As Time Passes ; sam evans [1]

[a night of neglect]

'All right. We need $5,000 to pay for our trip to Nationals in New York.' Mr. Shue began.

'What happened to the money that we got from the Cheerios?' Quinn wondered.

'I guess Sue was hiding it in offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands, and we're having some trouble accessing some of it.' he informed. 'Any of it.' he turned around. 'This is salt water taffy.' he smiled holding up a piece of taffy.

'Ah, I love salt water.' Brittany shared.

'When I was a student here, we paid for our entire trip to nationals, selling this. Classroom to Classroom, door to door, we pushed this stuff like crack.' He continued throwing pieces of taffy to each of us. 'So will we. So, to make $5,000 at 25 cents apiece, we need to sell 20,000 pieces of taffy.'

'Wait, do you honestly think that we can sell 20,000 anything's? I mean, we won regionals for the first time since dinosaurs roamed the planet, and I still got a freaking cherry icee facial.' Santana complained.

'Yeah. Santana is right. Nobody cares about us.' Quinn raised her hands in the air.

'I can't listen to this.' Mike whispered standing up from his chair.

'Mike, are you okay?' Mr. Shue asked.

'No. You guys complain all the time about being mistreated, but you have no idea what it's like to work your butt off for something and have everyone, even your friends, ignore you.' Mike angrily expressed turning around to face us all.

'I'm so trying to remember his name right now.' Lauren commented.

'Artie, Tina, Brittany, Allaire and I are on the brainiacs.' He continued.

'Isn't that the Academic Decathlon team?' Rachel lowered her eyebrows.

'Wait. We have one of those?' Finn asked with a mouthful of taffy.

'Yes, we do.' Artie crossed his arms. 'And the five of us went on The Smartypants Show, and best Carmel high to go to the Academic Decathlon Finals in Detroit next week.' he informed.

'What? You guys were on tv? Well, why didn't you tell us about it?' Sam questioned us five.

'We did!' We all replied in sync.

'Wait, I...I get the four of you being on the team...' Mr. Shue awkwardly chuckled. 'But Brittany?'

'Liz Schneider was our fifth, But she got rubella.' Mike looked away.

'Her parents are hippies who don't believe in vaccinations.' Tina slightly shrugged.

'Brittany was the only person we could find on short notice. We bribed her with Dots. That Sunshine Corazon that Rachel sent to a frack house was on the other team. Luckily, we had our own secret weapon.' Artie smirked. 'Sadly, we can't afford to go to the Finals, so we're gonna have to forfeit.' he frowned.

'Why don't you just have your parents pay for it?' Rachel's jaw hung low.

'Because we shouldn't have to. We're a school club. The school should pay for it.' Tina complained. 'It's a matter of pride.'

'You guys are absolutely right. How much do you need to make the trip?' Shue nodded.

'With gas and motels, if we only eat Funyuns, uh, $250.' I turned to him.

'Which means...we just need to sell more taffy.' Shue grinned.

••••••••••••••••••••

'We're only going to do songs by neglected artists.' Shue smiled. 'Because it's "A Night of Neglect."

'Can you define what you mean by "neglected artist"? Rachel lowered her eyebrows in confusion.