Rachel slammed down a pile of folders on the lunch table dramatically, causing Tina's jello to fall promptly off its spoon and back onto her tray with a plop. She frowned. "Hey..."

Kurt tore his eyes away from his magazine and feigned interest as Rachel sucked in a breath. Mercedes just turned the volume up on her iPod and started texting.

"I'm over him. Finn. No, really this time," she interrupted as Kurt opened his mouth to interject. "I know I've brought up this subject several times and on nearly--" Tina coughed. "--every one of those occasions, I've fallen back under the spell of his boyish good looks, innocent charm.. and big puppy dog eyes.. that smile that makes you feel like you're the only person in the entire world and he invented that smile just to make you happy..." She trailed off, staring off at nothing. Tina turned her head, trying to follow her gaze, as did Kurt, somewhat less curiously. Finally Mercedes nudged them, shaking her head and not even looking up from her phone as she continued to text.

"What's he done now?" Tina took another stab at her jello.

"More like who." Rachel's jaw tightened. Kurt let out a disgusted sound, attention back on his magazine.

Rachel sighed heavily and flopped down across from them, making Kurt, who had quickly started ignoring her again, jump. "In any case, I've come to the final, albeit difficult, conclusion that I must rid myself of negative influences in my life. Stress isn't good for my vocals. Or my blood pressure." She lifted her chin defiantly, half expecting at the very least looks of awe at her new-found maturity, but not one of them even lifted their heads.

She paused uncertainly. "I'm serious."

Silence.

"Fellow Glee clubbers!" She waved her hands in front of their faces, starting to think she had gone invisible. Which would, honestly, be a great tragedy for her future Broadway career. "Are you hearing me?"

Kurt exhaled, clearly exasperated, finally sparing her a glance. "As utterly amazing as this.. revelation.. undoubtedly is... the fact is we've heard it before." Tina nodded in agreement, giving her a sympathetic look that she didn't buy for a second.

"For about 5 months straight," Kurt continued, closing his magazine and leaning forward onto his arms. "Over... and over." His face did that scary stare-through-your-soul thing.

"And over," Tina added.

"And over and over and over..." Mercedes mumbled.

Rachel's eyes widened. "I thought you weren't even listening..!"

"And over," was all the other girl said, not glancing up once.

"Every time things with the boy wonder don't work out." Kurt examined his nail beds. "You should have taken a leaf out of my book long ago and gotten yourself a new man. We're days away from summer vacation. Do something useful, brighten up that.. painfully chalky complexion--" Rachel lifted a hand to her face, frowning. "--and find a summer fling. Maybe then I won't think you're crying wolf. As it is... I'm not convinced."

Rachel huffed. She really did mean it this time. Her head shot up suddenly. "How do you feel about a bonfire?" This finally got everyone's attention, including several people at another table she didn't even know. Gosh, MYOB.

Kurt raised an eyebrow. "Go on.."

-----

"What," Kurt said distastefully, picking up something in his (already) gloved hand and holding it away from his face like it was crawling with the plague, "is this? Is this a shoelace?" The three of them had followed Rachel home to rid her room of all things Finn-- fuel for the bonfire, as it happened.

She turned from her closet and focused on Kurt's current concern. "Oh.. yes, from the bowling alley." Kurt's eyes widened impressively at her in horror before he dropped the object back on the bed, stepping away from it.

"You stole a shoelace from an old used shoe? Sweetie... you know they sell those just about anywhere. Brand new and everything."

"Finn took me bowling," she said meekly.

Kurt stared at her, incredulous expression frozen on his face.

"You are just.. so much worse off than I even thought. You don't have a lock of his hair anywhere around here, right?" He opened up a drawer cautiously as though Finn himself would jump out of it.

Quinn poked her head in the door. "Thought I heard you guys. What's going on... ?" She eyed the pile of what seemed to be miscellaneous junk steadily growing on Rachel's normally spotless bed. "A little late spring cleaning?"

"More like Finn cleaning," Tina said brightly, fluttering past wearing one of Rachel's decorative Mardi Gras masks. Quinn nodded slowly, eyebrow raised. Mercedes stepped out of the closet holding a deep blue sweater. "This top is fantastic."

"Finn said it brought out my eyes," Rachel mumbled, looking away. "You can throw it out."

Everyone paused, staring.

".. Your eyes are brown. And Finn is a moron." Rachel smiled, knowing she didn't mean it, but Quinn had already grabbed the shirt from Mercedes and was holding it up to her torso. "And you're keeping this, because it actually is fantastic."

Kurt spoke up from where he was snooping in the dresser. "Which is rare for you. You should really let me pick out a new wardrobe."

Quinn rolled her eyes, dragging Rachel back to her closet to hang the sweater up. "You're not throwing out clothes just because Finn looked at them. All of this useless crap, however--"

"--like the shoelace--" Kurt threw in.

"--can go."

Quinn sifted through the pile -- folded notes, CDs, sheet music -- her eyebrows pulling together.

"What are you planning on doing with all of this, anyway?"

"Put a voodoo spell on it," Kurt smiled, hands on his hips. Quinn couldn't even tell if he was joking or not, and stared at him blankly. He sighed. "We're going to burn it," he said seriously.

"Burn it," she repeated.

"Mhmm."

"You can't even light an open fire like that within one mile of a city that has more than 10,000 people in its population."

They all blinked.

"What? Santana wanted to have a party once," she shrugged.

Tina groaned, bouncing as she collapsed on Rachel's bed. "I wanted to burn it."

Quinn's lips twitched. "She can just throw it out."

"That's hardly symbolic enough."

Mercedes turned. "Can we at least TP white boy's house?"

Quinn laughed, folding a leg under herself as she sat next to Tina. "No.. his mom was always nice to me, that's not fair to her."

"We could fill his locker with orange juice and marshmallows."

Rachel turned to stare at Tina.

"My cousin Kaitlin did that when her boyfriend cheated on her."

She tilted her head, actually considering. It was immature beyond belief, sure, but it would make her feel a little better. "We'd take out all of his stuff first, right?"

"Well, er, not traditionally, but--"

Rachel's gaze drifted over to Quinn, who had already embraced the plan and had her phone out. "What're you doing?"

"Texting Puck."

"What? Why?"

"Because Brittany's babysitting, Santana's tanning, Matt never answers his phone, Mike has SAT prep right now, and Artie's a parapalegic." She said in one breath, still typing. "Plus, I'm sure Puck can break into the school."

"... Oh."

teaching hudson a lesson. u game?

Quinn had hardly pressed send when the reply came.

be there in 10