Back-Up Plan - Book 1 - S.E.

The substitute

Mr. Schue didn't seem all that healthy that day, as he stood by the whiteboard, but he seemed dead set on pushing through it and continuing with the class.

"All right, guys, hum... Time to start thinking about song selections." He said, as he turned to look at the kids.

Some of them didn't seem all that interested on what he had to say, however, and, nudging Winnie on the side, Santana smirked as she nodded at Puck to let her know she was going to mess with him a bit.

"Lookin' good, Puckerman." She called, as the boy turned to smirk at her. "Someone's been eating their wheaties."

"These guns are fully loaded." He responded, kissing his arms as Winnie rolled her eyes and snorted a laugh.

"Bet they are..." She smirked as Puck sent her a look.

"Mr. Schue?" Rachel called, obviously the only one actually paying attention to the class. "I, for one think we should use our set list for Sectionals to start exploring the oeuvre of one Bernadette Peters."

"Someday, I'm gonna go to Paris and visit the oeuvre." Brittany mumbled.

"I just want to dance." Mike shrugged.

"Mr. Schuester, are you okay?" Mercedes frowned a bit in worry when the teacher gulped a bit. "You look a little green."

At that, everyone stopped and turned to look at the teacher instead, also noticing how he struggled to keep his eyes open.

"Mr. Schue?" Mercedes called again, snapping the man back to reality as he frowned at the kids in front of him.

"Hum... I think I'm gonna go see the nurse." He said. "But first I feel like I should get you guys a sitter."

"A sitter?" Winnie frowned, but, before anyone could say anything else, Mr. Scheu was out of the room.

For a minute, no one did anything, unsure on what to do now that their teacher was gone, but before they could all stand up to leave, Rachel decided to take over the class instead, walking over to the whiteboard and wiping off the word Sectionals that Mr. Schue had written there to replace it with the word me, instead.

"Class, in Mr. Schuester's absence, I'd like to go around and ask everyone what solos they'd like to hear me perform at Sectionals." She announced, as she turned to look at the rest of the kids and, before Winnie could even blink, Santana had jumped up from her seat beside Winnie's as Sam, Brittany and Mercedes struggled to hold her back as Rachel screamed and Winnie and Quinn exchanged glances as they just laughed at the scene in front of them.

"All right, you know what? Let me at her!" Santana yelled as she trashed around against Sam's grip on her waist. "¡Tú eres loca!"

***

"Oh, well, hello, there." Winnie smirked a bit, as she took her usual seat beside Santana in their shared Literature class. "Did you finally manage to get Rachel?"

"No. No one lets me." Santana mumbled, clearly still annoyed, as Winnie pouted.

"Well, bummer." She shrugged, pulling open her binder as Santana turned to her with a smile. "I for one would have loved for you to have the chance."

"You know what? Me too." Santana admitted, looking down at her own books again as she started to doodle a bit on them. "I kind of need to let my anger out."

At that, Winnie frowned, knowing full-well that, by the tone of her voice, Santana wasn't just talking about Rachel, this time.

"What's up?" She asked, as the Latina girl sighed.