The slam of lockers reverberated throughout the hallway accompanied by lively chatter of the students of McKinley. Jake made his way through the crowd to his locker. His books were in here somewhere. He dug through his locker. His next class, Spanish, was one of his favorite classes. It was kind of cool learning about another culture, the language, the traditions, and the struggles that the people had to face. Jake made a special connection to cultures that had faced significant struggles, because he felt they were much like his own. It was hard for him to fit in. It was easy to be black. It was easy to be white, and It was easy to be something, but what wasn't easy was being in between two things. He was too white to be black, but too black to me white. People couldn't comprehend that underneath it all, he was still human, and even though he might have trouble admitting it, he still had feelings just the same as everyone else did. A bullet sounds the same in every language, and still hurts the same.
"Hey, you ready for the Spanish test?" Sam said, breaking his train of thought.
"The Spanish what?" Jake removed his head from his locker.
"Spanish test. Chapter 6?"
"Shit."
"You forgot about it?"
"No, I randomly say shit for emphasis." Jake pounded his fist against his locker.
"What're you going to do?" Sam asked.
"I dunno, but it looks like my next period just opened up. There's no way I'm going to Spanish. I'll fake sick and have my mom write a note or something."
"Sounds like a plan dude. Good Luck, I'm gonna go. See ya around."
"Yup. See ya." Jake put his things away, except for a notebook and his article. He closed his lockers and walked away. What to do... Jake thought. He had a whole class period to himself. If he didn't have first lunch period he'd crash a lunch, but there's no sense is going there yet. He could go to the locker room and workout, but then he'd run the risk of running into coach Beaste. There was always the thought of rubbing one out in the bathroom.
That always sounded appealing, but he took care of that before he left his house. He continued down the hallway lost in thought. The girls locker room sounded tempting as well. The thought occurred to him he probably sounded like his brother. That in itself was scary though. He hadn't heard form his brother since their last conversation, maybe he'd have some advice on what to do. If anyone knew how to skip school in McKinley, Puck would be the person to go to. Jake ducked into the nearest corner
"Hey bro, what's shakin?"
"Hi, uh, nothing."
"Whatcha' calling for?"
"I didn't study for a Spanish test, and I'm cutting class, what's there to do around here?"
"Tried looking in the locker rooms yet?"
"I knew you'd say that, and yeah, I have. Nothing good this hour," Obviously a lie,
"Bummer. Go do homework or something?"
"Did you hit your head? Or contract stupid or something? Homework, really?"
"I don't know. I never did it. Whoa, cougar is back, I'll talk to you later, bro, I gotta go work my magic." The phone went silent. So much for that.
Maybe he would take the ironic suggestion from his brother, and do homework. It would be better than getting caught and sent to Spanish. He had to move fast though, the late would ring any second and a teacher or a hall monitor would surely snatch him up. Jake quickened his pace to a slight trot. He entered the Library just as the late bell rang. He walked over to the librarian's desk, "Hi, um, do you know where I could find a book about Boy II Men? The music group?" He asked.
"Yes, the music section is over there." She pointed to second floor, and to a section that was to the right of them."
"Thanks."
Jake climbed the spiraling stairs, navigating his way to the music section. He walked through the isle. The library sure had a lot of music books, maybe he'd pick one up for fun, or maybe he'd consider to study music. It seemed to workout pretty well for his brother. Even though New Directions only won a high school competition, Jake heard of people getting scholarships for winning national championships like this. His brother wasn't doing it now, but he was pretty skilled with a guitar, or so he'd heard. BoysIIMen: The Biography. There! He found it. The binding of the book was new. He looked around. Most of the books he found had untouched bindings, too. It was kind of sad.
He ran his finger along the spines of the books. There were theory books, little booklets of sheet music, discographies from classic eras, and more biographies. He had to admit, the library had a pretty decent collection of music books. It then struck him how important it was that Mr. Schue be in Washington. He was fighting for this, fighting for schools to continue to have collections of music books, and to be able to continue to study the arts in general. Jake cracked a smile. He looked up to Mr. Schue and how selfless he was. He wasn't fighting only for his kids, but the kids of Lima, but for the kids and schools of the nation! Jake took a seat on the second floor, he pulled his article out, grabbed his pen, opened his note book, opened the biography, and started to read and annotate his article.
The bell rang, and Jake looked up. There was no way that it was time to go already. He had only gotten like three pages of notes. Three pages of notes? That was unusual. He was lucky if he could usually crank out a page. There were marks all over his article, too. Notes from the biography, reactions that he had to statements, things he liked, things that could have been better. All in all, he was pretty impressed with what had just came out of him. He felt professional. Finn might have been new at this, but if he kept it up he'd have the Glee club function at a level similar to Mr. Schue.
Jake closed the book, "Man," He said to himself, "I wish I could take this book with me...Wait, dummy, it's a library."
Jake made his way down the stairs and to the Librarian's desk, "Excuse me, I'd like to check this out?"
"Very well, may I see your school ID?" The librarian asked.
"Here ya go." He pulled out his ID from his wallet,
"Thank you, you book is due back in three weeks. Have a nice day"
"Thanks. You too." Well, that was painless, he couldn't believe he hadn't done that earlier.
Today was turning out to be a pretty good day. He was hanging out with one of his new friends, his bro; he dodged a Spanish test, and found a book he could really get into! Jake was on a light buzz from like. He was headed towards the lunch room, and could smell pizza; his favorite food. It was hard to imagine that something could ruin this day.
"Jake!" a voice pierced his concentration.
"And then this happened," he whispered "hi Kitty"
"I was calling your name for the last two minutes, You made me look stupid."
"Sorry, what'd you want."
"I saw you flirting with the enemy."
"Flirting with the enemy? Kitty, what are you talking about?"
"You thought I didn't notice? You were talking to Ryder."
"Yeah, so?" The two entered the lunch room. There were people already in line, so the two made their way in line. Kitty crossed her arms, "Humph, I just thought you were smarter than that. You're flirting with your competition. What are you trying to do? Oh, I know, if he gets Marley, you're going to make him feel jealous. I didn't know you had it in you Jake Puckerman."
"Kitty, what are you talking about?! I'm not trying to do anything, really. I'm just being a good person, or at least trying to be." Great, the last thing he wanted was the Glee club thinking he was out to double cross someone. Sure they got off to a rough start, but some of the greatest friendships of all times started off with misunderstanding.
"Sure, keep telling yourself that, but I know what you're trying to do." Kitty raised her brow and smiled.
"Hey white chocolate, you kosher?" A jock called out from farther back in line
"What'd you say?" Jake turned around, and clenched his fist, "You wana say that again?"
"Yeah, I said, Are you Kosher." sensing the conflict, several kids moved out of the way.
"I hope you have insurance because you're going to need it." Jake moved forward, shoulders back, read to strike.
"I got this. Kitty replied. "Hey James, you talk a big game, but it's a real shame that you're not big where it counts." Kitty's words cut like venom. She delivered the blow so flawlessly. It was now secerte that Kitty could be ruthless and mean. Her words could devastate people physically and mentally, but Jake had to admit, it was nice when her works were working in his favor rather than the other way around.
"Damn!" One of his fellow jocks around him exclaimed, "She got you dude!"
"Hey. Shut up!" James' face was quickly turning red, yet losing color at the same time, "Fuck you! Fuck all of you, you're nothing but a stupid bitch."
"Yeah, I know." Kitty replied with icy.
"Hey dude, I think it's time for you to go." Jake suggested with a smug smile. James opened his mouth to say something, but no words would come out. He pushed his way through the back of the crowd in a rush, and left the lunch room.
"Hey, thanks, but I could have handled myself, you know."
"Yeah, I know."
"Whatever." The two got there food and sat down, talking about glee club and other things happening around the school. Jake told Kitty about how the biography he was reading captured him. He explained that it was kind of fun and relevant to him.
"You sound like Artie..."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"Not exactly, but you don't sound like Jake."
"Maybe this is a new Jake, a smarter Jake. A Jake that wants to better himself through knowledge rather than his fist. Maybe I'm trying to reinvent myself."
"If you say so, just don't go soft on me. I can't be seen around with a push over. Now, I was thinking about if Ryder and Mrs. Sandra Dean got together. Wouldn't it be great if something just happened to happen to their music?"
"Their music?"
"Jake, it's inevitable that they're going to sing a duet about it. Everyone does." She retorted, "So that was just something minor I was thinking about."
"Jesus Christ..."
"Hey! Don't say that. I don't want to be in heaven all alone."
Jake sighed. Just when he thought that Kitty was having anything close to a human emotion, she drove the car off the cliff to sociopathia. He shrugged, "Hey. Thanks for sitting with me, but I have to go. I gotta think about something. I'll see you later Kitty." He walked to the exit, "Hey, I need to go call my mom." Jake lied, "I don't feel well."
"Very well." The teacher said, and let him walk through the exit, he looked back and flashed a smile at Kitty. She raised an eyebrow, picked up her stuff, and sat with the rest of the cheerios.
That was an interesting lunch. He thought. Once he was out of sight of the lunch room he ran into the locker room, set his things up, and began to read.
