“Have you seen that new kid?” Finn announced. 

The New Directions were sat in a cluster in the far corner of the choir room. It wasn’t often that the McKinley Jazz Ensemble would sit with them, despite the many hours they spent together. But today, the school was surging with the rumours of a new transfer student.

It was rare that someone would move to such a desolate place like Lima, Ohio. Usually people read the realty brochures and they were out of the town like a flash.

Everyone knew everyone: Many of the people who lived there had been there for years and it was likely to continue like that until the town was obliterated by some kind of nuclear weapons or the entire human race was wiped out due to global warming - or whatever shit scientists are spurting  these days.

“Which kid?” Sam questioned. He’d never actually been present for the arrival of anyone new. The first time, he was the new student, and the second he was working as an underage stripper in Kentucky. It had never been at the forefront for Sam’s mind, but he wondered whether the news that he attended McKinley spread just as fast as this.

“The new one…”

“Really Finn, your descriptive skills astonish me...” Kurt chimed in. He was sat in his usual seat, at the edge of the group, legs crossed and arms folded. He wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation currently going on between his peers. He’d learnt this when Rory arrived earlier this year that new students really weren’t that interesting, they were just like everyone else, but Irish. Sam was an exception, he was one of the only straight high school guys he’d ever met, who hadn’t turned around and walked in the opposite direction when they saw him approaching, or wanted to toss him in the dumpster.

“You’ll know him when you see him. He’s really… weird.”

“How do you mean weird? Like Jacob Israel weird? I know things about that boy: Horrible things.” Rachel said. Jacob Israel’s requests to see her ‘over-the-shoulder boulder-holder’ was something which was burned into her mind. Rachel believed in seeing the best in everyone, accepting people as they are, but Jacob was just… too much.

“Nah, he’s just strange. He’s wearing all this grungy-army gear…”

“Wait, wasn’t your dad in the army?” Mercedes piped up.

“Yeah…” Finn responded, bemused.

“You know, Finn, you seem to be the only one who’s seen this “new kid”,” Quinn used her fingers to make air quotations. “I’m beginning to doubt he even exists.” She said, raising one of her eyebrows as she spoke.

“No, no, he does exist, I swear. He’s in my fitness class, I saw him before lunch.”

“Okay, hold up one moment, Frankenteen. You take fitness?” Santana scoffed and Brittany giggled beside her.

“Er, yeah, I mean, I have to stay in shape…”

“Stay in shape? I almost drowned in those fat rolls…”

“Okay, thank you, Santana. I don’t think we need to hear anymore of your lies.” Rachel stood up to defend her boyfriend, guarding him from Santana as if she was a lion stalking her prey. Santana rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, turning away from the group. Rachel turned around and put her hands on her boyfriend’s shoulders. “Finn, you’re not fat, you’re just… cuddly.”

“Erm… thanks?”

“Right, okay, settle down, everybody,” Mr. Schuester strode into the choir room, clapping his hands and rubbing them together, the same way he always did. “Rachel, take a seat, we have a lot to get through.”

Rachel cleared her throat. “Mr. Schuester? Can I make an announcement?”

“Sure, Rachel,” He moved from his position leaning against the piano and gestured for Rachel to take his place.

“Hello, fellow glee clubbers. As you are all aware, we have a new student roaming the halls of McKinley, and I think we should take advantage of this opportunity to recruit him as a new member of the New Directions.”

“Okay, we just said like, literally five minutes ago that this dude was creepy has hell…” It was Santana who reminded the group, a few of them nodded in agreement.

“I think you’re missing the whole point of our glee club,” Kurt stood up, walked down the steps and joined Rachel at the front. “We’re the kids that no one understands, that no one will talk to, that people hate.  For all the cheerleaders, jocks, the “popular people” in the room right now, they like you, but for some of us, we’re in the same place we’ve always been: the bottom of the pyramid. If this new guy really is as weird as you make him out to be, then he’ll need a place to belong. We can be that place: being part of something special makes you special, right?”

The group stared at the pair. Mr Schuester walked over to the board and wrote that week’s assignment title on the whiteboard.

“Okay, guys. You know what to do.”

Blaine Anderson put his hand into his pocket and pulled out his iPod. He put his earphones in and picked his soundtrack. The faint thud of the bass line pounded from his headphones as he walked down the halls of McKinley High School.

Kids gathered in small clusters at their lockers, down each side of the corridor. They whispered behind their hands, clutching their bags tighter and moved their heads, watching Blaine with each step that he took.

He moved deliberately slowly, placing his boot-clad feet one in front of another, his gaze shifting from one side of the room to another, from one group of students to the next. His right hand was stuffed into the one of the many pockets of his combat pants, the other a lose grip on the strap of his backpack. The loose curls on the top of his head the same colour as his t-shirt. White letters stretched across his chest: Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid.

When Blaine settled on staring at the empty corridor in front of him, he didn’t notice the two figures approaching him from behind: The music flooding his brain, drowning out the sound of their footsteps.

“Hey!”

Blaine removed an earphone, turning around to meet his match. The drinks were thrown before he had a time to react, pelting his face with ice-cold slush. He wiped the blue mush from his eyes and flicked it on the ground, squinting to see his tormentors.

“Welcome to McKinley, Freak!”