CHAPTER FIVE
With two dollars per ticket, the auditorium is soon packed with audience. There are parents of the students of McKinley, family members of the Asian community, and even kids from other schools.
Tina peeks out of the curtain and gives a nervous sigh. "It's a full house, ladies," she announces to the girls, who are getting ready for their performance. "We come up third, after Blaine and Mike and Sam." She nods at the three boys, who are also cleaning up for their performances.
"How do I look?" Blaine asks, straightening his suit and bowtie – dark purple today.
"Like a star," Tina says with a smile.
"All right, wish me luck," Blaine nods at the others, and runs off to the side of the stage. Outside, the show is starting. Jake had convinced Puck to give a hand, so he is now MC-ing the show.
"Whaddup, Lima?" he shouts over the microphone, and the audience cheers. "Get yourselves ready for some kickass performances from the McKinley high students that'll leave you feeling like losers, y'all! They'll sing, they'll dance, they'll wow you out of your seats! Now who's ready?"
The crowd gives another cheer.
"All right, folks, now the first treat of tonight come from my own brother from another mother. Green-eyed, bow-tied, with at least half a tube of hair gel, give it up for McKinley's very own Blaine Anderson!"
As Blaine takes the stage, Tina and Marley scan the audience again.
"The Warblers are here," Tina says, pointing to the fifth row of the auditorium seats. "What are they doing here?"
"Maybe they just wanted to see us perform," Marley says with a shrug. "I mean, that Hunter guy is not there, right? I can only see Sebastian, and… I don't know the names of the other guys."
"Or maybe they'll throw slushies at us when we're onstage," Tina says, narrowing her eyes. "Or sabotage Blaine's performance, or trip someone, or –"
"Tina, relax," Marley calms her down. "Let's just put on a good show and hope that they won't mess anything up, okay?"
"Knock, knock, girls," Ryder suddenly appears backstage, carrying bouquets of flowers. "Ready to impress that eager crowd out there?" Ryder walks over to Marley. "This is for the beautiful Miss Rose," he takes one of the bouquets and hands Marley one with pink roses in it.
"Ryder, this is so sweet, thank you," Marley is grinning from ear to ear. She gives Ryder a hug, and smells her roses with delight.
"And this one," Ryder points at the bouquet of pink lilies in his hand, "is for the annoying Miss Halim." He hands the flowers to Gina, who blinks at him in surprise. "Now it's time to show everyone how fierce you are, G."
"Thanks, Elmo," Gina smiles as she takes the flowers. "These look amazing."
"No flowers for Unique?" Unique asks disappointedly.
Ryder laughs. "Sorry, Unique, I was kind of running tight on budget." He says.
"How sweet of Bieberhair, giving flowers to baby Huey and baby panda." Kitty says with a smirk.
Gina rolls her eyes. "You got to stop calling me panda, you know," she says. "There aren't even pandas in Indonesia."
"Would you rather be called an orangutan instead?"
"Special delivery." A boy with a baseball cap and a polo shirt comes over to the group. He is carrying a bouquet of assorted flowers, bigger than the ones Ryder had just brought. "Special delivery for… Miss Gina Halim?" He reads the tag on the bouquet.
"What?" Gina stares at the flowers in astonishment. "Who's this from?"
"Someone called Nick the Warbler," the boy answers, reading the tag again.
Ryder's face darkens. "That guy at the cupcake stall?" he asks, frowning as Gina takes the flowers. "What the hell does he think he's doing?"
"Giving me flowers for a good luck wish?" Gina shrugs. "He seems really… nice."
"I don't like the look of this," Ryder says, wanting to take the flowers from Gina's hands and dump it somewhere. "He just met you today. Now he's giving you flowers? This sounds too fishy."
"There's a stand that sells flowers today, Ryder," Gina says. "He could have just bought this and asked that guy to deliver it to me. Stop being so suspicious." Gina smells the flowers and smiles to herself, ignoring Ryder's stares of disbelief.
Marley watches this argument from afar, stroking her pink roses absentmindedly. Her eyes are fixed on Ryder's frowning face. Then her chest starts to feel heavy.