"Why don't you poison them old folks' Jello. Or go spy on the Garglers. I'm sure the feathers would fit right in."
"Fine," Kurt said. He took the two idea boards he had worked on for hours and left the room. He stepped into the hallway, where he nearly collided with Karofsky.
"I was just on my way to see you." He dumped the slushie in his hand over Kurt's head. It dripped down his face onto the idea boards he was carrying.
Kurt couldn't formulate a good comeback. He just wiped his face the best he could and walked to the nearest girls' restroom. He cleaned himself up the best of his ability, and then marched straight out the building.
Karofsky watched as Kurt marched down the hallway with his head held high and defiant. A wave of nausea passed through him, but he reined it in by moving quickly to his American History classroom and taking a seat as far from the teacher's desk as possible and put his head down to take a nap.
Kurt tossed the boards into the dumpster as he crossed the parking lot. He reached under the driver's seat and pulled out the vinyl tablecloth he had customized to fit the driver's seat right after he got the Nav. He climbed in the front, and used self-restraint to stop himself from slamming his baby's door. He drove home, showered quickly, and changed clothes.
Once he was ready, he looked up Dalton Academy to find out exactly where it was located. He looked over the website and the phrase "Zero-tolerance, no-bullying policy" jumped out in the part of the paragraph he was reading. After that, he read more carefully. He clicked several links and finally found one that listed the cost of attending the school. Once he saw the tuition, he clicked the page closed. For that price, he could probably get a private tutor or go to OSU Lima.
He realized that he was 30 minutes late for school. Mrs. Hapsburg went on notoriously long rants about historical events that never actually happened with her back to the classroom. And sometimes she fell asleep with her head down on her desk, which is how he found her. He managed to slip into the front row of his US History class without being noticed.
When the bell rang, Karofsky followed Kurt out of the classroom and shoved him into the locker bank as he walked past him. He picked up his pace and moved as far from Kurt as he could get. He wasn't in the mood for a battle of the wits with Kurt. He had to struggle every time Kurt got condescending with him not to smart back using words as big as Kurt's just to prove that he wasn't stupid, but that would ruin the dumb jock persona he was wore that fit as poorly as his letterman jacket and baggy jeans.
Kurt regained his equilibrium from crashing into the lockers. He rubbed his shoulder. Mercedes walked up next to him.
"You okay, Kurt?"
"Yeah, fine. Walk with me to Algebra 2?"
"Of course."
They parted ways right before they entered their classrooms, which were next to each other.
"I'll save you a spot at lunch," she said.
He just nodded.
Karofsky saw them together on the way to the lunch room and went the opposite direction, not interested in riling up the diva in Mercedes.
By the time lunch came around, Kurt still wasn't in the mood to deal with the guys from Glee Club, so he just went outside and sat in the courtyard and people-watched and did some thinking for the rest of his lunch period.
Both of them dealt with their minds wandering all through the afternoon, each thinking about the other more than either would care to admit.
When the final bell rang, Kurt left school instead of meeting up with the guys again. He texted Finn and asked him to video whatever they came up with, telling him that he'd learn it on his own later that night.
When Karofsky saw Kurt leave the building, he headed into the locker room to work off some off his pent-up energy.
On the drive home, the lure of a place where he could go to school in peace led him to heading straight to his room and back to the Dalton Academy website.
As he continued to think about everything, he came to the conclusion that despite being in the loser of loser's club, he still wasn't part of the group in the way that everyone else was. Once Tina had started to date Mike, she spent progressively less time with him. After their disagreement over religion, things with Mercedes hadn't returned to where they had been before. He decided that he needed to remedy that in some way.
They had never seen the Warblers perform, so Puck's idea had some merit. Taking a trip to Westerville to spy on them might not be a terrible idea, but skipping school would be if anyone notified his dad. He formulated an idea to put into motion the next morning. He looked through the Dalton Academy website for a few more minutes before he went to bed.
The next morning, he pulled into the school parking lot fifteen minutes early and cut the engine. He didn't move to get out. As he sat there for a couple of minutes, it really hit him head on that he was at a fork in the road of his path in life. He seriously contemplated what it would mean to stay in Lima for the rest of his life. He looked around again and tried to imagine the people he saw walking towards the building 10 to 20 years in the future. At first his reaction was really negative, but he caught himself and realized that some people would prefer a job that required nothing of them once they went home for the day.
He recalled how frequently he had used staying in Lima as an insult to throw at the jocks who bullied him. He felt a pang of guilt realizing that his own father had been on of those jocks that stayed in Lima and his presence had made Lima a better place. He hoped that maybe some of the people he saw milling around were actually going to grow into being decent people like his dad had.
He forced himself to focus. He grabbed his binder, locked the door, and went inside to pay Miss Pillsbury's a visit.
"How can I help you this morning, Kurt?"
"What I tell you is confidential, right?"
"Unless it involves you being a threat to someone else or yourself, yes. Or unless, you're being abused in some way by an adult."
He nodded. "I'd like you to give me a pass to visit Dalton Academy as an official school visit."
"Why?"
He sighed. "I know you sit in this office a lot of the time, and I'm sure most of the bullies avoid perpetrating their crimes right outside your glass wall, but you cannot be completely oblivious to the bullying that goes on in this school."
"I am aware in a general sense, yes. But no one actually comes to me to talk about it."
"Maybe you consider why that is. Plus, if you do know that it's going on and you do nothing about it, that makes you an enabler, at least, and complicit, at worst."
"Yes, Kurt. I see your point. But please go on about why you want me to authorize a trip to Dalton as an official visit."
"Because if they offer scholarships, I'm considering transferring, but I'd like a tour and some firsthand information before talking to my father about it."
"I see. I can do that. Are you wanting to go right now?"
"I am." He pulled out a few sheets of paper out of his binder and put them on her desk. "Here are all of my completed assignments for today. I'll just need a list of my assignments for tomorrow."
She finished writing up a letter and sent it to her printer. "You can take that with you. I'll email you your assignments using your official school email."
"Thank you."
She nodded once and smiled stiffly.
He arrived at Dalton Academy 90 minutes later. He pulled into the lot and found the section for visitors. He parked and spent a couple of minutes psyching himself up before he got out.
Once inside, he entered the administrative office and told them why he was there. He signed in and sat down to wait until he was provided a student tour guide fifteen minutes later. Lawrence introduced himself before he began an obviously well-rehearsed brief historical monologue about the school while lead Kurt through the corridors.
There was a lot of commotion during the passing period, during which Kurt managed to get separated from Lawrence on the way down the stairs. He stopped one of the students to ask what the fuss was about. The student told him that the Warblers were performing an impromptu song for the student body. He claimed that the Warblers were like rock stars and grabbed Kurt's hand and pulled him down a hall to listen. He was thrilled that he wasn't going to have to sneak around to hear the Warblers perform.
Kurt stood in the doorway and watched the performance. He realized that Lawrence had joined the Warblers. Afterwards, he asked Kurt if he had any interest in learning more about the Warblers. When Kurt said that he did, Lawrence arranged for him met up with the same student, Blaine, the Warblers' lead singer about an hour later for coffee.
Lawrence left him with Blaine and two other Warblers, telling him that he would be back in 15 minutes. Kurt sat down with them. Blaine offered him a latte, which he took graciously. After a brief introduction, the other two Warblers left. He spent the rest of the time talking to Blaine.
When Lawrence stopped back by to pick him up for the rest of the tour, they left together to eat in the dining hall. He found out that Lawrence had gone to get a meal pass for him, which he thanked him for.
As they sat and ate, Lawrence told him more about being a student at Dalton, things not written in the script he had recited earlier during their tour. He told him about how much he enjoyed the classes, and about how much he detested the dress code. He showed Kurt a few photos of himself, in which he was wearing clothes that were bright and colorful, kaftans from Senegal, which was where he was from. He learned that Lawrence's father was a visiting professor at Ohio State University, and that at the end of the next school year, he and his parents would be returning to Senegal, which would be where he would go to college.
Kurt told him that he understood the frustration from when he had been on the Cheerios and had been required to wear the uniform to school every day, and how that had played some part in him not returning to the squad.
After lunch, Kurt shadowed Lawrence to his US History class. Kurt was impressed by the level of knowledge of the students and how interesting the class discussion was. He enjoyed joining in and actually talking about the issues rather than just listening to Mrs. Hapsburg begin to talk about WW2 in the middle of her lecture on the Civil War.
After the class ended, Lawrence walked him back to the office so he could turn his visitor's pass back in. He offered his number to Kurt, who gave him his as well. They shook hands and Lawrence left quickly to go back to class. Kurt sat down to wait to speak to the academic advisor briefly as he had been scheduled to when he arrived.
He put the half-inch navy binder with the red Dalton seal on the front of it in the passenger seat next to him. He sat and stared at it for a few seconds before he put his keys in the ignition and started the Nav up. He took his phone out of his pocket and looked up coffee shops. He only drank a little of the coffee that Blaine had given him because he wasn't a fan of lattes, but he was trying to be polite. He was surprised to find a Lima Bean not that far away. He pulled out and followed the directions.
He parked, grabbed the binder, and went inside. He was even more surprised to find that it looked exactly like the Lima Bean in Lima. He ordered his favorite non-fat mocha and sat down with it at a table. He opened the binder and began to look through it. He got so caught up in what he was reading that he lost track of time until he took a drink of his coffee and realized that it was cold. He checked the time and left.
On the drive back to Lima, his mind bounced around between what had happened the previous morning with the New Directions guys and what he had seen at Dalton all day. Other than the fact that McKinley and Dalton both had teachers, students, and classrooms, there was not much else they had in common. As he continued the long drive, he let himself imagine what it would be like to attend a school like Dalton.