After several…interesting attempts at R&R as a group, Pooch had nearly wept with relief when Clay had more or less ordered them to scatter the next time it became clear a break was needed. It hadn't taken any encouragement for him to set off to meet up with Jolene and Mikey, while Jensen made happy noises about New Hampshire and Louisiana. Years of translating Jensen-speak told him that the younger man would be spending a week with his sister and niece before heading to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.
No one had to say Cougar would be accompanying him.
Clay and Aisha…frankly, Pooch thought it was better for his continued mental health not to know what their plans were.
Two peaceful weeks seemed to fly by and, almost before he knew it, Pooch found himself approaching a dingy room at a fleabag motel. In Kentucky, of all damn places. He knew there were legitimate reasons for choosing such a location, as their former employers and people who wanted them dead (for real) or jailed probably wouldn't think to look for them there.
But Kentucky? Really?
A pickup had just driven by with tin cans attached to the bumper and 'WE DONE IT!' written in the grime that coated the rear window.
Pooch really hoped it was a newlywed couple and not a commentary on the owners sex life.
Entering the room (lovely, it smelled like something had died and was being left to rot in a corner), Pooch looked around. Clay was sitting at a rickety looking table, talking intently into his cell phone. The colonel had a split lip, black eye and a ring of bruises on his throat. Aisha, looking as unruffled as ever, was rifling through a bag on the bed.
No way was Pooch gonna ask what had happened. It was far less traumatic to tell himself that Clay got mugged. Not that it would ever actually happen, but clearly whatever had happened was the sort of thing that would make a sane person want to shove an ice pick into his ear.
A lot about Clay and Aisha's relationship made Pooch feel that way.
It took him a moment to locate Cougar, who had managed to wedge himself into the small, shaded area between the bed and the wall. His hat was pulled low over his eyes and he was so still Pooch contemplated checking for a pulse.
He didn't because he had no desire to lose a hand.
Jensen didn't seem to be in the main room, so Pooch peeked into the bathroom and, sure enough, found the teams technical genius sprawled in the tub, open mouthed beneath the dripping faucet. He was barefoot, wearing cargo pants and a t-shirt that read Adult Supervision Required. A note, scrawled on a stained napkin and stuck to the wall with a wad of gum, read FUCK OFF. I'M REHYDRATING.
Only Jensen.
Shaking his head, Pooch turned back to the others, only to find Aisha standing by the bed, Jensen's pack in her hands. She was peering into it with a confused but fascinated expression.
"What are you doing?" He asked cautiously. One always had to be careful when poking around in the luggage of one's team mates. And that was the bag that Jensen had taken with him to New Hampshire and New Orleans. Who knew what he had in there.
"Something in this room reeks," Aisha said, blinking as she dumped the contents of the bag onto the bed. "I've been trying to find the source…What in the hell happened to his clothes?"
On the gross bedspread lay a huge pile of beaded necklaces, a mass of sea weed, three solved Rubics Cubes and an industrial size bottle of TUMS.
Pooch was equally amazed and he just said, "We're talking about Jensen here. We're lucky he had clothes on when he got back here…He did, right?"
She nodded and a slim finger crept up over the side of the bed, pointing to the other corner of the room where a medium sized box sat. Cougar was alive and he muttered, "Jackie FedEx-ed our things."
Huh. It seemed that Cougar and Jensen, knowing that the likelihood of either of them ever actually checking into a hotel room in New Orleans was basically zero, had thought ahead and minimized their clothing loss by taking only the clothes literally on their backs. Ten to one, there had been nights spent in the hotel rooms of co-eds, on roofs, in trees…heck, Pooch wouldn't rule out one of them passing out in a dumpster and simply taking a quick dip in a fountain before starting the next days party.
Pinching a clump of seaweed between his fingers, Pooch lifted it and gave it a sniff. It just smelled like seaweed, not the rather foul stink that filled the room. "Huh," he commented, dropping the wad of kelp back into the bag. "Did you check…."
"Shockingly, it's not them," Aisha muttered, picking up one of the Rubics Cubes. "I mean, Jensen reeks of tequila and maple syrup and I'm not sure if either of them has bathed since we saw them last, but that's not it…."
Pooch snorted. "Nah. Jackie wouldn't have let them get away with stinking up her house. They've been unwashed for a week at most."
She nodded and, before she could continue, Clay hung up the phone.
Loudly.
That was damn hard to do with a cell phone.
Heaving himself up from the table, Clay looked at the two of them, then at Cougar's hand, lying limp on the bed. He heaved a sigh and, as he stalked into the bathroom, said, "You two get Cougar off of the floor."
Aisha and Pooch exchanged a glance as they heard the shower turn on full force. Clearly, that was Clay's plan to wake Jensen up and, just as clearly, it failed. As they listened to the sound of Clay cursing as he tried to wrestle Jensen out of the tub, Aisha knelt on the bed, leaning over to poke Cougar's hand.
"Get up," she told him. "Don't make me go in there after you."
Since she was much scarier, Pooch allowed her to coerce Cougar, who grunted and crawled up to sprawl face down on the bed. Face down on the nasty bedspread.
Ew.
And how the hell had the two of them made it to Kentucky if they were still that hung over? It made about as much sense as anything they ever did, so Pooch tried not to think too hard about it.
"Mmmeh," Jensen groaned as Clay propelled his wet form out of the bathroom, staggered to the bed and collapsed, landing on the TV remote control. The set flickered on, muted as his body settled, jostling Cougar, whose hat fell off.
What the hell?
"Uh, do I even want to ask about the eye patch?" Pooch wasn't sure, but he knew he had to. Sure, his team mates wardrobe choices could occasionally be called eccentric, but this was really odd.
Cougar grunted.
"Scratched cornea," Jensen muttered, eyes fixed on the TV. "Got him hooked up with a chick with a thing for pirates, so he's cool…My God, where are her parents?"
Even Clay, emerging damp from the bathroom, blinked at the hacker in surprise. Then they followed the they young man's gaze. On the screen, a cartoon was playing, a little girl appeared to be climbing a mountain. Without any noticeable adult supervision, as Jensen had noted.
Okay, so…next.
Pooch turned to Clay, hoping the Colonel had some plan and they weren't going to spend the next few hours trying to prod Jensen and Cougar back into reality.
Or as close to reality as they ever got.
Jensen flopped around again and blinked at the ceiling. "Um…was the blood up there before we got here?"
Oh, Pooch didn't want to know.
"Heads up, Losers," Clay rumbled, then sighed as the only person to actually acknowledge him was Pooch. Jensen and Cougar were…Jensen and Cougar and Aisha was poking through Cougar's knapsack, again looking for the source of the mysterious stank. "We've got a new mission."
The sound Jensen made might have indicated interest or he could have been choking on his own spit. Cougar didn't move. Aisha pulled a smaller baggie out of Cougar's backpack and demanded, "Why do you have a bag of teeth in here…and a citation from the New Orleans PD that says Found Nude in Tree."
Again?
"Where we headed?" Pooch asked, trying to ignore the others. It was a safer choice for the sake of his sanity.
Clay grimaced and muttered something unintelligible.
"What?" Aisha asked distractedly, prompting another big sigh from Clay.
"Sue called, says Max put a spy in Lima. We're going to check it out."
"WHAT?"
"I hate that woman."
"Ennngh."
"Sweet."
High schoolers, as a whole, were not known for their decision making skills or good judgment. Really, all the whole alcohol awareness assembly debacle had done was reduce the amount of in school drunkenness.
Parties were another thing all together.
Especially ones thrown by Santana when her parents were out of town.
In fact, the last time she'd played host, a cop mentioned that it was the most epic party they ever crashed. She considered that a point of pride.
Brittany's parties were just as epic, but she lived really close to the elementary school, and it was never cool to have to be helped across the street by a judgmental 10 year old safety officer during the morning after walk of shame.
Tonight was off to a banner start, as one of the mulleted Hockey morons had already reached the point of 'accidentally-set-himself-on-fire' drunk. Fortunately for all involved, he had been startled enough to fall into the pool, extinguishing the flames before he got hurt.
Weaving his way through the mass of booze saturated teens, Puck ran a seasoned eye over the crowd, identifying the groups that would soon yield the best entertainment.
A group of freshman were working their way through a massive pyramid of Jello shots. Lines would definitely be crossed there.
Someone was making noises about a slip'n'slide. Possibly naked.
One of the basketball players was gnawing on a table. Gnawing. On. A. Table.
Finn was in the pool, passed out on an air mattress and cuddling a bottle of JD like a teddy bear. Puck had already gotten plenty of pictures.
In a corner, Jewfro (how the hell had he gotten in here?) was having a conversation with a keg about the meaning of life.
Most of the other Glee kids were clustered together, knowing they were less likely to come under truly nasty harassment when in a group. They didn't seem to be quite as sloppy drunk as the majority of the other party goers, but that only made sense. Getting drunk would only make them easier prey.
Santana was missing though.
Since this was her party, that was a bit strange.
Then again, she'd been acting a little off lately. To be honest, so had he, after Lauren broke things off. But he was feeling a bit better now and she was still being weird.
And, being that Santana was basically him with tits, he knew something was really up with her.
Fortunately, he knew where to start looking.
She always kept the doors to the upstairs balcony locked at these things. It was her quiet spot. At only three beers in, he wasn't drunk enough not to be able to scale the tree beside the house and jump onto the porch. Okay, so maybe it was more of a fall onto the porch, but his goal of getting up there was accomplished, so it was all good.
Sure enough, Santana was sitting on one of the lounge chairs, with a sport bottle filled with something, looking down at him with a hint of amusement. "Smooth, Puckerman," she snarked, then asked, "Why aren't you down there?"
"Why aren't you?" He replied, climbing to his feet only to flop down on the seat beside her. From this vantage point, they had a clear view of the back yard party. "Did you see Karofsky try to tackle the tree?"
There was a hint of a smirk on her face as she replied, "Yeah. Got it on film. That bitch is going viral ASAP."
"Nice," he said, offering up his hand for a fist bump, which she returned. For a few minutes, they simply sat there, watching their classmates increasingly idiotic behavior. Some of the hockey players were duct taping passed out freshmen to lounge chairs. Funny, but Puck told himself to keep an eye on them. Some of the hazing had been getting really out of hand lately and, if those ice-holes got it in their heads to dump the duct taped kids into the pool…that would be bad.
Shit. When had he started thinking about the consequences of things? He tried not to dwell on that, telling himself that it was fine, he was still him, he just saw the line between tossing a dork in a dumpster and drowning one.
After a while, Santana said, "This sucks. How did I let this happen! I promised myself I'd never let this happen and I did and it sucks!"
She took a swig of her drink and Puck eyed her out of the corner of his eye. Wow. She'd been drinking at a steady pace for a while now and whatever was getting to her had her too depressed to even sob and yell about it. That was a total 180 from usual drunk!Santana behavior. By this point in the evening, she was usually huddled in a corner, smelling like Captain Morgan's and tears.
Sitting back, Puck urged his brain to shake off the happy, torpid (fuck yeah, SAT word!) blur of alcohol and tried to work out the source of her distress. 'Cause, even thought he wasn't hitting that anymore, Santana was his girl, badass and awesome. Seriously, she was like a dude trapped in the body of a super hot girl.
Okay, think. She had been the one who broke up with Sam, so she probably wasn't talking about that. He thought she might have wanted to hook up with Finn when she told Rachel about having nailed him, but nah, that really wasn't it.
What was it?
He followed her melancholy gaze and it hit him.
Damn.
Everyone knew she and Brittany had a thing, but he thought it had just been about hooking up. Apparently, there were feelings involved.
Well, shit.
Puck prided himself on his skills with the ladies, but dealing with emotional girls (other than angry. He had a lot of experience with pissed off girls) was not his forte. Usually, if he noticed the signs of an impending female meltdown, he tried to make himself scarce.
Except when it was a girl he actually cared about like Santana or his sister…or hell, Rachel. He couldn't bail on one of them.
"It does," he agreed, then flailed mentally for what to say next. "So, you two…"
"I don't want to talk about it," She grumbled, turning her eyes to glare at him. "I just want a distraction. And no, sex is not what I mean."
"Fair enough." He wasn't about to push her when she got that look on her face. Glancing around, he searched for another topic of conversation and, much to his pleasure, found one readily enough. "I thought the house next to you was empty?"
She blinked at him. "It is…or was."
"Looks like people are moving in," Puck commented, nodding to the lights in the windows and shadowy figures moving around, bringing boxes into the house.
Santana turned, cocking her head to the side as she muttered, "Great. If they call the cops on my party I'm so dumping bags of cement mix into their pool."
That sounded like a sound plan to him.
The lights were on in one of the second floor rooms and Puck squinted, looking at the figure moving around inside. The man looked familiar as did the woman who joined him. She was clearly mad about something. That was obvious, even at a distance.
Beside him, Santana stood, crossing to the side of the balcony closest to the neighboring yard. He followed her, crouching as she had to do a little surveillance.
Three men, laden with boxes, entered the house and they heard one of them comment, "Once again into the breach of middle American insanity."
He knew that voice. From the look on Santana's face, so did she.
"Let's get a closer look," she said, swinging a leg over the railing to climb down the trellis.
"You wanna change?" he asked. Her skirt and heels didn't scream stealth.
"Please," she snorted, rolling her eyes. "Remember, I'm the one who climbed onto the roof of that club in a mini dress and stiletto boots to get in. I'm fucking awesome."
She certainly had no trouble with the trellis and, together, they crept around the hedges, circling into the neighbors yard. He couldn't fault her for her almost supernatural ability in staggering heels. It was both hot and scary.
Slowly, they edged along the sides of the house. Occasionally peeking into lit windows. No one was easily visible, so they came to the conclusion that the inhabitants must have moved upstairs.
Not a problem.
The best vantage point they could get to would be the overhang above the porch, so, when Puck offered her his hands as a step up, Santana placed her toe on his fingers and braced to be thrust upward.
"Hi, Glee kids!"
They both jumped, stumbled and nearly fell into a heap before they steadied themselves. Craning their necks, they found themselves staring up at Mr. Jensen, who was standing at the very edge of the roof , peering down at them with a placid expression, suggesting he found nothing out of the ordinary about their current situation.
"Um, hi," was all they could manage before a loud voice boomed from one of the upstairs windows.
"Sounds like you've got quite the shindig happening next-door."
Santana's sharp tongue recovered quickly. "On a scale of 1 to everyone dying, I'd say it's a 7."
The older man grinned as though delighted by the answer.
"What did you find?"
Mr. Jensen turned his head and said, "Couple of the kids from the Glee club."
"Who?"
"The one with potential and a Mohawk and the girl who's so going to be challenging Aisha for the title of scary, hot chick if she ever gets proper weapons training."
Puck and Santana exchanged looks, then shrugged. Neither of them was going to argue about those descriptions.
Then Mr. Jensen jumped off the roof, landing before them in a crouch and popping easily back to his feet. "C'mon in," he offered, waving them toward the house. "I'm guessing you're probably wondering what we're doing back in Lima. It's a long story, but needless to say there's a reason. Any of the new teachers at your school strike either of you as the ruthless, murderer for hire type?"
Well, that was unsettling.
"Not really," Puck said, thinking about the roster of down trodden and generally lifeless men and women who made up the teaching staff at McKinley High. Mr. Shue and Coach Bieste were probably the only actual sane people on staff that gave a damn about anything. Ms. P cared, but she was nuts, in a harmless way.
"Only Coach Sylvester," Santana agreed with a nod. Puck hadn't even thought about her, 'cause she was just way too obvious. "And she's been around for years."
"Yeah, we know all about her," Jensen said, opening the door. "She's more whacko than an armadillo on PCP, but not our baddie."
"Who's not the baddie?" Mr. Pooch was stuffing items into the fridge when they entered the kitchen and Mr. Alvarez was observing them from his spot by a wall.
"Sylvester," Jensen replied, grabbing a bag of Cheetos and hopping up to sit on the counter. "Just letting the kids know that the Lima based member of Clay's League of Evil Ex's is not the psychotic ass monkey we're after."
Then he held out the bag of cheese curls and Puck shrugged, taking a handful.
Then he froze. "Wait. One of you dated Coach Sylvester?"
Everyone, even Aisha, had thought Clay's plan to get them into McKinley high was completely insane in it's simplicity. After their last brief stint as substitute teachers, they figured there was no way the school would hire them again.
No way.
Apparently, they severely overestimated the rational decision making of the principal and perhaps the entire school board. If you were willing to work for nothing, they didn't seem to care who you were, what you'd done or even want to.
So, Monday morning found the five of them once again attempting to look like teachers. Jensen thought he and Pooch pulled off the look pretty well, but the others…well, they were trying.
No one could talk Clay out of his black suit, despite telling him teachers did not dress like the Blues Brothers or funeral directors. The older man had just glowered at them and holstered another gun.
Aisha looked kind of like the teacher in every school themed porno. Tight black pencil skirt and a white, button down shirt and the heels…Jensen totally valued his life to much to mention that they looked like high class stripper heels.
It had again been a struggle to get Cougar into his chinos and shirt and he'd already ditched the tie. Once again, Aisha proved herself the craziest of the bunch and simply tackled him earlier and wrestled his hair back into a neat ponytail. That had left him so disgruntled that no one dared mention the hat.
In the teachers lounge they found a group that looked even more beaten down than they had the last time the Losers had been in town. Only three of the staff present seemed to lack the slump shouldered posture of those completely without hope.
Will Shuester, the Spanish teacher/Glee director who knew that they were not, in fact, substitute teachers, due to the fact that he's witnessed their reaction to an assassination attempt the last time they'd been in town, was seated at a table with two women. One was the little red head with the big, anime brown eyes, Emma Pillsbury, who also thought they were NSA agents. Jensen thought she was pretty darn cute, but had a sort of twitchiness to her that said she'd literally die if faced with the reality of any part of the Loser's lives.
The final person at their table was a…larger woman in red gym shorts and a white polo shirt. She seemed to be in the process of devouring an entire coffee cake, chased by a gallon of milk.
Jensen approved of her dietary choices.
Every other person in the room was slumped over mugs of coffee, lit cigarettes hanging from trembling fingers. One woman, in the far corner, seemed to be muttering a steady stream of curses and stabbing a pen into and apple.
And she was one of the least obviously deranged. Another woman was reading a Twilight book. How nuts was she?
Their presence caused a few heads to turn but they were largely dismissed. Shuester and Pillsbury however, they froze, wide eyed and gaping, gazing at them with looks of horror. Their companion, looking puzzled, turned to survey the Losers with narrowed eyes.
"Go make nice," Clay hissed through clenched teeth. It didn't take a genius to realize he was talking to Jensen or Pooch.
And, since Pooch already seemed to be trying to make nice with the weird dude who was cursing at his coffee, Jensen took it upon himself to stroll over to Shuester's table and drop into the empty seat. "Hey, Will, Emma, long time no see!"
They continued to stare, Shuester slowly turning red and Pillsbury looking around nervously, so he turned to the other woman at the table and extended a hand. "Hi, Jack Jensen, computer sciences and chemistry sub."
"Shannon Bieste, gym and football coach," she replied, taking his hand in a firm grip. She glanced at her fellow teachers, who had progressed to sputtering. "I'm assuming you've been here before?"
Jensen nodded happily and dumped sugar into his coffee. "Yeah, last year. Depressed dude named Tanaka was coach then. Saw the big trophy when we were coming in. That your team?"
She smiled with pride. "That's right. First championship team this school's had in years."
"Nice," he said enthusiastically and held out his hand for a fist bump which she returned.
Bieste nodded, then looked over at Will. "Why do you look like someone just sacked you?"
"Why are you people back?" Will finally managed to choke.
Uh oh. Best to nip this in the bud before something unfortunate was said. "Just passing through," he said with a reassuring smile. "Stopped by to see some old friends. Hey! Good news! I'm pretty sure Sylvester hates Aisha more than she does you!"
Ms. Pillsbury made a strangled noise and hopped up from the table, skittering out of the room without a backwards glance. Shuester soon followed.
Shaking his head, Jensen offered his remaining companion a rueful smile. "Folks around here are weird, huh?"
She nodded. "I've noticed that too."
It was kind of cool to have someone looking at him like he wasn't the craziest person in the whacko shack.
"See. Not an alcohol related hallucination." (Puck)
"I stand corrected." (Rachel)
"Why are they back?" (Finn)
"Maybe there's another terrorist on the teaching staff?" (Artie)
"Or they decided Coach Sylvester couldn't be left to her own devices amongst a group of impressionable young adults." (Quinn)
"Nah, I think they're cool with Coach Sylvester. Mr. Clay used to be all up on that." (Santana)
"I didn't need to know that." (Mike)
"Oh, scary, scary visual. In fact, I think I need the brain bleach." (Mercedes)
"Maybe Mr. Jensen will sing with us again! Lord Tubbington refused to talk to me for days after he missed the last time." (Brittany)
"Why would Figgins hire them again?" (Tina)
"Our esteemed principal would hire a head of lettuce, but lettuce refuses to work for the pittance of a salary this school pays." (Kurt)
"Okay, what did I miss about the crazy group of subs from last year?" (Lauren)
"Last year…Oh, good, I feel better about being lost them." (Sam)
While the majority of the Glee Club clammed up, glancing nervously at each other, Brittany reached out and patted Sam on the arm. "Don't worry. I still don't know why the astronauts came to fight Mr. DeGoob."
Everyone took a moment to digest that and Quinn dared to ask, "Astronauts, Brittany?"
"Yeah, astronauts come from NASA, right? They make Tang."
Sometimes, Rachel just wanted to pat Brittany on the head. She was rather adorably clueless.
Quinn looked mildly pained and Artie smiled fondly. "NSA, sweetie, not NASA."
That clarification didn't make much of an impact on Brittany, who continued to stare at Artie as though puzzled. Granted, that look wasn't exactly rare, but Finn added, "Aren't they the same thing?"
While Brittany was cute, Rachel found herself once again wondering what she ever saw in Finn. Whomever said love was blind was quite right. In this case, love had also made her foolishly ignore Finn's many, many faults and she was glad that she'd come to her senses before getting bogged down in a new round of Finchel drama.
Finn was not happy with her, but she couldn't compromise herself for him. Not again.
"The NSA/CSS provides products and services to the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, government agencies, industry partners, and select allies and coalition partners. They also deliver critical strategic and tactical information to war planners and war fighters, are code makers/breakers, collect, process, and disseminate intelligence information from foreign signals for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and to support military operations. The Agency also enables Network Warfare operations to defeat terrorists and their organizations at home and abroad," Lauren said in an impressed tone.
Frankly, Rachel found it a little scary that the girl could rattle off information like that about a government agency.
Unfortunately, Lauren's attempt to inform everyone of the NSA's mandate did little to help Finn and Britt, both of whom looked more confused than ever.
"They're spies," Mike said plainly and the two…slower members of the club lit up with comprehension.
"Oh," Finn said, nodding sagely. "That would explain the guns and the Spiderman stuff."
Brittany frowned. "So…they didn't go to the moon?"
"Probably not," Rachel said, feeling it kinder to leave the former Cheerio with a bit of hope.
Glumly, Brittany dropped onto Artie's lap to pout. "I wanted to ask what the moon tastes like," she mumbled to no one in particular.
Deciding to steer the conversation back to less migraine inducing territory, Sam asked, "Why were NSA agents in Lima?"
"Last year, they showed up and it turned out that Mr. DeGoob, one of the Bio teachers, was a terrorist," Noah said, then grinned. "This time they're looking for a ruthless, murderer for hire type."
A concerned murmur rolled through the group and Finn snorted. "C'mon, don't make up stuff to scare the girls."
Santana fixed Finn with a withering look. "While you were busy getting intimate with a floatie - also, why was there a sledge hammer at the bottom of my pool? -, me and Puck were doing recon on my new neighbors, the NSA agents. They asked about any teachers that seemed like 'The ruthless, murderer for hire type.'"
They were doing recon?
"Coach Sylvester," Quinn and Mercedes chorused and there were many nods of agreement.
Noah shook his head. "That's what we said, but no. She's the one who called them in."
Raising a brow, Lauren said, "So they just asked you two about murderous teachers and….what?"
Exchanging a look with Noah, whose mouth was full of a Pop Tart, Santana shrugged. "They gave us snacks and told us to remember to roll anyone who passed out into the recovery position."
"Nice of them to be concerned," Kurt said in amusement. "Were the forehead post-it notes detailing the highlights of each person's drunken behavior their idea as well?"
"No," Santana replied with a pleased smirk. "That was all me."
"Hey," Noah said suddenly, swallowing his mouthful of over-processed starches. "Doesn't Coach Sylvester keep files on her enemies/allies? Bet she has info on the NSA agents."
Quinn rolled her eyes. "She keeps her files locked in her office. There's no way to get at them."
Slow, knowing smirks crossed the faces of Noah, Santana and Lauren. "Wanna bet?" the wrestler said, exchanging nods with her partners in crime.
Rachel really hoped Noah didn't do anything stupid that would result in him being sent back to juvie. Then again, if Coach Sylvester caught them, she seemed the type who would prefer using the perpetrators as slave labor rather than reporting them to the police.
"Wow," Sam commented, sounding both impressed and a little stunned. "You three are really like a mini Bermuda Triangle for morals, aren't you?"
Further debate on the issue was tabled as the bell rang, sending them all scattering to their first lessons of the day.
TBC….
Preview of the next chapter:
"Hi, Mr. Jensen!"
Once again, Jensen's first class of the day was Remedial Computer Skills (or Computer Skills 000, as he liked to call it) and once again he found himself faced with both Brittany S. Pierce (so she did have a last name!) and Finn Hudson. The boy was giving him the hairy eyeball, but Brittany seemed tickled pink to see him.
That was kind of nice.
Giving the girl (who was not wearing the cheerleading uniform she'd sported the year before) a smile, he said, "Good morning, Brittany. It's nice to see you again."
"You too," she replied earnestly. "Lord Tubbington hid the guide you made for me last year and your replacement didn't want to make me a new one."
"Lord Tubbington?" Who the heck is Lord Tubbington?
Brittany lowered her voice conspirataly. "My cat. He doesn't like when I go to school. I think he has spies here."
Huh. "My sister's cat steals cell phones. Maybe it's a conspiracy."
Tilting her head to the side like a confused puppy, Brittany asked, "What's a conspiracy?"
"It's a group that works in secret toward a goal. Like the people who got All My Children cancelled," Jensen told her with a sage nod and smiled when her eyes lit up.