"If you take a left turn at College Street, it'll only take four minutes and twenty-seven seconds to get onto the highway, you know," said Avery, tapping her fingers on the window.

They were speeding down the streets of Cincinnati (well, not speeding, exactly, because Avery had made it quite clear that she could calculate how many miles above or below the speed limit he was going by sensing the air speed velocity as she stuck her hand out the window and remembering exactly what the last speed limit posting had been because of her photographic memory or whatever it was, and Puck had a feeling that if she could do all that without a compass or a calculator, then she could probably make his head explode with her mind as well if he dared go a mile over the speed limit). It was dark out, but not menacingly so; the sky was more of an inky blue color, the kind of sky that always seemed to be hovering over Paris in romantic comedies. And there were lights. Red lights and green lights and flashes and beeps. And they were everywhere. Like, he had been to New York, but ever since Finn broke up with Quinn up until he got back together with Rachel, he had been completely baked because he figured that at least one of them was going to make his life hell until the whole inevitable business was over. So he never really noticed the city lights. Ee noticed lights, that was for sure. Only trouble was, he couldn't really remember whether they were real or not.

"Exactly four minutes and twenty-seven seconds?" he asked Avery, turning his head to glance at her briefly before dutifully gluing his eyes back to the road.

"I calculated it by extrapolating from mileage and speed data," she said, completely serious.

"Gee... so you're like, one of those beautiful-mind, genius guys," he said, still trying to wrap his head around what she had just said.

She made a little frown and shrugged.

"I guess, if you exaggerated a little," she said dismissively. "I try hard, at least. I'm taking AP Physics and AP Calculus and I've never gotten anything less than a 4.0 in my life. But that whole bit about going to Chemistry Club was a complete lie, I figured it'd be more believable because Chemistry is the standard sophomore science course. The truth is, I'm way behind on extracurriculars. I don't do anything except school and violin."

Puck angled the steering wheel and they slid onto the highway.

"But you have friends, right?"

Avery was gazing out the window and toying with a strand of her hair. She chuckled a little at that. Puck noticed that when she laughed, her bosom bounced a little. He had to admit it was pretty cute.

"Yeah," she said. "I've got four best friends. They're all guys, and they're all exactly like me. You probably know them, too. It's Solomon, Martin, Reed, and Theo."

"The brain trust!" he exclaimed, recognizing the four names. They were kind of infamous at McKinley, in a way that almost made you believe they were popular. They were the kind of guys you went to when you needed help on your homework or a good recipe for mango chutney. But they weren't nerds – sure, they read comic books and watched Star Wars and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but they didn't wallow in it, you know? People thought of them more as just the smart guys that you wanted your name to be close to alphabetically when teachers went down the list for group projects. I mean, he assumed so. He had never actually talked to them. No one really did.

"Yeah, that's us," she said wearily. "I'm part of the brain trust too, you know. Only, funny part is, no one ever mentions Avery. Not even them, sometimes. I'm just kind of that girl who tags along and they let me hang out with them because they know I'm just as smart as they are."

"Sound like some great friends," said Puck sarcastically.

"No, they are!" she said, immediately defensive. "I'm like their little sister. They're nice to me in their own weird little way. This one time, a guy started hitting on me and they just appeared out of nowhere, saying that if he ever did anything to hurt me they'd never give him another answer in Physics again, and he bolted. I sleep over at their houses all the time and it's not weird. We do the same thing every Friday night – go to one of our houses, fool around on the computer for a while, break stuff so we can fix it, argue about Myth Busters, order pizza and watch a movie. Then the next morning we cook a really elaborate breakfast and play Hypertheticals. Sometimes we go out for dinner, but only if the Lima Shakespeare Company is playing or there's a new Jerry Bruckheimer movie they want to drag me to. The same thing every Friday. It's a routine. And it's nice because when they're not treating me like one of the guys, they're treating me like a young Jedi who has to learn the ways of geekdom. They just kind of…"

She trailed off.

"Kind of…?" prompted Puck, raising his eyebrows.

"I'm a girl," she said flatly. "That's kind of a hard thing to understand for them. We can all finish our sentences for each other, but every time I have to put on a nice dress for a concert they just freeze up. It's like we're aliens to each other sometimes. They don't really understand being into clothes or boys or make-up, which aren't things that really interest me but it's in my nature, I guess. I know about it. They don't."

"So, that's it," said Puck a little warily. "You've got four best friends and… what, no one else?"

"That's a heck of a lot more than some people get," she said shortly. "It's nice to be part of a group, a group that gets me. They protect me like a sister, and when it's all five of us we're just inseparable. They don't really notice I'm a girl until I start acting like one. I don't know if I could ask for much more." She went back to staring out the window.

"I didn't mean to offend you or anything," said Puck hastily. Things had been going so well, he certainly didn't want to screw it all up.

"None taken. My self-esteem is not meted out to me by my so-called peers," she replied succinctly.

Puck blinked rather blankly.

"Well, okay," he said, having no idea what she meant by any of that. He grasped onto something that he had half-way understood.

"What do you mean, acting like a girl?" he asked. "You say it like it's a bad thing."

"Being obsessed with appearance for the sake of attracting a mate, acting stupid for the sake of attracting a mate, waiving standards and decency for the sake of attracting a mate," she began. "I could go on and on. It's not that being a girl is a bad thing. It just sucks that so many of them think it's so important to be perceived as 'desirable' that they'll go to any lengths. And some of them are pretty dumb to begin with," she said bitterly.

"Gee," said Puck. "You act like you don't even consider yourself one of them."

"In many ways," she said quietly, "I'm really not."

She glanced over at Puck and caught him raising his eyebrows at her. She groaned.

"I am a heterosexual and I identify as female," she said pedantically, rolling her eyes. "I just don't identify with a lot of females."

Jesus Christ, thought Puck. Here I was, thinking I had a chance of maybe getting it on with this power chick, and now I find out she's the biggest flaming tomboy on the planet. Just great. Probably thinks boys are full of scum too, except the nerds she hangs out with.

"Listen here," he said, attempting to salvage the conversation. "I came in the first place because I wanted to ask you a question."

"I'm still not planning on telling you why I'm doing the football team's homework," she said quickly.

Damn, she had a good memory.

"No, no," he said hastily. "A different question."

He cast around for a way to explain himself.

"Here's the deal," he began. "I saw you in the auditorium last week. Before you jacked up your ankle and everything. I saw you practicing your violin. And I was really impressed. Like, really impressed. You have no idea. I play guitar and I sing and everything, but I didn't think it was possible to be that talented. Like… wow."

He was momentarily rendered speechless. He glanced at her cautiously, and she looked like she was slowly digesting what he was saying.

"Anyhow," he said, plowing on nervously. "I was wondering if maybe you wanted to join the glee club. You know, singing and dancing and all that. Nationals are next month, and if we had a violinist on our squad we'd win it hands down. I'm asking because, you know, I saved your life and all." He tried the smirk again in a last-ditch attempt to make it work.

She rolled her eyes.

"You didn't save my life," she said. "But hold on. Back up just a second. When did you hear me in the auditorium?"

"Last week," he repeated. "I walked in because I wanted to check the time, and you were on the stage just blowing my mind and everything." He thought he was doing a great job of laying the flattery on pretty thick. So far, she didn't seem too opposed to the idea. He was getting somewhere.

She frowned, furrowing her eyebrows.

"You heard me practicing? And you thought I was that good?" she asked. She seemed a little shell-shocked.

"Well, duh! Dude, you were owning it up there. Total badassery on the line. What was it you were playing, anyway? Song's been stuck in my head all week!" he replied.

"Shostakovich," she said slowly. "Probably. And it's a piece, not a song. I'm betting I wouldn't get such a reaction from scales or etudes." She swiveled in her seat to look him square in the face.

"So, let me get this straight. You want me to come join your little show-tune club to help you win a competition because you heard me practicing Shostakovich for five seconds in an empty auditorium." She was challenging him. He decided not to rise to the bait.

"Yep," he said. "Consider it a win-win situation. We get to win, and you get another extracurricular to put on your application to Yale or Juilliard or wherever you want to go."

She smiled.