Title: I'm Feeling Lucky – Chapter Seven
Premise: It's difficult to believe in today's age of cellphones, social networks, and cameras, that the parents of WMHS could be so completely oblivious to what was happening at school. And what if certain people really did have cameras everywhere?
Disclaimer: Glee still isn't mine. More's the pity.
The DVD, encased in a paper sleeve, was found in Hiram Berry's mailbox one afternoon after he had returned home from work. Leroy found him standing in their living room with a puzzled expression on his face.
"What's that?"
"I don't know. Found it in the mailbox with this note." He showed Leroy the paper. Thought you should know what's going on.
"I had the computer check this for viruses and other malware. Says it's just a video of some sort."
"Let's watch it."
One scene showed their daughter walking down McKinley's halls with another boy – the Hummel kid. She turned to say something to him and both were immediately covered in blue slush.
Other scenes were similar and equally enraging, but the last set shocked both men to the core.
"She sent one of her classmates to a CRACKHOUSE?!"
When Rachel Berry came home, she found her fathers waiting for her at the door.
"Dad?"
Michelle Azimio had found a similar DVD with an identical note.
She watched her son, her pride and joy, so sweet and kind whenever she had eyes on him, turn into a borderline sociopathic monster within the walls of that school.
She also saw the other students who witnessed his behavior and the teachers that condoned it or simply found it easier to feign ignorance.
"Why didn't anyone tell me?" she muttered out loud.
"Tell you what, Mom?"
He was standing in the door.
She shook her head in disappointed fury. "The truth about what you've been doing at school!"
Paul Karofsky didn't wait for Dave to return home. He went up to the school and immediately withdrew him.
"Dad, what's going on?"
"I'm doing something I should have done years ago." Dave's locker contents were stacked unceremoniously in the back of the car.
"What did I do?"
Paul met his son's eyes squarely. "What didn't you do?"
"You didn't tell me it was that bad," Burt Hummel whispered, his son curled up against him.
"I didn't want to worry you-"
"I'm your dad. That's my job. That, and loving you. I'm not letting you go back there, whatever it takes."
He had screamed at his office computer at the garage after putting in the DVD. His son, so small compared to the other students in so many ways, enduring torment after torment.
How could they do that to him?
Why didn't anyone care?
His eyes strayed to the note.
Someone did.
"So who do you think put all of this together?" Several of the parents had called one another to compare stories and that question was quickly bandied about.
"Probably another student," was the general consensus. "One who saw what was happening and also saw the adults wouldn't do anything."
Anonymity would protect that student. If he/she were ever found out, there would be both personal and potential legal consequences. Parents, outraged at the supposed violation of privacy as much as by their offsprings' actions, would gladly leap upon a scapegoat. Anything to keep from facing the truth.
Ultimately, several students did not return to McKinley. Dave Karofsky and Marcus Azimio both wound up at the same alternative school - one designed to help teenagers with emotional issues.
Rachel Berry wrote a letter to Sunshine Corazon apologizing for her previous actions. She received no reply (not that she had really expected one) and found it left a cold knot in her gut whenever she remembered the heated lecture she had been subjected to.
You are NOT the only member worthy of consideration in that club.
Burt Hummel wouldn't allow Kurt to return to McKinley. His new school had codes of conduct modeled after Westerville's Dalton Academy and the few friends he maintained contact with at McKinley reported that he sounded much happier.
Sue Sylvester walked out of her office, a snide smirk on her face. Nothing different from what others expected of her and no one would ever look deeper. After all, no one could conceive that arguably the biggest bully within McKinley's walls would get tired of seeing what happened in front of her day after day.
Her cameras really were everywhere and seeing sweet Porcelain's back collide so swiftly with the sharp corner of two intersecting calls had snapped something within her.
Printer paper could be bought anywhere and harddrives could be wiped if the need ever arose.
Porcelain was apparently happy. No one at his new school was worthy of his attentions, but he had met someone who hailed from the new school's model. Too short, hair too gelled, smile too bright, but Porcelain deserved something pretty after all the trouble he had been through.
And if Too-Short-Too-Gelled ever crossed him, she would know.
Her cameras were everywhere.
/end/