walks up to Quinn, around half way through the performance she gets up and leaves.
Since she was in the front, Lonny listened to the conversation Coach Sylvester was having with Jacob.
"My blog has lit up with comments suggesting you don't have a shot at Nationals since you lost Quinn Fabray." Jacob says while sticking a microphone into her face.
"No, the Cheerios are stronger than ever. We're gonna take Nationals with this routine." Coach Sylvester says as the routine finished and she raised her bullhorn.
"Medicore. Hit the showers."
Lonny sighs and lifts up her water bottle, ready to leave but Coach Sylvester stops here.
"Michelson, back here now."
Lonny rolls her eyes in annoyance as she turns back around.
"Yes, Coach?" She asks.
"Since Quinn Fabray got her eggs fertilized I would like for you to take over as captain of the Cheerios." Coach Sylvester says as she puts her bullhorn down.
Lonny stood there shocked. Her captain of the Cheerios? She wanted that since last year. But she couldn't. It would hurt Quinn and she cares about the blonde too much to do that.
"I can't." Lonny whispers.
"What do you mean you can't? You can and you will. You know, Michelson, I see a young Sue Sylvester in you." Coach Sylvester says, "Anyway, congratulations."
She walks out of the gym leaving Lonny mad. She walks towards the showers but stops when she noticed someone following her. She turns around and saw Jacob.
"Uh, can I help you?"
"How do you feel about becoming captain?" Jacob asks as he sticks his microphone in the brunette cheerleader's face.
"I feel mad. I done want to be captain. Quinn deserves all of this. Now, if you'll excuse me I have to shower. And I swear to the God who I don't even believe in that if you follow me Jewfro, you're gonna be sorry." Lonny says before walking away.
***
Lexi walked inside the choir room writing something in her journal.
Dear Journal,
It's another day at McKinley High and this morning at precisely 9 a.m. Azimio tried to flirt with me yet again. I know he has some kind of crush on me or something but he has to take a hint and back off. My feelings for Kurt has been getting stronger. He doesn't know I like him and he probably doesn't like me back. But I have hope that he does like me. Lonny's feelings for Quinn has also gotten stronger. The poor girl is still SO confused about her sexuality. I hope she finds out what it is soon. My mom is on tour in Seattle. She has even MORE fans now. I miss her already and I know she misses me, too. Oh well. See you later, journal!
Lexi closes her journal and placed it back in her backpack. She looks up and sees Tina watching Artie try and tie his shoes, Puck was listening in on a conversation Quinn and Finn were having, and Kurt and Mercedes were having a conversation. Probably about fashion.
Lexi sits down next to Puck as she waits for Mr. Shue to arrive.
"Alright, guys," Mr. Shue says as he smacked his hands together while walking inside the choir room. "We're doing a number for Sectionals." He started passing out sheet music, "I know that pop songs have sort of been our signature pieces, but I did a little research on past winners, and it turns out that the judges like songs that are more accessible. Stuff they know. Uh, standards, Broadway."
"Defying Gravity? I have an iPod shuffle dedicated exclusively to selections from Wicked. This is amazing." Kurt says excitedly with a smile on his face.
Mr. Shue smiled at the boy and turned to Rachel.
"Think you can handle it, Rachel?" Mr. Shue asks while handing her a sheet music.
"It's my go-to shower song. It's also my ringtone." Rachel says proudly and Lexi just scoffs. Kurt looked devastated.
"Why do we have to go all vanilla on this song? See, what we need is my chocolate thunder." Mercedes suggested.
"Yeah, Mr. Shue. Can't we try something a little different?" Lexi says as she looks at Kurt.
"Okay, we don't have time to rearrange a song for you, Mercedes. Rachel is singing it. Don't worry, we'll find something for you to dip in chocolate." The whole room erupts in short giggles, "On to item two. The school won't pay for the special bus we need to take Artie and his wheelchair with us to Sectionals."
"W-W-What?!"
"That's completely unfair."
"So we're going to have to raise money to pay for it ourselves. See, when I was in glee club, and we needed new silk cummerbunds for Regionals, we held a bake sale." Mr. Shue says and Lonny grunts at the thought of selling cake at school. She hates cake.
"You're joking, right?" Santana scoffed, "I mean, bake sells are kind of bougie."
"So hip people stopping to eat delicious sugary treats?" Mr. Shue asks.
"It's not that? It's most of us don't know how to bake? I find.... recipes confusing." Brittany speaks up.
"My family is fully committed to takeout." Rachel says.
"Yeah, Mr. Shue, kids are busier than when you went here. We've got homework, football teen pregnancy.... lunch." Finn says causing a few of the gleeks to laugh.
"Can't Artie's dad just take him?" Mercedes asks.
"I can't believe how insensitive you are all being. Aren't we a team?" Lexi asks.
"Of course. But Artie understands, don't you, Artie?" Quinn asks.
"Oh... Of course. I-It's cool. Anything that takes away our time rehearsing doesn't serve the team." Artie lies.
-BELL-
Everyone began to leave the classroom. Lonny asked if Lexi was coming but the African-American prodigy shook her head. When eveyone left, it was then that Lexi noticed that Artie was still struggling to tie his shoes.
"Let me help you out, buddy." Lexi says as she bents down to tie Artie's shoelace.
"Thank you." Artie says as Mr. Shue walked over to them.
"Hey, I'm really sorry about how they all reacted, Artie." Mr. Shue says while patting Artie on the shoulder.
"Oh, It's okay. I'm used to it... Can I use the auditorium this afternoon to rehearse, Mr. Shue? Some of the band's equipment's in there." Artie asks as Lexi positioned herself on the back of his wheelchair.
"Sure." Mr. Shue agrees.
"Want me to wheel you out?" Lexi asks.
"Always." Artie says while looking up at her smiling.
***
Lexi was in class doing her classwork. She sighs in annoyance when someone threw a spit ball at the back of her head. She could hear snickering and someone whispering, "Nerd." She sighs and continues on with her work.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Bruno. Can I borrow Lexi for the rest of the period?" Mr. Shue asks the elderly teacher with a smile as he stood at the doorway of the classroom.
"Miss Johnson, please pack up your stuff and go with Mr. Schuster." Mrs. Bruno says and Lexi did what she was told, feeling angry at her Spanish and glee teacher. She picks up her jacket and binder and followed him out the door.
"With all do respect, sir, but you are taking an hour away from my educational time. Which means, my educational vitals are going down right now as we speak! So let me ask you this, did I do something wrong?" Lexi asks angrily.
"N-No," Mr. Shue says a bit scared. "I just need your help with something," He continues as he opened the door that led out into the parking lot. "You were the only one in that choir room that stood up for Artie the other day and I thought to myself why not put eveyone in his shoes for once."
Lexi nods, liking how this was going so far.
Mr. Shue opens his car revealing multiple wheelchairs. "I need you to help bring all these wheelchairs into the choir room and help Artie choreograph a wheechair number." Mr. Shue continues as he passed Lexi a wheelchair.
"Uh, has Artie agreed to that?" Lexi asks as she began to assemble the folded wheelchair.
"No, not yet but hopefully he will." Mr. Shue says as he and Lexi began to wheel in the first of many chairs. "I saw him dancing and singing in the auditorium the other day, nothing like we've ever seen him do and I want us to use our quirky strengths to help him win Sectionals."
"I'm in." Lexi says as she smiled at the Spanish teacher.
***
Lexi walked in the choir room and saw Kurt standing in the center of the room.
"I have something I'd like to say. I want to audition for the Wicked solo." Kurt says. There was some murmurs of encouragement.
"Kurt, there's a high F in it." Mr. Shue says informing the boy from behind him and he simply turns his head to face the teacher.
"That's well within my range." Kurt sassed which earned some oooh's.
"Well, I think Rachel's going to be fine for the female lead, but I'm happy to have you try out something else, Kurt. And we'll make sure it's got a killer high note." Mr. Shue says as he pats Kurt on the shoulder. Kurt sighs as he sits back down.
Lexi hurries and takes a seat next to Lonny. She felt so bad for the boy. It was SO unfair for Mr. Schuster to treat him like that.
Mr. Shue continues, "Anyway, I wanted to say something to you guys. I was a little disappointed at how you were all so willing to take the bus to get to Sectionals and make Artie drive by himself with his dad. We're a team, guys. We're in this glee club together."
"Artie doesn't care. His dad drives him everywhere." Mercedes defended.
"I do care. It kind of hurt my feelings." Artie says turning to the girl protesting.
"We didn't think you would take it personally." Rachel says.
"Well, you're annoying and irritating most of the time, but don't take that personally." Lexi says without making eye contact with the girl. She stood up and made her way standing next to Mr. Shue.
"I don't know if you guys really understand how much harder Artie has to work just to keep up." Lexi says.
"Preach."
"We're riding to Sectionals together. Or we're not going at all. And to pay for the bus, we're having a bake sale." Mr. Shue informed the group. There were groans and murmurs of displeasure. Lexi walked towards the door to let in several people pushing empty wheelchairs.
"St. Ignatius nursing home was having a tag sale, and my AV club friends here agreed to help out. For the next week, each of you is going to spend three hours a day in a wheelchair." Mr. Shue continued informing his already shocked class.
"Oh, oh, oh. And we're doing a wheelchair number."
***
Lonny sighs in annoyance as she was messing with her wheelchair. She was in the choir room waiting for glee club to start with Santana, Brittany, and Lonny in the room.
"I hate this wheelchair! It obviously doesn't like me." Lonny says.
"What's wrong, Lon?" Lexi asks as she was also in her wheelchair.
"This stupid wheelchair isn't moving! Help me." Lonny begs with puppy dog eyes. Lexi rolls her eyes as she wheeled herself closer to her best friend, and started fixing her wheel chair. She was finished in two minutes.
"There, try it out now."
Lonny smiles as she wheeled around in circles.
"OMG, thank you so much, Lex!" Lonny beams with a smile. Lexi rolls her eyes as she smiles.
She then overhears Rachel talking to Mr. Shue.
"I know this is going to be hard on you, Rachel, but I can't, in good conscience, preach about the importance of helping Artie and then reject Kurt's request out of hand." Mr. Shue informed her.
"So, you're giving him my part?" Rachel asks him. Mr. Shue was silent for a moment, "Just like you did with Tina? This is totally unfair. You gave me the part."
"And I will give it to you again. If you can sing the song better than Kurt." Mr. Shue says while guestering for her to join their semi circle huddle, "Now, all of you are going to judge, and in the spirit of full access, each of you is going to get a vote. Whatever singer has the most votes, gets the part."
"This isn't going to be about talent, Mr. Schuster. It's going to be a popularity contest." Rachel protested.
"Stop right there, Mr. Shue. If I may," Kurt says and wheels to the front of the room faced all of them. "We all know I'm more popular than Rachel. And I dress better than her. But I want you all to promise me that you're going to vote for whoever sings the song better. Raise your right hand." He continued and Lexi raises her right hand along with everyone else, except Brittany.
"Your right hand, Brittany." Kurt informed the blonde. Santana tapped her left hand and whispered to her which one it was.
"Repeat after me. I promise to vote for whoever sings the song better." Kurt says.
They all repeated what Kurt told them to say and Lexi placed her hand down on her lap with a huge smile. Kurt smiles and faced Rachel.
"It's on." Kurt says and did a twirl in his wheelchair and went back to his position amongst the group.
-BELL-
"Hey, Lexi, race you to my locker." Brittany says as she begans to wheel herself out of the room quickly. Lexi laughs at her friend.
"You're on." Lexi smirks as she follows the blonde equally fast.
***
Lonny, Quinn, Finn, Puck, and Santana were sitting in their wheelchairs at a table underneath a banner that says 'WMHS GLEE CLUB HANDICAPABLE BUS MONEY SALE' in the cafeteria. Lonny laughs as she watched Finn try to offer cupcakes to passing students but they ignore him every time. He looks at the cupcakes curiously and smells it.
"These cupcakes suck. That's why we're not selling any." Finn sighs.
"It's not about the cupcakes. It's about us. Nobody wants to buy stuff from losers. We're in glee club and in wheelchairs." Quinn snaps at Finn.
"She has a point. Six months ago I could've sold 50 of these things on fear alone." Puck states.
Lonny looks up and sees Brittany walking over to the table with a freshman, Becky.
"Wait where is her wheelchair??!" Lonny thought.
"Oh my God, what is she doing?" Lonny mutters.
"I actually think they're kinda friends." Finn says looking back at them and smiling.
"Brittany is always cheating off her test papers in math class." Puck says leaning closer to Lonny.
Brittany eventually arrived at the table with Becky.
"See, so many? And how pretty they are, Becky." The tall blonde says standing in awe with the short petite blonde.
"Wow." Becky gleamed.
"Brittany, you're supposed to be in your wheelchair." Santana scoffs catching Becky's attention.
"I lost it." Brittany says nonchalantly.
"Are you a cheerleader? That's really cool." Becky asks and the Latina simply smiled and nodded.
"So is buying a cupcake. That's really cool." Brittany says.
"But I don't have any money." Becky says sadly.
"That's okay, I have some." Brittany says taking out some money from her bag and handed it to Becky. Becky then passed it to Santana, who passed it to Quinn, who passed it to Puck, who passed it to Lonny, and she puts it in their money box as Santana passed Becky her cupcake.
"Thanks." Brittany smiles as Becky waved goodbye to her and left with her sugary treat.
"So, how much do we have now?" Brittany asks.
"Well, with one dollar, we have... one dollar." Finn says awkwardly.
"This is ridiculous." Quinn exclaims.
"Well, maybe if we put a jelly bean or something on top we'd sell more." Finn suggests while looking at a cupcake.
"Are you an idiot?!" Quinn almost shouted at Finn gaining some nearby attention. "How am I supposed to trust you to take care of our baby when you can't even figure out how to sell a damn cupcake?" She asks angrily.
"Stop attacking me. I'm sick of it." Finn says.
"Get a job."
"I'm trying!"
Finn stood up in frustration and kicked over his wheelchair before walking away. Quinn sighs and tried to wheel herself away from the table but she ended up getting stuck.
"That went well." Lonny mutters sarcastically under her breath.
***
Mr. Shue and Lexi were walking and discussing ideas for their Proud Mary number in the hallway and as they turned the corner, they saw the start of a fight. Finn and Puck were both sitting in their wheelchairs and Finn shoved Puck. Lexi started to push her way through the crowd with Mr. Shue as they tried to break it up.
"Hey, hey, break it up! Break it up! Come on! Hey!" Mr. Shue calls as he held back Finn and Lexi went to Puck.
"He started it!" Puck shouts in her ear and leaning forward.
"I don't care! Now..." Mr. Shue says but Puck walks away. Lexi sighs in annoyance as Mr. Shue tries to calm down Finn.
"I should have asked mom to send me to a private high school instead." Lexi thought as she crosses her arms.
***
They all sat in their wheelchairs on the stage in the auditorium as Artie began to show them a few moves. Lexi was still pissed off at Puck and she guesses that Brittany finally found her wheelchair.
"The key to a double turn is to just go for it. You push with the right wheel and pull as hard as you can with the left, and find a spot on the wall to spot you so you don't get dizzy." Artie says whilst demonstrating a perfect turn.
Everyone then began attempt double turns and Lonny just burst out into laughter at her inability to do it.
"Okay, guys, take five, alright? Oh, remember to show up early on Thursday. It's Rachel versus Kurt for the big solo." Mr. Shue says and they all began wheeling away. Finn wasn't paying attention to where he was going and bumped into Quinn. Lonny laughs causing Quinn to send the brunette a soft infectious smile.
"She has the cutest laugh." Quinn thought with a sigh. Then she snapped out of it. What is going on with her? She's starting to get a lot of butterflies in her stomach.
"Careful. Respect the chair." Artie warns Finn as the teen wheeled away.
Lonny begans to wheel away as Quinn caught up to her in her chair as they entered the hallway.
"Lonny." Quinn calls to the brunette causing her to stop and turn around to face her.
"Yeah?" Lonny asks slightly scared. Is she going to snap at her for laughing at Finn?
"I was wondering if maybe you and I could do something this Saturday. Get our nails done, do our hair, go to the movies. You know, normal girls day stuff." Quinn suggests nervously.
Lonny's eyes widened in shock and surprise. Was she asking her out on a date???
"Of course not, Lonny. She has a BOYFRIEND." Lonny thought sadly.
She looked at Quinn and nodded a little too eagerly. Quinn smiled brightly at her friend.
"Great! See you Saturday morning at 10 a.m." Quinn beams as she wheeled away.
Lonny silently squealed as she jumped up and down in her wheelchair, earning some weird looks from other people. She ignored them as she sighs dreamily, thinking about Quinn.
***
Lonny sat in the back of the choir room texting while Lexi sat in the front holding a poster she made for Kurt. She was beyond excited. She even made him a poster that says 'GO KURT! SHOW HER WHO'S BOSS.' Her heart raced as she imagined Kurt singing one of her third favorite songs.
"Alright, welcome to the glee club's first official diva-off." Mr. Shue says excitedly and everyone began to cheer, "Let's get this party started."
Kurt walked up to the center of the room with a smile. Mercedes gave him an encouraging nod and smile. Lexi holds up her poster for everyone to see. When Kurt saw it he beamed. He mouthed "Thank you" and Lexi blushes. The music begins and Kurt sings. When he finished, Everyone clapped. Kurt sat back down next to Mercedes.
It was Rachel's turn. The music starts as she begins to sing. When she finished, they clapped.
"Good job, Kurt and Rachel." Mr. Shue says.
-BELL-
***
They were all standing in the auditorium as Puck hands Mr. Shue a wad of money.
"Twelve hundred dollars. That's enough for the show bus and two cases of Natty Light for the ride home." Puck says.
"Oh, dream on, buddy." Mr. Shue says patting the boy on the back. The group cheers and applaud. "I'm very proud of you guys. Artie... Why don't you bring this to Principal Figgins yourself?"
Artie was hesitant which made eveyone frown in confusion.
"What's wrong, dude?" Finn asks.
"I really appreciate what you guys did for me, but I'm not the only kid in a wheelchair at school. And I'm sure there will be others after I graduate. And I know how important it is for all of us to go to Sectionals together, but I think I'd rather just get a ride from my dad and use this money for a handicapped ramp in the auditorium." Artie says looking at everyone.
"Any objections?" Mr. Shue asks.
"Well, sure beats having to carry him in everyday." Finn jokes.
Everyone chuckles at him.
***
-Few Days Later-
The New Directions were in their costumes getting ready to do the routine that Artie worked hard to do. They were all sitting in their wheelchairs as the music begins.
"This one's for you, Artie!" Finn shouts to the wing encouraging Artie to come onto the stage.
(Proud Mary by Tina Turner)
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End of Season 1, Episode 9: Wheels
Next: Season 1, Episode 10: Hairography
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